Mr. Corporate (Mister #3)

by JA Huss

  Besides, Mysterious has already transferred the money he owed me into a new set of accounts. I’m good. No man should complain that he only has several million in the bank. So I won’t.

  The last time we had a Mister meeting was after all that shit went down with Romantic. And it’s starting to become a pattern. They fuck with us, we win, we settle down, they come back and try again.

  I guess we won’t be able to settle down.

  “A few weeks, huh?” Perfect asks Five.

  Five shrugs. “Give or take. If it was Lucio, then we should be fine. The threat has been neutralized. We should just stay the fuck off the East Coast for a while.”

  Despite the seriousness of that warning, we all chuckle. Fucking mobsters. They can have New York. We’re all out west now, anyway.

  “It wasn’t Lucio,” Mysterious says. “I think we all know it wasn’t Lucio who set us up.”

  Well, I think I’m the only one here who knows for sure who it was. I didn’t before all this happened. Not really. I’ve had my suspicions over the years. But after that island bullshit. That whole Wallace Arlington contract—which turned out to be fake. I called him up after the shit settled down and he had no clue what I was talking about—Yeah. It wasn’t Lucio. I’m glad he’s dead. But it wasn’t him who set us up back in school. Nothing about that makes sense.

  “You ever gonna get a girlfriend, Match?” I ask, trying to change the subject. Get them thinking about something else. “I mean, for fuck’s sake. What kind of man runs an online dating site and doesn’t even use his own service?”

  “If you headhunt me a girl, Corporate, I swear to God…” But we’re all laughing.

  It’s good to laugh about it.

  What else can you do? Let it change you? Let it control you? Let it eat you away from the inside out?

  “Well,” Perfect says. “Match and I are leaving for Colorado in about an hour.”

  “Have fun,” Romantic says. “I gotta get back to the resort, anyway. Big chef’s class coming up this weekend. What about you, Five?”

  “No personal details, friends. It’s better you don’t know.”

  “Right,” Mysterious says, downing his drink as he gets up from my dining room table. “All secrets all the time with you. I’ve got no one at home for me, but hey, there’s always work. So that’s where I’m headed. New case came in today. Gonna take it, I think. Just to get my groove back.”

  He’s not as cocky as he was a few weeks ago, that’s for sure. And I hope they leave us alone. I hope he doesn’t have to deal with the bullshit Perfect, Romantic, and I have gone through.

  But it’s wishful thinking.

  There’s more coming.

  We’re not done yet.

  “Hey,” Match says, looking at Mysterious. “What’s with you and these girly fucking drinks, anyway? The last time I saw you, it was straight bourbon all the time.

  “My hot new assistant has me hooked on them,” Mysterious laughs. “She’s a fucking wild little trip, man. And goddammit, she’s good in bed.”

  “Well, that fucking mint julep reminds me of my damn sister.”

  “Ariel?” Mysterious laughs. “I cannot picture Ariel drinking mint juleps.”

  We all laugh at that. Fucking Ariel is one tough chick. She’s not a girly-drink kind of girl.

  “Not Ariel, you dumbass,” Match says. “Cinderella.”

  Mysterious spits out the alcohol he was just about to swallow and it goes all over Five, who narrows his eyes and brushes off his suit. “What did you just say?” Mysterious asks. “You do not have a sister named Cinderella.”

  “Cindy, you freak. You’ve never met her. She’s the black sheep. Took off when she turned eighteen and became some kind of wanderer.”

  “I gotta go,” Mysterious says. He grabs a pack sitting by the door and two seconds later, it’s like he was never here.

  “What the fuck was that about?” I ask.

  “Who knows with him,” Romantic says. “He’s probably banging a girl named Cinderella and now he thinks it’s your sister.”

  Everyone but Match thinks that’s hilarious.

  Epilogue - Victoria

  Weston Conrad, AKA Mr. Corporate, asked me to marry him for the seventh time on my thirtieth birthday.

