by Moriah Jovan
Giselle stared at him. “So she was topping from the bottom. You didn’t understand that, either, I bet.”
“I thought it was your run-of-the-mill manipulation; my lawyer had to explain that to me, too. But it wouldn’t have made any difference because I had to protect my kids. So I decided to start my own practice, you know, be at home, watch my kids. It was a good decision, as it turned out. I’d already made a bit of a reputation so I was ready to go out on my own, but basically, it was so I could muzzle her and keep an eye on them. I decided she had to go when I saw and heard what she was saying to them on a sustained basis—messing with their heads—”
“Like?”
He pursed his lips and stared off into the distance. “She’d tell my girls they were fat, dress them in clothes that were too small, starve them and tell them they were on a diet. I didn’t know about that until Andrea refused a cookie because she was on a diet. She was five when that happened. Emme was nine at the time and it might have been too late for her without some serious therapy, I don’t know.”
Lilly, you let that girl eat whatever she wants; no wonder she’s so damned fat. I don’t know how Knox can stand to touch her, much less kiss her.
Trudy, you shut your mouth before I slap it shut.
Giselle gulped.
“She’d have Luke, my eight-year-old, go get, say, an expensive vase, take it to the front hall. The floor was marble and she’d tell him to drop it and see what happened. He’d do it, it’d shatter, and she’d scream at him for doing such a stupid thing, make him clean it up. I don’t know how many times she did that before I saw it for myself. And he was barefoot.”
Giselle didn’t know if she’d ever catch another breath.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “More?”
“Not right now,” she whispered.
“Anyway, it took me a year to lay the groundwork, then another year for everything else to come together. The divorce was about to be finalized when the fire happened. I was relieved she was dead, but I’d rather have had the divorce if I could’ve kept my kids. I got a life insurance payout, so that made me suspect number one for murder and I didn’t care. I was too heartbroken over my kids.” He stared up at the sky. “Emme was ten. Luke was eight. Andrea was six and Randy was three.”
Giselle put her hand to the burn scars on his face and caressed them. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But you know your children are just fine now, don’t you?”
“Intellectually, yes, but . . . ” He took a deep breath. “Giselle, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
She supposed she could understand that and though she wanted him to trust her enough to tell her about his fire, she wouldn’t push. “Okay.” They fell silent to listen to the familiar goings-on around them. Children squealed, cars whizzed past. Sirens blared somewhere, fountains gurgled, and horns honked. Birds sang and a small bee buzzed around Giselle’s hair because it smelled like watermelon. She cleared her throat.
“Bryce,” she murmured, “about this alpha thing.”
“Yes?”
“I won’t play those games outside the context of sex. And sometimes not even then.”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Telling you,” she said sharply, looking him straight in the eye. “I won’t obey. I won’t ask permission to live my life the way I want to and I won’t be controlled.”
He nodded. “Agreed. I want it in bed. I don’t want to live it.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Um, Giselle, I—” he began, stopped, looked away. She watched him and her spine tingled as if she were in trouble. He finally looked back at her and after another long moment, he said, “I can’t have any more children.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened and she swallowed. Hard.
“Oh.” It was a whisper, a breath.
“I should have told you that sooner, I know, but the conversation never came around to it and it never occurred to me. You’re thirty-six. I guess I just assumed you wouldn’t be interested. Then, when I saw that painting last night— It hit me in the gut. I didn’t want to tell you after that; I wanted to enjoy what was left of the weekend. I figured it might be a deal breaker. I— I’m sorry I didn’t say anything at dinner.”
“I didn’t do anything that I wouldn’t have done anyway,” she murmured, though without humor. It was her turn to be silent, her mind in complete turmoil. She cleared her throat. “That would be a new concept for me,” she finally said. “I mean, you know. You grow up in the church, children are by default part of your future. Being with a man and deliberately not having any isn’t part of the plan.”
“I do not want any more,” he said emphatically. “If I hadn’t had a vasectomy after Randy was born, I’d do it now and I will not get it reversed.” He said that with such finality she didn’t dare argue. “Children are the most precious, noisy, wonderful, obnoxious little creatures on the planet, especially if you made them. But when they die before you do, even one of them—” His mouth tightened. “I don’t want to have more with you and go through my life wondering when and how the Lord’s going to take them away from me because I broke my covenants.”
She stared at him, shocked to her core. “Do you really believe he would do that?” she whispered.
“He’s already done it and for a helluva lot less than fornication.”
“The Lord doesn’t work that way!”
“Oh, really? When was the last time you read your scriptures? He’s all about punishment.”
Her nostrils flared. “Bryce—”
“No, Giselle,” he snapped. “No— Hell no. Don’t ask me for children, don’t ask me to go back to church, don’t spend any time fantasizing about me repenting so we can get married in the temple. I’m telling you right now, it won’t happen. If you want to be with me, those are the terms and I never gave you any reason to think otherwise.”
