Sexual Persuasion

by Sinclair, Maryn

  Alex felt it his duty to warn Max of the potential problem. He left his Beacon Hill office armed with a printout of one of the purchases and drove to Harbor House. He found Max finishing lunch in his office and tossed the printout on his desk.

  Max perused them. “What’s this?”

  “Do I have to spell it out?”

  “You didn’t want any part of this, and now isn’t the time to get involved.”

  “It is if Jack Davidson is going to blow it wide open.” Max selected a toothpick from his desk drawer and picked a morsel of food from between his teeth. He never ceased to amaze Alex with his cool, steady eyes and demeanor.

  “You knew?”

  “Not until Saturday night when Davidson dropped a clue while trying to play hardball. The guy isn’t very bright. He mentioned insider information coming from Branigan’s office. It didn’t take long to put the deal together. Your business is my business, Max. That’s why your father put me through school.”

  “You’re too goddamn smart.” Max picked up the printout.

  “That’s only one of them,” Alex said.

  “You did what the feds couldn’t do in a year; that’s if they could figure out there was something fishy, which they haven’t.”

  “They will if Davidson uses the information to barter his way out of trouble, which you and I know he’s in.”

  “He actually mentioned Branigan?” Max asked.

  Alex told him about his run-in with the hotel heir at the Pussy Club.

  Max listened. “You could have been in on it. All you had to do was say the word. We could have used your expertise.”

  “Looks like you didn’t need it. Besides, I told both you and your father from the beginning that I didn’t mind stretching the boundaries, but I wouldn’t cross the line. My genius father thought he was above the law and wound up in prison. I refuse to follow in his footsteps.”

  “You have to let that go, Alex. It happened a long time ago. Not that I’m advocating you should do something illegal. I know you well enough that you’re not cut out for that, your father’s lessons or not. Yeah, you stretch limits. Everyone does. Sad, but it’s a fact of life.”

  “Pretty hard to forget that, Max. You know what it was like for me. Who knows where I’d be if it wasn’t for your father.”

  “You’d have come out fine. That’s because you’re the kind of person who’ll always land on his feet. Anyway, I liked having you as a kind of brother. We had fun back then, didn’t we?”

  A cringe riffled Alex’s insides. It might have been fun for Max having him around, but there were times life bordered on unbearable. And then there were the fun times.

  “Yeah, we did. And I’d hate to see you spend your best years in prison. So here’s a warning. There’s a leak somewhere. Where is for you to figure out. I don’t know how many others are involved, but you should be able to pinpoint it. Wherever it is, it’s connected to Davidson, and he’s a loose cannon. He owes a lot of money, and I’m afraid I let slip our fine-print clause that you could take over the hotel if he couldn’t pay up.”

  “Why? Wasn’t the point of the small print to keep him from knowing?”

  “Yes, and I shouldn’t have, but he pissed me off, and I did. Besides, you and I know we couldn’t go through with that. It’s a bluff any lawyer would tell him to forget. Well, any lawyer but O’Reilly. He’s an idiot.” Alex took a peppermint patty out of the bowl Max kept on his desk. “He’s scared of you, but his back’s to the wall. My guess is he has other information on you to barter his way out of debt. Either that, or he’ll hit your partner.”

  Max pressed the intercom. “Gino, have one of the girls bring me a coffee, will you?” He turned to Alex. “Want one?” Alex shook his head. Max leaned back in his chair. “Either scenario would be very unwise.”

  “I know.” Alex had been mulling over an idea ever since Davidson released his bombshell. He realized he’d been standing and took a seat. Leaning across Max’s desk, he said, “Here’s what I think. Davidson’s hotel is the perfect venue to collect damaging information on important people. Cameras and recorders in the rooms would be one way. Husbands cheating on wives and vice-versa. Corrupt business deals. Gambling. Then he has those parties on his boat. I can only imagine what goes on there. I think he’s sitting on dozens of scandals, and he’s waiting for the right time to use them.”

  “What makes you think this?”

