by Zaires, Anna
42
Emma
I’m still fuming as we eat dinner at home an hour and a half later. Though none of the customers said anything or even smirked much when we emerged from the back room, for the remaining fifteen minutes of my shift, I felt like I had a scarlet A branded on my forehead—or maybe a tattoo that says “Property of Marcus.”
It would certainly be in line with his behavior toward Ian. Marcus all but pissed in a circle around me—then literally marked me with his cum.
Shoving a bite of chicken into my mouth, I picture the bug-eyed panic on Ian’s face as Marcus came toward us, then the obvious sex noises that must’ve been coming out of the back room despite what Marcus said about us being quiet, and though I still want to die from embarrassment, a snort of laughter escapes my throat, causing me to choke on the food.
“You okay, kitten?” Marcus asks, immediately concerned, and for some reason, that sends me over the edge. Whooping hysterically between bouts of coughing, I shove my plate away and jump to my feet.
“You—he…” I’m laughing so hard tears are running down my face. “Oh God, we had sex in the freaking back room.”
Queen Elizabeth, who had been calmly napping on one of the free dining chairs, raises her head and gives me a look suggesting I’m mental—and I can’t blame her. Marcus’s behavior was atrocious, not funny in the least. And mine wasn’t any better. What was I thinking, dragging my insatiable pirate to the back room when the air between us all but crackled with a sexual charge?
If I get fired on Monday for inappropriate behavior at work, it’ll be no more than I deserve.
The thought sobers me up, and I return to my seat, wiping away the tears as Marcus stares at me in bemusement. I can’t blame him either. I’ve barely spoken two words to him since we came out of the back room, even though he waited for me to finish my shift and we went home together. He even attempted to apologize for acting like an ass at my place of work, but I could tell he didn’t mean it.
He thinks he’s somehow in the right on this—as if I would’ve ever gone for poor Ian.
“You know I’d never cheat on you, right?” I say, figuring I might as well state the obvious. “Not with Ian, not with anyone else.”
Marcus’s gaze sharpens, and he puts down his fork. “I know. I trust you.”
“So then why—”
“Because I don’t trust them.”
I blink. “Them?”
His jaw tightens. “Men. Especially desperate ones, like that blond asshole. He would’ve blushed and stuttered, and you would’ve felt bad for him, like for a sad little puppy. He’d worm his way into your good graces, become your friend, and next thing you know, he’s rubbing his fucking hard-on all over you.”
“Marcus!” I can’t believe he’s being so vulgar. “Ian wouldn’t—”
“Oh, yes, he would,” he says grimly. “You just don’t know how men think and how far they’d go to get what I have.”
“What, sex?”
“You.” His gaze burns into me. “You, Emma, are a fucking prize, and you don’t even know it. Each time you smile, some asshole gets hard—and I’m not just talking about me.”
I laugh incredulously. “Yeah, okay, now that’s—”
“Nothing but the truth. You slay them—and me—without even trying. And not just because that sweet ass of yours could launch a thousand ships. It’s you, kitten, everything about you.”
I stop laughing, my breath catching in my chest at the dark intensity in his stare. He means it—these aren’t just empty words—and for the first time, I wonder whether Kendall might be right.
Could the billionaire I love already be in love with me?
Heart hammering madly in my chest, I gather every ounce of my courage and prepare to take the biggest risk of all. “Marcus, I—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Carelli, Ms. Walsh… Are you done with the main course?”
Geoffrey’s appearance is like being rudely woken from a dream. Blinking, I pull back the hand I was about to lay on top of Marcus’s arm and force myself to smile. “Yes. I think we are. In fact, I’m pretty full, so I think I’ll skip dessert.” I glance questioningly at Marcus, and he nods.
“Same here, Geoffrey.” His voice is even as he rises to his feet. “Thank you for the dinner, and we’ll see you tomorrow. For now, we’re heading off to bed.”
