by Virna DePaul
She got busy. Really busy. After seeing the video and talking to Branden yet again, which didn’t help her get him off her mind, Excel spreadsheets had never looked so good. She had to keep calm. Had to keep her focus on work. Routine was what she needed to stop the roller coaster of emotions that she had been riding since the night she’d locked lips with Wall Street’s Most Desired.
The morning passed quickly and without incident. Around noon she suddenly realized that she was so hungry it felt like her stomach was beginning to turn on itself. She dug through her desk, hoping that she had a granola bar or a bag of trail mix, but having no luck. Knowing that she couldn’t hide forever, she took her wallet and headed down to the employee dining room. She would just grab a sandwich and bring it back up. She had plenty of bottled water in the office.
Feeling like a criminal, she checked the hallway before stepping out. No Branden, no Mike Gaunt, and no Deena. So far so good. She pressed the down button on the elevator. When it slid open, she was face to face with Greg.
He smiled broadly and said, “Hey there,” in a sickeningly familiar tone.
“Hi,” she answered grudgingly.
He held the door open but didn’t step off.
Cara cleared her throat. “Aren’t you getting off here?” she asked before she stepped on.
“No, I just remembered that I forgot something downstairs. Which floor do you need?” he asked her.
“Ground,” she said.
What is he up to?
He smiled again, and this time it almost seemed menacing.
“I’m glad I ran into you, actually. You know, Cara,” he said after the elevator once again jerked to life, “I felt bad about how I treated you at the party.”
“You mean when you wouldn’t take no for an answer? Is this an apology?”
“I guess it’s an apology if that’s what you want to call it,” he said.
“I don’t want to call it anything,” she said, in no mood for silly word games. “I just wasn’t sure if you ‘feeling bad’ amounted to an apology.”
“Does is matter? Judging from the pic in Deets, you were doing okay. Better than okay apparently, getting to know the new boss.”
Cara felt her stomach drop just as the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. Greg put his hand out to hold the doors open after he stepped off and grinned at her shocked face like they’d been having a pleasant conversation. Then he said, “Have a great day. I’m sure you’ll have a great night. I know I will. I’ve got a hot video to watch.”
He let the doors go and she stood there, mouth probably hanging open for too long, even after the doors closed in her face. It took her another several seconds of standing there looking at the closed doors to remember that she needed to push something to make it open again or go.
Twenty minutes later, Cara told Branden about her conversation with Greg. When she finished, he sat for a moment, his jaw flicking with tension. Then, without a word, he stood and headed toward the office door.
“Where are you going?” she asked, nerves sending her voice trembling.
“I’m going to talk to Greg,” he said. “If nothing else, I’ll tell him to keep his nasty insinuations to himself.”
Cara immediately stepped between him and the door. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
The closeness of their bodies registered and goose bumps prickled down Cara’s arms and spine. She forced down the urge to go up on her toes and once again feel the softness and power of his sexy lips on hers.
He looked down at her with those smoldering dark eyes. “Why not?”
“If he wanted attention, you’d be giving him exactly that. If he’s not the one who posted the picture and video and he just came across them the way we did, then bringing them up gives credence and unnecessary influence.”
His jaw clenched as he considered what she said. “You were right about the Deets picture. I should have been more concerned about it. I’m sorry I didn’t—” He shut his eyes, dragging his hand through his hair, then cursed loudly enough that she jumped. “Damn it, I should have protected you from this!”
Her eyes widened and she automatically shook her head. “You didn’t do this, Branden. And you couldn’t have known. I’m just your employee.”
His eyes flew open and he pinned her with a glare. “You’re not just my employee, Cara. You’re someone I’ve already grown to care about. And as I told you yesterday, I want to be more to you than your boss.”
Her mouth had gone completely dry and she felt like she needed to swallow but couldn’t. His eyes were shifting back and forth between her eyes and her lips.
He was thinking of kissing her.
And she wanted his kiss more than anything in the world.
A second after she thought it, he pushed her up against his closed office door and his lips were suddenly on hers.
She could have pulled away. She could have at least tried.
She didn’t.
Instead, wanting only to forget her worries over that video and the humiliation she’d felt at Greg’s jeering voice and expression, she molded herself into his body and deepened the kiss, shuddering as she felt his hot tongue slip between her lips.
Her mind told her to stop. After all, this is what had gotten them into trouble in the first place. But his lips on hers felt too good, too right to stop.
As they kissed, he ran his hands along her curves and she couldn’t help but moan against his mouth. His touch was electric, and the fact that they were leaning up against the door of his office with his assistant sitting only feet away outside made it more dangerous somehow and therefore more exciting.
He pulled his lips from hers only to slide them down her face and to her neck. When he reached the collar of her shirt, he tugged it aside, exposing a tender patch of flesh to kiss and nibble. The part of her brain telling her to stop began to scream.
She tried to ignore it. Tried to listen to her body, which was commanding just the opposite.
She was rooting for her body. She wanted it to win.
But before she realized it, her brain took control and she said, “No, wait. Stop…”
He did. Immediately. Her body was thrown into instant grief and regret.
