His Corporate Claim

by J. D. Fox

  “Work?” she shook her head. “No. No work.”

  “I have to, Mom. It’s my job.”

  “Goo— good time?” she said.

  “Oh, Mom.” Here the woman was, in a nursing home, worried about whether or not I had a social life. I know she was frustrated with her slow progress, and the things she couldn’t do for herself, but with better care she’d make a faster recovery. Then I could worry about whether or not I was having a good time.

  “Yes,” she said firmly.

  “Okay, Mom. I’ll find time for a social life. Right now, though, I have to get your things packed.”

  My phone chimed with a new text, and I rolled when my eyes when I saw who it was from. Where the hell had he gotten my number?

  Sam: I’m sorry. Don’t quit.

  Oh, thank God, I’m not fired. But I wasn’t about to forgive him that easily.

  Me: I’ll think about it.

  Sam: Enjoy your time off, and I’ll see you Friday.

  Me: I’ll drive myself to Aspen.

  The little bubbles on the iPhone bobbed while I waited for his answer.

  Sam: Look, help me out here. Lucius will not be happy if I don’t do this. I promise, I’ll be a perfect gentleman.

  I took a moment to weigh the positives and negatives. Okay, so my beater of a car wasn’t in the best shape, and a ride there would help me out. And Eva could use my car so she can see my mother as she promised.

  Me: Fine. Friday.

  Sam: Great.

  Yeah. Right. If he layed one hand on me I’d— well, I didn’t know what I’d do. I’d cross that road when I come to it.

  Chapter Eight

  Sam

  Friday Morning. 7:00 AM MST

  It was perfect. I lay in my bed with the most gorgeous woman in the world, relaxed and happy. These two sensations came rarely to me, but I wasn’t about to question this. Talia lay on her side, stroking my chest with her soft fingers and lightly scratching my skin with her fingernails. The moment was so utterly glorious I didn’t want it to end.

  “What are you thinking?” she said, in a husky voice that curled my toes.

  I turned on my side and let my fingers trail down her cheek. “How gorgeous you are.”

  “Sam,” she said breathily. My balls tingled with a thousand sparks and I grew rock hard.

  “I want you, Sam,” she breathed in my ear.

  “Oh, baby, not half as much as I want you. Come here.” I put my arms around her, but her form dissolved under the sheets and I ended up clutching the comforter to my chest.

  An ugly noise jolted me awake. My hand fumbled for the phone to turn off the alarm.

  “Fuck.” I scrubbed my face with my hands as the recurring dream refused to slip away into formless thought. This image had haunted me for the two straight nights since I’d kissed Talia.

  Not that I hadn’t had the dream before. It’d haunted me at certain times usually during times of stress, but this was the first time the woman had a face and a name.

  My cock, sure enough, was rock hard. I palmed the head and groaned. I hadn’t seen Talia since Wednesday afternoon, and after the first night I thought the dream was an aberration, a leftover of the tense exchange we had. But that didn’t excuse this last night which sat on the cusp when I could see her again.

  What about this woman drove me crazy? The fire in her eyes drew me; intelligent, alive and aware, seeming to hold mysteries I’d yet to discover.

  How I wanted to delve into Talia’s mysteries.

  I pulled on my cockhead, and wrapped my hand around my length. It was easy to get lost of the fantasy of Talia touching me. She commanded my mind so often that in the shadows of the morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was here, and that it was her fingers that stroked me, gaining intensity and speed, rushing me headlong into pleasure. Every muscle tightened in the onslaught of a savage need to possess her body. I didn’t care if she belonged to my brother. Here, in this room where the door and the shades were shut, Talia belonged only to me, and I took her without a care for the consequences as white heat seared through my body, and my dick pulsed in time with my pounding heart. Her name graced my lips and I exploded on my sheets, the need and desire for Talia that gripped my soul overpowering my release.

