BOUND: Together

by Cynthia Dane

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “My Taiwanese source assures me that it’s a big deal a woman of her age and social rank doesn’t have a husband and works. It implies she’s made a conscious decision to not marry.”

  “Maybe she’s waiting for the right person to come along.”

  Sherman shook his head. “Not everywhere is like here, Erica.”

  I closed the lid on my water and flung myself back onto the mat. Sweat had stopped dripping down my skin, but I couldn’t tell if I relished the post-workout feeling or desired to take a shower as soon as possible. “I still want to know more. She hasn’t been super forthcoming about her heritage.” I didn’t mean that in a disparaging way. It didn’t matter to me if she were an heiress or the first child in her family to ever go to college. Natalie was Natalie. Everything I needed to know was presented to me from the moment we met. “If her father is a traditional man, let alone one with good breeding and his own success, then I want to do this right.”

  Sherman tensed. “Do what right, exactly?” The caution in his voice would have sent shivers down my spine if I weren’t so sure about what I wanted.

  I hadn’t realized how flippantly I suggested I was about to oh, I don’t know, propose to Natalie? Not that I was anywhere near to doing that, but as far as Sherman was concerned, I probably sounded like I was on the verge of eloping to Vegas. That was definitely a Tier 1 security violation.

  “Pursue a serious relationship with Natalie, of course.”

  I expected him to deride me for being so foolish. For following my pussy. For glomming onto the first woman who accepted me for being female – and a woman.

  But he didn’t say anything. Not for a few pregnant seconds that grew heavier than the humid air in the gym.

  “It’s that serious, huh?” He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs. Muscles as big as my head flexed. I was probably one of the few people in the world who saw him in sleeveless shirts and sneakers, just like he was one of the few people to see me in my sports bra and tight yoga pants. “You and this girl.”

  “Woman,” I corrected. Natalie was far from a girl. She was all woman. The near-perfect woman.

  “Right.” He scratched behind his ear.

  I kept waiting for him to say something else. Anything. An opinion. A warning. A statement from one of my best friends and closest confidants.

  Literally anything.

  “Well?” I prompted him.

  “Well, what?”

  I furrowed my brows like an indignant child. “What do you think of that?”

  “I’m not sure.” Sherman shrugged. “On one hand, it’s nice to know that busting my ass to cover your ass is worth it. On the other? I won’t know how I really feel about you and Natalie until I complete my background checks.”

  “Just get me information about her father, please. Specifically, how to contact him. I want to meet him face to face.”

  He didn’t pass judgment on that, either. Apparently, Sherman had other things to occupy his mind. “You really feel that kind of connection with her?”

  I snorted. “Of course I do?”

  “Just asking.”

  “I’m not simply infatuated, if that’s what you mean.” My whole body recoiled at the thought of Natalie being a mere infatuation. How could it be infatuation when her presence made everything right in my world? When she was so beautiful my breath was constantly stolen from me? When she smiled like that in my direction? It was mutual, wasn’t it? This was a woman who had fallen in love with a man – and was willing to fall in love again, this time with the woman behind the curtain. “I’m not going to tell you I’m in love.” Not out loud, anyway. “But things are going very well with her. I intend to see how far things can go.” I looked away. “You know how much that would mean to me.”

  “I do.” Sherman’s elbow grazed against my arm when he flexed his body. “Which is why I worry about you.”

  “I’m not rushing into things. It’s not because I’m losing my shit that a woman is into my pussy. It’s not…”

  “You don’t know her ulterior motives,” Sherman softly said. “You don’t know what’s going through her head, or what she might want from you.”

  How dare he. Did he assume I was so stupid that I never questioned if Natalie was only after money or corporate power? She was career driven. That’s part of the reason we got along so well! Who was better at understanding my own drive to succeed in business? I supported her, she supported me… wasn’t that how relationships were supposed to work?

  Sherman must have sensed how his words affected me, for he put a solid hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m only looking out for your best interests. I don’t know her motives any better than you do, but we’ll figure it out.”

  “Don’t you dare scare her off.”

  “Think we’re long past that being a possibility. If that girl – er, woman – can look me in the eye when I’m all up in her face, then maybe it is fate after all.”

  “All up in her face, huh?”

  “You should’ve seen me the first night you brought her here. I wasn’t playing around.”

  “No, I’m sure.” I hopped up and gestured for him to join me on our feet. “Brooke’s worried that Natalie will eventually be too overwhelmed by… well, you know.”

  “Brooke would know.”

  Sherman was ready to get back to working out. I remained firmly on the mat. “I’ll never forget the day she told me she couldn’t be with me.” Something shuddered in my body. “I had never been so heartbroken in my life. I’m not in a hurry to relive that pain.”

  He studied my face before holding his hand out to me. “Same.”

  His hand was sweaty in mine. Even after he released me to grab a towel and check his phone, I could only think of one thing – something I hadn’t wanted to consider since I realized I could never, ever be happy with a man like I could be with a woman.

  It was a thought I shoved into the back of mind. Buried it beneath my memories and insecurities, as if it would be shameful to admit that my best friend was in love with me.

