by A. J. Wynter
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Copyright
Copyright 2018 by AJ Wynter - All rights reserved.
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Author's Note:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third party websites or their content.
The Boardroom:
Cassidy
The Billionaires of Torver Corporation, Book 3
BY: A.J. WYNTER
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Table of Contents
Copyright
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Chapter One-Cassidy
Chapter Two-Eliza
Chapter Three-Cassidy
Chapter Four-Eliza
Chapter Five-Cassidy
Chapter Six-Eliza
Chapter Seven-Cassidy
Chapter Eight-Eliza
Chapter Nine-Cassidy
Chapter Ten-Eliza
Chapter Eleven-Cassidy
Chapter Twelve-Eliza
Chapter Thirteen-Cassidy
Chapter Fourteen-Eliza
Chapter Fifteen-Cassidy
Chapter Sixteen – Eliza
Chapter Seventeen – Cassidy
Chapter Eighteen-Eliza
Chapter Nineteen-Cassidy
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Chapter One-Cassidy
The New Year’s Eve party was already a blur in the back of my mind by the time we had climbed up the steps up to my flat—all I could remember was a girl with electric blue eyes and fiery red hair making eyes at me from across the room, and I had been hooked.
I fumbled in my pockets for my keys and frantically jammed them into the lock, edged on by the feeling of the girl’s hands caressing the lapel of my coat, as if she planned on throwing it on the floor the second we got inside…
…and she did. The girl…Megan? Melanie? Something of that variety…had been looking at me desperately the entire cab ride over, and it was clear to me what she was after. This was one of my favorite things about American girls—they never had any pretenses or politeness about these things. If one of them wanted me (and they usually did) they never tiptoed around the subject, they simply asked. English girls would never give in to any of my charms until they made me work for it.
The red-headed girl had pushed me onto the leather sofa the second we had gotten in through the door and was extremely straightforward about what she wanted. She was a good bit younger than me, maybe in her early twenties, and her energy was truly astounding.
I usually like to take my time with the women I bring home, seducing them slowly until the tension breaks and we finally slip inside my bedroom, gloriously desperate.
When we were finished, instead of collapsing down next to me as women usually do, the girl wraps a cashmere blanket around herself, gets right back up, and begins wandering around my flat, as if she’s already bored and looking for something else to do. Girls tend to do the whole awestruck-at-his-wealth bit right when they walk in the door, but she seemed to be a bit too—otherwise occupied—to have noticed upon first walking in. My flat was on the top floor of a building in the center of Seattle with breathtaking views of the city down below, where you could spend hours watching its residents scurrying to and fro like ants. Next to the large windows overlooking the city was a rarely-used kitchen with marble countertops and an island covered in half-drunk red wine bottles and empty Thai takeaway boxes. My bedroom and my home gym were more towards the back, and the main part of the flat consisted of a dining and a living room area—a large glossy black dining room table for Torver Corporation dinner parties, which I occasionally got pressured into hosting. The living area consisted of sleek black leather couches, a flat-screen television, and some weird modern art I had bought from my cousin’s art show in Blackpool out of sheer pity. There was a fireplace built into the wall, a new, high-tech one that turned on by remote, but I had insisted on installing a mantel for the sake of style. This is where the girl was now, examining the collection of pictures perched there with bright eyes.
“What’s this?” she asks, peering at a one-hundred-year-old photo of a large brick estate surrounded by trees and manicured gardens.
“It’s just a random picture for decoration,” I lie. In reality, the building in question is Mansfield House, my ancestral home and the setting of my childhood, but it’s always been awkward bringing up the whole British aristocracy thing, especially with women who I’m probably never going to see again. It’s a hard thing to explain without sounding and feeling like you’re completely full of yourself…which maybe I am, a bit. Maybe it would be okay if I looked like my pasty, bespectacled cousins, but I really, really didn’t. I was well over six feet and had always been extremely fit, due to rugby tournaments back in England and a strict weight-lifting schedule here in the States. I had inherited my mother’s tousled dark blond hair and my father’s pointed jawline, which was usually covered in a thin layer of five-o’clock shadow. The overall effect was certainly not unpleasing to the eye.
“Hmm…” she says, and looks at me as if she can sense that I’m lying.
