“Don’t lump me in with you!”
“I’ll try not to take offense at that.”
“No really. All that stuff you talked about—about eating up other companies and, ah—whatever—”
“I don’t think you were listening very closely.”
“It’s not like that for me. I only want my company, my family’s company.”
He felt just the slightest twinge of irritation at her for the first time tonight. “Not everybody is born with a company, princess. Some of us have to go out and get one.”
She looked about to respond, but then stopped herself. “Let’s drop it.” She came up on her knees and looped her arms around his neck. Light feathery kisses against his jaw followed. He should let it go, he really should. She was so obviously into this. But instead, he said, “Do you do this a lot? Go home with guys you hate?”
“You’re my first.”
“The first guy you’ve hated or the first you’ve gone home with?”
“Why do you keep talking?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he muttered. “You’re bringing out the knight in shining armor in me.”
“I’m not surprised. I bring that out in all the guys.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” he groaned. “Oh, honey, you’re not too drunk to know what you’re doing, are you?” He began to kiss her neck, hoping to coax the right answer out of her, feeling as if he would die if he had to give her up tonight. When she didn’t say anything, he pulled away and prodded lightly, “Because if you are, I’d have to be a gentleman and not take advantage of you.” He had purposely phrased the option in this old-fashioned way, willing the modern businesswoman Virginia Beckett to laugh at such a condescending idea and pull him down into her arms, freeing him from any possible guilt. But to his immense and painful disappointment, she just stared at him glassily.
“Of course I’m drunk. Do you really think I’d be here with you otherwise?”
Aaron swore violently. Something about that just hit him the wrong way. Maybe he didn’t want to take advantage of her or maybe he just wanted her to know it when he did and remember it in the morning. Cutthroat robber baron or not.
“Come on, then, honey. I’ll take you home. I have a hard and fast rule against having my first mind-blowing session of sex with a girl when she’s admitted to downing copious amounts of alcohol in order to do it. We’ll try this another time.”
The room was spinning and suddenly he was pulling away from her, leaning over to pick up his discarded tuxedo jacket and drape it over her shoulders. What was he saying? She could not focus on his words.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He picked up the sleek, black cordless phone by the side of the bed. She heard him as if from a distance phone his garage and arrange for his Jaguar to be dropped off downstairs out front and the keys left with the guard in the main lobby.
“Where do you live?” he was asking her again.
“I don’t want to go home.” Smiling sleepily, ensconced in his tuxedo jacket, she rolled over back onto the bed and curled up into a fetal position on the black patterned coverlet. “I want you to kiss me again.”
“As much as I would like that,” he began, but stopped. “Did you take anything tonight, Virginia?”
“Like what?”
“Like drugs.”
The thought struck her as ridiculous. “Of course not. That’s illegal.”
“Of course.” He smiled, but when she reached her arms up for him, he held himself away. “How about for your head? Are you on something for your head that you maybe shouldn’t have mixed with the alcohol?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
For heaven’s sake, why weren’t they making love already? Fine, she’d just go to sleep.
She was starting to look much more than drunk to him. It was very odd. He believed her that she hadn’t taken anything. A girl who wouldn’t leave the scene of an accident because it was illegal was unlikely to dabble in drugs. But it finally was hitting him what her condition was reminding him of. He’d been around the bars enough when he was young and wild to know what the effects of ecstasy or GHB, liquid ecstasy, looked like, although he would’ve beaten to a pulp any bastard who he caught slipping it into a girl’s drink.
Was that what had happened to Virginia?
Bizarre as it seemed, had there been anybody in that hoity-toity charity event who might have slipped her something?
No, it was absurd. He was letting his imagination get away with him.
“Virginia.” He shook her shoulder lightly, trying to rouse her. “What’s your address, honey?” At her lack of response, he briefly considered just depositing her downstairs in her office, but rejected the idea. There might be some BFD employees still hanging around and he doubted that Virginia, once she was sober, would appreciate his having given them an opportunity to see their boss dead drunk. “Virginia?” Pulling her up by her hands, he steadied her as she came to her feet, his arms automatically reaching inside the tuxedo jacket and around her bare back, feeling the silk of her dress at the base. Her eyes came dreamily open, gray-blue in color but transparent in communicating her emotions. She wanted him, maybe as much as he wanted her.
At the knowledge, he could not resist sliding one hand forward to cup the weight of one luscious white silk-covered breast in his palm and was rewarded by Virginia arching her back instinctively, pressing her breast harder into his cupping hand. He felt an ache that was excruciatingly painful in the context of the fact that he could not have her. His hand dropped from her and he pushed her away as if he had been burned. “Come on, Virginia, help me out here.” His voice was raw with frustration. “I’m not a saint.”
Chapter Four
What on earth was he talking about? But he was already pulling her with him out of the bedroom and down the long darkened hallway to the elevator. Where the heck were they? She tried to remember.
He was still muttering. “The car should be downstairs. You can give me the address then.”
His hand firmly on one of her wrists but otherwise not touching her, they boarded the elevator and plummeted downward. She was beginning to feel a little sick.