  Alex caught Max up to date. Skirting around his relationship with Charlotte, he told Max about the photograph. “She’s small potatoes. A store owner, nothing big. But she has her reputation to protect, and publishing the picture I saw would ruin it.”

  “What does he get out of ruining her reputation? I doubt she has enough money for him to blackmail her.”

  “Not money. Sexual power, revenge. Who the hell knows? He thought she’d do whatever kinky sexual crap he wanted to keep from exploiting the pictures.”

  “And she kicked him in the balls and out the door.” Max laughed. “Tough little lady, but she took an awful chance. If you hadn’t butted in, he would have used those photos.”

  “Maybe, but only the ones without him pictured. He’s stupid but not that stupid. And if he did expose Charlotte, she’d talk. That might tip off someone else to what he’s doing.”

  “If he’s doing it,” Max said.

  “Oh, he’s doing it. If not that, something. Nothing’s too low for Jack Davidson.”

  “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll look into it. And I’ll let my…partner know. Forewarned being forearmed and all that.”

  “I would. I’ll keep looking too. We’ll keep each other posted.” Alex got up and turned for the door. “Gotta go.”

  “How about lunch? Special today is fresh scrod. I just finished, and it’s delicious. You eat that, don’t you?”

  “Occasionally,” Alex said, “but I’ve got a few things to do.”

  “Has he got anything on you?” Max asked.

  “What could he have on me? Unless he made something up.”

  Max flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his suit. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe Gianni Caravelli.”

  Alex did a double take. “You knew?”

  “I make it my business to know. I saw the clip in the paper. Harvard law student saves the life of an MIT architect student. It mentioned your names. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Jack would have to go to some lengths to dig up a story seventeen years old.”

  “Well, I’ll be. Who’d’ve thought Max Carpathian could keep a secret from me all these years. I would have thought you’d use it.”

  “For what? You are who you are, Alex. Why would I use it? If you were interested in me at any time, you knew I’d be willing. You were always the brass ring that eluded me.”

  Max smiled, and Alex liked him now more than ever.

  “So what are we going to do about Davidson?” Max asked.

  “We’re going to nail him. The guy’s a first-class asshole.”

  “No one knows that better than I do. Just watch out. Especially if you’re moving in on his female territory.”

  Alex glanced back as he walked out of Max’s office. Curiosity was written all over his friend’s face, but his comment required neither explanation nor denial. As he got in his car, the familiar chimes of Beethoven’s Fifth rang out from his breast pocket. He glanced at the readout. Tom Scruggs. Surely he couldn’t have found out the information he wanted this fast.

  “I had an unusual job offer a while ago, considering the call I got from you,” Tom said. “I’ll put it to you exactly like Jack Davidson put it to me: ‘Get me proof that Alex Andros is a faggot.’ He offered me lots of money.”

  Yeah, money he doesn’t have. “If this is a problem for you, let me know right now.”

  “I don’t like Davidson, and even if there weren’t a conflict of interest, I would have turned him down. Obviously, I couldn’t tell him I was working for you without giving away what you asked me to do. I wanted
to let you know.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Look…I’ve heard the rumors and couldn’t care less whether you’re fucking goats in your backyard. That’s your business. I’ve known you long enough to know you don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks. That’s what I like about you. I’m under contract to you, and now I look forward to your job even more than I did when you hired me.”

  “Thanks. Keep me informed. Oh, and by the way, my preference has always been sheep. They’re softer and don’t chew as much.” Alex heard Tom’s belly laugh before he cut the connection.

  Alex needed to think. He left his car at Harbor House, picked up a cup of coffee, and started walking through Christopher Columbus Park to Long Wharf. The ocean had always been therapeutic, and today it offered what he needed. A place to clear his head and think things through.

  Davidson didn’t need Scruggs to do his sleaze work. There were plenty of guys available. He’d find one. There weren’t too many people who’d accept a job connecting to Max, and Alex knew most of them, at least by reputation. But Jack was determined to find out about Alex. If whoever he hired looked for a sexual relationship between Max and him, they wouldn’t find it. The hire would have to go back in time. If he searched long enough, he might find something. There were records, police reports, even the newspaper article or two Max mentioned. Ordinarily, Alex wouldn’t care, but he did now because of Charlotte. He had no illusions that if Davidson found anything, she’d be the first to know. That was the reason he floated the job to Scruggs in the first place.