Her nose stung and her eyes watered. She disentangled her body from his and stood, took a deep breath and released it, hoping she wouldn’t break down right there. “Um, I— I’m going to have to percolate on that a while.”
He said nothing for a long moment as he studied the ground. Then he nodded. “That’s fair.”
“It’s three-thirty,” she said, her throat tight. “I have to be at work at four.”
* * * * *
31: CRAZY FAITH
“Miss Logan,” Sebastian said briskly as he strode into her office early Monday morning. Eilis turned from the window where she’d watched him come into the building. She figured if she could think of him as a piece of art, then it would be okay to admire his beauty.
“Mr. Taight,” she said calmly, levelly, as he plopped a backpack on the table that sat in the middle of the massive office, then pulled out a pad of green engineer’s paper and a mechanical pencil. She watched as he sat in one of the armless designer chairs that surrounded the conference table and began to write on his tablet. Curious, she wandered over to him and saw that he was creating mathematical formulas and plugging in values, working them all without benefit of a calculator.
“Do you always do that by hand?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” he grunted. “Helps me think.” He continued to scratch out numbers in a bold hand and Eilis saw that his handwriting was very . . . him. He spoke again as he whipped over his formulas with lightning speed. No wonder he didn’t use a calculator. It would slow him down.
“I need you to bring me your employee list sorted as to pay scale and management level. Please.”
“Why?”
She almost gulped when Sebastian stopped writing immediately, his body still, then he looked up at her slowly. “Why?” Tension radiated from his body and Eilis wanted to look away from him. She didn’t dare.
“Miss Logan,” he said as he threw his pencil down and leaned back in his chair, one arm on the table, the other along the back of the chair, his fingers steepled at his temple. He put his leg up on the chair next to him. “Do you understan
d that what I’m going to do is what you should’ve done long ago? Tell me something: You’re a brilliant woman, I’m assuming well educated, and very, very savvy. You have a good reputation for making all the right moves, David Webster aside. In fact, I hear that early in your career, you were quite the ruthless bitch. How in the hell did you miss doing the most obvious things you needed to do to save this company? It’s not like you were without resources.”
Eilis wasn’t going to answer that. She had her reasons and they weren’t any of his business. And as for “ruthless bitch” . . . well, that was true, and Eilis had traded on it as long as she could before being forced to become Miss Manners. Her Inner Bitch had abandoned her, betrayed by Chanel.
He went on. “You know exactly what I’m going to do with that list. I’ll give you the option of presenting the other three points of my reorganization plan and letting your employees think that the good stuff is all your idea and I’m just your court-appointed supervisor who was the big bad meanie who cleaned your house for you. You’ve thought about doing everything I’m going to do to this company. You just haven’t had the balls to do it.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” she murmured, stung, and aching to correct his assumption. Not daring to.
“Sure I do. I never miss details, Miss Logan. I should think you’d have figured that out.”
Eilis fought the urge to suck in a sharp breath at his reference to how easily and how fast he’d picked her out at the Ford exhibit.
“I usually never let a CEO know what I’m going to do before I do it. It hurts too much and they wouldn’t have thought of it themselves anyway. But you already knew what I was going to do and you got your back up. Well, Miss Logan, if it’s a fight you want, I’ll give it to you and without question— You. Will. Lose. Do I make myself clear?”
Heaven help her, she liked King Midas much better than Sebastian Taight, who’d been so solicitous of her Saturday night, who tried too hard, was too nice, because he didn’t want to scare women any more than he already did.
She spoke again, evenly, holding her hand up in a fist. She counted off three points of his four-point plan on her fingers as if she’d actually read it. She hadn’t; it was in his head.
And hers.
“One: Clean house.
“Two: Sell the art.
“Three: Mass market the personality screening tests instead of keeping it a proprietary tool for our clients. Create a small business version of the HRP Full Management System software and distribute it widely.”
She watched him as his eyes widened just a little bit and she thought she saw approval there. Then he slowly began to clap as he stood, unfolding his lithe body to his full height. She had to look up at him a little bit; she liked that.
Eilis was barely able to stand still, not jump, when he slammed his hands on the table and got in her face.
“So why the hell didn’t you do that before you got this far in the hole?” he barked.
She would not flinch, would not look away, would not step back. Would not would not wouldnot wouldnotwouldnot. But why was he so angry with her? No one had ever told her anything about Sebastian Taight ever getting angry about anything. Ruthless, cold, heartless, yes. Passionately angry, no.
“I have my reasons,” she said evenly.
“I guarantee you could have no reason that would be good enough to excuse this mess.”
She hated to let him continue to think that, but she had no choice.
“Why don’t you tell me which ones give you the worst taste in your mouth? No, wait. Let me guess. It’s the one you deliberately left off the list, which is to take your company public.”
His mouth compressed in a thin line when she didn’t answer that charge.
“You have two choices,” he said low, with none of the patience he’d displayed last week. “You can do this and I’ll stand in the background and hold your hand or I’ll rip this company right out from under you because you don’t seem to be fit to run it at this point.”
