Pleasure My Lustful Heart: A Romance Novella

by Geena Maxon

  “Why didn’t he say something?” he said. “How did he let this happen?”

  “I could try to explain it, but it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

  Gregg was already on a different tack. “Maybe we can take what you have left and add it to what I have left, and come up with a number Higginson will accept,” he said quickly. “He’d still be getting the Porteous reputation. which is important to him.”

  “We won’t have that money. We’ll have use it to pay our workers.” I said. “Besides, my father doesn’t want a merger.”

  “A merger is his last hope.”

  “He doesn’t care. He signed that check for Uncle Aaron because he thought that would make you back off the merger plan.”

  “Why did he think that?”

  It pained me to answer, but I had to be truthful. “Pa thought if most of the money was gone, you’d lose interest in the company.’

  “And in you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No. Never.” I thought this would be a good time for him to kiss me, as a sort of romantic seal of approval, but he didn’t move to do it. Well, I thought, he has a lot on his mind.

  We drank the wine in our glasses, then finished the rest of the bottle while we took the situation apart, piece by piece, grasping for answers. The alcohol made me feel better, but it didn’t help my thinking any. I wanted the problems to go away. I wanted to serve up my spaghetti dinner, find comfort with Gregg, and get serious about the future in the morning. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

  But when dinner was done Gregg said he had to leave, that he needed some space to mull over the options. I couldn’t imagine what options he was talking about. Seemed to me we were all out of options.

  His good night kiss was less than passionate. “That wasn’t your best effort,” I told him at the elevator, “but after all, you did take quite a knock upside the head.”

  “That explains it, but it doesn’t excuse it,” he said, and gave me another kiss, long, hot, and wet . Not too bad, but I did have to prompt him to get it. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” And he was gone.

  It had been some kind of day. Life doesn’t get more complicated than this, I thought.

  But I was wrong.

  CHAPTER 13

  The first thing I did at the factory in the morning was to check our cash balance with Jason Dunay, manager of the First National Bank branch where we kept our business account. I was startled by what he told me.

  “Your uncle Aaron Porteous was in yesterday afternoon to transfer money from your business account into his account,” he said.

  “He moved business money?”

  “Yes. He presented a check for two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And you honored it?” I said.

  “It was signed by your father, and the signature appeared rather shaky. We were careful. We did our due diligence. Aaron Porteous told us about your father's stroke, and we sent our Ms. Hammond to Mercy General to see him and validate his signature. She said he was quite clear about moving the money. ”

  “So how much is left in the Porteous Limited account?”

  “A bit more than seventeen thousand dollars.”

  I was so stunned I could barely speak. “I’ll get back to you on this, Mr. Dunay.” I asked Henrietta if Uncle Aaron had written a company check yesterday. She said no, but he took a blank check from the checkbook, telling her that Pa had asked for one.

  Uncle Aaron was waiting for me when I hurried to the cutting room. “Kit, I can tell by the look on your face. Let me save you from having to ask. Yes, I transferred the money. The business is going to fail, and I want to get out with something to show for so many years on the job. It’s not much, but at least it’s a little something. This company owes me.” His expression turned dark. “Sidney always got the lion’s share of everything. A big salary, a big house, a big car. But never yours truly. So I took what I could, while I could.”

  “How did you get Pa to sign the check?”

  “I told him the truth, that if we had no money in the bank, your boyfriend —what’s his name? —Monsell, would leave you alone. And the company was going to fail in any case. He believes Monsell just wants to use our money. That’s why he signed.”

  “Pa isn’t thinking straight. You know he isn’t himself. You took advantage of him. What you told him isn’t true, and it doesn’t even make sense.”

  “He signed the check,” Uncle Aaron said gently, but with a tone of finality.

  “We’re trying to save the company, and we need the money.”

  “The company is too far gone to be saved. It’ll soon be in bankruptcy, and we’ll all be out.”

  “If we are, the court will make you give the money to our creditors.”

  “Maybe. I’ll take my chances. Sorry.” He leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek, but I turned and walked angrily back to Pa’s office.

  I had expected Gregg to call all morning, but I’d heard nothing from him. When I phoned his office at noon to give him the dreadful news, they told me he hadn’t come in yet. I was about to try his cell phone number, when he walked into the office, all smiles.

  “I think we have a chance,” he said. “I’ve been on the phone all morning trying to find what’s the least amount of money we’d need to do the Higginson deal. I think if we put the Porteous cash together with the Superior cash, we just might be able to show him we can play with the big boys. And if creditors know we have a good thing going, they'll give us more time.”

