Carly stood erect. “What is it?” she asked him.
“Did you approve Tex’s termination?” Trevor asked her as he made his way toward her desk.
“Tex Mercer? No!”
“Then why is he on Good Morning America saying I dropped him as a client?”
Bridgette stood erect too. She’d worked for TRM a long time. When Trevor was angry, he could be a nasty sonafabitch.
“Why is he saying that he was told he was toxic and we didn’t want him anywhere near my firm?”
But Carly didn’t know what to say. She stared at him through her glasses with confused eyes. “But I didn’t, Trevor.”
“You met with him?”
“Yes, I met with him. You told me to meet with him before you left town.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I told him what my strategy was to help him clean up his image.”
“And?”
“And we discussed it. He eventually disagreed with my strategy. He told me to go back to the drawing board.”
“And then what?”
“And then I told him if he expects us to help him, he’s going to have to listen to our suggestions and apply those suggestions. He came back with some line about me not being qualified to tell him anything, or something like that, and then he left. But I never said anything about him being toxic to this firm, or anything like that.”
“That man is one of our biggest clients. We aren’t losing him. Call him in for a meeting.”
“With you or with me?”
“With both of us.”
Carly didn’t agree with that decision. She would rather Tex take his twang and his arrogance back to Texas where he came from. But she also knew at work, Trevor was her boss, not her husband. He made her a partner in the firm, but the buck still stopped with him. “Yes, sir,” she said.
Then he exhaled. “When I’m gone,” he said to her, “you’re more than capable of running this ship, Carly. If I didn’t think so, you wouldn’t be in charge. But you can do better than this. You have got to understand who we can afford to let go, and who we can’t. Tex is on the we can’t list, I don’t care what shit he puts in our way. Do you understand me?”
Carly nodded. “I understand,” she said. “But he was lying about that toxic comment. I didn’t say that.”
“I know you didn’t. But we aren’t losing him.”
Knocks were heard on the open office door, and all three inside the office looked. It was Peggy, one of Trevor’s assistants. “Excuse me, Mr. Reese.”
“What do you want?” Trevor asked.
“Margo Robinet is here to see you, sir.”
Carly looked at Trevor. She wouldn’t dare!
But Trevor didn’t return the look. Apparently he knew that she would. “Put her in my conference room, Peggy.”
“Yes, sir,” Peggy said, and left.
Then Trevor looked at Carly. “Come with me,” he said, as he began heading out.
Carly scrambled to grab her legal pad beneath the pile of papers on her desk.
“Are you kidding me?” Bridgette asked her. “THE Margo Robinet is in this building? The Margo Robinet that shot Greg Shaughnessy last night? It’s all over the news!”
But Carly wasn’t about to gossip about a potential client, regardless of how she felt about that client. “Make those corrections and get them back on my desk asap,” she said to Bridgette with her pad in her hand, and hurried out behind an already departed Trevor.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Margo sat at the conference table taking slow drags on a cigarette. She wore a high-collar overcoat, although the weather didn’t call for one, and big, dark shades that completely hid her eyes. A small bowl that had nuts sitting in it had been emptied onto the table, and she was using it as her ashtray.
When Trevor and Carly entered the conference room, she didn’t bother to so much as look up at them. Carly, allergic to smoke, immediately began coughing.
“Put that shit out,” Trevor said to his ex as he sat down in front of her. Carly took a seat beside him.
Margo took another slow drag on her cigarette, but then she did put it out in the bowl/ashtray, pushing it down to a nub. Then she looked at the Reeses.
“What do you want?” Trevor asked her.
“Representation. It’s obvious,” she said.
“Are you out on bail?” he asked her.
“You haven’t followed my case? I’m all over the news. I’m trending on Twitter.”
“Answer my question,” Trevor said.
“Yes, I’m out on bail. How else would I be here? They arrested me last night, as you well know. I wasn’t very well going to break out of jail. Yes, I’m out on bail.”
Carly sighed a sigh of annoyance. That woman walked a mile to go a few feet, she felt. Being arrested for nearly killing a man wasn’t enough to humble her. Carly didn’t understand why Trevor was even meeting with her.
“How much was your bail?” Trevor asked her.
“What does that have to do with the price of tea for crying out loud, Trevor?”
Trevor just looked at her with that icy look.
She knew that look. “Twenty-five grand,” she said.
“Why are you here?” Carly asked her.
Margo ignored her. She kept her eyes on Trevor. “Next question,” she said to him.
“Answer my wife,” he said to her.
Margo rolled her eyes as if Carly was just a little irritation. But she answered her question. “I’m here because I need the best people on my case. I know you’re the best,” she said to Trevor. “I don’t want my image to suffer after one little blip like last night.”
“One little blip?” Carly asked. She couldn’t help it. That woman was ridiculous. “You nearly killed a man. You’ve been charged with attempted murder and reckless endangerment that will most definitely upgrade should that man die from that gunshot wound. And you’re calling it a little blip?”
“I’m calling it what it is, little girl. A blip. So stay in your lane. I’m here to meet with Trevor, not you.”