  I groaned. There was no relief from this relentless want, and I suffered another teeth-chatteringly cold shower this morning that barely banked these fires. I’ve thought seriously about finishing my work and getting out of Denver sooner than expected, because this craziness over my brother’s fiancé would not lead to a good result.

  I dressed in another suit, though the Denver heat was taking its toll and I’d have to get them cleaned soon. After tossing a cup of coffee from Lucius’s machine down my throat, I grabbed the keys to his car. I expected to hear today from the forensic accountant that I’d hired Wednesday, because I’d put a rush on the job and authorized the extra money for that.

  This was the second day that I’d used Lucius’s car. It’s a sleek, top-of-the-line black Jaguar XJ. The interior was spotless, as if the car had just come out of the showroom floor, just as immaculate as Lucius’s condo. The car did carry the faint scent of his cologne, but then a car does take on a few things from its owner. His lingering cologne was the only thing that signaled the car didn’t come straight from the dealership. For all his faults, Lucius did take care of his things; probably a little too well. I found this out when I’d come out of the shower yesterday to find the house cleaner coming in for the second time that week as usual, whether the condo needed it or not.

  The bastard could have warned me.

  I was disgusted that Lucius’s books were a useless tangle. How can a man be so careful with his possessions but not his business’s accounts? Talia’s short instruction and her unusually organized spreadsheets helped me wade through the numbers, but I was hoping what I suspected was wrong. Finally, I’d resorted to hiring a forensic accountant to sort through the jumble, because if I’m right, the bank accounts are extremely short of money.

  My father was going to go ballistic. Not that he cares about money itself, but he cares vehemently about the integrity of our company. It is a publicly traded stock, subject to different governmental audits, in addition to our own internal ones. If any of our properties demonstrates maleficence, then the whole company and our stock prices would inevitably suffer under that cloud.

  I’m hoping I’ve misread the numbers, and that there is something missing in Lucius’s convoluted system. I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. It would be a relief to be wrong.

  I pulled into Lucius’s spot in the parking garage, and glance at Talia’s empty one. It’s stupid, because I know she wouldn’t be in today. She was going to a spa, presumably to get ready for the upcoming nuptials on Sunday... though Lucius implied she did this often. Despite this, I didn’t see Talia as a spa girl. When I saw her Tuesday, even though she’d been impeccably dressed for work, her hair wasn’t blown out like the women in my social set, nor do I remember her nails done. Like everything else on this crazy trip, Talia provided more questions than answers.

  I closed Lucius’s car door hard. Okay, extra hard. Okay, I slammed it, making the door crash against the metal frame. The hollow sound that rang through the parking garage lent me a small measure of satisfaction. Lucius marrying Talia tore at me, and I didn’t know how to make this prickling feeling to vanish. Every part of me screamed that there was something not right here. For my own peace of mind, I decided that I needed to find out what it was.

  With neither Lucius nor Talia in, I swung by the offices of each of the department heads and got updates on their work. Jessica fumed about Jimble Mattresses, who’d decided to forgo their ad buys.

  I stood in her doorway leaning against the doorjamb. with my arms crossed deciding how much of a hard-ass to be. It was my third day here and so far I’d kept my head low to get the lay of the land, but on this day everything seemed to tick me off and Jessica was doing a marvelous job as
“employee villain of the day.”

  “Perhaps you need to get on the phone and make calls to drum up business, then.”

  I was too irritated to gauge how hard I delivered that message, but Jessica looked at me with shock as if I’d struck her.

  “I... I have other things to do. I’ll get my reps—”

  “Ten calls by you,” I said as I pushed off the doorway. “Documented and on my desk by the end of the day.”

  Her mouth formed a hard line but wisely she kept it shut... that is, until I turned my back.

  “Ask a man for help,” she muttered, “and he punishes you for it.”

  I let this go and went to visit Martin. Too bad for Jessica that she had to make sales calls. That’s what happened when you didn’t work for new business. I’d have to force her to wring new clients out of her own efforts so she could make her commission this month.