  ***

  My office phone softly clicked into a panel on my desk. I lowered my pen after making a note in my personal planner and heaved a frightened breath.

  I had not expected to be patched through to Taipei so quickly. Or to speak with the person I wanted so… immediately.

  As soon as I said the magic words to the woman who first answered the phone, however, I was patched through to the vice president of Gold Plains Bank. I stumbled through a few lines of polite Mandarin and hoped I hadn’t botched my accent.

  What did I expect out of that conversation? It hadn’t been about business. It was 100% personal – and I was more nervous than if I called an investor in Sweden and demanded he give me a hundred-grand right there. Even so, I did not expect to set up a meeting in my city by the end of a five-minute call. A meeting for that upcoming Saturday.

  Or maybe that was my rusty Mandarin fucking me up. I would have asked Natalie to help me with the call, but… did I really want her knowing that I had called her father?

  Chapter 41

  NATALIE

  Erica had already returned home to Mann Manor by the time I arrived at the office. I didn’t find out until Jimmy filled me in and I finally thought to check my most recent messages. Brooke’s comments had thrown me off enough that I spent the whole car ride back looking up whatever I could about Mercy Springs, an assisted living home for the wealthy and elderly. I had no reason to believe that Erica was anywhere but in the office.

  “Sorry. Decided to go finish my work for the day in the home office. Stop by and I’ll give you the tour – and you can take some notes for me.”

  I slumped down in my desk and tossed the work phone back into my bag. All I had to do was summon Clyde with a text and he would take me to Mann Manor. Too bad I had gotten out of a cab and would rather take a break from vehicles for a few minutes.

  �
��Hey, Nat, how’s Brooke doing?”

  I slowly turned my head in pondscum’s direction. “How did you know I visited her?”

  Aiden shrugged at his desk. “You mentioned it on your way out.”

  “No I didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone where I went.” I stood, urgency renewed. “You always seem to know an awful lot about what I’m doing and what’s going on around the office… for someone who doesn’t do much else.”

  Aiden remained unfazed. The kind of guy who doesn’t even raise his eyebrows at my advancing on him is not the kind of guy I want to work with. It means he doesn’t take me seriously. At all.

  “No idea what you’re talking about, Nat. I’m simply an observant guy. Guess that’s my problem.” He leaned back in his chair, arms extending behind his head while a hearty grunt echoed in his chest. “I spend more time observing what’s going on than doing stuff. It’s my learning style.”

  “Whatever.” I would deal with Aiden later. I needed to get my things and head over to Erica’s with the assumption I wasn’t coming back to the office before the next day. “I have to head out again. See you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Nat.”

  It was a struggle to not let him see me shudder every time he called me that. He might as well have been calling me gnat.

  I texted Clyde in the elevator, and he was already waiting for me by the front curb. I had been in Erica’s fold long enough that hopping in the back of a Mercedes S Class and telling the driver to please take me to one of the biggest estates in town was no big deal.

  Almost like I had been born for this role.

  “On my way,” I texted Erica before putting my phone away. I knew what she wanted to work on. There was a meeting with a potentially big investor in the morning, and she had spent half of that morning saying she wanted to research the income potential of her tech subsidiary’s newest video game project. Or maybe it was a video game studio she was funding. I was so frazzled from information overload that I spent half the car ride to the manor trying to decide what to put into Google first.

  My ass was ready to work. I was so focused on heading up to the main home office and handing Erica my research that I almost forgot to say hello to Margot and thank her for remembering that my favorite non-alcoholic drink was Coke Zero with a splash of peach juice, dutifully offered to me on a silver tray when I entered the grand foyer.

  I was doubly shocked when she caught up to me, not to give me my drink, but to redirect me to the private gym in the back of the main house’s first floor. “That is where Mr. Mann is with Mr. Smith.” Margot chose that moment to put the ice-cold drink in my hand. “I was told to send you there as soon as you arrived.”

  “Ah, thanks.”

  “I also wish to take your coat. The gym is kept a steady eighty-degrees for maximum exertion. You don’t need your coat in there.”

  Every other word out of her mouth was coat, so I was inclined to give it to her.

  Good thing I did. Because Erica’s private gym was sweltering!

  I wish that was the only sweaty thing about the place. As soon as I stepped into the scene unfolding in one woman’s ginormous gym, my breath was sucked from my body and moisture cleansed my brow.

  Because holy shit.

  I had seen Erica naked once or twice, so I knew how lean her figure was. If she told me that she was only 6% body fat, I would readily believe her. What I never noticed before, however, was how muscular her body was beneath her smooth skin. She wasn’t a bodybuilder. She wasn’t even ripped or shredded or whatever words people use to describe a gym rat who isn’t happy until they’re taking a million selfies to post to their hashtag-muscleinspo Instagram accounts.

  But her muscles were powerful enough to fling herself in Sherman’s direction.

  Was I more shocked by how limber and ferocious my lover was, or that Sherman was not wearing a suit?

  “Come on!” His shout bounced around the gym as he held his palms up before his face. “You can hit me harder than that! What is this? Introduction to martial arts? Hit me harder.”

