by Claire Adams
"So, what exactly is it that we do differently from the competition, Leah?" Jack asked as he looked around. His face registered a low level of interest and a high level of boredom, and I felt resentful that I was taking time away from my duties to show him the ropes. I felt even more resentful that I found myself wanting to stare at him, and more than that, I wanted to ask him if he remembered kissing me in the parking lot at the wake.
Jackson Yates was a man who drew attention. He was taller than his father had been and had broader shoulders. And whereas Bernard had had a stern but warm face, Jack's face radiated an intense sensuality that made him impossible to ignore. His thick, brown hair was long enough to make girls want to run their fingers through it, and his facial hair had been trimmed just close enough for him to appear groomed, but rugged. His eyes were a warm shade of brown, highlighted by gold flecks, and they radiated an intensity that made it difficult to look away. I felt angry with him for being so handsome and so hard to read.
"We offer high end baby products that are ecologically responsible and ethically made," I said as I walked him back to the part of the warehouse where the products were stored. Bernard Yates had made sure that everything in our inventory was something that improved the lives of the people making it and the lives of the people buying it. I stopped and turned around to look at him as I continued, "But I'm sure you already knew that, didn't you?"
"Leah, I know very little about my father's business," Jack said. I held his gaze longer than I needed to, but I couldn't look away. I cursed myself silently as a slow smile spread across his lips, and he added, "But anything you want to tell me is something I'd like to hear."
"We do our own packaging and mailing using Earth-friendly products," I said as I tried to turn the conversation back to the business. "It's been quite profitable, and it's given the company good press. I think we've garnered more business as a result."
"Do you now?" Jack said very close to my ear. Startled, I jumped. My head hit something hard, and I heard him cry, "Oh fuck!"
"Oh my gosh, Mr. Yates … Jack, are you okay?" I asked as I turned and saw him holding a hand over his nose as blood slowly dripped out from between his fingers. "Oh no! You're bleeding!"
"No shit, Sherlock," he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stanch the bleeding. I ducked into the nearest bathroom and cursed softly as I realized that we no longer had paper towels in our bathrooms. I rushed out and headed down the hall yelling, "Hold on, I've got something to help!"
In the lunchroom, I grabbed a towel from the dish rack where employees left their lunch dishes after washing them and raced back down the hall to where Jack stood holding his nose and looking up at the ceiling.
"Here, use this," I said, shoving the towel at him. "It should help catch the blood."
Jack took the towel and held it over his nose as I led him down the hall to the lunchroom. There was blood all over the front of his suit, and I felt compelled to try and clean it up. I grabbed another towel, ran it under the faucet, and then dabbed at the blood on his dress shirt.
"It's coming out," I said as I slipped my fingers between the buttons and blotted the stains. I could smell Jack's musky cologne, and as my fingers grazed his chest, I suddenly felt a little lightheaded. I looked up and found him smiling down at me with a lazy grin that simultaneously made me weak in the knees and pissed off at his arrogance.
"You're doing a great job, Leah," he purred in a way that made me think of big cats stalking their prey. I, however, had no intention of being Jack Yates's next prize.
"Here, you can finish it up," I said holding the towel out and backing away.
"Don't you want to finish what you've started," he said in a low voice that made me shiver a little.
"No, I think you can handle the rest," I said, shaking my head and backing up toward the door. I was acutely aware of the fact that the warehouse staff was due to walk through the door at any moment, and I didn't want to be caught in anything remotely resembling a compromising position. I'd worked too hard to earn the respect of my staff. To have them think that I was currying favor with the new boss was not the way to ensure loyalty or respect.
"C'mon, Leah," Jack said with a grin. "You know you want to."
"Mr. Yates," I said in a voice that cut through the flirtation. "You are a grown man who is perfectly capable of removing stains from his own suit. If you have trouble doing that, I'd be happy to recommend a reputable cleaner who can do it for you, but I'm not the maid. I believe our tour is over, so if you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them, and if not, then I have a warehouse to run."
"No, that'll do," he said coolly, as he dipped the towel under the faucet and dabbed at his suit.
I nodded before turning and walking out the door. Once in the hallway, I walked a few steps and then leaned heavily against the wall. I tried to catch my breath as I realized that I had not only rebuffed Jack Yates, I'd put my new boss in his place. I wasn't sure how this was going to play out, but I crossed my fingers and hoped that this was enough to keep him at a safe distance. I had my doubts.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jack
Once I'd stopped my nosebleed and cleaned the blood off of my suit, I went back to the office where I found Norma sitting at her desk eating a sandwich as she sifted through a pile of papers and sorted them into smaller piles.
"What on earth happened to you, hon?" she exclaimed as I walked through the door. "You look like a drowned opossum!"
"You should see the other guy," I said with a wry grin.
"No, seriously," she repeated holding the sandwich halfway between the plate on her desk and her mouth. "What happened to you?"
"Minor accident," I muttered as I quickly moved toward my office. "Don't get your panties in a bunch."
"Hon, I assure you that my panties have never ever been in a bunch," Norma said as she put her lunch down and picked up a stack of papers, following me into my office. She shoved them at me as she said, "Well, if you're okay, then you need to deal with these people who have been calling."
