“I’ve parted ways with my last mistress recently. I’m in the market for a new one.”
The snort this time was full bodied and drawn out. More like a guffaw. “Your mistress? Fuck!”
“Yeah. Fucking,” he snapped. “That’s a job requirement.”
She didn’t seem offended. Amused was more like it. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll blow up your pantry or sabotage your tea parties?”
“No, but you don’t know much about being a mistress if you think you’ll be having much to do with my pantry or my tea parties.”
“Oh?” She fastened the jumpsuit, asking casually, “So what’s involved? I dress in black leather and smack your sweet little ass with a whip?”
Oddly, he was the one who seemed to feel offended here. “In case you haven’t caught on, I’m not exactly a submissive.”
“Is that your fancy city word for a wimp? ’Cause I’m not sure I’m taking your word for that.”
The impulse to push her back against the door and rip her clothes off again just to prove it, or maybe to shut her up, was almost overwhelming. Thankfully he was civilized enough not to give in to it.
But he was very much afraid he wasn’t kidding about the mistress gig. God, he wanted her in bed, teaching her a lesson or two…no matter who she was.
“You’ve got a smart mouth, Vanessa. Perhaps we should put it to better use.”
“Bring it on, handsome.”
“You talk tough. I wonder how tough you really are.”
“Tougher than you could possibly imagine.”
“So? Do we have a deal?”
She laughed again. “Mistress. What is that job category? A step up from whore?”
“Better paid.” He tossed out a sum, winging it here.
“Whoeeee! That’s a lot of money. Nicer name than whore too. But no thanks, Mr. Big Shot.”
“Why not? You’ve already auditioned for the role.”
“What the hell do you mean by that? You’re the one who grabbed me first. I wasn’t auditioning for anything. I just got sort of—whatever. I like a good fuck as well as anybody else. You think just because I’m not a guy that’s not true?”
“Yeah. You’re quite the feminist. Anyway, the offer’s open all week. I’m evacuating this rig and you and I are going to be on the first helicopter out. Once we land, you can go where you want, but I’m going to the Four Seasons and that’s where I’ll be if you change your mind. You know where that is, don’t you?” he said pointedly. “So think about it.”
He’d wait to call her on the Shelly thing.
Until she accepted his offer.
Chapter Four
“Hi there, Pops.” Vanny leaned in to kiss her father’s grizzled cheek lightly.
“Vanessa!” He’d taken to calling her that lately, instead of the Vanny she had always gone by, and she worried sometimes that he was confusing her with her mother. But she had enough to worry about as it was, so she generally let it go.
“Surprised to see me?”
She nodded to the gray-haired Mrs. Feldman, the caretaker.
“Well, yeah. What about work?” He spun the wheels of his chair furiously, apparently in an attempt to get closer to her as she went to the fridge, but he only succeeded in making a quick circle with his chair. “Damn thing.”
“You’ll get the hang of it, Pops.”
“Did something happen on the rig? Why are you home after only a week?”
She took out the milk and got a glass.
She considered lying. It was what she should have done. But the bond she and her father shared had always precluded that. Even if she tried, he would know when she wasn’t being straight with him.
“I got fired.”
“Oh no, girlie,” he said softly. “My poor little girl.”
She sat at the table, straightening its red-checkered tablecloth in the process, and poured her glass of milk. “Oh stop, Pops. I’ll get another job. It’s no big deal.”
He wheeled his chair up next to her. “What happened? Were you still digging around in this whole mess?”
“No, I wasn’t. Honest. But it sort of got back to me anyway. There was this hotshot on the rig, one of the, well, actually the top guy from the company that bought Transcoastal and I was giving him a tour.”
“Oh no, honey. Did you mouth off to him?”
“Uh, duh?”
Her father shook his still-full head of hair, much like O’Malley had his balding one when she’d actually been doing it.
“But that’s not what got me fired. Actually, this guy, this Michael Reynolds, was pretty fair about that. But just when I was starting to feel not so bad about him, I found a bomb, right in the corner of the galley, and he was with me.”
Her father’s face lost color.
“He disarmed it before I could stop him.”
“Why the hell would you stop him?”
She took a swig of the milk. “I mean before I could take a look at it and do it myself. And then, well, once he had, he jumped the gun and assumed I’d planted it.”
“Because of your relationship to me.”
“No!”
Lying to her dad didn’t work any better than it usually did.
“This is all my fault,” he said. “What is going on on that damn rig?”
“How could it be your fault any more than it’s mine? You didn’t tamper with those valves and I didn’t plant the bomb and that’s that. I’m glad we’re done with Transcoastal. Whatever’s going on there has nothing to do with you and me. We can start fresh, somewhere else.”
“I could never leave. You know why.”
“She’s dead, Pops! Not visiting her grave every chance you get isn’t going to change that.”
“I wish you had known her.”
She stood up abruptly. He’d never talked about her mother before. She sure as hell didn’t want him to start now.
He grabbed her hand and she was startled at how white and thin and bony his felt. “We got to get you well, Pops. We have to.”
