by Mia Caldwell
* * *
“You asked to see me?” Coppersmith grinned, popping his head into my office. At the behest of my nod, he happily let himself in through the doorway, closing the door behind himself and strolling over to sit down in front of my desk. I’d never seen him so jovial before today, and it put a sickening pit in the depths of my stomach.
I, meanwhile, was standing at the window, surveying the sight of the buildings across the street. It would likely be the last time that I had this particular view.
“I would like some answers,” I remarked calmly.
“Well, whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t play stupid with me,” my voice snapped. A cough started to sputter from my lips. I quickly dabbed at them with my handkerchief, wishing to continue on with the discussion. Unfortunately, the effect had already been lost, and my opponent did not seem bothered in the slightest.
“Such a nasty cough,” he observed. “You should probably get that checked out, you know. Might be indicative of something that’s more…serious.”
“You and I both know the truth,” I replied.
“And what is that truth?”
I wasn’t playing this game with him. “I’m not going to say it again, you old, ungrateful bastard,” I explained in no uncertain terms as I turned to face him. “Don’t play stupid with me.”
“Very well then,” he wickedly grinned. “Word is that the king is dying, and the castle will be left woefully unguarded. In fact, judging by the paleness of his face…I’m inclined to believe that the king is dying perhaps a bit ahead of schedule?”
Of course he can see that, I angrily observed.
“It is always such a shame when one so young, so capable, dies before meeting one’s prime,” Coppersmith remarked with a carefree, aloof air. “Tell me, what is your contingency in this matter? Surely you have some sort of plan in mind? Not that it’ll matter in the long run, really.”
“What are you doing to my staff?” I demanded to know.
“You should answer my question first,” the ancient windbag smugly remarked. “It’s only polite, you know. Respecting one’s elders.”
“I sign your checks, old man.”
“Amusingly, it is I who has the luxury of time.”
I glared him down, and his ridiculous grin stretched even wider across his lips. Before I could reply, a coughing fit racked me again, and I pressed a palm down against the desk to steady myself as I withstood a tremendously painful burst of rapid, staggering coughs. My lungs whipped into a furious blaze, the fire flickering up my raw esophagus; my shoulders rocked as my throat struggled desperately for air.
All the while, Coppersmith simply relaxed in his chair, delighting in the front-row seat to my suffering. The smugness was still evident across his face, but his snarky smile slow slid away. Instead, he simply dared to look bored, as if annoyed that I still breathed at all.
I pulled my handkerchief back from my lips, horrified at the sight of bright, copious blood. As I recognized the metallic taste in my mouth, Coppersmith simply sighed.
“You’re on your last days,” he observed calmly. “Not much longer now, is it?”
“What is it that you want?” I demanded between groans. “Whatever you’re doing…why? Haven’t I treated you fairly? Haven’t I bent over backwards to please you?”
Coppersmith leaned in closely, every pretense gone from his sagging, ancient face. There was nothing but cold, dark fury in his eyes as his timbre met a deep growl.
“What do I want, you ask?”
I silently watched him.
“I want every trace of you gone, and my son’s rightful place in this company – his legacy – restored to the proper balance. I want you dead and buried while his work lives on.”
“Your son is dead,” I told him, “and I have dedicated my life to putting his dreams to reality. I have committed every waking hour to lifting his ideas to fruition, and I offered you a place here to honor him. Everything I have done, I did for Hunter. How do you not see that?”
“LIES!” He shrieked, swiping his gnarled arm across the desk and knocking papers, folders, and ornaments to a clatter against the floor. “You dare lie to Devin J. Coppersmith? You bastardized him! You stole from him! You were there! You should have saved him! But no, you filthy, degenerate son of a whore, you weren’t there when he needed you, and in death you betrayed him, you thieving scum!”
“You honestly believe this complete and total fucking bullshit, don’t you?” I asked, my thoughts a mixture of horror and disappointment. “He willed me his work, he asked that I continue it. What sort of depraved monster must you be to punish me for honoring his wishes?”
“It’s a forgery! You put him up to it! Maybe you’re the one who tied the fucking noose.”
I saw Coppersmith for the first time then and there, who he really was. I knew he was still in pain, and he always would be; it was clear as day that he clung to the memory of his son. But I never dreamed that he would fall so low as to blame me for any of this.
Whatever petty little cloud he had cast over the staff, it was born out of this irrational hatred. I should have seen it sooner. I should have known that he was a poisonous firecracker, desperate to set off a chain reaction to undermine me somehow. I still needed answers, and I didn’t have nearly enough information to understand what he was doing, but he was right…
I’m on my last days.
And what little I had left needed to be dedicated to the buyout. Alphonse Megami was coming soon, and I needed my attention there, focused entirely on preparing for his arrival, not sitting here with this broken man.
