Beautiful Deception
Page 22
Jinx corporate offices are located in the heart of Breakers Canyon, the Silicon Valley of Southern California. Like everything else in the Southland, it’s just twenty minutes away from the armpit of L.A.
Jinx is spread over, what feels like, acres with a tall skyscraper acting as the central hub surrounded by volleyball courts, a full-scale outdoor gym, a yoga retreat. It even has its own biosphere with an eco-forest, complete with subtropical fruits indigenous to parts of the world, I’m pretty sure I’ll never visit. It’s not that I’m afraid to visit those places, it’s just, logistically speaking, I’m afraid to travel to those places. It all boils down to my fear of flying, and, ironically, it boils down even further to my fear of dying. Yes, suicide was high on my birthday wish list, but, now that I didn’t go through with it, I’m pretty damn glad to be alive.
Ford texted earlier and offered to take me to RUSH, a new hip restaurant downtown that specializes in Asian fusion cuisine. It’s expensive as hell, and I’m pretty sure he can’t afford it, so I counter offered with a picnic on the beach. Hell, we could visit Shipwrecks again, and I can tell him all about the time I almost drowned there. Anyway, he said he has a quick meeting, but that I might be able to twist his arm later.
A familiar looking crowd blooms at the entrance of the building. I recognize some of the people from my business classes. Our entire division was equally parceled out to a bevy of local corporations who were kind enough to brave a group of college interns for the duration of our senior year, Merlin being one of them. But I’m not working for my father. He’ll never get to see me kiss enough ass to brownnose my way to the top. I suppose there’s no need for ass kissing now. I can coast my way through the next nine months, so there’s that.
An arm flails in my direction from under the effigy of a large black cat with glowing yellow eyes that have a backlit effect. That’s the company logo. Everybody knows that damn cat—Jinx. I’ve got a Jinx app on just about every device I own. Just because I’m about to skin that oversized alley cat and serve it to my father, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. In fact, I should enjoy it that much more because, if I play my cards right, I’ll be running the place come June. Other people dream of climbing the corporate ladder, I dream of company takeovers in the name of nepotism.
The arm flails in my direction again. “Stevie!” A high-pitched voice rises above the crowd, and I spot Arabella Rothmore jumping up and down in her practical tan suit and very impractical patent red heels. Arabella is better known as Oral-Copu-Bella in the business program, at least by the guys. The girls just call her Bella.
“Belly, baby!” I give her a quick hug. Bella is a bouncy blonde who packs a powerful mammary punch. She’s perky and loud, and have I mentioned big boobs equal lots of bad boys? She dated Lincoln once briefly. So there’s that. We hardly ever hang out although she’s pretty nice—far too nice for my brother. Really her only crime is being human since I make it a point to stay away from the hideous beasts on a regular basis. Besides, I’m far more low-key to ever mesh with her bubbly personality. I’m all snark and lots of bite, and apparently she’s all suck and no teeth. I’m a loner. She’s a party animal, thus the wondrous chasm.
“I didn’t know you had this assignment!” Her red-clad feet break out in a spontaneous tap dance, creating a ring of fire effect in my peripheral vision.
“It’s the old bait and switch. I prepare all summer for Merlin, and here I am.” Story of my life.
Dr. Bennett materializes from the center of the crowd. She’s tall, like Amazonian tall, with short over-processed blonde hair, wire-rimmed glasses and a skin-colored mole on the tip of her nose.
“Listen up!” She barks over the crowd of at least fifty of Rigby’s finest. “Welcome to the corporate world. You’ve been training your entire lives for this moment. I’ll head in with you for the orientation, but, after that, you’ll be assigned a preceptor who’ll instruct and monitor you and will report all progress back to me.” She gives a stern look around while the sun presses over us like a griddle. “Our lawyers have worked very hard to partner with this fine firm. If any one of you costs us this contract, we will immediately terminate you from the program.”
A gasp circles among us. Come to find out there’s no hotter circle in hell than the one expulsion lands you in. Most students who attend elite private schools are afraid of their own shadow. You would think prison waited on the other side of those ivy walls the way the inmates dread the real world. Lucky for me, I’ve been on both sides of the asylum, so I know all too well how this game is played. Life is a game best played alone with an iron fortress around your heart so it can’t get broken. It’s one of my mother’s mantras, and, after Claire died, it was one I committed to memory.
We migrate over to the elevators as a herd. My phone bleats in my pocket, and I fish it out. It’s a text from Ford.
Clock Tower is playing at the Bowl tonight. Hit it after RUSH?
I give a private smile. There’s no way I’m letting him haul me all over Hollywood, throwing his hard-earned money out the window just to make me feel special.
I send a quick text back just as Bella and I step onto the elevator.
