by A. C. Arthur
Mendoza frowned, his fists tapping lightly on the table so that the liquor in Jerald’s glass swayed with the motion.
“And that new accessories line you just introduced,” Jerald added with a nod towards the scarf the guy wore—which was, by the way, borderline hideous. “He’ll take that as his own as well. Is that what you want?”
“You…you…taong tampalasan!” Mendoza yelled before Hailey touched a hand to his arm.
Jerald’s gaze followed her movement, remembering that same hand wrapped tightly around his cock.
“Ikaw at ang iyong kumpanya ay walang anuman kundi magnanakaw! Walang kwenta Amerikanong magnanakaw!” Mendoza continued his rant, although this time his words were spoken through clenched teeth, his voice substantially lower than it had previously been.
When the man looked down at Hailey’s hand that was still resting on his arm, Jerald felt an instant punch of jealousy to his gut. Hailey nodded at the man and then said something, in whatever language Mendoza had just spoken.
She looked over to Jerald then.
“He wants me to tell you that you are a scoundrel. That you and your company are nothing but worthless American thieves,” she told him, with an almost apologetic look on her face.
So she was his translator, Jerald thought. A translator that also touched this man that had to be at least twenty-five years older than her, in an intimate way. Jerald resisted the urge to clench his own teeth.
“Be that as it may,” Jerald said, keeping his eyes level with Mendoza’s. “We can work together to come to amicable terms for selling your company to Carrington Enterprises. Or this entire deal can become hostile, which in light of the scandal and possible criminal charges you and your executives are already facing, you may want to avoid. I don’t see that you have much of a choice here, Mr. Mendoza.”
“I always have choice,” the man replied in his broken English. “And I always win.”
Jerald sat back in his chair then, staring at the man that had no idea he was declaring himself Jerald’s number one priority to take down. Negotiations weren’t his forte, but in that moment he decided he was not only going to be the one to close the deal on Mendoza’s company, but he was going to do so in the most public and humiliating way he could possibly manage. And not just because the guy was an arrogant prick that needed desperately to be knocked down a notch or two, but moreso because Mendoza had just put his hand over the one Hailey had laid on his arm. Jerald definitely did not like that.
“Not this time,” Jerald told Mendoza. “There’s no way you can come up with the cash to bail yourself out, especially not with federal investigators breathing down your neck, and possibly only weeks away from possibly arresting you. As I stated before, selling to us is your best and most low profile offer.”
“I do not care about your government. They all tell lies and do not like when another tells the same lies. I will close the warehouses here and not ship to any of your stores. How will they like that when your people lose jobs?”
Hailey gasped at that comment, looking at Jerald with concern. He wondered if she knew someone who worked for Mendoza and that’s how she became hooked up with him. She hadn’t struck him as the type of female that would run in Mendoza’s circles, even though he had to admit to himself that outside of memorizing every inch of her body, including that oddly shaped birthmark on her left butt cheek, he really didn’t know anything about this woman named Hailey.
“I think they dislike the fact that most of those workers are vastly underpaid and further undercompensated with the lack of health insurance or any other benefits coming from those warehouses, a little more. It’s just the way we work here in the U.S.”
“Then I will not work here,” Mendoza stated.
Jerald nodded. “Then you will confine your business to the international market only? Your competitors will demolish you. Your stocks will continue to plummet and you will be forced into bankruptcy.” He emptied his glass and picked up the menu. “But let’s have dinner while you contemplate those options. The choice is yours,” he continued with a shrug. “I’ll treat you to dinner while you contemplate your options.”
CHAPTER 2
“Excuse me,” Hailey said only seconds after she’d finished chewing a bite of her salad and Ronnel had announced that they were leaving. “I’ll just be a moment.”
She needed more than a moment, but would take what she could get. It had been almost forty minutes since she’d looked into his eyes and felt that wave of desire that had ensconced her that night on the beach. Each time he’d looked at her during the dinner and strained conversation, she’d felt another jolt of lust, slapping hard against every part of her body. Her nipples had remained puckered as she inhaled the seductive scent of his cologne. And when he’d looked at her once, then down to the exposed cleavage in the low cut white dress she’d worn, Hailey had thought she would simply spread her legs right here for him.
Dammit! She’d never had this reaction to a man before and after that night in Turks and Caicos had figured she never would. But he was here and it was all happening again. Only this time it couldn’t.
She couldn’t possibly sleep with Jerald Carrington, one of the owners of Carrington Enterprises. Not again.
On wobbly legs she managed to move from the table and follow the hostess’s directions to the ladies’ room, trying like hell to keep her breathing steady and her mind focused every step of the way. She entered the bathroom barely noting the carpeted floor in the front sitting area, moving straight back to where blush colored marble countertops matched the stall doors with the wall-to-wall mirror directly across from them. Everything swirled around her as she felt dizzy and struggled to gain her composure.
Why was he here?
Why now?
Why her?