At that response, she doesn’t ask about the other pictures, some of which were probably equally intriguing to her. There’s a portrait of my family back in England, dressed in cricket whites, and another one of me and my brother, Henry, attending a polo match. There’s a couple from the vacation I took with my Torver Corporation colleagues to the Bahamas last year, shots of me with Johnathan and Kirk lounging with margaritas on sunny beaches. And finally, strangest of all, there’s an old black and white photograph of Butch Cassidy—the man from whom I get my name. Well, the name I chose for myself. In actuality, I’m named after my grandfather Arnold, with about three pointless middle names stuck in there for aristocratic flair, but Cassidy is the name I picked as my own—for my new life here in America. I had seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid on the telly as a child, and ever since something had pulled me towards America—towards a place that seemed like the Wild West compared to my structured and confined upbringing—and towards freedom.
The girl—who is named Megan, I have confirmed—finally curls up on the couch next to me, twirling the long strands of her russet hair absentmindedly.
“So, what do you do?” I ask, out of polite instinct, and I cringe at how much it sounds like we’re on a first date, even though we just had sex.
Megan rolls her eyes, and I find out she’s a dental hygienist, and hates her job
with every fiber of her being.
“And you?”
“I’m the CFO at Torver Corporation.”
Megan sits back, awestruck. “Torver Corporation? Like, as in, mega-billionaire Johnathan Torver’s Torver Corporation?”
“That’s the one.”
She eyes the flat suspiciously. “Aren’t you a little young to be the CFO of a massive company like that?”
“Yes,” I said, leaning back in my chair with a smirk. “Yes I am.”
Well, it’s not like my cushy job at Torver completely came about because of my unparalleled genius or experience or anything—my father was one of Johnathan Torver’s top investors, which made it pretty easy for me to get in his good graces and land a job with him right after my graduation from Oxford five years back. As much as I savored my independence, I still relied on my name and on my wealth for the occasional perk sometimes.
“You have a girlfriend?” Megan asks.
“Nope,” I say with a smile. “I don’t cheat. And, no offense, I’m not interested, but you are a lovely girl.”
“Just curious,” she says, and leans back on the couch. “I suppose you’re not the type? Men with as much money and power as you never really are, I’ve found.”
“No way, but it has nothing to do with that,” I say, laughing. “Relationships are either messy or so boring you can hardly stand it.”
“I get you,” Megan says. “Well, the sex was quite good, for me, at least, so if you ever want to have a casual fuck again, give me a call.” She quickly writes her phone number down on the corner of the New York Times sitting on the table and gets up to put her dress back on.
I look up at the clock on the mantel as I wave to Megan on her way out. Barely an hour. She was here barely an hour. I liked hookups, I liked casual sex, hell, I was a little bit addicted to it, but something about what had just happened with Megan left me feeling strangely empty.
I treated the seduction of women like a high art, and Megan had simply walked in and taken what she had wanted from me, and then walked out. There wasn’t any fun in it—it had been too easy. That was it, probably…right?
It wasn’t like I needed a relationship, or intimacy, or any of that Hallmark Channel crap. Not me.
I think.
Chapter Two-Eliza
Am I a horrible person?
Maggie, my beagle puppy, looks at me lovingly from the passenger seat of my used Toyota. She doesn’t seem to think so.
“What would you know?” I mutter, turning the radio dial. “You’re a dog. You’d probably play fetch with a mass murderer.”
I had been driving since four a.m., when a strange panic overcame me and seemed to push me into my car and out onto the road, into the unknown. It had been as if a cage was slowly closing in around me, and I had only a split second to free myself before its door closed for good.
I had looked at Ben one last time before I left, expecting to find him sleeping in a blissful state of innocence, without even a hint of suspicion. Instead, he just lay there with his head smushed into the pillow, mouth hanging open, and letting out snores that could have come from a leaf blower. I don’t know if this made running easier or harder. Even in the midst of my initial guilt, that last image of him kind of killed the romance and daring of running away from your fiancé, making it feel more like a trip to the grocery store than a great escape.
I hadn’t left a note. I had wanted to...but what would I even say?
I couldn’t even explain this feeling to myself.
I was driving to Sabryna’s place in Seattle, because I didn’t really know where else to go. Sabryna had been my best friend in college, back in the days where we were both stressed out economics majors living off instant ramen and Taco Bell. We still kept in touch to some extent, but I had never been to visit her in her new home in the city. Sabryna worked as the top executive assistant to Johnathan Torver, billionaire and CEO of the prestigious Torver Corporation…and it was definitely not your typical secretary job. Johnathan Torver and his colleagues were completely loaded, and lived in the lap of luxury even inside the office. Sabryna may have the perks of gourmet food for lunch, but if she made even the smallest administrative error, it could be disastrous. But if anyone could do it, it was Sabryna—she had always been organized and calm under pressure.