  I couldn’t let him go on. I had to tell him. His smile faded in an instant, and as I told him what had happened, he slumped into a chair as though in slow motion. “Just can’t seem to catch a break,” he said. “I’m all out of ideas.”

  I closed the office door to give us some privacy. “I have an idea. Two ideas, actually.” Gregg stared straight ahead as I talked. He looked beaten. “First, I’ve decided that Pa shouldn’t make decisions, the way he is. He signed that check for Uncle Aaron yesterday without even knowing what it was for. I have his power of attorney, and I’ll try to get that money back. But whether I do or not, I’ll approve the merger myself. I know Pa is dead set against it, and scares me to death, but I’ll do it. It’s my responsibility now.”

  “Without the money, there’s no sense trying to merge,” Gregg said.

  “Here’s my other idea,” I told him. “This one is for you. You own the cabin, and all that waterfront, on Lake Wiley. You told me people keep trying to buy it from you. It’s worth a lot, right?”

  “Sell the property?” he said. “I promised my dad I’d never sell it. It’s his legacy.”

  “Your uncle isn’t here any more. You’re in charge now. You have to make the decisions.”

  “It was a deathbed wish. He trusted me.”

  “What would he say about it if he were here today? If there was a chance to save his company, don’t you think he’d take it?”

  “I can’t go back on my word.”

  I was astonished. Here was the man who swore he loved me, and was ready to move heaven and earth to make his plan a reality. Now he says he has to keep his promise to someone who’s dead and buried. Yet he has no reservations about asking me to do precisely what my father said not to do. “Do you want the merger to happen?” I said. “I do.”

  “We’ll find some other place to get the money.” The way he said it, I could tell he didn’t believe it. He believed we were at the end of the road.

  I sat behind Pa’s desk. I wasn’t ready to give up, not just yet. “Do you remember telling me about you and your men getting ambushed that night in Afghanistan, and what a frightening situation you were in.”

  Gregg glared at me. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It was desperate. It took courage to take charge and get your men out of there alive.”

  “So what are you saying ?”

  “I’m saying let’s see some of that courage now. Do what ha
s to be done.” I was sorry I said it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Bad idea, wrong words. I was questioning his manliness, which was a stupid thing to do to the man you’ve been sleeping with. I tried to make it right, but I made it worse. “What I mean is that if you’ll only try —“

  “I know what you mean,” he said. He stood and left the office, never looking back.

  CHAPTER 14

  Yes, I regretted what I’d said, but I was angry, too. I’d earned the right to say what was on my mind. I’d been working with Gregg to make the merger happen, right from the beginning. Now I hurt his feelings? He’d have to get over it. I didn’t go after him as he left Pa’s office. Let him think about it on his own.

  I felt I had to tell Pa what was happening, even though I wasn't sure he'd understand it in his condition. After all, he’d invested his whole adult life in Porteous Limited, and the company was about to disappear. I wanted him to know I’d do my best to save it. I told him Uncle Aaron had lied to him, and taken money fraudulently, and I’d try to get it back. And so far as my relationship with Gregg was concerned — that was my decision to make, one way or another. I’m a grown woman, damn it, with my own life to live. Only I wouldn’t say damn it to Pa.

  At the hospital, I sat by Pa’s bed, trying to lay it all out for him. His eyes were focused on me as I talked, and I was certain he understood what I told him. When I said we were still trying to put together a last-minute merger, he nodded his head. "Do it," he managed to say. He'd been lying there thinking for days, now. He understood he couldn’t manage the company any more. He was telling me to make the decisions.

  I may have won the battle, but lost the war. Gregg didn’t call me, and I couldn’t reach him. His cell phone was taking messages, and nobody at Superior Apparel seemed to know where he was. He had to realize I'd be trying to reach him, but there was no contact for two entire days. I kept leaving messages, but there was no response.

  Was it my fault? I’d done everything he asked of me. I’d loved him completely and honestly. As the hours passed, I allowed my restless brain to consider seriously the possibility that Gregg was indeed after the company, not the boss’s daughter, and that the hot loving was just a ploy to win me over, to brainwash me. He was the bait, and I fell for it. Me — the pathetic love-starved woman who managed the sewing department in her father’s business. Just another in Gregg Monsell’s long string of conquests. Could it be true?

  I knew I stood to lose my lover and my company. But unless I heard from Gregg, and soon, there was nothing I could do about either sad mess.

  I was desperate.