The one time she’d thrown caution to the wind and acted instead of reacting. The second she’d put her wants and needs before logic, responsibility, maturity. She knew better and had been taught by her Gram to know the man she was involved with, when the time came. Love was real, relationships were true and everlasting. Her grandparents were proof of that. Screwing a man she’d just met on a beach in his hotel room, then skipping out while he was in the shower was not smart, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Karma clearly had the same idea since she’d just spent the last half hour trying like hell not to choke on the Caesar salad while sitting less than two feet from said man.
Hailey’s mind swam with recriminations and she took another deep breath, pressing a palm to her stomach in the hopes of stilling the jittery feeling centered there. She closed her eyes, trying to tell herself to count between deep breaths, to breathe slower, calmer. And then she felt someone come up behind her. Strong arms immediately slipped around her waist, warm breath touching the skin just beneath her ear as he whispered, “Go into the last stall.”
Jerald’s voice sent spikes of heat soaring through her body. If her legs were wobbling before, Hailey thought they might actually collapse beneath her at any second now.
“Go, before someone comes in and sees us,” he urged.
Sees him, she thought, considering they were in the ladies’ room where she actually belonged. She walked, no other option came to mind, pushing through the door to the last stall. The door slammed shut, lock clicking in place just as she turned to see Jerald coming towards her.
Hailey opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, to tell him this was a mistake, to say…something. The words died as his lips crashed down over hers, his tongue immediately pressing into her mouth, hands gripping her hips as he pushed her back against the wall. Hailey went with him, hands coming up to grip his shoulders, mouth opening wide, her tongue dueling instantly with his.
All thoughts of where and who they were dissipated as his hard body pressed into hers. His hands were busy, pulling up the sides of her dress, his fingers grazing over the bare skin of her stomach just seconds before pushing past the ban of her underwear to cup her bare mou
nd.
“So slick, so smooth,” he murmured when his lips moved from her mouth to nip lightly along the line of her chin. He moved down to her throat when she let her head loll back to tap the tiled wall. “Did you wax just for me?”
Hailey moaned as his fingers parted her folds touching first, her hardened clit, then moving immediately to her dripping cove. She bucked against his hands, her knees bending. When he thrust two fingers deep inside her she gasped, going up on her tiptoes, eyes wide. He was staring directly at her, eyes that had been very pale green at the dinner table, were now darker, more intense, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he spoke through clenched teeth.
“What are you doing here, so hot and wet for me?”
For him. The words danced around the haze of desire filling her mind. Had she been wet for him? Of course she had, arousal had gripped her at the throat the minute she’d seen him, all but choking the life out of her for the time she’d had to sit next to him without touching, feeling, experiencing exactly what was happening right at this moment.
“Yes,” she moaned because that was the simple and soul-shattering truth. “Yes, Jerald.”
She’d wanted to try his name out on her lips, to hear it in her voice for the very first time. She’d wondered. Oh how many nights had she lain in that huge bed in the bedroom at the Mendoza estate, what his name was. Who he was and where he lived?
He was here, in Los Angeles, fucking the hell out of her with his fingers.
And she was loving every second of it.
“Hailey,” he sighed, lowering his forehead to rest on hers. “Sweet, hot, Hailey.”
She pumped into his hand, needing desperately to get to that place, to feel that overwhelming pleasure she’d felt before, sooner, rather than later.
“Yes,” she gasped as his fingers moved faster, pressed deeper.
“I want to lick you here, to taste all that delicious sweetness,” he was saying, his breathing much more controlled than hers.
Hailey wanted to rip that jacket from his shoulders, to pull at his shirt until the buttons popped free and his chest was bare beneath her probing fingers. She wanted his pants off, his briefs down, his dick deep inside her pussy. On a tortured moan she arched against the wall, her pussy happily sucking at his fingers. He pumped faster, as if he couldn’t stop himself. His eyes grew heavy as he continued to stare at her. She let her arms fall between them, slipping around behind him to cup his tight buttocks, pressing him into her.
“Yes!” she was moaning again, her voice echoing off the walls.
Hailey had no idea who this wanton woman was. She couldn’t figure out when it had become alright for a man to follow her into the bathroom and finger her so deliciously. Her thighs trembled, her breasts aching as his hard chest leaned further into her.
“I want to be inside you. You’re so tight, so hungry for my dick,” he whispered.
She wanted the same thing. His every word was absolutely correct.
“Come to me, tonight. Come to me and let me end this sweet torture for us both,” he talked as his fingers stroked so that coherent thought wasn’t at all possible.
She trembled beneath his touch, inhaling deeply the mixture of the scent of his cologne and her arousal.
“Say you’ll come,” he whispered against her ear, his tongue snaking out to trace a heated path along her lobe. “Say it!”
Hailey gasped. She was going to come alright. If he just continued to pump inside her a little longer, maybe if he touched her clit again, sucked on her breasts. Oh yes, she was definitely going to come.
“Yes,” she mumbled, her head falling forward so that her forehead rested on his shoulder. “Yes. I’ll come.”
He pulled out of her immediately then, taking a step back as if he hadn’t just been finger fucking her to a pleasurable abyss. She flattened her palms against the wall to steady herself and keep from falling on her face.
“What’s your number?” he was asking while Hailey was still trying to catch her breath.
