"Why do you want it to go away?" Kelsey kept pressing me. "Maybe this is just what you've needed all along! You just haven't realized it until now..."
I shook my head. "Nope. Definitely not. What I need, instead, is to find a way to get out of here, with enough money so that I won't need to ever think about Dane again."
"Great," Kelsey muttered, but I barely heard this comment. Indeed, now that I turned my attention to the issue of my rather dry bank account, I did feel a little better about the current situation.
I didn't yet have a plan for how I'd make my escape, hopefully with tons of money lining my pockets – but I had an inkling of one, just barely beginning to come together.
It all revolved around Karson Walker, I knew. The more that I got to know the man, carrying out all his duties as his personal secretary, the more revulsion I felt towards him. My initial judgment of him – an arrogant blowhard who insisted that everything he did was perfect and everything that anyone else did was pure shit – proved to be prescient. He seemed almost gleeful in his maliciousness, and the glances that he sometimes sent at me indicated that he fully expected me to laugh along with him at his cruel-spirited jokes.
A part of me, every single day, wanted to just haul off and slug him in his fat, fleshy face. But I held my temper and bit my tongue, smiling blandly back at him and ignoring his obvious glances at my legs and cleavage.
I'd have a better form of revenge than just a punch to the face. When I was finished with him, he'd realize just how badly he'd screwed up, how much trouble he was in – and he'd know that, in the end, it was all his own fault.
I needed to find the right documents, the right way to compose the requests so that no one would question me. Of course, Karson Walker's own reputation would help me out with that. He commanded such fear, such unquestioning obedience, that no one would think twice about me carrying out one of his jobs for him.
And then, with the money in hand, I could head off on the rest of my life, on my next adventure. I'd go someplace far away from here, and leave Dane behind, putting him firmly in my past.
Where he belonged, of course, I told myself.
After all, what sort of a future could the two of us have together? Get married, live together, have a couple of kids, move to the suburbs, buy a house, grow old and just sit around, looking forward to retiring? It was just the kind of fate that I feared most, that I'd always considered to be anathema.
Yet somehow, sitting here and seeing it with Dane at my side, it didn't sound quite as bad as I had always feared.
Still, I wasn't going to give in. I resolutely strengthened my own determination, sitting up a bit straighter on the bar stool as I reminded myself of my true goals. I knew that, no matter how much I might get along with Dane, no matter how much he seemed to understand me and give me just what I needed, I'd wake up some day in the future and need to get away. That wanderlust doesn't just go away.
I'd move on, and I'd get over Dane. Even if I did feel myself falling for him – in love, not just lust – I could always get over him. Even a broken heart would mend.
A broken, wasted life, on the other hand, could never be recovered.
"So how about you?" I asked Kelsey, looking for some topic to distract me from thoughts of leaving Dane behind, of how much I'd miss his cooking, his apartment, his bed, the warmth of him lying beside me. "What's new with you? I feel like I haven't talked to you in days!"
"Well, you haven't," Kelsey replied with a sniff. "And I've got a pretty good guess of where you've been spending all those nights, just ducking into my apartment quickly in the mornings sometimes to grab something you forgot!"
Over at Dane's. I really couldn't get away from him, even when he wasn't around. "Right, but I'm talking about you," I said quickly, not wanting to let the topic return back to this man who kept on creeping in and intruding on my thoughts. "Are you seeing anyone new?"
"Actually, I've been texting with a guy from that party," Kelsey answered, and to my surprise, she blushed deeply enough for me to see it despite the olive tone of her skin. She looked down at her lap, where her fingers twisted together. "He's really nice."
"Wait, what party?" I asked, a second before I remembered which party she must be thinking about. "Hold on, you mean the poker game?"
Kelsey nodded. "Yep."
"And the guy..." I suddenly felt a realization hit me, so clear that it had to be true. "Hold on, is it Marcus? Is that who you're texting?"