Trevor frowned. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? You don’t talk to my wife that way. Apologize to her before I kick your ass out of here.”
Margo was stunned. Trevor had never defended her that way when they were an item. Not ever! But yet he defended this Miss Congeniality chick?
But she also knew Trevor’s legendary temper. If she didn’t apologize, she knew she could kiss his help goodbye. “I apologize for my disrespect. Do you accept my apology?”
“No,” Carly said, “because it’s not sincere. But we’ll move on.”
Trevor inwardly smiled. That was the way to handle a bitch like Margo and keep that client in the seat, he thought. But outwardly, he showed no such appreciation. This was strictly business with him. “Why did you shoot him?” he asked Margo.
“Because he cheated on me,” she replied.
“I cheated on you and you didn’t shoot me,” said Trevor.
Carly wanted to look at him. The idea that he so easily admitted to cheating on a former girlfriend was a little alarming to her. But she didn’t look at him. She kept it about business too. That was for a private conversation.
“Why is that?” Trevor asked her. “Why can I cheat on you and you don’t shoot me, but Greg, a married man by the way, cheats on you and you shoot him?”
“I loved you,” Margo just as easily admitted, again to Carly’s shock. “I didn’t give a damn about Greg Shaughnessy.”
That logic was asinine to Carly. It was just like Margo to Trevor.
“This is wasting my time,” Margo suddenly said, as if her revelation about her love for Trevor threw her too, and she stood to her feet. Then she grabbed her hobo bag she carried and emptied it onto Trevor’s conference table. She emptied stacks and stacks of one hundred dollar bills. Carly was floored.
“That should be enough,” she said, and tossed the hobo bag on top of it.
�
��Enough to do what?” Trevor asked her.
“To turn me into a saint in the eyes of the public,” Margo said. “To turn Greg into a monster in the eyes of the public. To work your magic, in other words,” she added, smiled as if she wasn’t behaving like a crazy person, and then left the room.
Carly couldn’t believe it. “That woman has some nerve,” she said. “She shoots a man in cold blood, right in front of all those witnesses, and she’s behaving as if she’s going to beat the rap.”
“Oh, she will,” Trevor said, rising too.
Carly stood up. “She will? How do you figure that?”
“She’s Margo Robinet.”
That wasn’t a good enough reason to Carly.
Trevor clarified. “Peter O’Toole had this line in a movie called My Favorite Year where he says something like, ‘I’m not an actor. I’m a movie star!’ That’s Margo. She’s still a beloved movie star, even if she doesn’t get any roles anymore. And she’s got TRM to handle her PR for any prospective jurors. That’s why she’s going to beat that rap.”
Carly understood what he was saying even if she remained doubtful.
“Contact Legal,” Trevor said. “Tell them to find out who her attorneys are, and have them call me. We need to coordinate our efforts.”
“Yes, sir.” Then Carly smiled. They were alone. She didn’t have to be so formal. “I mean, okay.”
“Also get Accounting down here to count and secure these funds,” he added as he began to leave. “It would be just like Margo to underpay despite this show she just put on.”
“Yes, sir,” Carly said, reaching for the conference room office phone to make the call to Accounting. She forgot that she was being formal again.
But Trevor caught it. And looked at her. He worked her too hard, he knew.
He walked over to her just as she was about to press the phone button, and turned her toward him. He had his hands on both of her upper arms. “I’m hard on you,” he said as he rubbed her arms.
But Carly shook her head. “No, you aren’t.”
“I am. Yes, I am. But I’m hard on you because I know, if anything happens to me, you can keep this going. Amari will be your backup once he stops chasing tail and come in here and learn the business. He’s got what it takes. But you’ll be primary. This will all be yours. I want you to be ready to go for it on day one.”
“Day one of what?”
Trevor knew she understood what he was saying. His death was always a possibility, especially if he kept having the kinds of close calls like the one he had in Little Rock. He squeezed her arms and kissed her on the lips. When their lips parted, he felt regretful again. And then he left the room.
Carly felt a sense of dread come over her. Because she knew exactly what Trevor was talking about. But it stunned her still.
She sat down. How in the world, she thought, would she be able to go on if anything ever happened to Trevor?
But it was a wakeup call, too. Because she would have to go on. She would have to handle it. She couldn’t go to pieces and destroy everything Trevor worked so hard to build up.
That not only would be wrong, but it would be disrespectful.
Hancock Beverly got into the limo and sat beside the boss. They were just about to leave the house a few minutes earlier when the call came through. The boss, battling a cold, ordered Hancock to handle the call himself. The boss, instead, walked out of the house and got into his waiting limousine. Once Hancock had hurried out the house after taking the call, and gotten in, the boss hit the roof of the vehicle with his cane. The driver, knowing what that meant, began to drive away from the compound.
“Well?” the boss asked his assistant. “What’s the verdict?”
“Mission accomplished,” Hancock said.
But the boss was not impressed. He never liked presumptuousness. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Trevor made it downstairs early the next morning to the smell of bacon in his house.