  Alex thought back to times past. He wondered how Charlotte would react if he told her everything. How any woman would react? He put the thought out of his mind to concentrate on the problem at hand, although forgetting Charlotte proved a much harder task.

  Davidson had a source of information. The only person Max told was Alex. So the leak came from Branigan.

  After Max constructed the complex web of companies buying the property, he’d have to tell Branigan in case anything happened to him. So who? Branigan’s connections after being in Massachusetts politics for so many years were far reaching. Alex assumed he used his position and influence to attract women young enough to label them jailbait. He bet the old fool bragged about a sweet deal, like Max started to brag to Alex. But how did it connect to Davidson?

  Two possibilities.

  One: Davidson could have gleaned the information by bugging his hotel rooms. Tom would find out if his theory was correct. If it was, Davidson could get much of his blackmail information that way. But that would mean Branigan took a room there and discussed it. He could have, but Alex thought it unlikely.

  Two: pillow talk. Alex thought about meeting Branigan’s fiancée at the museum. Men in the throes of sex had been known to reveal important information to impress their women. Many femme fatales were planted for that reason during war. Maybe Branigan talked in his sleep, or Emily Fallon overheard a phone conversation. Fallon was exactly Davidson’s type. Good-looking, blonde, and stacked. Alex wouldn’t put it past him to horn in on the old guy’s squeeze.

  He called Max. “Did you ask Branigan if he told anyone?”

  “Yeah, I called him after you left. He swore the leak didn’t come from his end, but you and I know it did. You’re the only one who knows anything on my end. Good thing you’re my lawyer.”

  “I have an idea. It’s one of two, maybe three things.” Alex outlined how he thought Davidson learned about the land purchase.

  “I mentioned Ms. Fallon to Mike. He swears he didn’t tell her, but I’m not sure I believe him.”

  “He may not know he did,” Alex said. “I’ll pay him a visit in the morning. I have something I want to do this afternoon.”

  “Anything to do with Ms. Stone?”

  “Yes.”

  Max didn’t say anything for a minute. “My, my. This is a first.”

  “Talk to you later, Max.”

  “Alex, wait. Branigan’s cut back his hours. He doesn’t go in till noon. Maybe the bimbo is wearing him out. Don’t go to his office. I don’t want anything to connect him to me, and you’re a connection.”

  “I’d already figured that out, boss.”

  “Sorry, I forgot who I was dealing with.” Max gave him Branigan’s home address and phone number.

  “I’ll catch him in the morning. I’ll call first to make sure he’s there, then hang up. I don’t want either him or his girlfriend to expect anything. Be better if I catch them off guard.”

  “Watch out. He’s a shifty old bastard, and he’s greedy, but his connections make him a good partner.”

  “Don’t worry. I wish I didn’t know as much as I do, but I do.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dinner as Appetizer

  Alex checked his watch. Five o’clock. Charlotte closed her store at six. He dialed and asked for her when someone else answered. Even the sound of her voice over the phone caused his cock to do a little dance. “How about dinner at my place? I have a home-cooked eggplant parmesan in the freezer. I’ll make garlic bread and salad.”

  “As long as it’s not made of tofu.”

  He laughed. “Nope. Real pasta and eggplant. I’ll pick you up at six.”

  On the way to get ready, he stopped at a North End bakery and purchased a loaf of fresh-baked Italian bread, then dashed into the green grocer for salad makings. He’d whip up the dressing before he served. Since he was near home, he stopped by, removed the eggplant from the freezer, and put it in the oven on a low temperature. Then he prepared the bread and salad and uncorked a bottle of Chianti Classico. This was the first time Charlotte had been to his house, so he set the table with his best china and crystal. He wanted everything perfect because he had plans for tonight.