  I said no.

  He didn’t care, he just pulled that ring out, shouting and screaming, “You’re mine and goddammit, you’re gonna wear this ring!”

  I let him do that. I even frowned, and then said, “OK, I’ll wear the ring,” like I didn’t want to, just to keep up with my wild side.

  And he said, “OK? You’ll wear the ring?”

  I said, “Yeah. Didn’t you ever notice that our initials go together?” He gave me this puzzled look until I made a V with my two pointer fingers. Then I moved them apart a little and made a W with my pointer fingers and my thumbs. “V is one half of W. I’m only complete when I’m with you.”

  He couldn’t put that ring on my finger fast enough. He even got down on one knee to do it.

  I have a feeling West and I might never get married. I think I might just wear his ring forever. I think I might even have his children and cook dinner, and have it waiting on the table when he gets home from work.

  I can act like his wife without being his wife. Right?

  When I told him that, he agreed and hugged me tight for several seconds, then dragged me upstairs and wanted to fuck me against the wall.

  He can own me if he wants.

  I don’t seem to mind it these days.

  Everything seems different since my last trip to Brooklyn. I feel free. Like the past just drifted away and left me behind.

  I lost the building in Manhattan, and the charity. It was inevitable. And ironic, I think. That once West knew, and was willing to help me keep it, and I was willing to accept his help, it was all taken away because they wiped out his bank accounts. The East Coast, and everything back there, is history. I left it all behind when I came to California. But we worked our asses off to place all the kids in the best possible foster homes.

  All except Ethan. He’s mine.

  No.

  He’s ours.

  And watching West with Ethan is eye-opening. They play baseball in the back yard. West is teaching him how to swim. Ethan is finally settling in and he even called me mom once last week.

  This is the reason I might let West knock me up. It’s the reason I might let him make me stay home while he earns the money. It’s the reason I do everything these days.

  Weston Conrad might’ve gotten the short end of the stick as fathers go, but he’s not going to be the asshole who perpetuates the cycle.

  When he’s in, he’s all in.

  We started a new charity, too. West paid off our house with the money Mysterious owed him. West said we needed that security. So all three of us know that house is ours and no one can ever take it away. Then we started Corporate House. A safe place for kids in Hollywood. We’re open twenty-four seven. They can come eat, or sleep, or play games. Whatever it is that’s missing in their lives, we’re there. Open arms, ready and waiting, for any kid who needs us.

  Maybe someday every kid will have loving parents and a happy home. But until that happens, they’ve got us to look out for them.

  Mr. and Mrs. Corporate.

  It’s just business, Mister style.

  WANT THE NEXT BOOK?

  Mr. Mysterious by JA Huss

  GET IT HERE

  Paxton Vance isn’t as cryptic as he thinks. That broody nature and tough-guy exterior aren’t fooling me one bit.

  I know everything about him. I listen in on his most personal phone calls. I read his mail before he does. I even know what his mother got him for Christmas last year.

  You’re the man of my dreams, Paxton Vance. You just don’t know it yet.

  But don’t worry, I’ll remind you. I’m here to give you everything you need, before you know you need it.

  Don’t get defensive because I take a challenge seriou
sly. You have to open up to someone, and that someone is me.

  Besides, you can’t stay Mr. Mysterious forever. Why play the game if you never want to win?

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  Welcome to the End of Book Shit - or as we call it around here, the EOBS. I write these at the end of every book to kind of give readers a little insight to the story they just read. They aren’t edited, so don’t mind my typos.

  Some of them are epic. I think the last one for Mr. Romantic was pretty good. Some of them, especially the early ones, are just meh. It really depends on the story and how it affected me as I wrote it. Some are hard to write, some are very easy. Some are controversial, some not so much. And sometimes I just want to talk.