“Don’t you worry about me, little girl. You worry about you.”
Mrs. Feldman harrumphed. “I need to get paid, Vanny. If you lost your job, I’m not going to be able to come here. And what about your father’s medical bills? Since his health insurance got cancelled too, who’s going to pay for those? Because you know your father needs—”
“That’s enough,” her father cut in, sounding firm and strong and more like his old self. “This is between my daughter and me. You stay out of it.”
“I will if I get paid, you old coot!”
Vanny smiled and then brought her father’s hand to her cheek for just a second, reveling in how much she loved this one person. Even if she never got to love anybody else, at least she had Pops.
“You’ll get paid, Mrs. Feldman.” She dropped her father’s hand. “There’re plenty of rigs around. With my skills, I’ll get another job, no problem.”
Mrs. Feldman regarded her suspiciously, but Pops smiled. “My Vanny can do anything she puts her mind to.”
She wondered if that was quite true. If she had to put her mind to being Michael Reynolds’ mistress, could she?
* * * * *
Vanny spent the first few days she was home making some discreet calls out of her father’s hearing to a few fellow roughnecks, trying to feel around for a job on another rig. All the answers came back the same. Unless she could get a recommendation from Transcoastal and an explanation endorsed by them as to why she’d left, no other company would touch her.
From the time she had started working, she’d never been without a job. And she didn’t like the feeling. Bills that seemed harmless when a paycheck was coming in on the other end suddenly took on an ominous significance. She scanned the mortgage bill for the ranch house and did some quick calculations. There wasn’t much wiggle room in how long she could keep paying it.
When an overnight letter came for her father, she looked at it dubiously.
“From Transco
astal,” she muttered as Pops looked on. “If they’re going to sue you, I swear to God—”
She ripped open the letter and read the first paragraph. “Oh.”
“What is it? I don’t have my glasses. Tell me.”
She read, “‘Upon further consideration of the incident on the Treasure Driller on…’ Yeah, yeah, okay, here it is… ‘We have decided to reopen the investigation and pending results of that investigation may reinstate all pension and medical coverage for you, Mr. Donald. Please be advised as well that—’”
She continued reading, but silently.
“What? What else?”
“Just a bunch of legalese. No guarantees, blah blah blah.”
“Well, now. There you go. Transcoastal is a good company. Always has been. It just had bad folks running it for this last little bit of time. Didn’t I tell you that the sale wouldn’t be such a sorry thing? There couldn’t be any worse set of crooks than the crew that was in there anyway.”
“Jury’s still out on that.” Heading to the computer, she brought up her father’s banking information, not that there was much good news there.
“See, things are turning around,” Pops said from his chair behind her. “Maybe they’ll give you your old job back too.”
“Don’t count on it.”
On impulse, she brought up her own banking information and looked at the recent deposit from Transcoastal. Her last check. But right after it, today in fact, there was another deposit, this time from Michael Reynolds. Of course he’d have access to her banking records from Transcoastal. It was the sum he’d named to her on the rig. The whole sum.
“Cocky bastard,” she muttered, staring at the bank balance.
It would take care of a lot of her immediate problems. Ones he’d caused in the first place anyway. Maybe hold them over until Pops got his pension back and she could somehow get another job.
She should just keep the money and let him shove his insulting offer up his ass.
Or maybe she’d tell him off to his face.
Or maybe…
She headed to her room.
“Vanny, where you going?”
“To clean up. And then I’m going into the city.”
“But where will you be?”
She shut the door on her father’s questions.
This sure as hell wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with Pops, no matter which way she came out on it.
By the time she made it to the Transcoastal headquarters in the center of the “loop” that formed the freeway system around Houston, it was late afternoon. And no one should be outside in late afternoon in Houston. It was too damn hot. She didn’t have to glance at the thermostat in Pops’ dependable old truck to know that. She parked in an underground parking lot to avoid the heat, but had to walk the equivalent of a few blocks in one of the many underground tunnels that crisscrossed the city to get to the building.
Standing in the blue-marble lobby with the miniature of a ship in the center brought back uncomfortable memories. She’d been a Transcoastal employee for years and her father for years before that, but she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in this building. The last time was for her meeting with that creep Crable.
But every time she’d ever been here, even hand in hand with her Pops as a little girl, the snooty receptionist—whoever she happened to be at the time—treated her like crap. This time seemed to be no exception.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked, in a tone suggesting she meant the exact opposite—may you get the hell out of my fancy building so that I do not have to help you?
“I’d like to, ah…” This was going to sound ridiculous. She should have just gone to the Four Seasons, like he’d said to, but somehow that had seemed as if it’d be a capitulation she wasn’t sure she was going to make…yet.
But she suddenly realized she would never be let up to see the CEO. There were probably all kinds of complicated rules about who got to go up to the executive suite and see the CEO and who knew what else.
She started to turn away when the receptionist called out, “Wait! Are you by any chance Vanessa Donald?”
She turned around. “Huh?”
