by Nicole Casey
“As always, brother, you cast the line,” he looked up at me, “and I’ll reel it in.”
“Have you called Tiny yet?” I asked.
Huxley had already returned to his computer and was clicking away at this keyboard. “Yeah, I called him this morning. He’ll be in to check the new equipment at 10. You’d better be careful, though. Keep calling him ‘Tiny’ and he’s gonna knock your teeth out. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
I chuckled. “You just need to worry about Alexa’s wrath. If you’ll remember, she doesn’t take shit from anyone, least of all us. She’s probably gonna call out a hit on you.”
The thought only seemed to embolden Huxley. “I’m not worried.”
“Fine. Keep me posted.”
I left the office to the sound of Huxley chuckling to himself. Sorry, Alexa. I gave you the chance to do it properly. I walked back to my office, already dreaming of the cup of coffee I was going to brew when I got there. Alexa was Huxley’s task now, I had other things to worry about. I entered the door and immediately rolled my eyes at the sight.
I didn’t have time for this.
Perched on my desk, in a business blazer and skirt, but the kind one wears in a porno, was Malia La Dionee, my current, constant headache. She had one leg crossed over the other, causing her skirt to ride high up her thigh, and her long black hair was in a high pony-tail, but still hung all the way down to her waist.
“Good morning.”
“I don’t like when people sit on my desk.” I walked over to my single cup coffee brewer and pressed the necessary buttons to get it to start brewing and then I walked over to my chair. Malia quickly hopped over the desk and landed in my chair before I could sit down. I let out an irritated sigh. “Move. Why are you even here?”
She reached forward and put a hand on my thigh. “You’re such a grump in the morning. What’s wrong with a woman visiting her fiancé?”
I reached down and grabbed her hand on my thigh and pulled, yanking her out of the chair, dragging her up to me. I brought my face down to hers so that they were mere centimeters away. I wrapped my arm around her back and held onto her.
“There’s nothing wrong with that.” She closed her eyes waiting for a kiss, and I smiled. “I still don’t know what that has to do with you being here.”
I pushed her aside and sat down in my chair and scooted it up to my desk. I could feel her leering at me from behind me, and knowing who she was, it probably wasn’t smart to jilt her and then turn my back to her, but I had to think even she was smarter than to murder a man in his own office.
Her arms draped over my shoulders and her hands found places to rest on my pecs. “We really are a good pair, you know. You’re the only person I’ve ever met as nasty as I am. We could rule the world if you’d just give in.” The button on my coffee machine beeped and I stood to grab it, but Malia quickly unwrapped herself from me and raced over. “Two creams right?” She grabbed two creamer cups from the caddy next to the brewer and stirred them into the coffee cup. She walked over and set it down on my desk and I completely ignored it. I’d brew another one once she was gone. “Oh, come on Harley. All I did was carry it over here, it’s not poisoned.”
“Knowing you, it could be.”
Malia sat down in one of the arm chairs on the other side of my desk and crossed her legs. “I have absolutely no intention of hurting you, Harley. I like you. I meant it when I said we could make a good pair. Besides, it’s in our best interest to be open to being a real couple. Thanks to this deal between Dante’s father and yours, we’re stuck together whether we like it or not.”
I hated to admit she was right. My family was wealthy, but it wasn’t always that way. Back in his youth, my father was just like any other poor man with a dream, lots of blueprints and no money to carry anything out. Desperate to make his dreams a reality, and having just knocked up his wife with twins, my dad did the only thing he could think of; he went to a mobster for seed money.
At the time, the most notable guy in the game was Dimitri Marcello. He had an affinity for “investing” in businesses he thought had a future, but unfortunately for me, he was conniving, and instead of his repayment terms simply being paying back the money he loaned out with an exorbitant interest rate, Dimitri Marcello liked to requests stocks, shares of the company, and even ownership rights. By all accounts, Dimitri Marcello owned a piece of my dad’s company, and just like good ol’ Richard Foxx had handed down his problems to me, so too did Dimitri pass his investments off to his son Dante, Malia’s boss.
My father had a lawyer grind his way through his contract with Dimitri for a loophole, and they believed they’d found one. All of the terms listed in the contract were bound to my father as the owner of the company. He figured that if he passed the company over to his son, the terms would no longer apply. It was technically true, but Dimitri didn’t build his dark empire on being a fool. There was a fine print clause that required any children my father hoped to pass his empire off to be married before they could take control of the company and that the ownership must be in both the child and their significant other’s names. Dimitri was an old fashioned guy who believed it takes a strong partnership to run a business, or so my father believed.
Originally, I was given a simple objective: marry any woman you find, stay married long enough to get the business out of the Marcello’s clutches, then I could divorce her and move on with my life. I wasn’t a monster; I was going to pay some woman a hefty fee to be my pretend wife for a few months, but then Malia showed up. Dante, now in control of his father’s business, agreed to honor the terms of the contract if I got married, and suggested that Malia be the lucky lady. She came with a very strongly worded “recommendation” from Dante and my father agreed. Dante would release my father from the contract, but with partial ownership in Malia’s name and Malia working for Dante; we’d never be free of the Marcellos.