Kelsey didn't even need to answer; her deepening blush provided confirmation enough. "Yes," she said, her smile, shy but warm, blooming across her entire face. "He's actually really sweet."
I thought of Marcus from my encounters with him at the office. He'd stopped by my desk a few times since the first meeting, and always offered to bring me coffee. He seemed to guess that Dane and I were together, but he never mentioned anything about it directly, and he sympathized with me when Karson went on one of his tirades.
"I think that's great," I told Kelsey, smiling back at her. "I've gotten to know him a little bit from working at the office, and he's a good guy."
"He is, isn't he?" Kelsey grabbed for her phone, digging it out. "And he's so smart and funny! He always knows the right snarky thing to say to make me laugh and feel better about myself."
Dane didn't say snarky things to me, but he didn't really need to do that. All he had to do was look at me with that slow, sexy smile spreading across his features, reach out a hand to stroke me, and I melted. Even now, thinking about him, I had to fight to keep a similarly sappy soppy smile off of my own face.
Damn that man for managing to get under my skin, into my head. It was like he'd carved out his own little spot inside my head to live, and he was refusing to vacate like a proper tenant after his time was up.
Next to me, Kelsey was scrolling through some of the texts she'd exchanged with Marcus, showing me pictures he'd sent, snaps of himself or his dog or the dinner he'd made. I nodded along, not really listening.
If I headed home now, Dane would probably be just finishing up cooking whatever meal he'd decided to make tonight. The man always surprised me with the depths of his culinary ability. I watched enviously as he would just toss ingredients haphazardly together into a pot, apply heat, and then turn out something that looked, smelled, and tasted absolutely delicious.
"It's all just about getting familiar with different flavors," he expressed when I told him how amazing this looked to an outsider. He gave an embarrassed shrug, as if everyone ought to be able to do such mundane acts of cooking. "The more you taste, the more you can figure out what things will taste good together."
And despite my own self-proclaimed inability to even boil water in the kitchen, Dane kept on dragging me in, pressing a knife or a grater or some strange vegetable or animal component into my hands. "It's easy, just watch your fingers," he'd say, and then leave me to it! Almost every time, I nearly pushed the objects back at him – but I persevered, telling myself that I wouldn't let something as innocent as a lump of garlic scare me off.
And afterwards, inevitably, the entire meal – including the components that I'd helped to prepare – turned out delicious.
"Hey, what's on your mind?" Kelsey asked, dragging my attention abruptly back to the present.
Oh. I'd stopped listening to her gushing on about Marcus, and she'd noticed. "Nothing," I covered quickly, blinking and smiling to cover up my inattention. "Just thinking about-" I snapped my mouth shut before finishing, but it wasn't hard for Kelsey to guess what name I'd been about to say. I waited for the teasing to come.
But instead, she just smiled back – and reached out to pat me on the shoulder.
"You know," she mused, "I think that I'm about good here. One drink is usually enough for me, these days. What do you say we both part ways? See you at home- or rather," she added, "maybe not. I might go see if I can convince Marcus to come over. Do you think that you could maybe keep yourself out of the apartment for tonight, so we can have a
little date together?"
I knew that Kelsey was just humoring me, knew that she could see that I was practically on the verge of sprinting straight to Dane's apartment. Deep down, I doubled my resolution to break free. This sort of attachment could screw up everything for me, for what I truly wanted.
"I can do that," I replied, holding back laughter at the shared joke. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow, then."
We closed our tab, and headed out of the bar. As soon as I started heading the few blocks over to Dane's apartment, I realized that my heart had picked up speed, thumping faster inside my chest with eagerness to see Dane.
"Stop that," I told it out loud. "This isn't going to be a long term thing. As soon as I figure out how to get my hands on the money that Karson's got, we're out of here."
My heart, unfortunately, chose to not listen to me, instead leaping higher and higher in my throat with each step to see Dane.
Still, I finally gave in, might as well enjoy the present. So when Dane opened the door for me, I greeted him with a hug, pressing my chest up against him, and a warm, wet, sloppy kiss.