  Erica pivoted on her left foot, the right one swinging in a grand arch and coming to a hard, snappy landing against Sherman’s hands. He barely budged from his position, but the look on his face was one of approval.

  “That’s it. Come on. Put me in my fucking place before I take everything you have!”

  Wow. Okay. So I had walked in on some sort of self-defense sparring match between two athletic people who had known each other since they were kids. That last part was the only thing not making it so sexual that I had half a mind to call a stop to it.

  Erica’s naked foot landed on Sherman’s shoulder. He brushed it off. She spun around and landed a hard punch to the same spot on his shoulder.

  That time he budged. A little.

  “Good.” He relaxed his posture. The match must have been over, for Erica followed suit, finally relinquishing her tough woman image and bracing her hands against her knees. Sherman grabbed a water bottle off the floor and handed it to her. “Much better than last time. Was starting to think there was something seriously wrong with…” He noticed me, standing on the edge of the mats, for the first time. “Oh. Right.”

  I nodded to him. If I focused on him, maybe I could avoid looking at Erica directly and…

  Losing my damn mind.

  “See Margot took care of your drink.” Erica pulled a towel off a bench and wiped off the sweat dripping from her face. Her blue sports bra strained against her breasts and the muscles flexing beneath. Of course that’s where my eyes went. Not to the yoga pants sticking to her legs and ass. Nope. My eyes went straight to her tits.

  Is that the kind of woman I was? One who stared at another’s tits? Apparently.

  “I don’t get any drinks around here,” Sherman said from the bench. A bottle of green Gatorade was clenched between his hands. “Not from Margot, I mean.”

  “Because she doesn’t like you.” Erica took a swig of water from her bottle after tossing the towel over her shoulder. “Sorry. I thought I had a bit more time before you got here. I was so cramped up in the downtown office and decided to cut my lunch short so we could get a workout in. After I shower up, I’ll be ready to go over those notes.”

  “Doesn’t like me?” Sherman leaned against his thigh. “I introduced her to her ex-boyfriend!”

  “Yeah, the one who stole her mother’s tennis bracelet.”

  “Whatever. That’s not my fault. You’re the one who almost hired him.”

  “I didn’t because there were too many holes in his employment history.” Erica focused on me with a dazzling white smile. “Again, sorry. He gets worked up when we work out.”

  “Do you two always work out together?”

  That smile faded, as if Erica couldn’t believe I would ask that. “He’s the only personal trainer I’ve ever had. It’s difficult finding people, you know.”

  “You saying I’m not good enough?” Sherman looked at me for the first time since I arrived. “Look at her. She’s a lean, mean fighting machine. I did that.”

  Erica turned to him. “Excuse me? I did the actual work to get this body in shape.”

  “Yeah, but I made you do it.”

  “Listen to him. Next he’ll think he’s my personal stylist.”

  “Like you’ve changed your look in the past ten years. I could cut that hair in my sleep.”

  Grimacing, Erica took me by the hand and turned me toward the door. “He’s incorrigible when he gets like this. I suggest we go straight to my office so I can get you started on those notes while I pop into the shower for a few minutes. What do you think?”

  I bumped into Margot when we stepped out of the gym. She still carried the peach-infused Coke Zero, now accompanied with cucumber and lime water for her boss. “I think you shouldn’t track those sweaty feet across my freshly mopped floors, sir.”

  The head housekeeper was 100% serious. I had to hand it to her, she sure knew how to make Erica blush.

  “Take
the damn Coke,” Erica muttered in my ear. “Otherwise she’ll follow us up the stairs and into my office. Then she’ll follow me into the shower and personally watch me drink everything on that platter. You ever play video games?”

  I stumbled over the first step on the service staircase. “Yeah?”

  “Pretend Margot is an NPC and she’ll make our lives hell if we don’t accept her quest right the fuck now.”

  I took the glass of Coke and Erica grabbed the cucumber water. Margot remained at the bottom of the steps, the empty platter still in her hands. Her demeanor had not changed a bit.

  There was no time to make up stories about where I was that afternoon or what I had to go out and do the next day. I was too busy dodging housekeepers and keeping my confusion over how I felt about this prime specimen of the female body next to me. Oh, and I suppose I was preoccupied with work. Except when Erica was in the shower, I thought of how she must have looked rinsing off that sweat. When she returned? I agonized over her sweat pants and the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her thin gray T-shirt.

  The fact we didn’t have sex of any kind before I had to go home was the worst part. What kind of monster was she? What kind of creature had I become?

  Chapter 42

  NATALIE

  As uncomfortable as I was going behind Erica’s back, I did as Brooke asked and went to Mercy Springs first thing after lunch on Friday. I texted Clyde that I requested a ride to Brooke’s usual Friday hotspot, and he diligently showed up at the curb without a question.

  I told Erica that I needed to step out for a few errands. The only thing she requested was that I return before five.

  I didn’t think the trip to Mercy Springs would take four hours, but I only had a few of Brooke’s heavily coded notes to study. I hate to admit that this was one of the first times I could barely make out her shorthand in the notebooks she released to me, but after using my lunch hour to decode phrases such as, “Massive hallucinations” and “Trauma from the death of her child,” I got a fairly good idea what was going on with Martha Mann.