She stood and reached for her robe, then jumped and squealed when he slapped her bare ass.
“You know what I think about you seeing him.” His growl screamed ownership as he stood as well and towered over her.
Roxanne slinked around him and donned her robe, feeling somehow protected by it. Her phone rang in the other room, and she almost felt relief at the excuse to escape Jordan and the spell of ownership he seemed to be casting over her.
“Hello,” she said, as she picked up the cordless, then looked at the box on the cradle that displayed the number.
Aaron Tipley’s name, one of the executives from work, appeared in the small box along with his number. Roxanne frowned, wondering why the man would be calling her at home during the evening.
“Roxanne, there’s a problem,” her co-worker said, as Jordan appeared from the hallway wearing only his slacks.
Jordan padded barefoot to the nearest lamp and turned it on, flooding Roxanne’s dining and living area with a shadowy light. He then proceeded to close each of her blinds on her windows, before turning to face her.
“What is it?” Roxanne watched Jordan scan her room, and realized what he was looking for when he walked over to the cradle for her cordless, and read the caller ID.
“I’m preparing month-end reports, just routine stuff,” Aaron began, and Roxanne detected a note of nervousness in his tone. “One of our clients really fascinates me, the way he capitalizes.”
Roxanne watched Jordan disappear around the corner of her dining room, and reappear a second later with shirt, socks, and shoes in hand. He sat in her easy chair opposite her, and continued to dress.
“I know it’s not necessary to go through every account in such detail,” Aaron continued, “but like I said, this guy really fascinates me. He invests in such a random pattern, and has accounts everywhere.”
“Okay…” Roxanne tried to prompt him to get to the point. She understood digging into the files, something she had done on her own time many a night in order to learn the clients.
“Roxanne, I wouldn’t have bothered you at this hour, but something is wrong here.” Aaron sighed into the phone, and Roxanne pictured him leaning back in his chair and rubbing his fingers along the top of his strawberry-blond crew cut.
The man had served with the Marines, gaining an accounting degree courtesy of the U.S. government. She knew him to be all business, and wondered how he had managed to get his young wife to the point where she would have their first child in the near future. “The money in one of the accounts seems to have disappeared,” he told her.
“What do you mean disappeared?” Roxanne glanced at Jordan as he slipped on his shoes.
“Well, we have a printout in the file of the most recent deposits, the last one being just a couple weeks ago. But when I pull the account up online, there’s no money in there.”
Roxanne sighed. “Put the file on my desk and I’ll go over it when I get in tomorrow morning.”
“I would have done that and not bothered you at home, but there’s more.”
“More?”
“Yes. This particular file has so many accounts that we don’t manually check each one of them regularly. We rely on the printouts.” Aaron had taken on that tone he often adopted that annoyed Roxanne, one of explaining something to her that she already knew.
“I’m aware of office procedure,” she said.
“I decided to go through another file with an equal number of accounts.” Aaron spoke faster, as if determined to convince her that his call at this hour had merit.
“That’s a good idea.” Roxanne felt Jordan watching her, and glanced up to see that he had finished dressing, and now leaned back, arms crossed, watching her.
“I found another account with the money gone from it.”
“What? Are you sure?” Roxanne couldn’t believe that their records could be so off base from that of the banks’. “What do you mean gone? You mean they are closed out.”
“No, Roxanne, I don’t mean that. I mean the banks in question show a zero balance when we show a balance in the thousands of dollars.”
“Aaron, that’s impossible.” Her tone caught Jordan’s attention because he leaned forward, studying her.
“What is it?” Jordan asked quietly.
“Roxanne, that’s why I am calling you. I don’t know what Hall would think of this if he saw it, but somehow these accounts need to match what we have in the files. I wondered if you had a bit of time to come into the office and look over these files with me.” The urgency in Aaron’s voice had Roxanne standing.
She knew very well what Jordan would think if he found money missing. He would blame his employees, and wreak havoc on the office until someone resolved the problem. She guessed Aaron worried his job could be on the line.
“Okay, give me thirty minutes and I’ll be there.”
“Good, and thank you.” Aaron sounded noticeably relieved. “I’d just as soon put this in order without Hall knowing about it.”
Roxanne couldn’t have agreed more that the situation would be better if Jordan didn’t know about it. And she wondered how she would pull off the impossible as she stood to return the cordless to her cradle.
“I need to take a shower,” she mumbled, and left Jordan sitting in her living room.
Roxanne slipped into jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt after showering, and then ran a blow-dryer over her hair until it remained slightly damp. She grabbed her briefcase and headed toward the kitchen when Jordan’s voice stopped her.
“What’s wrong at the office?”
Roxanne turned to see Jordan standing in her living room, once again appearing to be the successful businessman. Only the look in his eyes reminded her of how their relationship had altered. She watched him take in her attire as he approached her.
“Tipley is having some problems with a few accounts,” she summarized, and held her footing when Jordan stopped within inches of her.
“A problem with a few accounts,” Jordan repeated, and slid his fingers through her damp hair, then gripped and pulled her head back until she met his gaze. “What is the problem?”