The exchange with the guard downstairs, some keys being handed over—hadn’t this already happened?—was a blur to her as Aaron hustled her quickly out, assuring the guard, “No, no, Miss Beckett is fine, she had something to eat which didn’t agree with her. A little fresh air and she’ll be herself again.” Suddenly she was sliding onto plush green leather, Aaron fastening her seat belt and slamming the door behind her before sliding in on the other side. Then those ocean blue eyes were boring into her and his exasperated voice asked, “Do you remember your address, Virginia?”
Why was he mad at her? She reached up to touch one lean cheek, but he caught her hand in midair. “Stop it. This is hard enough.”
At her unabashedly wounded expression, Aaron regretted his tone and laid the hand he had caught gently back into her lap, leaning toward her. “Believe me, as soon as you’re sober, you can touch me all you want. And I sure as hell am going to touch you all I want, with everything I’ve got, honey. In fact, I intend to collect on every little come-hither look and word and movement you’ve sent my way all night. For now, though, we have to get you home before I lose my sanity. So where do you live?”
She seemed to concentrate for a moment, twirling a strand of her long golden hair. “Bransport,” she responded triumphantly, like a child eager to give the right answer to a demanding grown-up.
“Bransport? That’s your weekend house, right? What’s the address of your apartment here in Manhattan?” he persisted, but at her puckered expression, said, “Okay, the house is somewhere in Connecticut, right? I don’t suppose you could tell me where?” This was ridiculous. He ought to just take her back to his apartment and let her sleep it off there. They could pick up in the morning where they had left off before his gentlemanly instincts got the better of him. Unfortunately, he’d never be abl
e to keep his hands off her long enough for her to sober up if he got her back alone in his apartment.
Just as he was despairing of ever finding out from her how to take her home, she rattled off short, precise instructions on how to get to Bransport, evidently imprinted on her mind even in her sodden state from years of relating them by rote. And then she promptly fell back against the head rest, asleep. The short ride to Connecticut would do him good, he thought, as he gunned the Jaguar’s smooth motor and headed off toward I-95. He depressed the power window button, letting in a rush of brisk autumn night air, and switched on a CD, low at first so as not to wake his sleeping companion, but then louder as she barely stirred. She was so heartbreakingly beautiful, even in her sleep, the flickering lights of the highway illuminating the thick black lashes against the high cheekbones. Her full pink lips opened slightly to let the breath in and out, her hair long and disheveled against her shoulders. The seatbelt pulled the white silk of her dress against her breasts as she slept and even the tuxedo jacket that he had desperately thrown over her shoulders could not mask the exquisiteness of her form. It would be so good to see her, to see all of her, completely naked and open for him, when they got through this inconvenient little episode. Maybe the sleep would help sober her up and they could use the presumed solitude of her weekend house to continue their exploration of each other, he thought optimistically as he drove through the night.
But when he pulled into the long entranceway to Bransport, assuming the directions Virginia had given him were correct, he saw that the house was completely lit up and a dozen cars parked at the base of the driveway.
So much for solitude.
As he shut off the motor and came around the outside of the car to rouse Virginia, he determined that she was still clearly out of it.
So much for the drive sobering her up.
He heard voices from the huge brick house as he helped Virginia from the car and she leaned dreamily against him. The oak front door was open. Who the hell were all these people inside? He hoped her whole damn family wasn’t there. He tried to remember who had been at Virginia’s table at the charity event earlier that night. They were all Becketts, weren’t they? And there had seemed to be a lot of them.
He scanned the spacious hall entranceway which was filled with young kids, most of them teenagers, maybe some in their early twenties at most. Glancing at the circular stairway, Virginia’s arm casually around his waist, her head resting against his shoulder, he pondered whether to put Virginia to bed upstairs himself or try to locate an appropriate person to help. He was starting to worry that Virginia may have given him the wrong directions and that they were now in God knew whose house, when a young girl clad in a gold lame dress, clearly a Beckett, appeared.
“Virginia,” the pretty blonde girl began in a rush. “I know what you’re going to say, but this is our house too and if Mindy and I want to have a little impromptu party with our friends, then we’re allowed, aren’t we? Besides, you weren’t even supposed to be here tonight. You told me you were staying in Manhattan.” The girl got the whole speech out in what appeared to be a frantic, but normal for her, pace, before she realized that Virginia was not listening to her in the least. The girl’s eyes did a dramatic inventory of the scene before her. “Who are you?” she challenged Aaron.
“Who are you?” he countered, weary of this whole matter, almost wishing he had never met the delectable Virginia Beckett.
“I’m Missy Beckett. Virginia’s sister.”
“I’m Aaron Winston.”
“Aaron Winston?” the girl squealed with delight, clapping her little hands together. “I love it! Just what is going on here? Oh, I wish Mindy hadn’t gone out to buy more beer. She’ll never believe this!”
Her enthusiasm was bizarre, but it was undoubtedly better than the reception he would have gotten from the older sisters or Virginia’s brother. This one just seemed to think the situation was a great opportunity for amusement. Oddly enough, he felt a little protective of Virginia. “Nothing is going on. Your sister had too much to drink and I offered her a lift home. Do you want to help her up to her room?”