And gathering my hand in his big palm, he leads me upstairs, where he demonstrates exactly how hard my smile gets him.
* * *
All weekend long, I try to work up the courage to say the words, but I can never find the right moment. Partially, it’s because Marcus spends a bunch of hours preparing for the Alpha Zone presentation he has to give at eight a.m. on Monday, double- and triple-checking all the facts in the hundred-slide deck his analysts have made. But mostly, it’s because I’m again uncertain, wondering if it might’ve been wishful thinking on my part, if I read too much into what he said at dinner.
He definitely wants me—of that, I have no doubt. Instead of fading, the fire between us burns hotter with each passing day, the sexual chemistry getting more intense with time. Now that we’re living together, it feels like all I have to do to turn Marcus on is breathe—and all he needs to do is look at me. And no matter how many times he takes me, or how hot and kinky our encounters get, it’s never enough. Anal, oral, or straight missionary; rough fucking or tender lovemaking—we do it all, and we still want more of each other.
Could that be what Marcus meant when he called me a prize? Was he referring to this off-the-charts chemistry between us?
By Sunday night, I’ve almost convinced myself to say the words regardless, but at the last moment, I chicken out. Instead, I show Marcus how I feel by worshipping every inch of his body the way he worships mine, and then giving him a massage to de-stress him before tomorrow morning’s presentation.
“How many people will be there?” I ask, spreading coconut oil over the broad, hard-muscled plane of his back. “In general, how big is this Alpha Zone organization?”
“It’s only a few hundred people,” he replies, stretching into my touch like a lazy cat—the big jungle kind, not my fluffy kitties. “But it’ll be broadcast live, and reporters from every major news outlet will be there.”
I knead the heavy muscles of his shoulders. “Is that where you did your famous tire company presentation? The one that destroyed the stock?”
“Yes, a couple of years back.” He yawns. “You know about that?”
“Of course, who doesn’t?” I’d read up on it more in recent days, and apparently, Marcus hadn’t just scoured his target’s public filings and interviewed hundreds of tire dealers; to learn about the manufacturing defects and the company’s use of slave labor, he’d had people undercover at the actual factories in China. His methods had been both brilliant and borderline illegal, his attack on the stock unprecedented in both its scope and ferocity.
The Netflix documentary called his presentation “a torpedo aimed at the very heart of a rotten citadel” and labeled Marcus “a modern-day buccaneer”—a description I found perversely hot, fitting as it does into my most non-PC pirate fantasies.
When I look down, though, I find the buccaneer himself out for the count, my massage having performed the rare feat of getting my inexhaustible sex robot to fall asleep before me.
Grinning, I climb off him, wipe the oil off my hands with a tissue, turn off the lights, and spread out next to him. I’m already drifting off to sleep when I feel his powerful arms wrap around me, tucking me against his hard body. Blowing out a contented breath, I burrow deeper into his warm embrace and vow that tomorrow is the day.
When Marcus returns from his presentation, no matter what happens or how scared I get, I’ll tell him how I feel.
43
Marcus
I’ve never been prone to fear of public speaking—it’s just as easy for me to give a presentation in front of hundreds as to speak to a few of my PMs—but I can’t deny that my
adrenaline levels spike before every Alpha Zone, the knowledge of what’s at stake revving up my heart rate and sharpening my focus.
Since Emma’s massage knocked me out earlier than planned, I wake up at four and spend the next two hours going through every number in my presentation. My pitch today is about an undervalued biotech stock. If our analysts’ research is right, it’s going to go through the roof in six months’ time, when the FDA approves its revolutionary blood pressure drug. The approval is a long shot—or at least the Wall Street community thinks so—but the data we’ve gathered by interviewing the clinical trial participants and looking through their medical records suggests otherwise, and we’ve been building a substantial position in the stock over the past few weeks.
It’s a high-risk, high-reward investment—the kind that, if it plays out as expected, might earn the top prize at the Alpha Zone next year.