“Cara,” he breathed.
The sound of her name on his lips was like a drug. She had to force herself to be strong.
“We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” he said in his deep, sexy voice. “I tried to fight this. Tried to do what was appropriate. But Greg saw the video, and it’s certain others will have, too, either because Greg told them about or they found it on their own. All they had to do was Google my name, or D&M, and given I just took over the company, that isn’t farfetched. People will already think we’re sleeping together. I’m sorry for that. Sorry for the trouble it will cause you. But you already know your job is safe. There’s nothing standing in our way from dating. We can sign a dating waiver with HR. Besides helping you through any backlash with the video, I’d like to get to know you better, Cara. Dinner. Drinks. Conversation.”
Her gaze locked onto his. That was no “I’d like to talk politics over dinner” look he was giving her. That was one of those smoldering “Let’s shove the meal off the table and have at each other” kind of looks. Everything inside her began to shiver and quake. “Please…” she began, not positive what she was asking for.
“Please what, Cara?”
“Please stop looking at me like that.” It wasn’t what she really wanted to say. What she really wanted to say was, please throw me down on the desk and fuck me senseless.
He slowly pulled away. Shivering, as if the loss of his touch had chilled her all the way to her bones, she fixed her blouse with trembling fingers. Then she turned to open the door.
“Wait,” he said.
She froze. Looked over her shoulder.
He strode to his desk and bent over it.
She imagined that she was lying on top of it, legs spread…<
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Branden wrote something down. When he came back he had a business card in his hand. “I meant what I said when I told you I wanted to get to know you. To have dinner with you. I’m dining at home tonight. At seven. Give this to my doorman. Tell him your name and he’ll send you up.”
She looked at the card. He’d written P on it and signed it. At the bottom it said Manhattan Sky Towers.
“I didn’t agree to dinner,” she said.
He closed her hand around the card with his own. His touch caused her to convulse once more.
“In case you change your mind,” he said, “I’ll be there by seven. If dinner’s too much, just join me for a cocktail or two. In the meantime, I won’t talk to Greg, but I am going to keep an eye on him. If he bothers you again, let me know.”
She nodded, unable to formulate any words.
He reached out and smoothed down a piece of her hair. That simple act was so sweet and intimate that Cara felt the sting of tears in the corners of her eyes. She didn’t understand why he had such an incredibly strong effect on her emotions and it made her a nervous wreck. After he pulled away, he smiled and opened the office door.
“Thank you for letting me know about that, Cara. I hadn’t realized that venture was losing money. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on those stocks.”
“Oh, um…sure, Mr. Duke. You’re welcome.” She made eye contact with Jean, first Max and now Branden’s assistant, and smiled.
Jean smiled back.
Cara was probably just being paranoid, but there seemed to be something new in the other woman’s eyes, something knowing.
Cara made it back to her office, completely forgetting that she’d left in the first place because she was hungry. Her insides were quaking from that kiss. At least she thought it was the kiss. Maybe it was what Greg had said, or the look Jean had given her. Either way, she needed to shake it all off before her work started to suffer. Her job was the one stable thing she had in her life and she needed it.
Her mother and Glenn were counting on her.
She looked down at the business card in her hand and then shoved it into her pocket.
They were in enough trouble as it was.
She wasn’t going to his place for dinner. Because she knew from how he looked at her what would follow dessert.
But there was no denying the fact she wanted to be what was laid out on his table for his pleasure.
After Cara left, Branden returned to his desk and picked up the phone.
“Alex, I need to see you,” was all he said.
Less than five minutes later, there was a knock on his door.
“Come in!”
Alex Samuels, Branden’s friend and personal investigator, stepped inside. Branden had asked him to be part of the D&M purchase, mostly to keep his ear to the ground and report to Branden anything he heard that could be construed as negative.
“Hey, boss,” Alex said, taking a seat across from Branden.
Branden and Alex had met in college over a wild game of Beer Pong and forged a friendship that had survived everything in between—including more Beer Pong and the occasional hostile takeover of a trading company. Now Alex and his brother Lee were Branden’s go-to-guys for anything or anyone he needed checked out. They worked for him, not for the SEC, not for Deena, and not for Mike Gaunt. After seeing the photo in Deets, Branden had told Lee to investigate Cara’s background on the chance someone from her past was gunning for her. Now, because of Greg’s comments to Cara in the elevator, Branden had an assignment for Alex.
“Hey,” Branden said, looking his friend over. “Off to play polo with Ralph Lauren?”
Alex, usually in jeans, T-shirt, and boots, currently had on a collared shirt, a long-sleeved peachy-pink button-down, and khaki pants.
“Did you call me up here just to make fun of me?”
Branden grinned. “Nope. I have an assignment for you. But I am wondering what prompted your sudden change of style.”
“Are you kidding? My first day here in your fancy trading firm I had not one but two different people mistake me for the plumber. Apparently there was an issue with the toilets on the second floor that day.”
“So you went shopping so you wouldn’t be mistaken for the custodial staff?”
“Yeah, Leslie took me to Barneys. Not exactly my style, but at least nobody’s asking me if they can pee on floor two today.”