  It’s all about trust, Charlotte.

  * * * * *

  Charlotte saw Alex the minute he entered Trends. How could anyone miss him, dressed in an elegantly tailored navy blue suit, pristine white shirt―sparkling against his olive skin―and subdued navy and amber tie? He knew the right colors to wear to highlight his extraordinary eyes. He saw her with a customer, smiled in acknowledgment, and wandered off through the room vignettes, just another customer.

  But he wasn’t, evidenced when both of Charlotte’s designers made a mad dash to help him. He charmed them with his megawatt smile interspersed with an occasional glance in her direction. Her heart leapfrogged when she thought about yesterday and this morning. She finished with her customer, then strode toward him, warmed by his obvious appreciation as he took in every inch of her.

  Her two employees winked as they passed. Now everyone in the store would be gossiping about her late-afternoon date. They did that in the beginning with Jack. When he dumped her, she found out he’d made a pass at the younger designer. More than once.

  “I’m five minutes early,” Alex said.

  “Not a problem. I’ll have Lenore close for me.”

  “No rush. I found a parking space. The meter even had time on it. Miracle of miracles.” He reached out and brushed her hand. “I’ll look around while I wait.”

  His touch set off sparks. A deep breath wasn’t sufficient to calm the excitement she felt welling inside her. Chemistry indeed. This was more like internal combustion.

  She went to the office she shared with her manager. Lenore was going over the day’s receipts. “Mind closing for me?”

  “Not if you’re leaving with that Andros hunk who walked in a minute ago.”

  Charlotte knew the telltale signs of embarrassment flared at the mention of Alex. Besides Darcy, Lenore was her only other confidante. She knew about Jack, although Charlotte never told her exactly what happened. Lenore also knew Charlotte harbored doubts about getting involved again.

  “He invited me to his place for dinner. We haven’t known each other very long, so we’re still in the getting-to-know-you stage.”

  “Well, if you decide you don’t want him, you can recommend me to him. That is one fine-looking gentle
man.”

  “He’s nice too, but he has…issues.”

  Lenore swiveled her chair to face Charlotte. Tall and striking, with skin the color of dark caramel and features that reminded Charlotte of Natalie Cole, Lenore had turned down the partnership when the previous owner offered it to both of them. Running a retail business was a young person’s job, Lenore had said, and she wanted to spend more time with her retired husband. Plus she didn’t want the debt she’d incur if she bought in. Charlotte knew about that. Their relationship hadn’t changed, even though Charlotte was now the boss.

  “Honey,” Lenore said, “he’s prime. And everyone has issues. Yeah, some more than others, but they usually come with previous baggage on a man or woman past forty. I can tell you one thing: he’s not like that creep you dated for way too long. Money or not, he didn’t have class. You can’t let one shithead ruin your sex life.”

  Charlotte laughed. She appreciated Lenore’s honesty, and she appreciated Lenore. Charlotte depended on her to run the store when she went on buying trips. Her decisions were always well thought out and logical. Charlotte trusted her completely. “I know, but I can’t afford to rush into another relationship. I plan to give this one time. Make sure I know who he is before I get in too deep.”

  “Charlotte, I watched, and if a man looked at me the way he looked at you when you walked toward him, I’d be dragging him back to the storeroom.”

  “You’re a horny gal, Lenore. But I need to know when the heat dies down that we have something more.” She shook her head. “It’s more complicated.”

  Lenore shrugged. “I know―once burned, twice shy. It’s none of my business, but you should give this one a chance.” She reached over and took Charlotte’s hand. “I’m older than you by a bunch. Doesn’t make me smarter, but I’ve been married twenty-five years, and I know what makes a relationship successful. It’s sixty/forty, and Davis thinks he’s the one giving the sixty. He’s wrong, of course, but I’m not telling him. Take this relationship slow. Jack should give you an idea what to avoid. You see that in this guy, run like hell. But I watched him talk to the girls, and not once did he look them over with the same salacious glare Jack did. ’Course, it’s early, so you’re doing the right thing to be careful. Go. Have a good time.”