“I can tell from your silence that you see my point,” Malia said, breaking my stream of thoughts. “What’s so wrong with me? I could be a great wife.”
“You work for the man extorting my father, so you’ll have to excuse me for thinking that marriage would have more than a few holes.”
Malia leaned forward. “Both of us are stuck under the thumbs of the men who run our lives, Harley. All I’m saying is that, if we really wanted to, we could turn this marriage into a huge win for us both. I owe the Marcello’s a great debt, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take an opportunity to get from under them if I saw one. I’m no different from any other little girl. I want to get married and have a family just like the rest. I think we could have a good life together.”
Part of me thought she may be telling the truth, but the fact remained that I didn’t feel that way about Malia and wasn’t interested in having a sham marriage to a woman I didn’t love because of a mistake my father made before I was even born. I would figure out a way to get myself out of the mess my dad put me in, I just needed more time.
“I’m betting you wouldn’t turn on Dante,” I responded, “and I’m not putting myself in his line of fire for you or my dad.”
Malia stood up from the chair, her warm expression going cold in an instant. “Fine. Forced it is, but mark my words Foxx. You’ll regret not doing things my way.”
She stormed out, slamming my office door behind her. She probably wasn’t wrong about regretting my choice, but if I didn’t have my integrity, I didn’t have anything.
3
Huxley
Alexa had seriously underestimated my ability to bother her incessantly until I got my way. It started with phone calls until she blocked my number, then direct messages on social media until she blocked me there, then we turned to my favorite game: emails. There was no limit to them. I started with my existing email address, but she’d caught on by then and blocked the address after just one email. So I created a new one. [email protected]. She could block the address, but she couldn’t keep me from creating a new one every time
she blocked one. I kept a running list of all the ones I’d made so I could go back and have the accounts deleted later. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and my personal favorite [email protected]; that one was my favorite because at first glance it wasn’t me, but in reality it was.
Eventually, I stopped getting blocked and stopped getting responses. That was a little annoying because how could I bother her if she was just going to ignore me? It was only fun if I knew it was actually bugging her.
I was in the process of trying to decide what my next generated email address was going to be when I heard a bunch of banging and yelling outside my office door. I looked up from my desk and listened.
“Can I help--HEY! You can’t go back there!”
“Try and stop me!”
A smile sunrose on my face. I closed my laptop, stored the playboy magazine I’d been looking at in my drawer, and took one final look at the news article with Alexa’s picture on it before shoving it into my drawer as well.
“Stop it! Mr. Foxx only sees people by appointment!”
“I have an appointment!”
“I don’t see--”
The door to my office opened and Alexa stormed in. My personal assistant, Garrett, was right on her heels. He rushed around her into the office and started to push her out. He looked over his shoulder at me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Foxx. I’ve called security. She demanded to come in. I tried to tell her not to.” He was attempting to corral her out. “I’ll help you set up a formal appointment.”
I held up my hand. “Garrett, come on now, that’s no way to treat a beautiful woman.”
Garrett looked back over his shoulder again at me. I raised my eyebrows and he took a huge step back from Alexa. “Oh, um. Sorry sir. Should we just wait for security?”
“Call them off. Miss Storm and I do indeed have an appointment. A rather important one at that.”
Garrett hunched his brow and pulled out his phone. “I don’t see anything on your--”
“Garrett get out of my office,” I demanded.
Garrett swallowed deeply and bowed his head. “Yes sir.”
He threw a judgemental glance at Alexa as he walked around her and out of the office, closing the door behind him. I took in Alexa fully for the first time since she arrived. Her eyes were flaming with anger and her jaw was clenched in frustration. She had on black leggings, a pair of brown riding boots, and a rose-colored blouse. The aggressed expression on her face was downright sexy. I remembered it well from when we were in college, but it’d gotten even better in the years since I’d seen her last.
“It wasn’t worth making issues with your assistant. I just came here to tell you to leave me the hell alone.” She crossed her arms. “Good to see you’ve gotten more mature.”
I laughed. “It worked. You’re standing here aren’t you?”
“I’d rather walk blindfolded into traffic than work with you and your asshole brother. I’ll tell you exactly like I told him. I’m not interested, find someone else.”
I folded my hands into each other, and smiled at her. “What if I don’t want someone else?”
The truth was, I’d always had a thing for Alexa and I believed Harley did too. She completely ignored Harley and I back in college and I found that to be undeniably attractive. Women were usually nipping at our feet. We got women of all types; the sporty ones, the brainy ones, the politicians--if they liked men, there wasn’t a game we couldn’t run. Alexa was always a different case. She avoided us, ignored us, and whenever we tried to get attention of any kind from her, she turned the other direction. Maybe I was just one of those idiots that yearned recklessly for stuff I couldn’t have, but there was just something about the way Alexa carried herself that I liked, plus she really was good at her job. Having her around aside, we’d be lucky to have an anchor like her.
“I don’t care what you want,” Alexa responded. “Never have.”