  Our employees were edgy because there were no new jobs coming into the shop, and I had nothing good to tell them. They knew what had happened to Pa, and now they looked to me for all the answers.

  Creditors were dunning us, and threatening to close us down. If we declared bankruptcy, our lawyer told me, they'd have to leave us alone, at least for awhile. Bankruptcy — that would be admitting we'd failed. No, I decided, not yet. Not till my last gasp.

  Pa was doing as well as Dr. Sabin said I should expect, and they moved him out of the intensive care unit into a standard patient room. I couldn't bring myself to tell him the merger plans were disintegrating. I kept my visits short, and avoided the bad tidings.

  Returning to my apartment, I discovered what I thought was yet another reason to worry. There was a letter waiting for me from Lucien Goodhue, mailed from Birmingham. Would you believe it? After being knocked cold on my bedroom floor, he had the gall to start harassing me again. I ripped open the envelope and unfolded the letter. There were only two words scrawled on a sheet of notebook paper: "Sorry," and "Goodbye."

  Thank goodness. One problem solved, I thought, but where is Gregg?

  I hadn't prayed since I was a little girl, but when my cell phone began playing its tune, I thought it would be a good time to start again. As I dug for the phone in my purse, what I prayed was: Please, let it be Gregg.

  And it was.

  "Where have you been?" I blurted out.

  "I'm on my way back from Lake Wiley," he said. "You know, where I used to own all that waterfront land."

  "Used to? You mean you don't own it any more? You sold it?"

  "I'm about twenty minutes from your place," he said. "I'll tell you the whole story when I get there."

  I wasn't about to wait to buzz him in. I took the elevator down and went outside to wait. I felt my heart thumping in my chest.

  I started running toward his car as soon as I saw it turn into the driveway. Gregg parked and ran to meet me, holding his arms out for a long embrace. It was a kiss to remember, a kiss of victory, and of love — a kiss that told me I was wrong ever to doubt him.

  The first thing he said after our epic smackeroo was, "You were right. Dad would have sold the land and saved the business. He'd be proud of me." He took me by the arm, and we headed into the building, as he related what had happened. "At first I was devastated when you told me Aaron took the money. I just couldn't deal with it. I knew you were right about selling the property, so I called everyone who had ever asked to buy it — the ones I knew, and the ones Dad knew. I said I'd decided to sell it. Everyone I talked to wanted it. Right away there was a bidding war going on. Turned out the place was worth much more than I thought."

  "But doesn't it take time to close on a property? What will we do till you get the money? "I said.

  "I told the buyer why I needed the money, and that he'd have to make a down payment of twenty percent. He went along with it because he knew I had other buyers lined up." We were in the elevator when Gregg reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a folded bank check, and handed it to me. "I just got this." I unfolded it. It was made out to him for two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.

  "That means the whole price was — let's see, twenty percent of — uh, help me out with the arithmetic," I said.

  "One million one hundred fifty thousand dollars."

  "Say it again."

  "One million one hundred fifty thousand bucks."

  "Fabulous," I said. "Have you told your friend Higginson?"

  "Don't have to. He thought I always had it."

  "A little white lie, then."

  "Possibly. But you know what they say: 'All's well that ends well.'"

  "One thing I have to ask you," I said. "Why didn't you let me know what was going on?"

  "I wasn't sure about any of it, not till I had the check in my hand two hours ago," he said. "You've been so great about going along with this whole plan, I just couldn't build up your expectations and then have it fall through. But it didn't fall through. We're going to build a new business, together, you and I. I love you, Kit. What do you say to that?"

  I looked into his eyes. "I say I think we should go out to the cabin tomorrow."

  "Why?"

  I couldn't resist it. "Because it could be our last chance to go skinny-dipping,"

  Uncle Aaron? He knew he couldn't stay after taking the company's money, and went to live in Arizona. He returned half the money he took, with the understanding that we wouldn't chase him for the other half. I knew it was wrong for him to take money, but I felt sorry for him. Life hadn't been good to him.

  And what happened to Pa? He didn't recover fully, and he never tried to go back to work again. He recognized he could no longer think clearly. At first he was unhappy walking with the gold-headed cane I gave him, but after a long while he came to think it made him look distinguished. And he loved to brag about his smart son-in-law, Gregg Monsell.

  THE END

  This is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual names, characters, places and incidents is purely coincidental.

  FROM THE AUTHOR:

  Thank you for reading this novella. I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please take a moment to leave your review on Amazon — http://amzn.to/10q0ssd — and share your opinion of my book with other readers.

  Again, many thanks.

 
; Geena Maxon