“That sounds like a lot of passive-aggressive gamesmanship to me.”
“Not really. She did need a replacement for me. She wanted someone who could, conceivably, work with her during the span of her entire career here. Someone close to her own age, so she wouldn’t have to have someone else trained. It’s a bonus that she can shut her father up in the process.”
“But my contract is only for a year.”
“Oh, don’t worry. She’s counting on you liking the job so much, as well as the pay, that you’ll want to stay on.”
“She’s that confident?” Something about that irritated him a little.
“No, she’s that hopeful.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Just be honest with her. Play straight. Don’t lead her on. Feel free to disagree with her. But if you think you’ll pull one over on her and turn her into a meal ticket, think again. She’ll rip your balls off in the process.”
Doug hoped he hadn’t looked guilty at Gorden’s accidental choice of phrase. Play straight. “No problem.”
* * * *
Harper worked through lunch in her office answering e-mails and reading reports from the other offices. It kept her mind off Doug.
She liked the way he paid attention and didn’t look bored throughout the morning meetings, although he had to be almost completely lost at this point. Still, it was only his first day. She hoped after a couple of weeks, once he knew his way around and had settled in, that Gorden would report to her that he’d been a good choice all around.
And if her father grew to like him even more, all the better.
The next morning, Harper had just sat down at her desk when Gorden walked in. “Sorry to bother you, but I need to add a last-minute lunch date to your schedule for today.”
She silently grumbled to herself as she pulled up her calendar on her computer. “Who, when, and where?”
“Bill James, one o’clock, at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor.”
She sat back in her chair, frowning. “Bill James? As in Keisler Aeronautics?”
“Yes, the one and the same.”
“What’s he want?”
Gorden shrugged. “I don’t know. He called me a little while ago. He’s in town and asked if you had room in your schedule today to see him.” He gave Harper a pointed stare. “Knowing you, this way at least I’ll be sure you’ve had lunch.”
She rolled her eyes and waved Gorden out. “Okay, fine. I’ll be there. Do I need to bring you a receipt as proof of what I ate?”
“No,” Gorden said before he walked out the door, “just take a picture of some food porn and post it on your Facebook wall.”
She laughed. He almost always managed to get the last word in.
Still, she made it through her morning meetings and was at the Columbia restaurant fifteen minutes before the scheduled time. She left her name with the hostess and sat down to wait in the foyer.
Bill James arrived a few minutes later. She vaguely remembered what he looked like from a picture she’d seen in a magazine article about him three or so years earlier. Based out of California, they weren’t exactly a competitor because they made different kinds of aeronautics system parts than Wells Technology, and didn’t deal in software at all except in how it related to their specific components. But they were a big name in the aeronautics industry, although a much smaller company.
He obviously recognized Harper, because he walked over to her with a smile that just screamed, I have plans to screw you, literally and metaphorically.
“Harper Wells?” he asked as he extended his hand.
She stood and shook with him. “Mr. James.”
“Please, call me Bill.”
She was tempted to shoot back, “Please, call me Ms. Wells,” but she didn’t. “All right. Bill.”
The hostess seated them and took their drink orders. “I’ll have to admit,” Harper said once they were alone again, “I’m curious. Why the last-minute meeting?”
He smiled again. This time, Harper detected shades of shark-infested waters behind his guise. “I’ve heard a lot about your company. Seen it on paperwork more times than I can count on a lot of our government contract projects. I wanted to get to know you better.”
Yeah, right. She believed that statement about as much as she believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. What he obviously didn’t know was she’d already done some research on his company and knew the only things about it that mattered to her. What she needed to discover was his angle. So she didn’t reply and instead simply looked at him as if she expected him to stumble on along.
Which he finally did when he realized she wasn’t rising to any kind of bait. “Ah, uh, you see, our businesses have a lot in common—”
“Not really.”
That threw him for a loop. “Pardon?”
She was liking him less and less by the second. He was obviously after something and didn’t have the balls to just come right out and state what that something was. She hated people like that. She also didn’t like his manscaping—manicured fingernails, complete with clear nail polish, hair that was perfectly coiffed to best disguise the fact that he was starting to thin on top and held in place with copious amounts of hairspray and other products.
She also didn’t like his cologne. She wasn’t sure what it was, but he wore too much of it. Despite the man’s expensive clothes and a wristwatch that screamed “penis envy,” she suspected inside he wasn’t any better than a shady used-car salesman.
“You guys are a publicly held company,” she said. “We’re private.”
“Well, I meant we both deal with aeronautics—”
“We deal with directional and navigational components and systems. As far as I’m aware, your company doesn’t.”
She couldn’t help it. It was like the doof had brought a knife to a nuclear war. If Gorden had been there, he probably would have already kicked her under the table a few times to get her to ease up. In fact, she realized she’d drawn her legs up under her chair and safely out of kicking range from sheer force of habit.
One of the few times she ever let Gorden get away with pulling the almost-your-dad card with her during work.