Everything hinged on Megami…
If Coppersmith ever knew…
But I was coughing now, pushing down against the desk again to steady my shaking shoulders. The handkerchief was held against my lips, and the metallic taste revisiting my tongue silenced any desperate hope that I wouldn’t see fresh blood on the stained fabric.
“But all of it, everything that you’ve done…it doesn’t particularly matter anymore, does it, Mr. Andrews? Karma is, after all, a bitch.”
Coppersmith stood up straight in front of me, straightening his tie as well. A cool smugness descended upon his stony features as he glanced down upon me with the sort of power that comes only with complete self-righteousness.
“As it turns out, I don’t even need to lift a finger to remove you from the picture…you’re just going to collapse all on your own. And after I’m done burying you, as I did with my son…I will not rest until your legacy is wiped clean, and the true inheritor takes his place…”
I glared him down with renewed understanding as he walked back across my office towards the door. As he placed his hand on the doorknob, he turned one last time to face me, his face a disgusting mockery of sincerity.
“By the way, Cole...conserve your strength. Take it from an old man – it wouldn’t exactly do wonders for morale if you dropped dead while roaming the halls.”
(Back to Table of Contents)
Chapter 27
Kiona
Three Days Later
The tension was palatable in the air, constricting around our throats with every passing day. As the days ticked by, Cole conserved his strength, revising the preparations over and over. We ultimately settled on entertaining our guest in the penthouse for an intimate meeting – just the three of us.
Cole still hadn’t told me much about the mysterious businessman. It was only through prying that I learned his name at all – Alphonse Megami, the head of the large and powerful Megami Corporation.
Suddenly, things made sense. Of course I knew the Megami Corporation. They weren’t a major player stateside, but their name was stamped on a lot of consumer grade electronics, appliances, and other various things like that. They didn’t have much of a presence here, but they could benefit from setting up shop here in New York…but why an e-commerce agency?
Clearly they weren’t after the marketing department... Megami wanted Co
le’s secret weapon, the one Hunter had left him when he died.
“I need to know more about him,” I told my billionaire husband over sautéed cod during dinner one night. “If I’m going to help you convince this guy, you’re going to have to educate me. I can’t improvise properly with little to no information.”
Cole took a bite of his seasoned fish, chewing a few times while he thought. He swallowed, and then chased the bite with a sip of wine.
“Our guest is a very powerful man,” he started to explain. “He was born Alphonse Robinson and raised in Harlem many years ago; he was but a young boy during the Second World War. This was, of course, prior to the Civil Rights Movement, and his schooling was somewhat complicated…but the boy had a keen eye for business. Unfortunately, opportunities were not very open to him here, but he found a place that would accept him – Tokyo.”
“Wait, Megami isn’t Japanese? He’s black?”
“That’s right,” Cole answered. “You see, Japan in the world after World War II was seen as a bastion that stood against the dominance of white culture in the world. While African Americans faced social injustice here, Japan offered something else. Acceptance. Opportunity. It offered a place in society – a proper place.
“When Alphonse Robinson was old enough, he found a way across the world. Arriving in Japan, he lived on the streets briefly before securing a foothold in Japanese society, gradually overcoming the language barrier and integrating. He was a bit of a novelty at the time – the runaway black student who had come to Japan to learn.”
“Sounds a little like a certain Runaway Tycoon I know,” I teased Cole.
“I had it lucky. I obtained my power with a set plan. Alphonse, on the other hand, had to work his way up from the bottom. As post-occupied Japan underwent an economic and educational revolution, he found a place in the business world, pulling himself up the ranks as viciously and quickly as possible. At the same time, he fully invested himself into Japanese culture, even choosing the Japanese surname Megami for himself.
“Throughout this time, he was known for two things, most of all: a reputation for getting results and revolutionizing departments, and for being merciless and absolutely cutthroat. To do business with Alphonse Robinson was to deal with the Devil…
“He was a brilliant chessmaster…and he learned very quickly. When he inevitably set out on his own, he put in the blood, sweat, and tears to forge a place for his own empire, one significantly larger than mine could have ever been…and he made sound business purchases. Through his hard work and dedication, the Megami Corporation succeeded, growing into the multi-conglomerate that it is today.”
“And this is the man you want me to impress.”
“That Alphonse is not the man you will meet,” Cole reassured me. “After decades of success and destroying everything in his path to achieve his goals, he reinvented himself into the image of a gentile old man. Taking up philosophy in his spare time, he rules with an iron fist through several appointed Presidents to his smaller companies, and simply helms it all from atop his tower, where he can afford to be publicly kind and charitable…”
“So he’s some kind of wise-man?” I asked.