That was when she knew he’d gone beyond his breaking point, but she had no idea why or how. She’d left him amicably at the Ford exhibit very soon after he’d requested a kiss and he’d walked into her office not ten minutes ago.
She gathered herself up, dignified, calm, gracious. “What have I done or said to deserve this?”
He blinked. It was a half a minute before his mouth tightened and he withdrew and sat in his chair. He wiped his mouth and he looked away. “Nothing,” he said, low. “I apologize.”
It was Eilis’s turn to be surprised.
Sebastian took a deep breath and sat up to stare at his pad, his right hand clenching around his pencil. “Tell me which one of those bothers you most. Please.”
She didn’t want to trust him. He was the enemy.
“Taking the company public,” she said, never wavering or trembling.
He put his hands over his face. “Why?”
“I have a reason and you’ll have to trust me that it’s a very good one.”
He sighed and sat back in his chair again. “All right, Eilis,” he muttered and she liked her name on his tongue, so she didn’t protest his familiarity. He must not have realized he’d called her by her first name. “I’m not going to argue with you about it right now. If you could get me that list, please?”
* * * * *
What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never treated a client like this before and he didn’t consider her any less of a client just because she was under court order.
He knew why.
He kept remembering how she’d looked at the Ford exhibit, all that gorgeous blonde hair, that perfect fertility goddess body, the luscious skin, the divine perfume, the broken nose, the scar, and those eyes! Two different colors. He caught his breath yet again at the memory.
And he’d come in here this morning to find . . . that. That woman who hid from something he didn’t understand. That getup killed his hard-on now that he knew what she really looked like. Coco Chanel should rot in hell for that monstrosity she had on.
Eilis had made him mad the minute he’d walked into this office and looked at her, because she knew how to dress and this was purposely disgusting. She was not a woman who needed a makeover.
Then she’d stood up to him, calm, ladylike, and asked what she’d done. He had no defense for that. What was he supposed to say? I hate that rag you’re wearing would probably not win him any brownie points. Nor would Go home and get something decent on or, his personal favorite, Take that off and go lie on the couch. Wait for me while I lock the door.
“Eilis,” he said when she brought him the list he’d asked for. He noticed she hadn’t taken exception to his calling her by her first name. He loved her name; it melted on his tongue like mint chocolate chip ice cream. “I apologize again. I’m just impatient this morning. I really need to get you through this receivership as fast as possible.”
So I can take you home to the bed that I haven’t used in years.
“Do you have a timetable?” she asked quietly and sat down beside him.
Interesting. She didn’t wear perfume to work; all he could smell was a cheap generic soap. Dammit.
“Yes, I do.” He began to write it out for her and he felt her start beside her. He looked at her, because it was out of character for her to show any emotion, even such a small thing as a twitch.
“You’re writing with your left hand,” she murmured.
“I’m ambidextrous,” he muttered, inordinately pleased that she’d noticed that.
“Does your hand get tired?”
If I haven’t had a woman in a while, it sure does. Then he laughed at himself for his Beavis-and-Butthead sense of humor. “Just depends on which hand’s closer to the pencil.” Heh heh.
“Ah.”
He figured that was about all she had to say about that.
“For the rest of the week, you and I are going to go over this employee list with a fine-toothed comb. Next Monday and Tuesday,
I’m going to clean house. You’re welcome to be here, but you don’t have to be. I’ll take the heat for that; it’s part of my job. Thursday and Friday, we’ll rearrange everyone according to skills and interests.
“Christie’s and Sotheby’s are booked a year out, but Christie’s has agreed to tentatively schedule us for February. In the meantime, you can set the timetables for the screening tests and the software betas, but I would like them working and possibly in limited distribution by the time we go to auction.
“My underwriter is Blackwood Securities. Jack Blackwood is very particular and very hard to get. He’s a friend of mine and has agreed to do this for you at my request. He has a list of specific things he’ll require you to have accomplished before he starts drawing up your IPO. I have it on my laptop, so I’ll print it for you later. I’m hoping that the auction of your Fords will be the last thing we actually do to move you into his territory.”
“Mr. Taight—”
“Sebastian, please.”
“Mr. Taight—” He sighed. “—I don’t want to take my company public.”
Sebastian kept writing, feeling her watch him. He betrayed everything about himself with every word he wrote, if she only knew enough to make the right connections. He’d make sure that by the time this receivership was over, she’d have all the clues she needed to figure it out.
One year. It was all he could take. He’d give her one year.
“When it comes right down to it, Eilis, whether you want to or not is immaterial. We’re doing things my way now because my way always works.”
Yeah, that was a good way to get her in bed. Brilliant.
* * * * *
Eilis watched as he wrote faster than she could type, listing everything. His handwriting on the left hand was completely different from the right hand. The left hand flowed; it wasn’t nearly as angular as the right hand.
In fact, everything he wrote with his right hand looked like an American had written it; vertical, tall, bold. Everything he wrote with his left hand looked European, like a European copperplate.