For today, though, my task is convincing several hundred Alpha Zone attendees and dozens of reporters that my idea has merit—which means I need to know the company inside out, and make sure every footnote in my hundred-slide presentation is correct.
Cottonball keeps me company as I work, and to my surprise, after an hour, Mr. Puffs joins him. Purring, the massive cat stretches out on my desk and watches me as if I were a particularly tasty mouse. It’s highly likely he’s planning some mischief, but I’m too busy to worry about it.
Half of my priceless art is broken at this point, anyway.
I’m almost done going through my presentation when I step away for a bathroom break. When I return, the half-full coffee cup that I left on the desk is lying on its side, its liquid contents all over the keyboard of my laptop.
“Fuck!” I don’t need to look for a culprit; he’s lying right there on my desk, eyeing me with a smug expression. The evil cat knows exactly what he’s done. I don’t even for a moment consider that it could be his brother; Cottonball is as well behaved as a cat can be.
No, it’s Puffs who did this—and on purpose.
He knows how important this is to me.
“Get out,” I tell him, stabbing my finger at the door. “Out. Now. Or I’ll drag you out by your puffy tail.”
The cat disdainfully flicks said tail at me and lazily rises to his feet. Jumping off my desk, he strolls away, his smug demeanor all but shouting, “Mission accomplished.”
Well, the joke is on him, because the hard drive on my laptop always backs up to an attached flash drive. I’d use the cloud, but I have too much confidential information on here—and low-tech solutions are always safer.
Taking a deep breath, I make sure that everything is fine with the flash drive—it is, to my relief—and then I take out my backup laptop and finish going through the presentation, with only Cottonball allowed in my office.
Shortly after six, Emma wakes up, so I pack up my backup laptop and the attached drive, and join her for breakfast. I’m skipping my workout for the day—I want to save all the adrenaline for the podium—so as soon as we’re done, I get dressed and prepare to head over to The Plaza, the hotel where the conference is taking place.
“Good luck. I know you’ll do great,” Emma says, beaming up at me as I kiss her by the door, and my chest fills with warmth at the knowledge that she’ll be waiting for me when I return home.
Tonight, I decide as I get into the car.
After my presentation, I’ll tell her how I feel, and if she feels the same, I’ll propose.
The warmth stays with me all through the drive to Midtown and as I walk through the gleaming lobby to the conference area in the back, my laptop bag slung over my shoulder. It lingers as I greet acquaintances and strangers, shaking hands with friends and rivals alike.
My presentation is the first one, my reputation having earned me the honor of being the 8:00 a.m. keynote. At 7:20, I head into the ballroom to set up, and when I get to the podium, I open my laptop bag to take out my computer.
Except a piece of it is missing—specifically, the flash drive I’d left plugged into the side.
The drive that contains my presentation, with all my notes from this morning, as I didn’t bother loading the files from the flash drive onto the backup laptop’s hard drive.
What the fuck? Where could it have gone?
I’m riffling through my bag, hoping it just fell somewhere to the bottom, when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Emma, so even though my blood pressure is rising by the moment, I pick up right away. “Kitten? Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure.” She sounds breathless. “Puffs nearly swallowed something—a flash drive of some kind. I found him choking on it in the corner. Bad cat! Bad! I have no idea where he got it from, but just in case, I figured I’d call you.”
That demon cat. He was really determined to fuck with me this morning.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I count to three, then ask in a level tone, “Is Mr. Puffs okay?”
“Yeah, he’ll be fine—not that he deserves to be.” Mr. Puffs must still be in the vicinity because she hisses again, “Bad kitty! Bad!” before saying in a normal voice, “So, about the flash drive…”
I open my eyes and take a steadying breath. “You did the right thing calling me. My presentation is on that flash drive. Puffs must’ve stolen it from my bag while I was eating. Is Geoffrey there? I need him to plug it into a computer to make sure it’s still functional, and if so, hop into a cab and bring it to me. Tell him to go to the Grand Ballroom at The Plaza.”