"Who are they?" I asked as I took the stack and began shuffling through the sheets.
"Delivery people, inventory trackers, bank representatives," she rattled off. "Your father was in the middle of renegotiating some of the contracts when he passed. So, some of these people are hanging in midair."
"I see," I said as I continued shuffling through the papers. I quickly realized that despite the fact that I had built a business based on developer apps, and made a lot of money selling my own technology, I really had no idea what it meant to run a business. My company had been in its infancy when I’d sold it to a mega-tech company that was now using it as a test lab for their own app development, so I'd never spent any time actually running the business.
I didn't have a clue how to negotiate contracts or deal with bank loans. All of this fell way outside my realm of experience.
"What the hell was he thinking?" I muttered as I looked over the paperwork and tried to figure out who I could ask for help.
"You have a visitor, Mr. Yates," Norma said in a formal tone that made me look up, confused. I looked up to find Sloan standing in the doorway smiling at me.
"Good to see you again, Jack," she said as she crossed the room. Both Norma and I watched her, mesmerized by her fluid movements and undeniable beauty. She was wearing a grey jersey dress that wrapped around her body like it had been made for her, and it probably had been. I looked at Norma and nodded as Sloan took a seat in one of the worn chairs across from my desk. Norma bowed out and shut the door behind her.
"How have you been, Sloan?" I asked as I eyed her warily.
"I've been good, but the question is how are you?" she asked, smiling serenely.
I had known Sloan since we were in high school. She'd been the first girl to show me any kind of attention, the first one to crack open my outer wall of defensiveness, and the one who'd taught me all about the mysteries of the fairer sex. She'd also been
the one who had stomped on my heart when she'd told me that whatever we shared would be over once we both went off to college in the fall.
I loved her in the way a teenage boy loves his first love, but she'd been far more practical and realistic than I'd been, and I knew that the likelihood of us maintaining our relationship while she was at Stanford and I was at MIT was pretty slim. Looking back, she'd done me a favor by ending it when she did, but the pain of being rejected still stung a bit. Even after fifteen years.
"I've missed you, Jack," she said as she flashed me the smile that had first hooked me. "It's been too long."
"We just saw each other at the wake," I said, trying to sound casual as I swallowed and looked down at my desk. I hated that she still had this effect on me, but there was nothing I could do about it. Being around Sloan was like taking the best drug ever, and when she smiled, it felt like the whole world opened up and anything was possible. "What have you been up to?"
"Oh, a little of this and a little of that," she said as she tipped her head and watched me carefully. "I ran my father's Beijing operation for a while and then came back to the states when he hired one of his golf buddies to do his bidding."
"That must have been a downer," I said, knowing that the relationship between Sloan and her father had been almost as contentious as the one I'd had with mine. That was part of the reason we'd bonded in the first place.
"It wasn't an uplifting feeling," she laughed softly. "But you know how it goes …"
"Why are you here?" I asked bluntly. I knew that if I didn't cut to the chase quickly, I would be tempted to allow myself to be caught up in the fantasy of Sloan's world again, and I could feel my body responding to her presence even when I was actively reminding myself of the ways in which she'd rejected me.
"Why I wanted to see you, of course," she said in a tone that sounded vaguely hurt that I'd assume she wanted anything but a friendly chat. "I was worried about you after the wake and wanted to see how you're doing. And it's been such a long time since we talked. I thought this was as good a time as any to catch up."
"You want something, don't you?" I said cutting through the sticky layers of her emotional manipulations.
"Why on Earth would you think that, Jack?" she said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Because you never do anything for the good of anyone but yourself, Sloan," I replied, watching her closely. She shifted slightly in her chair, but the smile stayed put.
"Do you really think that little of me, Jack?" she asked softly. "Do you really think that I'm the same girl I was fifteen years ago? That I haven't learned anything, or longed for anything, or wished that I'd handled things differently?"
"I don't know what your game is, Sloan, but I trust you as far as I can throw you," I said with a wry grin. She chuckled as she leaned back in the chair and crossed one long leg over the other. I felt the blood flow away from my brain as I recalled what those legs—and the rest of Sloan—had felt like in my hands.
"Jack, I swear, I'm just here to invite you out to dinner and to find out how you're doing," she said as she looked at me intently. She uncrossed her legs and shifted forward in the chair, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "That's it. I swear. No end game."
"I don't believe you," I said, eyeing her warily. "But you do have great taste in restaurants, so if you're picking up the bill, I'd be glad to join you."
"Excellent," she smiled as she stood up. "Blue Water Grill at eight tonight. Don't be late."
"It sounds like you were pretty sure I'd agree to dinner with you," I said as she headed for the door. I admired the way her hips swayed as she walked. Sloan certainly knew how to get a man's attention.
"Oh Jack," she smiled as she turned and caught me staring. "I know you so much better than you think I do, darling."
And with that, she was gone. I sat staring at the door for a long time, wondering if I'd made the right choice in agreeing to meet her for dinner. I consoled myself with the knowledge that if I changed my mind, I could always stand her up.