"Hello, sexy!" I exclaimed to him. "What delicious thing have you cooked for me?"
Chapter Twenty-One
RUBY
*
The next morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I felt a little zinger of excitement shoot through me, one not related to the wonderfully frisky activities of the night before.
Instead, it was the little voice that I sometimes imagined that I could hear inside my head, the voice that could occasionally catch dim, hazy glimpses of the future.
Right now, that voice was telling me that today was the day. I didn't know what, exactly, was going to happen today, but I could sense that something was coming.
I couldn't wait to find out what it might be.
"You seem cheery today," Dane commented as I turned and kissed him awake, slipping my hand under the covers to feel his chest swell as he took a deep breath. "What's going on?"
"I just feel really happy today, that's all," I told him, hopping over him to grab some clothes. Thankfully, I'd dragged a suitcase over here, so now I didn't need to keep on insisting that he drive me by Kelsey's apartment every morning so I could grab a new outfit. "I feel like something good is going to happen to me."
"That's how I feel every morning," Dane murmured softly, and I stopped, turning to look at him. At first he looked surprised, as if he hadn't realized that he'd spoken out loud, but then those slender, aristocratic features softened into a smile. "Oh, don't look so taken aback. Don't you know how I feel about you right now?"
This wasn't what I'd been expecting when I woke up. To be honest, I'd never really taken any time to think about how Dane might see me. I assumed that he just looked at me as a sexy girl that he'd managed to convince to visit on the regular, nothing more. But now, watching him smile at me as he propped himself up on his elbows, the covers falling back to reveal that delightfully fit and sculpted chest, I wondered if he felt more.
When I looked at him, at times like now, I felt that flicker of heat, stronger every single time it reared its head. Did Dane feel the same way towards me?
With an effort, I forced those thoughts away, pushing them down. Something to deal with later, I half-heartedly promised myself. The words rang hollow, but they were enough to get me up, out of bed and into some clothes for work.
As soon as Walker arrived at his office (twenty minutes late, as usual, despite his constant insistence that I needed to have his latte waiting on his desk at EXACTLY eight o'clock in the morning), I sensed that there was something different about him, as well. He seemed to have a new spring in his step, a new sparkle in his eye. With most men, I'd assume that something good had happened to them – they had a date, they'd landed a promotion, their kid had given them a sappy homemade gift. With Walker, however, I was more inclined to believe that he'd managed to just ruin someone else's life, either financially or through his sheer bullheaded asshole tendencies.
"Good morning, Mr. Walker," I greeted him, same as every other day, bounding up to my chest. The jump up made my tits bounce, and we both knew that he stared openly at them every time that I did it.
Normally, Karson Walker just growled something unintelligible at me as he stalked in, only treating me as an object to be momentarily ogled before getting down to the real work. He'd usually emerge from his office moments later to dump his day's workload on my desk and command me to "take care of it."
Today, however, he beamed back at me, pausing at my desk instead of just rushing past! "It is a good morning, isn't it?" he remarked, tilting his head as if only noticing this for the first time. His friendly eyes actually managed to leave my tits and focus, at least momentarily, on my face.
I held my breath. Was this a turnaround for IDS's irascible, infuriating CEO? Had the Three Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future visited Karson Walker during the night on a late spring mission, shown him the error of his ways?
"What's got you in such a good mood, Mr. Walker?" I asked after another second of him standing there, grinning at me. This was off-putting, like watching a shark weaving dandelions into a flower necklace.
In answer, he reached into his jacket pocket and produced a piece of paper, folded into thirds, which he passed to me. "Judgment came down this morning," he said as I unfolded the sheet. "That bitch of an ex-wife kept trying to put up blocks and fight me, but I knew that I'd get my way in the end!"
Oh, right. Karson Walker was definitely an ass, and clearly that wasn't going to change. I looked down at the sheet of paper, seeing that it was covered in some sort of dense legalese. Whatever it was, it clearly made Walker happy.