  Mr. Corporate is funny because I started this series with Mr. Perfect being so damn perfect and then jumped right into the controversial subject of rape fantasy with Mr. Romantic. I am not afraid to write about anything. I mean, if that’s how the story says it’s going, I’m like – OK. Let’s do this shit. And even though I knew the overall series arc for the Misters, I don’t plot the books out separately too far in advance. I pretty much plot the next book during the time I’m writing the last 25% of the current book.

  So I was plotting Mr. Corporate while all that rape fantasy stuff was going down in Mr. Romantic. I knew that the book was going to push some buttons. I didn’t care, mind you. But I knew. And I knew Romantic was over the top, and Perfect was so damn perfect. So I wanted West and Tori to be more “normal” but is a completely different way.

  I wanted West to very traditional. He wants very traditional things. A wife to stay home with the kids, the house, the corporate job, and dinner on the table when he gets home.

  I think this is kind of a big trigger, not just in romance books, but in society in general. Men aren’t allowed to want these things today. They are sexist if they want their wives to be… well, wives. I’m talking as a career choice. I think “wife” can be a career choice. It doesn’t have to be, but it can, just like “mother” can be a career choice.

  No, you don’t get paid, per se. But you enjoy the rewards of the partnership by working together.

  And even though West had a mother and father while he was young, and after he was adopted, he never had anything close to traditional. I didn’t explore West’s feelings about his new family (I will, later), so you don’t get much from him about that. But I did know that he missed out on something he felt other kids got. A “normal” loving family life. So this was his motivation in his romance with Tori. He loves her. She’s wild and crazy and hot-tempered. And he can’t get enough.

  But he needs to tame her ass down if he’s ever going to fulfill his desire for a “normal” family.

  And Tori had her background to run away from. She was forced into things as a young girl/woman and so all she can do is resist this trap West is setting. He stifles her with his expectations.

  She and he are not on the same page.

  So what does it take to change someone’s world-view?

  That’s a hard thing to do, right? Especially as you get older.

  How does one make a wild woman like Tori understand that giving in to a traditional role in a relationship is not giving up her identity as independent?

  In the “romance world” there are so many ways to write a relationship. But mostly the women are supposed to be strong, but nice. And the men are supposed to be alpha, but not demeaning.

  Well, in Julie’s world, that’s not really the case. In fact, I think every expectation except for the two golden rules of no cheating and the mandatory happily ever after, should be thrown out whenever possible.

  I kind of like traditional. And I especially like writing about women who choose to be mothers instead of career women. I don’t know why, really. I was a single mom for half my kid’s childhood. And I have always worked. Not always out of the house though. I found ways to work from home. But I never wanted to change my choice, so writing women who choose a traditional role isn’t based off some regret I have. I just think it’s a great job and so many women see it as a trap.

  So I loved writing Victoria coming to terms with Weston’s “demands” that she be his “wife”. And I loved her reasons why she was refusing. I liked that she made him work hard to understand her point of view. She kept him at arm’s length until he understood her issues with it. And I think they probably have a good, healthy attitude about who wears the pants in the family now that they’re at the end of their story.

  Oh, hold up. We didn’t have a wedding, did we? In fact, we’re missing quite a few weddings in this series. Hmmm… what might that mean? ;)

  I also loved that Victoria always knew West was innocent. It was such a breath of fresh air after Nolan’s complete weirdo fucking meltdown of a life over that whole rape thing, you know? He took it to one extreme and Corporate took it to the other.

  Everyone thought Nolan was guilty. Hell, even Nolan thought he was guilty. Maybe people thought Corporate was guilty too, but who cares? He had a witness. His life after those rape charges was almost no different than before. He had his girlfriend, who also knew he was one hundred percent innocent. So what if he didn’t finish college? I don’t think it mattered to him the way it did Nolan. Nolan came from a family filled with great expectations. Weston had zero expectations to live up to. I think he was probably more surprised things were working out so well, more than anything. So when he was asked to leave school because of the controversy, he just took it all in stride and moved on. He’s definitely a roll-with-the-punches kind of guy.