I’m a simple girl. You don’t have to impress me. We’ll hit a drive-thru and eat at Shipwrecks.
“What’s this?” Bella snatches the phone from my hand as the elevator whooshes us up in one quick gravity-defying moment. “Stevie Eaton has a boyfriend?”
I cut a quick glance around at the crowd pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. Who cares if they know I have a boyfriend?
“Maybe.” I take my phone back. “Or maybe I just like to smile on Mondays because everyone else hates them so much.” It’s true.
The doors open with a hiss and a low-lying ooh breaks out from those on the front line. Loud, but not overbearing music streams from overhead. I recognize the rap song as one that my neighbor played on a loop all summer. The walls in my dorm are so thin I actually prefer the rap to their 3 A.M. fucking.
We stride out onto an expansive floor with open-air offices which most of the plebeians call home and miles of glass walls that stretch as far down as the corridor in either direction.
“Welcome to the hive.” A dark-haired man a little older than us cups his hands around his mouth. “My name is Jener with one n, and I will be your orientation assistant this afternoon.” He gives a cheesy grin while panning over the crowd, molesting the girls with his eyes before proceeding. “To your right, you can see we have the think tanks in full effect.” Two sectionals are joined to create one giant square with the narrowest of access gaps. People lie around with their noses buried in laptops, headphones pressed to their ears just like at school, and I frown. Not one “employee” in the hive is decked out in corporate garb. They’re all wearing T-shirts and jeans—old worn out shit at that. I glance down at my navy blue smart suit, as Kinsley dubbed it and suddenly feel stupid for listening to her—although there was that threat from Dr. Bennett, so I feel a touch justified. Besides, the look is growing on me.
“Let’s move over to the recreational therapy section.” He speeds us over to a bona fide arcade with four ping-pong tables, two pool tables in the back and rows and rows of pinball machines lining the walls. They blink and whir, creating a juvenile spectacle of themselves while a small army of Jinx employees test out the controls. God, why do all the people here look unkempt? One guy has hair to his shoulders all ratted into a bird’s nest. A girl wears a pair of ill-fitted jeans so low on her waist they look as if they’re about to slip off. “At Jinx we believe there’s nothing more inspirational than being hard at play. Some of our best ideas have come to us in this very wing.”
Right. I roll my eyes at the adolescent angst oozing from those hard at play. None of this would ever fly at Merlin. In fact, this is the anti-Merlin. My father may want to rethink this acquisition. It’s going to take a lot more than a business suit to reprogram the great unwashed from their pinball hero days.
I lean into Bella. “I bet som
e of those great ideas included installing a brick pizza oven and a Cheetos vending machine. That bio-dome is nothing but a cover-up for their reefer farm.”
She starts in on a hyperventilating chortle, and the small group from Rigby turns to see what the commotion is about.
“Anything you’d like to share?” Jener’s face pinches tight. He’s cute in a North Pole castoff kind of way with his pointy ears and ski slope nose.
“I’m sorry. My friend laughs when she’s nervous.” I lie because lying is the language of every man. Had I told the truth, everyone would be laughing, and I don’t think Jener with one ‘n’ would have appreciated that.
“Very well. Make your way into the boardroom. The official orientation is about to begin. Lucky for us there’s an executives meeting this afternoon, and they were kind enough to stop by and introduce themselves.”
Another circular ooh whispers through the crowd at the mention of corporate royalty. I peer into the boardroom since I’ve no desire to kiss any corporate feet during my stay in the litter box. A bevy of black leather chairs dot the periphery of a long, dark table. Nothing but simple lines, chrome with a chic black and white theme. It’s the only remotely corporate looking office that we’ve been exposed to so far.
“God”—Bella slaps me over the arm, hard enough to leave a welt—“the Cannon brothers are here!” She gives it in a whisper-shout, and suddenly I’m caught up with trying to make myself taller in my heels, so I can catch a glimpse of the corporate princes.
A group of men in matching business suits, in various scales of gray, stand toward the front. I have no idea which ones are brothers. They all share the same dark hair, the same hearty smile as they talk amongst themselves. Obviously they draw the line of casual attire at the boardroom.
Someone bumps hard into my shoulder from behind, and I find an ungodly tall brunette stabbing her heels into the ground as she makes her way past me with fury. I glance down to see if she’s on stilts.
“Who the hell puts the toilet paper under?” She barks at a petite blonde pecking behind her as if trying to keep up. “Next person to use my bathroom gets shot on sight.” She cuts me a quick look that says I’ll knife you without thinking twice, so I transfer my gaze back to the boys with their boxy padded shoulders. They share a gentle laugh. The corporate gods keep to themselves. I doubt a single one of them has ever played ping-pong down the hall.