"Congratulations, sir," I said politely, passing the paper back and hoping that this would be the end of it, but Walker didn't seem yet ready to leave and head off to the privacy of his office.
"Damn well took long enough, considering how much I pay those lawyers," he grumbled, tucking the paper away. "Monkeys in suits, throwing their own shit, the lot of them. But Stella thought that she could hold out on me, keep the damn dog? Not happening!"
That floored me for a second. "You're- you're suing her to get your dog back?" I asked in shock.
"Mine? Nah, hers!" He smirked. "I warned her not to try and fuck up the divorce. Just accept the terms, sign the papers, and get it all done. But she held out, and now she's gonna learn why you don't fuck with me."
Despite my best attempts to keep my mouth shut, it kept wanting to fall open and gape at him. This man, truly, was one of the worst people I'd ever encountered – and in my career as a hustler, I'd crossed some awful ones! He wanted to take his ex-wife's dog, just because she tried to fight him on the divorce, probably when he decided it was time to trade her in for the newer model?
Despite all my plans, I nearly hauled off and decked Karson Walker right there. It took every single ounce of my self-control to keep my hands, already shaking and balled up into fists, at my side.
Still smirking and laughing to himself, Walker finally headed off into his office – but, as usual, emerged a minute later. "Oh, and here's your stuff to handle today," he said to me, dumping the usual pile of papers, memos, and other documents that required his attention on my desk.
"Yes, sir," I started to say – but before I could finish even this short little two-word sentence, Walker reached out and, with one finger, hooked the neckline of my blouse!
"Now, those are nice," he murmured, getting a big look inside before releasing me, just as I prepared to go ahead and slap him, no matter the consequences. "If my wife had a set like that, maybe I'd still be having fun with her."
And then he turned and strolled back to his office, as I glared at his backside and tried my best to manifest psychic powers, so that I could squeeze his damn brain until it oozed out of his ears.
My raging eyes dropped down to the pile of papers that he'd dumped in front of me. On top sat a memo, reminding Karson that, as the overseer of the company's 401(k)
plans, he needed to perform the biannual review, verifying that the compensation options in place were still correct, and deciding on any disbursements-
I paused for a second, and then dropped down into my desk chair. I picked up the memo and re-read it, this time paying closer attention. Once I finished, I flipped it to one side and began devouring the documents buried beneath.
I read them twice more, and then sat back, looking blankly at my still logged-off computer in front of me.
Inside my head, a plan had suddenly formed. Unlike some plans, which needed to be teased and coaxed this one sprang into full life from the instant that I conceived of it.
And it was beautiful.
I sat back, just gazing off into space, playing through it. It wasn't too complex, at its heart, but it would take some setting up, some dashing around to get all the necessary signatures, figure out how many people would end up being implicated. Ideally, it would only burn Karson Walker, but if that would require extra groundwork to make sure that it didn't blow back on anyone else, I had to get started-
After another minute, I snapped back into action. I sat forward and logged in, browsing through some of the company documents that I'd signed way back when I started, and then never bothered to read since then. I knew that a lot of the details I needed to understand would be found buried in there, or in other similarly unread legal boilerplate forms.
The more I read, the more solid the idea grew. This could really work. And, based off of some of the numbers and statistics that I'd read, it could pay off very handsomely for me, to the tune of...
I pulled out my phone, flipped open the calculator app, and typed some numbers in. After staring at the result for a minute, I redid the calculations, certain that I'd misplaced a decimal point somewhere.
I got the same answer – and received the same one a third time, when I tried again.
Millions. Maybe tens of millions. If I pulled this off, I'd never need to pull another scam in my life. I could retire, go off to some tropical island somewhere, live out the rest of my days drinking margaritas and ogling the sexy, muscular, shirtless young men who brought them to me. I could spend every day just out having adventures, then coming back to a delicious meal with-
Fool Me Once: A Bad Girl Romance Page 13