“Jordan…” Roxanne began, but realized the sooner a few guidelines were set the better. “He is having some problems with a few accounts, and he called me because he is worried you will go on a warpath if you discover discrepancies in the morning. Now you’re going to go home, or wherever it is you wish to go, and I’m going to the office to handle matters.”
“Do you make a habit of covering everyone’s asses at work?” Jordan loosened his grip on her hair, and moved his fingers to her cheek.
“No,” she said, and realized she smelled cum on his fingers. “What I mean is, there aren’t that many mistakes to cover up.”
Roxanne stepped around Jordan to grab her purse then moved to the back door.
“Go see what the problem is.” Jordan followed and then pulled the door behind the two of them, assuring it was locked as he did so. “I’ll be there shortly.”
“Jordan, no.” Roxanne turned in her yard, and Jordan walked into her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Aaron called me because he doesn’t want you to know there’s a problem. He didn’t realize you were here when he called. And if things had been different, you wouldn’t know about this. Now let me go do my job.”
Jordan lowered his head and kissed her lips, then trailed kisses to her ear. She stood motionless, briefcase in one hand and purse in the other, unable to move and wondering how her body could possibly want this man again so soon.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” he whispered. “Be good.”
And with that he turned her toward her car, and slapped her ass gently before she could get out of reach. Roxanne wondered what he meant about being good.
Chapter Four
“Any luck?” Aaron Tipley peered into Jordan’s office.
Roxanne glanced over her monitor and smiled at the nervous-looking young man who fidgeted in the doorway. Every executive th
at Hall Enterprise employed did a good job with their accounts, but Roxanne knew from experience that Jordan could make them feel their work barely made par. It made perfect sense that Aaron wouldn’t want to see Jordan right now, and she watched his eyes look over the office, making sure Jordan wasn’t there.
She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. “Not yet,” she sighed. “I’ve contacted both banks and am waiting for a call back after they do some research.”
“I just don’t know what happened.” Aaron shot a glance down the hall, and then back at Roxanne. “But I really appreciate you coming in last night and taking a look.”
“To be honest with you, I thought I could find the problem.” Roxanne stifled a yawn.
“And I kept you out too late, so now you’re exhausted.” Aaron glanced down the hallway again, and then dared his way toward Roxanne’s desk. “I’d like to make it up to you, if you’ll let me. My wife suggested I offer to take you to lunch.”
“Well, how sweet of you.”
Roxanne’s phone buzzed and she hit the intercom button. “Yes, Dorothy?”
“Mr. Uphouse is on line one. Do you still want me to take a message?”
Roxanne frowned at her phone. “I never—” she broke off in mid-sentence. Jordan had told Dorothy to take a message if Roger called her. And then he intercepted her messages. Roxanne picked up her pen and began tapping it in irritation. The man had a lot of nerve trying to control her like that. “Go ahead and put Mr. Uphouse through, Dorothy.”
“Will do, sweetie,” Dorothy said in her chipper tone. “And do you know when Mr. Hall will be in?”
“I’d say after three sometime,” Roxanne said, and then noted Aaron hovering at the edge of her desk as she pushed the button to accept Roger Uphouse’s call. “This is Roxanne.”
“Well, there is the busy lady,” a friendly male voice said through the phone. “I began to wonder if you were avoiding me.”
Roxanne silently cursed Jordan. “Now I would never avoid our largest account,” she said, putting equal cheer in her tone to match his.
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” Roger immediately got to the point. “I’m sending a car to your office. Your receptionist has already told me that you are in for the day working on files, and I plan to take you away from that. We’ll have lunch here in my room—call it a business lunch, if you will.”
Roxanne grinned and glanced at the clock on the wall. Mr. Jordan Hall deserved nothing less than her being the perfect employee, after the way he confiscated messages, and attempted to speak on her behalf. Her job description included seeing to the client’s needs and wishes, and she planned to do just that. “What time should I expect your driver?”
“I’ll send him right over.”
After hanging up the phone, Roxanne smiled at Aaron. “Duty calls,” she said.
“Not a problem.” Aaron tapped her desk once, and then backed up to the doorway. “I’ll make sure Dorothy transfers the calls to me, if we hear about those accounts.”
“Good idea.” Roxanne glanced at her screen then saved the file she had open. “And give me a call if we do hear anything. I’m curious to know who made these withdrawals, and when.”
Roxanne grinned as she thought how Jordan might react to news that she was out of the office on business with Mr. Uphouse. She glanced out the tinted window of the plush limousine that had arrived for her. Dorothy would tell Jordan, if he asked, that Roxanne was with Roger Uphouse, and Dorothy didn’t know when she would return. She tapped the sides of the computer laptop that Jordan kept in his office for meetings such as these, and felt a surge of nervous excitement.
Take a deep breath and relax, Roxanne told herself.
She was simply doing her job. There had been times in the past when a client would call, wanting to do lunch, and Roxanne would find herself dining the afternoon away. Today would be no different. She stared out the window as the limousine turned into the circular drive and slowed at the entrance to the luxurious hotel. The driver hopped out and beat the bellboy to the car door, opening it for Roxanne. She stepped out and smiled.