Branden wondered if Alex had called Leslie, or the other way around. Leslie was one of Branden’s five sisters—younger than him by eight years—and had followed him and his friends around like a lost little puppy. Branden had gotten into a fistfight with Leslie’s father, stepfather number three, when the douchebag had taken a belt to Leslie’s behind after she’d snuck out of the house at night. Alex and Leslie had been friends since they’d met a few years back. Branden couldn’t remember if Leslie was dating anyone at the moment.
But the hair on the back of his neck rose at the thought of his baby sister dating anyone—even if it was one of his best friends. Although she couldn’t do better than Alex. The Samuels brothers were the salt of the earth. Trustworthy. Hard workers. And they’d make great husbands. Unlike him.
Branden sighed and told himself to focus on the matter at hand. “I need you on this quickly. It has nothing to do with the SEC investigation—at least, not that I know of. But who knows.”
“Cool, so this is personal. Is she hot?”
“It’s a guy.”
“Why don’t you ever need some hot, lonely cougar type followed? Or better yet, assign me instead of my brother to look into the hot blonde. I was a little hurt over that, by the way.”
Something warm stirred in his belly at the mention of Cara. Damn. She seemed to invade his every pore. “You weren’t here the day I called for the background on Cara. Lee got that one by default.”
“Fine. No hot blondes. What do you need?”
“There’s a guy named Greg Johnson. A junior stockbroker, rather obnoxious. I want to know everything about him, including how old he was when he stopped wearing Pull-Ups to bed at night.”
“So info you can’t get off his employee file. That’s it?”
“For now,” Branden said. “As soon as Deena gets all the hard drives downloaded and we go through them, I know there will be more. Do you and Lee have the staff and resources you need?”
“We have way too many people at the moment, actually. Got them sitting around watching security tapes and picking their noses all day. It looks like a family dinner at my parents’ house.”
“That will change soon enough. Get on Greg Johnson ASAP for now. Let me know if you find anything unusual in the guy’s background.”
Alex stood up. “You got it, boss. Just remember me if any of those cougar investigations come up, okay?”
“Why don’t you just go out to the club and find one yourself?”
“You know I’m shy,” Alex said with a grin on his way out.
Yeah, right.
A minute after Alex left, Deena walked in the door.
“I was looking at the copy of an employee’s hard drive today. It has some interesting searches on it for information about Serenity and Lindtz Pharmaceuticals.”
Serenity was a new medication put out by a little known pharmaceutical company, Lindtz. As soon as the medication had been approved by the FDA and hit the market, the stocks for the little company had skyrocketed. Anyone who had gotten in on the ground floor of that deal had made a small fortune.
“Who’s the employee?” he asked.
“A guy named John Turner. He’s been here for ten years.”
“Did we look into his financials?”
“He’s made several cash deposits recently. All just under ten grand, I’m assuming to keep the IRS at bay. He doesn’t own any of the stock for Lindtz, but it seems that he has two brothers, an uncle, and a cousin who acquired quite a bit of it just prior to Serenity being released onto the market.”
“Then John Turner is someone we n
eed to be looking at more closely. Mike can handle it.”
“Not Alex? I just saw him leaving here. Anything I should know?”
Deena already knew about the Deets picture and the shady video and he thought about telling her about Cara’s run-in with Greg, but for some reason that seemed wrong. Like he’d be betraying Cara somehow by sharing. “Nope.”
“What’s Alex pursuing?”
“Something personal.”
“Is this about little Cara Michal?”
“It’s about me and my personal privacy,” he said.
Deena smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
She wanted the information, but too bad. This video had nothing to do with their shared SEC investigation, so he’d handle it without involving his family.
Cara worked nonstop all afternoon. When she finally stopped she had a kink in her neck and the sun had already begun to dip low in the sky behind the massive glass-and-steel skyscrapers that lined the street. Her stomach growled and she looked at the time on her computer. It was already close to seven, the hour Branden had said he wanted her at his place for a dinner date. No way.
She still hadn’t eaten anything, and the two bottles of water she drank weren’t keeping her full any longer. Her head was even beginning to feel a little light.
After kissing Branden, she’d avoided leaving her office all day, but she was going to have to go find something to eat before she passed out. She made up her mind for sure somewhere around three o’clock that she absolutely would not be making an appearance at his apartment at seven, even for a quick drink and conversation. It was borrowing trouble and she had enough already. She picked up her bag and switched off her computer and her office light and headed out for the night. She’d stop at the food cart in front and pick up a bagel or something to tide her over until she got home.
The halls were quiet, but there was plenty of evidence that not everyone had packed up and left. She heard muffled voices and the whirring sounds of copy and fax machines behind closed doors. She smelled the strong coffee still brewing for those who were planning a long night.
She slipped into an open elevator, grateful she was alone. That only lasted a couple of floors. On the third floor, a man she barely recognized stepped in. Then on the second floor, two men entered. Cara recognized one of them but didn’t know his name. She thought he might have been at the party at Branden’s place, but wasn’t quite sure.