Emma gasps. “Oh, no. Geoffrey just stepped out to grab groceries. But I can do it—I don’t need to be at work until ten today.”
I exhale. “That would be great, thank you. Call me as soon as you know if it works.”
“Will do.” She hangs up, and I open my email to retrieve an older version of my presentation. It’s missing all the changes from the past couple of days, but if the flash drive is too chewed up, it’ll have to do.
Six minutes later, my phone vibrates. “It works,” Emma reports, her voice oddly flat. “I’ll run it over right away.”
Frowning, I start to ask her what’s wrong, but she’s already hung up—and no matter how many times I call her, she doesn’t pick up again, texting only that she’s “on the way.” It’s not until twenty minutes later, when she texts me that she’s walking into the hotel, that I realize what else was backed up on the flash drive—and curse myself in a dozen different ways.
44
Emma
I’m shaking, literally shaking, as I walk through the ostentatious lobby, the flash drive clutched tightly in my fist. The sense of betrayal is so sharp I can’t even begin to process it, can’t think about all the implications.
Emma Walsh.
That was the name of the folder on the flash drive that caught my eye as I plugged it into my laptop to make sure it works. Marcus’s presentation was there too, along with a bunch of other folders, but I saw that “Emma Walsh” label and I just had to click.
There were a lot of files in the folder, but the first one I opened was labeled simply “Report.” And inside was indeed a report on me. It was thorough, containing so many facts about me I hadn’t even known some of them—like the name of the hospital where I was born. It talked about my family and where I went to school, listed all the places I’d ever lived and worked, mentioned all the friends I’ve ever had and all the men I’ve ever dated. It had screenshots from my social media profiles dating all the way back to my teenage years, and everything I ever added to my Amazon wish list.
Stunned, I skimmed it all, then opened some of the other files. One was my lease application for my studio; another was my college admissions essay. A few others were school assignments I’d done in college, including some short stories for my Creative Writing class. Ignoring the nausea twisting my insides, I kept clicking. My student loan applications, bank statements, vaccination records, medical history—it was all there, my entire life laid out in that folder, from my hopes and dreams to how many cavities I’d had as a child.
/> Operating purely on autopilot, I called Marcus to tell him that the flash drive works. Then I got dressed and caught a cab, my stomach sickeningly tight and my thoughts spinning like a tornado.
Marcus had me investigated. When? Why? Did he think I was some kind of con artist out to part him from his money? Was it because I was now moving in, a precaution to make sure I’m not a user like my mother?
But no, I realized halfway to my destination. I remembered the first-edition books he’d gifted me weeks ago—my three all-time favorites—and how he’d seemed to know exactly which flowers I loved. And the white scarf, the one that looked suspiciously like the one on my Amazon wish list—he’d even told me I should change my privacy settings there, admitted to knowing things about me from my social media.
I’d accused him of being a stalker then, but I’d had no idea.
I hadn’t even had a clue.
He kept calling me all through the ride up here, but I couldn’t bear to pick up the phone. Anger and betrayal are a thick knot inside my throat, my ribcage so tight it’s all I can do to take shallow, rapid breaths.
Marcus—the man I love, the man I’ve agreed to live with—had commissioned this horribly invasive report on me when we’d just started dating, and I can’t imagine why.
My fingers feel icy cold, my ears ringing as I leave the lobby and enter the conference area in the back. Alpha Zone Investment Conference, the placard in the middle of the main hallway states, with men and women in business attire milling all around. The Grand Ballroom is to my right, and I hurry there, ignoring the nauseating drumming of my pulse.
Deliver the flash drive and leave—that’s my mission. I can’t think beyond that, can’t look past the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other. Once the drive is safely in Marcus’s hands, I’ll worry about the next steps, about what this discovery means for us and the future of our relationship… if there can even be one.