“The lady will go to Mr. Uphouse’s suite,” the driver said to the young man in uniform, who nodded briskly.
Roxanne found herself being escorted through the exquisite lobby, and then up the elevator to the floor Mr. Uphouse had mentioned on the phone. Roxanne followed the bellboy to the end of the hallway, and then was left alone after the employee rapped on the double doors to the suite.
Roger pulled the door open and stepped to the side. “Excellent, you’re here. I’ve taken the liberty of having lunch laid out for us. Please, come in.”
“Oh my, there’s enough food for an army here,” Roxanne laughed as she noticed the extended dining room table, with a variety of meats, pastas, salads, breads and desserts sitting in fine china, with a carafe resting in a silver ice bowl to the side.
“I didn’t know what you liked.” Roger’s comment sounded like an apology. He gestured with his hand at the laid out table. “I had room service bring a sample of everything.”
“Well, I hope you’re hungry.” Roxanne searched for a place to put her briefcase and laptop. “The food doesn’t leave us any room to sit,” she giggled, still feeling nervous.
“We have plenty of room.” Roger grinned and reached for her arm. “I thought we would eat in here. You aren’t nervous, are you?”
Roxanne felt her cheeks warm, and decided it was all Jordan’s fault for making her feel she had anything to worry about. Roger had arranged a wonderful lunch, and she had the opportunity to spend time with a nice man in a beautiful suite. She wouldn’t let her nerves, created by an overly obsessive man, ruin her time there.
Roger pushed open French doors and escorted her into a large family room. A circular table had been set for two with sparkling china and crystal, and white cloth napkins. Roxanne felt her heels sink into the thick carpet as she allowed Roger to guide her to the table, and then sat when he pulled out her chair.
She set her briefcase and the laptop on the chair next to her and then took in her surroundings. Roger walked over to an entertainment center and pushed a few buttons, and some light jazz began playing.
A large screen television housed in the middle of the entertainment center reflected her image back at her in its black screen. Two large fern plants sat on top of the casing. A couch and two reclining chairs faced the television, with a glass oval coffee table in the center of the room. Roxanne noticed another set of French doors, and guessed the bedroom might be on the other side of them.
“Would you like me to make your plate for you?” Roger pulled the carafe from the ice. He grinned down at her, and Roxanne felt herself relaxing.
“I think I’ll make my own,” she said, picked up her plate, then reached for Roger’s, handing it to him after he poured wine for both of them. “This is such a treat. Not what I usually expect for a business lunch.”
“Well then let’s just put business aside for the moment, and enjoy the food and company.” Roger took his plate from her, then ran his hand down the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair, and then slid his hand down her back as he walked her toward the food.
A rather familiar gesture, not what she’d expected from a man she barely knew. She wouldn’t let her defenses get the better of her, though. Jordan had put caution in her, and it was unwarranted. Roger Uphouse was a client. And he was offering her a luxury she didn’t often enjoy. She was going to have fun this afternoon, and the hell with Jordan Hall.
She couldn’t believe how good everything tasted. And Roger proved to be wonderful company. She found herself laughing with him over his anecdotes, and feeling very at ease by the time she finished eating.
“So I had my taste of ranch life, but discovered I preferred business,” Roger said as he slid his plate to the side and reached for his wine. “When I learned a trick or two about the market, I just couldn’t leave it alone.”
He stood and then extended a
hand to her. “Let’s move to the couch,” he invited, and Roxanne grabbed her wine and stood, not taking his hand but patting her belly instead.
“I’m not sure I can move after all that wonderful food. I think I just gained ten pounds.” She pretended not to notice he had wanted to hold her hand, and decided if they were to get cozy on the couch, it would be a good time to turn the conversation to business. She moved to the couch and situated herself at one of the corners, then turned her body so she faced him. “I’d love to hear what made you choose such a diversified market for many of your accounts.”
“We should make time to go through each account thoroughly, and I’ll explain it to you.” Roger didn’t join her on the couch, but instead set his wineglass on the coffee table, and then sat at the other end of the table so that he faced her. He took her legs and turned them, so that she found herself suddenly facing him, with his legs on either side of hers. “But right now I don’t feel like talking about business.”
“Oh?” Roxanne felt a chill from nerves run through her, and took a sip of her wine.
“Has Hall told you anything about me?”
The question threw Roxanne, and she felt her grin fade. Just to stay away from you, she thought, but quickly gathered her composure. “Jordan has kept me briefed on your accounts as long as I’ve been with Hall Enterprises.”
Roger smiled. “I’m not talking about business.” He ran his hands along the outside of her legs, halfway up her thighs, and then reached to take her wineglass and set it next to his. “In the past when I’ve been in town, I’ve made requests of Hall to provide me with a special type of entertainment. Your boss is well-connected, and has always been able to find me a lovely escort. But this time, after having lunch with you the other day, I decided to see if the possibility existed of spending time with you instead.”
Roxanne felt her food turn uneasily in her stomach, and a rush of heat passed through her as she stared at the man sitting in front of her. “I am no whore, Mr. Uphouse,” she said very quietly, and stood abruptly as anger consumed her.
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