I had to admit that part of my reason for driving to her place was to satisfy my curiosity towards her new life. Her Instagram posts were filled with pictures of glamorous office parties on yachts, complete with string quartets and caviar appetizers that were intimidating just to look at. It was hard to imagine that the girl who used to stock up on Ramen at CVS with me was already living this kind of life, and even I had to admit that I was a bit jealous. I hoped she wouldn’t turn me away…especially after she heard what I did to Ben.
I pulled into a gas station to refill my tank and to grab some snacks. There was only about an hour’s drive left to the city, but I was famished and there was always the risk that Sabryna wouldn’t be home or that she would have a despairingly empty fridge.
I walked into the convenience store part of the gas station, legs wobbly from the long drive. The store smelled like old fried food and plastic, and it felt suffocating after the air of the open road. I grabbed a bag of Cheetos, a Snickers bar, and a coke and walked up to the counter, where a teenage boy was flipping through a magazine.
“Just this please,” I said with a smile, and I watched as the boy scanned the items, and then me, with a quizzical look on his face.
“You’re not from Seattle, are you?” he said, rather bluntly.
“Um, no,” I said, a bit embarrassed. “I’m driving here from South Dakota. Visiting a friend.”
“So, people really do live in South Dakota?”
I winced at the comment. “In my experience, yes,” I snapped at him. I grabbed my snacks and turned back to the car. I looked down at my outfit and realized that maybe I should have put in a bit more of an effort to dress more cosmopolitan. I wore a ruffled pink dress and my short brown leather boots, and I looked more like a country girl than ever. Sabryna wouldn’t mind, but if I happened to meet any of her colleagues from the Torver Corporation, they certainly would. At the beginning of her job, Sabryna had told me dozens of funny stories about their snobbishness.
Maggie was curled up in a ball on the passenger seat when I got back, taking an afternoon doze in the sun coming through the open windows. It amazed me how unfazed she was by our day’s adventure—she simply sniffed at the Snicker’s bar and went back to sleep, unaware of the feeling of impending chaos that I felt at every moment.
My phone sat in one of the cup holders, glaring at me menacingly from its blue and white case. It was turned off, and I was terrified for the moment when I’d be forced to switch it on again. I imagined the phone beeping and vibrating as it loaded call after text after frantic voicemail from Ben—only worried, but never suspicious or angry, at my leaving. The guilt would be overwhelming.
I turned out of the gas station and back onto the main road, watching as the signs signaled that I was getting closer and closer to Seattle. It was a strangely sunny day for the Pacific Northwest, and I almost found myself wishing for rain, as if the gloominess would help my guilt feel more natural.
It struck me suddenly that this was the first bad thing that I had ever done.
***
I felt myself tense up as I arrived within the confines of the city—the griminess was nearly unbearable, and the driving was terrifying—cars and taxis were racing to get to their respective destinations, crammed together on streets too old and skinny for modern-day traffic congestion. Sabryna’s apartment was in the nicer, downtown area near the Torver offices, and I was relieved to get there as evening began to fall on Seattle.
I parked in a garage near Sabryna’s apartment and bought a bouquet of pink carnations from a haggard looking man on a street corner. If I was going to show up unannounced, I may as well bring something resembling a hostess gift.
Ugh, crap.
I stepped out of the elevator onto the fifth floor and took a deep breath, and then finally reached up to knock on Sabryna’s door.
Sabryna cracked the door open. “Eliza? Eliza Cameron?” she laughed and pulled me in for a hug. “What on earth are you doing here at this hour?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said, holding Maggie back by her leash as she jumped up to greet Sabryna. “I was sort of hoping you might let me stay here for a bit.”
“Of course, honey!” Sabryna said, wandering back inside. “I’ve missed you, it’ll be fun.” I let out a sigh of relief, but I still felt horribly guilty crashing at her place like this. Hopefully I could find some way to make it up to her.
I sat down carefully on her couch, Maggie curled in my lap, as Sabryna uncorked a bottle of red wine that had been sitting on the counter and began to pour. She was in an expensive looking pink silk bathrobe with flowers embroidered on it, and a book lay open on the coffee table. I hoped I wasn’t interrupting her relaxation time after what was probably a grueling day at the Torver Corporation office.
“Drink, talk.” Sabryna commanded, handing me a glass, and I sipped it down gratefully. One of the wonderful things about Sabryna was that she always sensed what you needed, whether it was a glass of wine and space to confess for me, or a glass of brandy and new pens for Johnathan Torver. I sighed and began.
“Well,” I said. “I started driving here at four this morning, and I…” I took another gulp of wine. “…and I don’t really know why.”