The receptionist glanced down at her desk then back up at her. “I have a picture of you here, but it’s from your file. It’s not very good.” Nice to see some things never changed.
“You are Vanessa Donald, correct?”
Oh no. Vanny looked around wildly for the security guards she was sure were about to burst out of nowhere. Was she even banned from the building because she’d been fired for sabotage? Maybe they did that. Maybe they wouldn’t prosecute her father, but Michael Reynolds would prosecute her.
Of course, the mistress thing didn’t fit in too well with that theory.
But maybe he’d been making fun of her.
When she looked back, the receptionist was murmuring into the phone. “Yes, it’s her… What? I can’t leave my post. I can’t— Yes, of course, Miss Prentiss.”
She hung up and came around the big oak reception desk. The girl was so swanky in her fitted black-and-white checked dress that Vanny regretted her decision not to dress up. Next to the well-dressed receptionist, she felt frumpy in her low-slung jeans and sleeveless white shirt over a tank top-style tee.
“I’m to bring you up, Miss Donald,” she said, sounding positively meek.
“Up?”
“To the executive suite. Right this way.” She showed her to an elevator in the corner of the lobby that Vanny had never noticed before. The receptionist waved a key card around her neck in the general direction of the elevator door and it opened. “I’m one of the few people around here who has access to this elevator.” Some of her sudden meekness fell away with the reminder of her important elevator status.
Both of them remained silent for the quick trip up fifty-five floors to the only stop this elevator made. The executive floor at the very top of the building.
When the door opened, Vanny was greeted by yet another polished female who put her to shame.
“Miss Prentiss!” the receptionist cried in surprise. “You didn’t have to get up. I could have brought her in.”
“That’ll be fine, Jill. You may return to your desk.” Miss Prentiss—a stunning brunette with shiny hair piled in a perfect chignon—took Vanny’s arm and led her down the carpeted hall.
She glanced back as the elevator door closed on a still-open-mouthed Jill.
“These offices are a touch garish, I know,” Miss Prentiss confided with a gesture toward the ornate paintings on the walls. “Mr. Reynolds likes a more modern look, but we haven’t had time to do any redecorating. So much to do. And we’re only here half the time at most. We spend the other half in New York. Sometimes London.”
Vanny had absolutely no idea what to say to that. “Oh.”
Miss Prentiss ushered her into a lavish suite, probably twice the size of Pop’s ranch house. “Is this his office?” Vanny couldn’t help asking.
“Oh no. This is my office. Please have a seat.” She pointed toward a bank of maroon leather couches. “Mr. Reynolds is in a meeting, but he’s instructed me to interrupt if you should arrive. I took it upon myself to get you up here first before I actually went into the meeting and informed him. I hope you don’t mind.”
Vanny stared at her. Leave it to Michael Reynolds to have a Stepford Secretary.
“No, I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, if he’s busy, maybe I should come back some other time.”
“Oh no, please don’t do that.” The slightly higher intonation in Miss Prentiss’ smooth voice was the only indication that the suggestion may have upset her, or upset her as much as a Stepford Secretary could get upset. The woman looked at her now as if considering whether she might bolt. “Please sit down,” she urged.
Taking pity on the poor woman, Vanny did.
“Now, you’ll stay right there, won’t you? If you’re gone when I come out—”
“He docks you
r wages?”
“Please, Miss Donald. I’ll only be a minute.”
Vanny had no idea who Michael’s secretary thought she was.
Actually, probably exactly who she was. Mistress in training, job offer extended but not yet accepted, not quite on the hook.
“No rush,” she said.
While the woman was gone, Vanny got up again, hoping it didn’t trigger some secret alarm, and walked around the office. There were a bunch of photographs on the wall. Michael Reynolds with a past president or two. Michael Reynolds with an older man who must be his father. Famous faces were in nearly every picture. She had known his family was filthy rich, but she hadn’t really let their influence sink in yet.
“Gentlemen.” Miss Prentiss emerged from wherever she had entered with a passel of Japanese men in business suits. She said something to them in what Vanny thought was that language, but couldn’t be sure, and they bowed and left.
“Right this way, Miss Donald.”
Vanny’s chin went up as the other woman led her into another office, even bigger than the adjoining one, with floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls. A corner office, as they said.
Michael Reynolds wasn’t in it though.
She looked at Miss Prentiss in confusion.
“Mr. Reynolds is waiting for you in there.” She indicated yet another door.
“Okay.”
And then, surprising her, Miss Prentiss left, closing the office door behind her.
Feeling ridiculous, Vanny opened the door she’d indicated and found not another office but a—
Oh. That figured.
“You’ve got a bedroom attached to your office?” She closed the door behind her. “I guess that’s what they call a perk.”
Michael Reynolds was standing at the one large window in this room, his back to her, his jacket off and a drink in his hand. He finished the drink and turned around.
God. Why did he have to be so fucking sexy?
“Miss Donald. How nice.”
They stared at each other and then he helped himself to another drink from a bottle of whiskey by the enormous bed. “This room wasn’t my idea. My predecessor was a real lech apparently.”
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