  How horrible for her.

  I blamed Lucius for this too. From what I say his employees ran the shop, not him. Jessica hadn’t been the only sales manager to play Lucius for all he was worth. Lucius should have seen this and taken corrective action. You can be the boss and a good guy, but you can’t be lazy about your employees. Things just did not work that way in business.

  Martin gave me a lazy smile over his shoulder as I entered his office before he putted a golf ball on an indoor putting green. The guy just seemed to motor along. He’s groomed a couple of high-end accounts that keep his commission checks fat, but that’s a dangerous strategy. I gave him the same ten call assignment that I’d given Jessica, and he barely looked up from his swing.

  “Whatever you want, boss,” he said unenthusiastically.

  Marvelous.

  Tom, Talia’s most experienced sales rep, had a nice report prepared on Jessica’s department sales which I found commendable, but he tried to pass her efforts off as his own work, which was a clear lie. Talia required her reps to fill in a report each day of who they called, what they sold, and their collection efforts on the accounts. Talia had their workbooks linked to a master file that collated the information automatically. She was a clever woman.

  In fact, Talia’s reports were the only ones that were complete and well-ordered, and I could see why she’d thought she’d get the sales director job— she should’ve. But her not getting the job had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with my father’s opinion of Lucius’s decision making. Like buying an $87,000 car when the salary he took out of this business was $200,000 per year. For a rich man’s son that’s not a huge salary, but who knows how my brother manages his money? He has a trust fund like I do, but he’s only allotted so much money each year— the interest off the principal, and that will not give you hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend.

  The creative director, Angela McVee, was one I hadn’t met yet. She was on personal leave -whatever that meant- and Eva, Talia’s friend, had been handing out work assignments to the small team of ad creators. There were two graphic artists and two copywriters, which seemed inadequate for the workload we had on file; they seemed to be handling it okay. Maybe we didn’t need a Creative Director. I’d have to keep an eye on that.

  I like Talia’s reports enough that I go to my office and duplicate the master folder on the server, setting up different passwords and customizing them for each sales department. But as I was in the middle of doing this, my cell rings.

  “Sam Palmer,” I said.

  “Mr. Palmer, Eric Gibbons. I’m the private investigator your father hired to look into one of your employees, Talia Winton.”

  Oh hell. My father had had to do that, hadn’t he? The one good employee we have and we risk ticking her off if she finds out about this. She could make three phone calls in a half hour and get a job. She doesn’t need us— we needed her.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Gibbons?”

  “Mr. Palmer told me to get in touch with you to coordinate the investigation. I’d like to ask you some questions, if I can.”

  After an hour of questions about what I knew about Talia, which wasn’t much, I needed to get off the phone. People kept coming to my door with questions, and I just couldn’t answer them with this guy on the line.

  “Answer me this,” I said. “How are Talia’s finances?”

  “She doesn’t carry much credit, which actually hurts her credit score. Ms. Winton pays her bills, though her savings size seems to have dropped substantially lately.”

  “She is planning a wedding,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not seeing that. In fact, I haven’t found a marriage license yet.”

  “You looked for that?”

  “Mr. Palmer expressly asked to see that.”

  “And you found none?”

  “No, though those records don’t go up immediately.”

  “What’s the process in Colorado?”

  “You go to the county clerk, pay thirty dollars, show your ID, give your Social Security Number, and you have to get married within thirty-five days.”

  “So you can get one at the last minute.”

  “Sure, but the clerk’s offices are closed on the weekend. They need to get one by the time the town hall closes today.”

  “Thanks for the info. Call me if you find out anything else.”

  “Will do.”

  With that call ended I decided to call the forensic accountant, who was not available, and I left a message to call me as soon as possible.

  So the day went on much as it had. When I distributed Talia’s spread sheets to Jessica and Martin, Jessica flew to my office within two minutes and objected. “Just because Talia is Lucius’ butt buddy doesn’t mean that I’m going to follow her directions. I’m going to talk to Lucius about this.”