“No, no, no, wait a minute,” Missy gushed, laughing, her green eyes sparkling, clearly trying to figure out what she considered to be an immensely enjoyable puzzle. “First, Virginia does not drink—”
“So I’ve heard,” Aaron interjected caustically.
“And second, what was she doing with you? Last I saw of her, she was at that charity ball and then she was gone. You know, we all thought…well Virginia, she’s probably gone back to the office for some reason, some worry or whatever must have popped into her head and she went back to the office to take care of it. But now you show up with her!” Missy concluded her dizzying soliloquy as if with a closing argument to some unknown jury. “And then why bring her here? Why not bring her to her apartment?”
It was exhausting just to listen to this girl rattle on at her amazing speed of conversation. “Do you mind if we don’t discuss this down here in the hallway? I think Virginia is about to drop. Can we get her upstairs to her room?”
“Okay, okay,” the girl conceded giddily, taking Virginia’s arm and leading the three of them so linked, one on either side of Virginia, up the long, gold carpeted circular stairways. The crowd of kids milling downstairs continued to chat animatedly and dance to the loud background rock music, evidently not noticing that their hostess had left their midst.
“Virginia, drunk! I never thought I’d see it!” Missy didn’t stop talking the whole way down the corridor to the bedroom at the end, which must have been Virginia’s. “This is so great! Brendan will never believe me! I told him he should come to our party, but he was so anxious to get that Linda, or whatever her name was, in bed that he wouldn’t even consider it.”
How strange that this open, bubbly girl should be Virginia’s sister. “Will he ever be sorry when he hears about this!” She switched on the overhead light, brightly illuminating a massive, ice-blue room, tasteful but cold, no knickknacks or folksy touches anywhere. A darkened alcove to the side appeared to be some kind of exercise room. “Boy, is the perfect Miss Virginia going to get an ear-load from me tomorrow morning!” Despite her cavalier words, her manner was gentle as they laid Virginia down on the king-sized bed.
Aaron oddly felt obliged to come to Virginia’s defense, as he stood looking uneasily at her prone form, with Missy at his elbow beaming at him expectantly. “Don’t be too hard on her. Everybody needs to let off a little steam now and again. Besides, she’s had a lot of pressure on her lately, hasn’t she?”
“You ought to know.” Missy gestured at him triumphantly. “It’s all been about that crazy stuff with the stock you bought from Aunt Winifred. Virginia was livid! She hates your guts, you know.” He winced a little at that, frowning down at the beautiful passed-out woman. “Or she did, anyway. That’s why this is so weird. How did you happen to give her a ride home? I heard you were at that charity thing, but Virginia left so early.”
Before she could draw the obvious conclusion, Aaron said smoothly, “Virginia did go to her office, but it so happens that I have an apartment in that building.”
“You’re kidding me?” Missy interrupted. “What a coincidence.”
“And I happened to see Virginia trying to get a cab,” he continued. “She looked a bit, well, like this…” He gestured toward Virginia. “So I thought I’d give her a lift. It was the least I could do. She wanted to come here. That’s all there was to it. Now, don’t you think you should get her out of those clothes?”
“Not with you standing here, I don’t. Unless,” she said, regarding him teasingly but suspiciously, “there’s something you left out of your little narrative?”
“Come on. You don’t think I’d jump a woman in this condition, do you?” he asked this impudent girl indignantly, as if he had not come dangerously close to doing that very thing with Virginia. Why not be blunt with this Missy? For all her fresh-faced looks, her conversation s
uggested that she had been around the block maybe more than her supposedly sophisticated businesswoman sister.
“You could jump me in any condition,” she countered saucily, her hands on her slim hips.
Startled at first, he saw that she was still just teasing and he laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She was a pert little thing. Sexy, he noted, his eyes running down her scantily gold clad body. No doubt about it. But there was only one Beckett woman he was interested in and she was oblivious to the world right now. “I guess I should go and leave you to your sister. Good night.” He headed out of the room and down the stairs, but she was after him in an instant.
“Wait a minute, maybe you could stop by tomorrow, play a little tennis? I’m sure Virginia would want to thank you for all this personally.”
Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she does.
But he just said, “Maybe I’ll do that.”
He was halfway back to Manhattan when he realized he couldn’t stop thinking about Virginia. And, disturbingly, not just about sex with her. Although he was thinking about that a good deal as well. Her unguarded way of laughing tonight, her earnest declaration that she needed to make her dead loved ones proud…all the details of her personality that whatever she had ingested allowed to slip out tonight kept coming back to him. It occurred to him that when she wasn’t fighting with him, Virginia Beckett seemed like somebody he could maybe enjoy a walk in the country with or just talking to. She was funny and feisty and…
He roared the Jag into a higher gear, confident the ever-vigilant I-95 cops were already asleep in their patrol cars or else at the twenty-four-hour donut shop. Jesus, a walk in the country! Cue in the violins, Winston. He had learned a long time ago that the only company he could really count on was his own. And he was fine with that.
Although, maybe after they fucked tomorrow, they could take a walk around the grounds or get a bite to eat in the nearest town or…
Executive Perks Page 9