Bella latches onto my elbow. “We’d better get to our seats.”
One of the suits turns and my eyes snag on that familiar smile, those laughing eyes. He cuts a look in my direction and does a quick double take.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper with a smile hedging on my lips. “It’s Ford.” I wave my hand high over my head like a giddy schoolgirl. Holy crap, his face is clean-shaven.
You shaved, I mouth pointing to my cheek. Just the sight of it makes that tender part of me quiver for him. I want to feel the smoothness over my thighs. My panties melt just thinking about the things he’s going to do to me with that clean-shaven perfection. Maybe we can break into his brother’s beach house for a few hours tonight?
“Who are you talking to?” Bella moves me back into the elongated, over air-conditioned boardroom.
“It’s him.” I wrangle my elbow free as the pieces start to fall into place. He’s a driver. Of course—he probably works for Jinx. I bet he’s in charge of one of those Cannon brothers. That’s why he was at my father’s party.
I struggle to break through the crowd and make my way to Ford, but the Rigby salmon are swimming their way upstream, toward their seats, and it’s impossible to go against the flow of traffic. I bob and weave my way forward, but the crowd presses me back until I’m standing next to the empty chair Bella reserved for me.
“Let’s get started!” Jener barks it out. The noise in the room dies down, and suddenly everyone’s bottom is grafted onto a black leather chair.
I shrug over at Ford and blow him a quick kiss, but his eyes are locked in horror. His mouth falls open as if he’s about to say something. The bony brunette that threatened a firing squad upon the next person who fondled her toilet paper cuts me a hard look before whispering into his ear.
“Wait a minute,” it comes from me less than air. The second she leaned into him the distinct feeling of deja vu set in. Was she at the party that night? I think she was—doing exactly that.
Jener claps his hands, and I fall hard into my seat. “Welcome everyone to Jinx headquarters.” The room stills as we sit like obedient children ready to glean whatever guerrilla warfare tactics they’re willing to dispense, but, the truth is, I can’t take my eyes off that beautiful man.
Jener starts in on an eerie slow clap. “The corporate owners make their offices right here on campus, but even they’ll admit it’s a rare feat to have them all in the room at once—at least without killing each other.”
He manages to generate a soft laugh from the crowd. Jener is the ringleader, and we’re the posse of manicured poodles. Suddenly I’m embarrassed that Ford has the opportunity to witness the event.
“And, now, may I introduce you to the famous, or rather infamous yet brilliant Cannon brothers.” He motions to a couple of dark-haired gentlemen standing to his right, each one more handsome than the next, but, of course, they pale in comparison to Ford who’s standing on the other end. That woman, that skeleton with hair, is still dangling off his shoulder like a parrot.
Jener motions to an open laptop in front of him. “First we have Cash who is here both in spirit and Skype.” He flicks his wrist to the gentlemen to his right. “Carson and Carter.” They both give a mock bow before taking a seat at the front.
Something about those names… They ring in the back of my head like a song I can’t remember all the lyrics to. Wait—is that Aspen’s old friend, Carter?
“And, of course,” Jener claps just once, loud as a pop of thunder—“let us not forget the master of disaster, the man of every hour who is the very reason each one of us are seated where we are today because without him there would be no Jinx—Mr. Crawford Cannon himself.”
The room explodes in wild applause. Jener turns to his left, but there’s nobody there. Nobody but—Ford. The spindly brunette claps the longest, the loudest, the ass-kissing proudest. But Ford has locked his eyes over mine, his face pale as alabaster.
Crawford Cannon?
My mouth opens at the revelation. Everything in me demands to bolt, but my heels have screwed themselves into the floor.
It can’t be. It’s not. He’s just pulling some elaborate stunt to impress me.
Ford steps up to the empty leather chair awaiting him and gives a quick nod to the crowd before taking a seat.
“Welcome.” That warm baritone vibrates off the walls, inviting me in without excuse.
Holy hell.
That vexingly hot man that chased me around his brother’s beach house for two carnally exhausting weeks was no lowly driver, no man of simple means just getting by like he painted himself to be. He wasn’t at all the man I thought he was.
The walls press in, the room heaves and swelters. My adrenaline spikes, punctures a hole right through my heart. I want to run, to scream, to vomit all at the same time. I’ve become a cat clawing at the bottom of the well, the water rising over my head.
Our eyes remain locked like some unfortunate livewire neither of us can let go of. Here we are, standing in a pool of water, gyrating to a deep fried finish in front of my peers—in front of the skeletal earpiece whispering sweet nothings to him right this very moment.
Holy hell, I don’t know this man at all.
But I do know two things.
He is nothing but a liar—and his name is Crawford Cannon.
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