Bill James stared at her like he’d just realized the cuddly little puppy he thought he was dealing with had rabies and a bad attitude.
She took a sip of her water to give him time to step in and try again, but he didn’t, so she cut him a little slack. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What are we here to discuss today?”
That time, he was saved from answering by the waitress coming to take their lunch orders. When she left, Harper stared at the man across the table from her.
“I’d like to discuss a business deal,” he eventually said.
“All right. Shoot.”
“We’d like to buy your company.”
Good thing she hadn’t got the glass of water up to her lips yet or she’d have been doing a spit-take across the table and all over him. She laughed. “Say again?”
“This is a serious offer.”
“Seriously out of the clear blue sky,” she said. “We’re not for sale. Sorry.”
“Your company holds several patents that—”
“Aha,” she said, smiling. “You think it’d be cheaper to buy us out than to lease the rights to use whatever it is you want to use. Sorry, no.”
“You haven’t even heard the offer!”
“And I don’t have to.” She put on her best business smile and tilted her head as she studied him. “We are not for sale. Your legal department can talk to our legal department about the technology licensing. We have an entire division devoted to it.” She was beginning to wish she’d brought Doug with her, but he was with Gorden, attending staff meetings back at the office.
“Maybe your father should hear what I have to say. I asked to speak with him in the first place.”
Oh, the asshat couldn’t have said anything more wrong than if he’d called her sweet cheeks and made a pass at her. “He isn’t inv
olved in the day-to-day operations of this company, Mister James. And even if he was, he’d give you the same answer I’m giving you now. What part of no don’t you understand?” Crap, at this rate they wouldn’t even get to eat. And she’d really been looking forward to a plate of their picadillo and a side order of fried plantains.
He lowered his voice and scowled. “Do you have any idea who I am? How much power and influence I have?”
“Yes, no, and no. The yes being I see before me a guy who is used to getting his way regardless, and who hates dealing with women in general unless they’re painting his fingernails, or possibly giving him a blow job.” She nodded at his hands, which he suddenly drew back and hid under the table.
She guessed he was trying for a dangerous or threatening tone. “I could fix it so you never get another government contract again, do you realize that? I could ruin your company.”
“Oh, so now it is my company.” She threw her napkin onto the table and leaned in, her own voice equally low and dangerous. “Let me tell you something about myself, Mr. James. I am not some pushover. I am not someone who will stand idly by and put up with threats. And I am, in general, one cantankerous bitch, or so I’ve been told by my staff. But they will also be the first to tell you that I am not someone whose bad side you want to get on. You aren’t alone in your high-level contacts, believe me. So before you start running around with a hard-on for revenge because I dared tell you no, you might want to consider the consequences of your actions.”
She flagged down the waitress, handed her a credit card, and said, “Please put mine in a to-go box. I’m sorry.” She turned to James. “And by the way, I don’t know how you expected your company, which is only valued around the ninety-two-million mark, to even think about being able to afford our company, which currently is worth one-point-two billion. And that’s before we make our latest acquisition for which we’re in talks now.” She stood and picked up her purse. “Have a nice lunch.”
She wanted to say more, like call him a fucking moron, but that would just be rubbing salt in his wounds. She walked over to the staging area near the kitchen where the waitress was ringing up her order on a computer terminal. After signing the slip and getting her card back, as well as her lunch order, she walked out without so much as a look at James, who she saw from the corner of her eye was still seated at the table and now on the phone. He glared at her all the way out the door.
A while later, she was finishing up her lunch at her desk when Gorden knocked before walking in. “Ah, I see you had lunch at least.” He closed the door behind him, then settled in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “And?”
“And what?”
He nodded at the take-out carton. “I’m guessing you told him to go to hell, or something similar. What’d he do to piss you off?”
She smiled. “Oh, besides bitching that he didn’t get to talk to my daddy?”
Gorden winced. “He didn’t?”
“He did.”
“Oooh. Yes, what’d he do besides that?”
“You know I can’t stand someone who pisses on my leg and tries to tell me it’s raining. Besides, the guy was a douche.”
“Douche, enema, colostomy bag, I don’t care. What did he want?”
“To buy us out.”
At that, Gorden’s eyebrows rose. “What?”
“See? Yeah, but I don’t know what kind of magic capital he thought he’d use to buy us out with. His company’s net worth, holdings and all, isn’t enough to leverage that kind of deal.”
“Hmm.” Gorden looked thoughtful. “I suspect I know what he was after.”
“Patents.”
“You never cease to amaze me.”
“Didn’t take an expert or a psychic. Unfortunately for that brainiac, an expert he isn’t.” She finished off the last few bites of her picadillo and took the carton over to the garbage can.
“He didn’t even last past the first course, huh?” Gorden asked.
It wasn’t the first time she’d ended a business meeting early because of terminal asshattery on the part of the other party. “He barely lasted past the drink orders.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” She returned to her desk, thoughtful. “Get me as much deep info about him and his company as you can. Including anyone in government he might be a little too cozy with.”