“No, the man you will meet is a stocky, sanctimonious windbag who feels that his opinion in the room is the only one that matters…and a complete hypocrite who insists on business with traditional men, although he is absolutely nothing of the sort.”
“You despise him?” I asked thoughtfully, sipping my glass of water. He was lost deep in thought at my question. “No,” I corrected myself. “You respect him.”
“I respect all that he has accomplished,” Cole replied, taking a bite of steamed asparagus, “but as for him in particular…he has been a thorn in my side. He’s kept a simple negotiation from going smoothly, and insists on this charade. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s how he amuses himself now.”
I bit into my salmon again, nodding. “It sounds like maybe that’s just what he is.”
“What’s that?” Cole snapped his attention my way.
“Someone who is always looking for a shake-up, something out of the ordinary…I mean, what do you want when you have that much power? I’d like to think that, from what you’ve told me, he’s an intelligent and resourceful man…maybe he just likes to screw around with powerful people when he knows he can.”
Cole grew stern. “That’s probably it.”
“Unless,” I thought aloud, taking another delicious bite, “that’s not what he’s really after all along. He knows that he’s untouchable. Nobody would dare cross or question him…maybe our esteemed friend just wants a challenge.”
* * *
The rest of the week was a whirlwind of activity. It seemed like the time just rocketed past while we made our preparations for the arrival. He placed his personal driver, Gregory, on standby for the evening – the two would arrive to pick Alphonse up from his private jet, then bring him straight here to the penthouse. Cole trusted me to put together an itinerary for the following day – giving Alphonse some sights to see before heading back towards his home in Tokyo. I settled on breakfast in a fine dining restaurant not far from here, as well as a private museum visit, an early afternoon play, and thanks to touching base with Patrick, our private helicopter pilot, an aerial tour of the city.
Cole hid how poorly he was feeling – while I lay down with him at night, my head against his chest, I could hear a distant rattle in his chest. His stamina in bed was slipping; we would have to take breaks during our mind-blowing sex, and I would keep a glass of water nearby for him, or do most of the work myself. It almost felt wrong, reveling in pleasures of the flesh even as his body failed him, but he insisted that he’d never felt more alive.
And I’d never felt so satisfied.
To hell with dying. I might get hit by a bus tomorrow. Cole’s lungs might fail tonight. It didn’t matter. For now, we were together. We were going to live.
While I did my best to console and comfort him, Cole rested in his bed. He needed all of his strength for the visit, although it sounded like Alphonse Megami was already well aware of his condition.
The disease was clearly taking its toll on him, and he could no longer hide his affliction. We didn’t dare go into public for fear of the tabloids. If they snapped a picture of Cole pale as a ghost or sputtering up blood, it would start a media firestorm around the sick billionaire – the very last thing that he needed before this climactic meeting.
And before we knew it, the night in question was upon us.
But we could have never prepared ourselves for what that night was destined to bring…
(Back to Table of Contents)
Chapter 28
Kylie
While I strolled across the departments, clipboard held to my chest, everyone was getting ready to head home for the evening. With a perky smile on my face, my thoughts drifted back months in time, before any of this had happened.
I knew that Cole Andrews didn’t remember that night. It had been commonplace for me to come over to his penthouse and brainstorm his schedule with him, and he was just so handsome and so powerful. Oh god, it was so fucking sexy.
Of course, he didn’t hire me to be that kind of executive assistant. I wasn’t there to suck him off beneath his desk, although I fantasized about it all the time. I imagined what it would be like to unsheathe his thick, heavy cock from his slacks, drop down between his knees, and feel his strong fingers grasp my ginger curls, forcing my mouth to accept more of him inside…
And one night, while celebrating a particularly victorious business deal of his, I got my wish…although he was way too drunk. I could smell the liquor on his breath as I pulled close, seeing the lack of coherency in his eyes when he looked at me.
His tongue was sloppy, soaked with alcohol. I knew I was taking advantage of him. I knew that I was crossing a line. But it wasn’t my fault – it was his. Cole had seen my advances and shut them all down. He’d even threatened to fire me over them. But it was cl
ear to me that if I could just make him experience me the once, he’d see the truth.
We were meant to be together.
I had pushed him, encouraged him that night. I poured a few of his drinks, adding in a little too much alcohol. I’d even poured a little something extra in it, just to make him see things my way. It had worked, and I was in his lap and tugging at his clothes within an hour.
The feeling of his hot breath on my slickened sex was everything I’d hoped for and more. I grabbed at his tufts and pulled him close, riding his mouth until he pulled back, flipped me onto all fours, and fucked me like an animal.
I was his to do with as he pleased. Even with too much alcohol in his system, he’d been able to pummel my wet, slickened chasm into submission. With my hands pressed against the glass of his penthouse, the whole city sprawled beneath us, he fucked me like a monster uncontained.