She began pulling at her dress, trying to get it down her legs once more, then standing up straight. Her breath wasn’t steady, her insides felt like molten lava still trying to find its way out of that tumultuous volcano.
“What?” she asked when she looked across the large stall to see him with his cell phone in hand.
He looked up at her impatiently.
“Your number. Give it to me so I can call you when I’m ready.”
“Wh—when? Wait, you’re going to call me when you’re ready?” she asked, coherency coming slowly but surely.
“Your number Hailey,” he insisted.
She paused. There was no doubt that Jerald Carrington was not asking her out on a date. No, he was asking for another night like the one they’d shared on the island. That blissful night they’d spent together just one month ago.
“I—” she began and heard the outer door to the ladies’ room open.
“Here,” he said stepping forward and thrusting the phone at her. “Put it in and you leave first.”
Hailey wasn’t sure about going to him tonight. She didn’t know how smart that would be since she was only in Los Angeles for the summer and he was this important, rich guy that wanted to destroy the livelihood of the other important, rich guy that she happened to work for.
When she heard the click of a woman’s heels on the marbled floor Hailey grabbed the phone, punching in her number before she could second guess herself again. She had plenty of time for that later. For now, however, the last thing she wanted was to be caught in the bathroom with him. She pushed the phone in his direction and attempted to move past him when he grabbed her arm.
“Don’t fuck him,” he whispered urgently in her ear. “Don’t you dare let him touch you. Not one more time.”
Embarrassed. Angry. Offended. All of the above flew through her mind and her body like a torrential storm, and she yanked her arm from his grasp, escaping from the stall before he could say another word. Or incite another wave of desire in her traitorous body.
She never looked back, but headed out to the restaurant, back to the table where Ronnel was still looking as if he were about to combust and grabbed her purse.
“I’m ready to go now,” she said to him, hoping he’d get up and they could leave before Jerald could return.
Surely he would have waited until the bathroom was clear again before coming out. But as soon as Ronnel stood and she turned to head out of the restaurant, he was there.
He looked as confident and unruffled as he had when she’d first walked in. His broad shoulders squared, every handsome feature of his face intact, a stark contrast to how discombobulated she still felt after their tête-à-tête.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said in that voice that rubbed seductively over all her exposed nerve endings.
She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him no he wouldn’t. She didn’t want Ronnel to know that she’d slept with the man that was now his archenemy. How would he react to that? Would he fire her on the grounds of poor judgement? Or would it be as simple as he didn’t want her working for him and fucking the man hell bent on taking over his business? Hailey didn’t know the answer to any of those questions and her heart beat rapidly as she figured she might be overreacting a bit. But she could not lose this job. Her entire future depended on the income she was receiving from this summer job and she wasn’t about to let a man, not even one as good looking and as great in bed as Jerald Carrington interfere with that.
“Do not waste your time,” she heard Ronnel say from behind. “I do not have any business with you.”
Jerald didn’t even blink. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Hailey. Have a good evening.”
Had he whispered her name? Did his “have a good evening” sound like he was implying she would have a good evening with him, later or sometime in the future? Hailey took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before finding a small smile and replying, “Thank you. Have a good evening, Mr. Carrington.”
&nbs
p; Ronnel’s gentle hand on her elbow as he guided her out of the restaurant only made Hailey more anxious. Just as when she’d left the ladies’ room, she did not turn back to look at Jerald. But she knew he was staring at her, knew he watched every step she took until she was no longer in his line of vision. Her skin heated with that thought, continuing to tingle with an awareness of him, his fingers digging deep inside her, the still dampness of her underwear and fullness of her breasts, as she slid into the backseat of Ronnel’s limo.
Hailey sat back against the cool leather seat, staring out the window as they drove through downtown L.A., not breathing easily until the rolling hills of green and the long driveway up to Ronnel’s estate came into view.
She was safe here, she thought. Away from Jerald Carrington and his knowing gaze, his hungry kisses and dangerously erotic hands. Yes, Hailey thought, stepping out of the limo and walking toward the house, this was where she belonged—for now. Half an hour away from the city and the man that threatened everything she’d ever wanted and needed in her life.
#
Ronnel’s house was a magnificently conceived Spanish Hacienda with warmth and elegance situated on the crest of Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula. Located on the eight acres of land the main residence had nine bedrooms and twenty bathrooms, a tennis court, a gorgeous courtyard featuring Mediterranean herbs, trees and flowers, a guest house, a spacious and bright patio with an infinity pool and breathtaking views of downtown L.A., the San Gabriel Mountains and the white-strand beaches of Santa Monica Bay.
Hailey’s favorite place was the pool. She’d always loved to swim, since the summer when she was six years old when her grandfather had taught her. Pops had been patient letting her squeal at water getting into her eyes for the first time, holding her steady while the concept of floating escaped her time and time again. And when she was finally successful, they’d celebrated with him calling Gram out to see her swim in an awkward circle on her own. Later that evening, Gram had fixed her favorite dinner—grilled cheese with bacon and peanut chip brownies for dessert. Those had been the happy times, before Pops became sick.