  I opened my mouth and then shut it. Talia indicated that she and Lucius hadn’t told the staff of their impending marriage to prevent resentments.

  “You are perfectly welcome to talk to Lucius; but know that in this case, I represent Lucius’s boss, who is our father. So take it as your boss’s boss’s directions, not mine.”

  Jessica stormed off and I can see that I’ll need to have a formal talk to her about proper business behavior.

  I had a thought, and I called Eva to my office. She smiled at me too brightly, which normally I might’ve have liked. But today I have one thing on my mind... and anyway, there was only one woman whose smile I was looking for.

  “Are you going to Aspen?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I wasn’t invited.”

  That seemed strange. Talia didn’t invite her roommate to her wedding? I guess she did want a small wedding.

  “Besides, I need to look in on Talia’s mother while Talia’s away.”

  “I thought Talia didn’t have a family.”

  “Where did you get that idea? Though her mom is her only family. And she’s very ill now—the aftermath of a stroke.”

  “I’m sorry to hear.”

  “You’re a good man, Sam Palmer.” Her phone beeped and she looked at it.

  “Sorry... Mitchell, our newest graphic designer, is having trouble with an ad. I have to help him.”

  “I’ll catch you later,” I said.

  But in the swirl of approving new sales contracts and taking care of an employee’s problem with his direct deposit, the rest of the day flew by. When my phone alarm went off at 3:30, I had to put a bow on my work and head out the door.

  My stomach roiled with the annoying sensation of nervousness and my heart stuttered when I thought of seeing her again. I know I’m acting like a teenager, but I can’t help it. I’m looking forward to the next four hours as the only time, maybe the last time, I’ll get to be alone with her. It’s a sad hope, but I’ll take it.

  And when I pulled up the hotel and saw her standing there, done up as prettily as any New York model, my heart expanded at her beauty and shrunk just as suddenly at the idea that this woman belonged to my brother, and not me.

  I got out and opened the door for her.

&nb
sp; “Well,” she said with a sunshiny smile that made my heart burst, “aren’t you a knight in shining armor?”

  Her usual perfume swam in my nose and a thought hit me as suddenly as a lust bolt.

  Why didn’t her perfume linger in my brother’s car?

  Chapter Nine

  Talia

  Friday Morning

  ​Before I’m fully awake I received a text from Lucius. Sleepily, I palmed my phone and squinted to focus on the text on the bright screen.

  Lucius: I hope you are packed.

  Me: Yes.

  Lucius: Great. A driver will arrive in about twenty minutes to take your bags.

  Me: Why?

  Lucius: I don’t want my brother straining his back putting the bags in the car.

  Me: Do you really think I’d pack so much stuff it would strain his back?

  Lucius: He has an extremely bad back. Sports injury from prep school.

  Me: Football?

  Lucius: Polo. His horse threw him. But keep it between us that I told you. He’s sensitive about the subject.

  I forgot Sam and Lucius enjoyed the types of schools where polo was an extracurricular activity. Right now I didn’t care what ticked Sam Palmer’s sensitivity box, and I thought briefly about telling Lucius that Sam tried to kiss me. Okay, maybe I wanted Sam to kiss me... but I shouldn’t. I might be fake engaged to Lucius, but Sam didn’t know my perfidy. He should have respected the faux boundary Lucius had erected to protect me from Sam’s seductive powers in the first place.

  It is totally his fault that I can’t resist them.

  A knock at the door made me scramble from my bed. Fortunately, in my obsessive-compulsive way, I’d pushed my packed bags by the front door last night. I opened the door to find a well-put-together young man in a uniform.

  “Ms. Winton?” He asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ve come for your bags.”

  He looked me up and down, from my fuzzy pink bathrobe to my mussed hair, but kept his expression neutral. The man deserves a tip just for that. Then I remember I have no cash in my wallet.