“That is certainly true.” I leaned forward. “Are you so prideful that you would turn down a job that anyone in the industry would be happy to have?”
“It’s not about pride, it’s about sanity, and working for you I’d be siphoning it out by the liter.”
I stood up from behind my desk. “I take it Harley already offered you the salary and benefits?”
“Yep.”
“If that’s not enough, what would it take to get you to join us? There’s no bad answers and money is not an issue.”
“I can’t be bought. Just leave me alone and find someone else.”
“I already told you we don’t want someone else.” I walked around my desk and closed some of the distance between Alexa and I, stopping only when she started to take a few steps backwards. “Why don’t I offer you something no other company can offer you.”
“What’s that?”
I fanned out my arms. “An inside look into our lives of course. Insider exposé on the Foxx family. Can you imagine what someone would pay you for that kind of story?”
Alexa scoffed. “An insider exposé? You mean that stuff that’s splashed all over Twitter and Instagram literally every single day?”
I smirked. “You think that’s inside stuff? Believe me, you have no idea what goes on in our lives. Possible change in C.E.O.s, an arranged marriage, secret underground dealings; there’s a lot to pick from.” I saw Alexa’s gears start to turn and I could damn near see dollar signs in her eyes. “Does that look of hunger mean you’re in?”
Behind Alexa, the office door opened and Harley walked in. His eyes landed on Alexa and he smiled broadly. “Well look who decided to pay us a visit. To what do we owe the honor?”
I closed in on her a little more with Harley behind her and nowhere for her to go. “Alexa was just telling me she was going to accept the position, isn’t that right?”
Alexa took one look at me and then turned on her heel, peeled around Harley and walked out of the office. I let out a torrid laugh. “She’ll be back for sure. I made her an offer she can’t refuse”
“Good,” Harley responded. “Then let the games begin.”
4
Alexa
I couldn’t keep myself from wondering what it would be like to be the woman responsible for exposing the Foxxes to the world. An insider exposé? I could sell it as a documentary, or a six part series on a streaming service; royalties for life. I would never have to worry about not making money a day in my life.
Still, working for Foxx Media is something I have specifically avoided. My relationship with Harley and Huxley was not good, and it seemed that all of the time since college had only made them super villain versions of themselves. They were still as arrogant and immature as I remembered, but now it was worse because they had some power to throw around.
“Take care.”
I looked over my shoulder as I passed by the black-haired assistant I’d stormed around to get into Huxley’s office to begin with. I felt bad now that I’d calmed down some. He was just doing his job, and I had to imagine working for Huxley was pretty terrible; he certainly didn’t need me barging in here making his day worse.
I walked over to his desk. “Hey, um, sorry about earlier. I know Huxley from college and he’s been bugging me nonstop so… Anyway, I guess you didn’t deserve for me to make your day worse.”
The assistant, who Huxley had called ‘Garrett’ gave me a small smile. “Thanks. Trust me, you’re not the first person who has stormed into his office. You are the first to apologize to me though.”
I nodded. “I imagine working for him is pretty hard, so I really am sorry.”
“Well, I accept your apology, but working for Huxley isn’t so bad. In fact, I really like it.” Garrett was multitasking as he spoke, filing some papers into a box on his desk. “Are you joining the team?”
“Wait. You like working for him?”
Garrett looked shocked. “Yeah. Everyone here loves their job. Working for the Foxxes is awes
ome.”
I leaned in a little closer to Garrett. “Are you being paid extra to lie?”
Garrett laughed. “No! Though I am paid pretty well. Huxley is a great boss, all of the Foxxes are. I mean sure, they push, but it’s only because they hire the best of the best and expect them to perform well. We typically do though because the perks to working here are next to none. Child care for working mothers, one at home work day a week, one free day off a month. Provided lunch and breakfast. Fully stocked break room, and not with cheap, bulk office stuff, but high end stuff. Last year, my mom fell and broke her hip and couldn’t take care of herself for close to a month. The Foxxes let me work from home the entire time she was out of commission and Huxley paid out of pocket for her surgery--said that the woman responsible for me deserved to be well taken care of.” Garrett’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink. “I mean, can you imagine? I’ve nearly married women who haven’t treated me that well. They’ve increased my standards. Really. I know they have kind of a crappy reputation, but ask anyone here and they’ll tell you the same thing. The Foxxes are good men.”
I didn’t know what to think. What Garrett was saying was in stark contrast to what I had experienced for myself. It wasn’t like I was basing my reputation off of just what I’d heard or seen, I knew Harley and Huxley. I’d experienced them for four years in school, and even the interaction I’d just had with them was consistent with what I knew to be true, not the men Garrett had just described. Was I missing something?
“Sorry, but is that all?” Garret started. “I have to run a couple of things down to the studio.”
My eyes widened. “The what?”
“The news studio.”
“It’s in this building?”
Garrett nodded. “Yeah. The Foxxes want it close.” He read my piqued interest and smiled. “Do you wanna come with?”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow. “Did Huxley put you up to this?” I asked.