  I also love Corporate’s backstory. That was another surprise. I knew going in I needed to make him fit into the over-all series story. And I was hesitant to keep adding in more and more people to the mix because I have to tie it all together in the last book, right? No pressure there.

  So I was aiming for super simple. I was aiming at Claudette, if I’m honest. I was going to put her in this story somehow. But you know, I really hated her. I didn’t feel like giving her so much power or page time. And I liked the thought of West being from Nantucket. I had done all that research for Ivy and Nolan in New England and I really wanted Corporate to be from “that kind” of family.

  Old money.

  But with a twist. Because old money can be boring too, you know. Besides, Romantic was from super-old money. And I didn’t really get into Perfect’s money genealogy, but it was several generations. Mysterious is half old money, half new. And Match is Spencer Shrike money. ;)

  So Corporate was my only real chance to come up with some cool new-money story. I don’t remember why I was watching the Goonies recently but I was. God, the Goonies, right? That is so my generation. It was a great new-money story and every kid I knew wanted to be part of that team.

  Which leads me to another thing I like to do in my books. Contradictions.

  I love contradictions. Sexy fucking Ford Aston and his sexy fucking brain. Jesus Christ. He is the perfect contradiction. Spencer Shrike and his fun, easy-going attitude combined with his obsession with guns. Ron the Bombshell Vaughn with her giant tits, blonde hair, and job as a tattoo artist who ends up having six kids. Rook and her wide doe-eyes isn’t exactly innocent by the time you get to Panic. And Mateo and his star tattoos and astronomy job. This is the stuff of great characters.

  My aim in Corporate’s story was to present this ridiculous contradiction between a boat-rat kid who finds a treasure and the super-successful self-made man. The more ridiculous the better I like it. It’s a challenge and I’m a hell of a character developer. So I’m OK with just about any scenario.

  The contradiction with Tori was her desire to save kids, yet refusing to have any of her own or be part of the expected “nuclear family” because it feels like a trap.

  It’s irony, right?

  I first got the idea that Corporate was some kind of con-artist when I saw a movie recently called This Boy’s Life. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a kid back in the Fifties who is trying to get as far away f
rom his small-town life and abusive father as he can by applying to elite private boarding schools. So he gets his nerdy friend to fake some transcripts for him and works hard to pass the entrance exams, even gets himself a scholarship.

  I thought to myself, yeah. This is Mr. Corporate’s background right here. But I needed more, and I knew I wanted him to be from Nantucket (contradictions, right? He lives in a shack on land worth millions of dollars). So I put him on that lobster boat and started asking myself what could possibly happen next.

  I am constantly being asked by other authors how I flesh out my characters. Do I map it out? Do I have a time line? Do I keep one of those story bibles with every little detail outlined?

  I don’t do any of that. I just come up with a childhood and shape my character from that. You know, just like Mother Nature does it in real life. You are this blank canvas when you’re born. And pretty soon you’re back packing the Appalachian Trail as a four-year-old with your dad. Or visiting the physics lab with you mother at six. Or learning how to ski, or golf, or surf because your parents are ski, golf, surf bums.

  It shapes you, ya know?

  But the really fun part about shaping characters is the contradiction. If I’m going to write a stripper he’s not going to be just any stripper. If I’m going to write a rock star he’s not going to be just any rock star.

  And if I’m going to write a five-book series based on the “office romance” trope, well, don’t expect the sex to happen on a desk in every single book. I just don’t roll that way. But if you look closely, every one of these books are absolutely an office romance. That was the very first unifying premise of the whole series. Even before I had the whole rape accusation I had the “office romance”.

  So I hope you’re enjoying my take on that trope. Personally, I find office romances among some of the most boring stories ever told. (I’m just being honest here) But Perfect was perfect for the trope and the longer I thought about each Mister in this context, the more I liked the idea.