“Did he huff and bluff?”
“Until I blew his house in.” She thought about it. “This might be a good assignment for Doug to help you with.”
“I’m ahead of you, dear. This will be one of his jobs later on, so he’ll need to know how to do it.”
“Think he’s up for it?”
Gorden nodded as he stood and stretched. “I have a feeling your new lapdog is going to prove himself to be a regular pit bull where you’re concerned. Unless I’m totally wrong about my gut feelings.”
Gorden was never wrong about his gut feelings. If he thought Doug was good, then he was. “Train him well, Obi-Wan. You’re his only hope.”
He gave her a mock bow. “Just don’t go all Vader on him too soon. Let me get him trained first so he can stand up to you. And buy him a stainless steel cup.”
Chapter Ten
Doug’s first week went relatively well despite feeling he’d jumped in way over his head. Gorden assured him he was doing fine, and his few brief meetings with Harper went well.
Unfortunately, come Friday afternoon, he knew he had unfinished business to take care of. He’d only spoken to Tate a few times throughout the week. He dreaded the drive up to Gainesville. He knew how it would end—how it had to end—and why.
It didn’t make it any easier to do. He didn’t want to hurt Tate.
He didn’t want to say good-bye to Tate.
The fact that Tate had received the promotion was, ironically, an out for him. Not a final good-bye, just a break for a while so he could get his career off the ground and save his parents’ home, and an opportunity for Tate to settle into his new job responsibilities. Long-distance relationships were a bitch and a half to maintain.
This was an opportunity neither of them could pass up.
He’d even take every bit of anger or abuse Tate wanted to deal out. He deserved it and he knew it. He just wished he could tell Tate the full truth. Ask him to wait.
He also knew that was even more selfish than taking this job for the money.
Tate was watching TV in the living room when Doug let himself in late Friday night. Without a word, Tate jumped up and kissed him.
Everything Doug had planned to say and do flew out of his mind. Tate was dressed in nothing but running shorts. Doug ran his hands over his body, hooking his fingers in the waistband of Tate’s shorts and yanking them down the man’s hips.
Tate dropped to his knees and unzipped Doug’s slacks. He pulled out his cock and sucked it into his mouth, reaching around Doug and digging his fingers into his ass, holding him tightly.
Not that Doug would escape if he wanted to. There wasn’t much better than the feel of Tate’s blow jobs.
Before he could come, Tate released him, stood, and grabbed his hand. Doug followed him to their bedroom and kicked off his shoes and socks before pulling off the rest of his clothes and joining Tate in their bed.
Somewhere in his brain, a little voice screamed at Doug that this was wrong, this was callous, that it was horrible to use Tate like this.
His cock and balls told that little voice to take a hike when Tate rolled onto his hands and knees and wiggled his cute ass at Doug.
“Fuck me, baby. I need you.”
Doug grabbed the bottle of lube off the bedside table, slathered his cock and Tate’s ass with it, and buried himself balls-deep inside his lover’s tight, hot channel.
He held still a moment, enjoying the sensation and knowing it might be the very last time he ever felt it. When he started moving, he knew it wouldn’t take long for him to blow his load. He reached around and grabbed Tate’s cock, which was already leaking long ro
pes of pre-cum all over the sheets.
“Come for me,” he hoarsely said. He wanted this one last time to feel Tate’s ass squeezing his cock as he came. Tate’s hips bucked against him as he fucked himself back and forth between Doug’s cock and hand. Doug used his free hand to smack Tate on the ass. “That’s it, show me how good it feels,” he said.
Tate’s back arched as he let out a loud moan. At the same time, Doug felt Tate’s cock explode in his hand as his ass went wild around his cock. He let go and grabbed Tate’s hips, fucking him deep and hard, driving him up the bed as his own climax washed through him. They ended up in a sweaty tangle in the sheets.
Doug was afraid to break the silence. After a while, Tate finally spoke. “You’re moving to Tampa, aren’t you?”
Doug swallowed hard. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
In the dim light, Doug couldn’t see Tate’s expression. “I had a feeling,” he softly said.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to, but this job—”
“It’s okay.” In the darkness, Tate found and squeezed his hand. “You need to do what you need to do for your folks. I understand.”
Doug felt even worse, if it was possible. “I don’t want you to lose this opportunity, either.”
“I know.” Tate went silent for so long, Doug thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. “Just tell me the truth. Is there anyone else now?”
“No,” Doug said, his voice nearly breaking up as he choked back tears. “I love you.”
Tate let out a sad sigh. “Okay.” He patted Doug’s arm. “Friends with bennies then, for now?”
Doug kissed the back of his neck. “Okay.”
* * * *
Tate had suspected this was coming. If it hadn’t been for Doug’s family’s problems, he knew it would have gone differently. Tate couldn’t blame him. Put in the same position, he might have made the same choice.
He couldn’t fault Doug for wanting to help them, even if it broke his heart in the process.
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