When he rounded the corner and entered his huge, gourmet kitchen and saw Carly at the stove cooking away, his look changed into a look of pride and love and dread, too, as he leaned against the sidewall with his arms folded and his legs crossed at the ankle. Trevor Reese was a brooding man, a man who never truly knew what unbridled happiness felt like, or how to make a woman happy except when he had her beneath him in bed, until he met Carly. Because every time he saw her, he felt on top of the world. He felt as if she had been the most popular girl in the school that everybody loved to love, not just because of her good looks, but because of her great heart and her smarts, while he, by contrast, was the guy everybody loved to hate.
But Carly, that special lady, loved him. Of all the guys who would give their right arm to be with her, guys far better looking, and younger, and unencumbered, she wanted to be with him, a complicated, hard-to-love man like him. And unlike any other woman he’d ever known, he felt as if Carly had the guts to stick it out with him for the long haul.
But he also felt a sense of dread whenever he looked at Carly because he now knew that that prized possession wasn’t just his lover and his wife, but his responsibility too. He had to protect her, and be good to her, and make sure her needs and wants were met above his own wants and needs. Running TRM was a challenge. Those government assignments he periodically had to perform were a challenge. Looking out for his new-found son was definitely a challenge. But doing everything in his power to look out for Carly, and to be there for her first and last, was the biggest challenge of his life. It was an awesome and dreadful responsibility.
But to see her in his kitchen, wearing one of his big white dress shirts and, he also knew, nothing underneath it, made him smile. Because no matter what the challenges were, she was well worth it. He was getting the better of that deal.
He pushed away from the wall and made his way toward her, unbuttoning the button of his suit coat as he walked her way. Trevor was trained how to walk up on an unsuspecting person undetected, and he believed he had done so with Carly. He was convinced that she didn’t know he was even in the kitchen until he was directly behind her and both of his hands were on her hips.
Expecting her to jump at his touch, Carly didn’t even flinch. “Hey, babe,” she said, and continued to prepare his breakfast.
Trevor was the one surprised. He cocked his head to get a side view of her face. “How did you know it was me?” he asked her.
She also gave him a sidelong look. “Who else is in this house?” she asked him.
He smiled. Carly was definitely a smart one.
“And,” she added with a smile of her own, “your cologne preceded you.”
Trevor laughed. “That’s more like it,” he said, lifted the shirt she wore slightly, and slapped her on her bare behind. She flinched then, and laughed.
But when Trevor had slapped her bare ass, and his hand had felt her soft skin, he couldn’t just walk away. He kept her shirt up and leaned into her to where his pants-enclosed penis was now against her butt. And was already getting hard. He started grinding on her, and kissing her neck.
Carly leaned slightly back against him, also, as his masculine, sensual presence was beginning to make her feel sensual too. Carly knew that Trevor had such a sexual aura around him, no matter where he was or what he was doing, that Carly used to wonder if other women who came into contact with him felt it too. She even asked some of her girlfriends in her circle of friends, ladies she trusted. All of them said yes. One friend, Shay, said hell yes!
Carly removed the bacon out of the pan and turned off the stove. “I thought you had to meet a client this morning,” she said to Trevor, although she was enjoying his attention.
“I’ve earned a reputation,” Trevor said, grinding against her harder. He moved his mouth so close to her ear that she could hear just how labored he was already breathing. He wrapped his arms all the way around her.
Carly expected him to explain what that reputation was, but he wa
s too busy rubbing his rod against her and moaning in her ear. She placed her hands on his arms that were now around her, and asked for an explanation. “And what reputation have you earned?” she asked him.
“I’ve earned a reputation,” Trevor continued, “that allows those in trouble to cut me some slack. My client will wait. My dick, however,” he said as he unzipped his pants and pulled it out, “will not.”
“Ah, I see,” Carly said as he began beating it against her vagina. Then he lifted her off of her feet, moved her over to the center island, and leaned her over the countertop, her stomach against the counter. To get her prepared for his entry, he sucked her from behind.
Carly groaned when his tongue touched her there, and she couldn’t stop groaning it felt so wonderful. She even lifted one of her legs all the way up to where her knee was on the countertop, too, giving him full access to her womanhood. As soon as she did, Trevor moved in and took full advantage of that access. His tongue and his mouth were all over that, as he put what Carly considered a fantastic hurting on her vagina.
And then he stood up like a man not fucking around anymore and entered her with one hard shove, tearing through her tightness and breaking through to the heart of the matter: he went in deep.
Carly cried out when he thrust into her that way, because it felt so great and terrible, too, that she almost came from that one thrust alone.
But Trevor was just getting started. For several minutes he stroked and stroked. He held onto Carly’s hips and fucked her so hard that his balls were slapping against her thin thighs. And she came quickly and she came often. She had rolling orgasms whenever Trevor fucked her that way. And he was taking it to town that morning.
Until he could take it no further. He came too. But unlike Carly, his cum was not a rolling cum, but a singular one. And it was intense. So intense that his hands were biting into her hips. So intense that he rammed all the way into her vagina with such an impact that his one thrust alone turned her brown ass red.
Trevor Reese: His Protective Love Page 10