As I worked through the afternoon, I told myself I could cancel, but as I breathed in the lingering scent of her expensive perfume and recalled the way she'd looked sitting across the desk from me, I knew I wouldn't.
BAD BOY BILLIONAIRE VOLUME II
CHAPTER TWELVE
Leah
"Gram is off the charts today," Riley said as I walked through the door.
After my mishap with Jack, I'd spent the rest of the afternoon dealing with the daily demands of the warehouse. By the time I climbed onto the bus that would take me home, I was whipped. I'd briefly considered taking a taxi, but when I'd checked my bank account, I realized that that luxury was one I couldn't afford.
"What's wrong with Gram?" I asked as I set the grocery bags down on the table and dropped my lunch bag into the sink.
"She's in her room playing Sinatra records again," Riley said as she rolled her eyes. "She's singing along with the sad songs and then crying when the record ends. It's crazy town in there, Leah."
"I'll go check," I said, eyeing the bags. "Can you get dinner started? It's taco night."
"Oooh, yeah!" Riley cheered as she dug into the bags and pulled out the ground beef I'd picked up. "I'll brown the beef!"
"Wear an apron, and don't forget to dump the grease in the can under the sink, not down the drain!" I called as I headed down the hallway to my mother's room. I could hear Sinatra crooning that it had been a very good year as I stood outside her door.
"Mama?" I said as I tapped on the door. "Mama, can I come in?"
"Get the hell away from me!" she yelled through the closed door. "I've got company!"
"Mama, it's the record player," I said as I turned the handle and found that the door was locked. "Mama, let me in, please?"
"Get the hell away from my door!" she shouted. I could hear movement on the other side of the door, and suddenly I felt a cold chill run through my veins as I imagined what she might be doing on the other side.
"Mama, please don't do this," I whispered as I listened to the sound of furniture being dragged across the bedroom floor. I imagined she was pushing it in front of the door in case someone tried to force their way in. "Mama, I'm making tacos for dinner. Why don't you come out and eat with Riley and me?"
"I don't want any of your dirty food!" she shouted at me. "Molly would never make such awful food! I want Molly!"
"I know, Mama," I said resting my head on the door. "I know. We all do."
Back in the kitchen, Riley was singing along with her iPod as she browned the meat and cut up the lettuce. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that she hadn't heard anything my mother had yelled. She was a smart kid that way. She knew how to avoid conflict and not hear what she knew wasn't for her ears. It bothered me that she was so effective at tuning things out, and it made me a little worried about the effect that would have on her life later on, but for now, I decided to count my blessings and be thankful for the fact that she wouldn't ask me to explain.
Over dinner, Riley filled me in on all of the middle school drama and carefully recounted the way in which two girls in her class had countered the attempted slut-shaming of another girl.
"Slut-shaming? In seventh grade?" I asked, knowing full well that this was a time-honored method of keeping girls in line. The kids in the neighborhood, hell— the adults too, had used this on Molly, but she'd resisted the attempts and had marched to the beat of her own drum. I'd loved her for it and hated the kids who'd tried to shame her, but I'd kept quiet, fearing the wrath of the kids in my own class who were the younger siblings of the ones who taunted Molly.
"Leah, please," Riley said rolling her eyes yet again. "This is not something new, and you know it. I was hoping that at this point we'd be in a post-feminist world where everyone would be equal and these petty fights would be replaced by efforts to save the planet."
"Where do you come up with this stuff?" I laughed as I marveled at her brilliant assessment of the
world around her and her desire for something better.
"Leah, I watch television," she said matter-of-factly. "It's all there, ready to be consumed. Did you know that fifty-two percent of the population on earth is female, and yet they make up more than seventy percent of those in poverty?"
"I had no idea," I said shaking my head.
"It's because over 1.3 billion women don't have access to bank accounts or credit, Leah," Riley said solemnly. "The petty acts of slut-shaming are covering up a far bigger travesty and taking attention away from what we could be doing to solve the problem."
"Where do you learn these things?" I asked with a combination of concern and awe.
"Leah, we are living in the twenty-first century, in a first world country," she said looking at me seriously. "I have access to the internet."
I burst out laughing as I realized that she was right. Riley grinned and shook her head with mock sadness as she piled more cheese and lettuce on top of the ground beef in her taco shell.
"Sometimes I worry that you know too much, kiddo," I said reaching out and ruffling her already messy hair. She ducked away with a lopsided grin and bit into her taco.
"Knowledge is power, Leah," she said with a mouth full of food. I shook my head as I bit into my own taco and chewed.
The image of Jack Yates staring at me as we toured the warehouse was on my mind as I cleaned up the dinner dishes. I'd excused Riley from dish duty so that she could finish her homework before bedtime, and she'd been grateful for the pass. I thought about Jack's broad shoulders and the brief contact I'd had with his bare skin while I'd worked to remove the blood from his shirt. It had been a very long time since I'd been that close to a man and felt that kind of animal attraction.
"Stop it, you fool," I muttered to myself as I scrubbed the frying pan. "He's the head of the company you work for, not a guy in a neighborhood bar."
I finished up the dishes and swept the kitchen before I stuck my head into Riley's room and told her I was going out for a bit.