“Affirmative,” Mrs. Cho replied, sounding bored. “She stinky and sweaty, but she have large breast and is not underage, so you probably like.”
I let out a little shriek, my hands clapping down over the breasts in question. Not that my tiny hands had a chance of hiding them, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
“I’ll be right there. Please don’t kill her. You know how I get about blood on my carpet.”
The line went dead, and Mrs. Cho sneered, making a face at the phone as if it could see her.
“Wuss.” Her eyes rose up to me. “He is no man. My itty lady part bigger than both his ball together.” She paused. “And you still stink.”
I opened my mouth to say something that would probably have made Phone Sex Man’s prophecy of blood on the carpet come true, but my witty comeback was cut off by the arrival of the sexiest guy I’d ever seen. Who also happened to be my greatest nemesis, because the universe loved me like that.
It wasn’t as if I’d never seen Rex Bennett before—he’d caught me personally breaking into his house on multiple occasions, and he had made it to one or two of my lawsuits. Not to mention I’d gone to his prison sentencings and visited him in jail several times for the singular purpose of gloating that I was on the side of the glass that allowed you shave without supervision. But the man was like a damn wine—he simply got finer with age. Every single time I saw him, it was as if he got a little bit hotter.
Everything about the bastard was perfect, from his tousled, dark brunette hair to his square, lightly stubbled jawline to the body that looked like it belonged on a billboard for All Day Fitness. At just a few inches under seven feet tall, he was one of the biggest men I’d ever met, with enormous shoulders and arms that spoke of how much time he spent at the gym. Or possibly of his time in prison. He was the child of a Greek god and Chris Hemsworth. Super rich, super sexy, and super popular. Right now he had it all, but that was okay, because by the time I finished my mission, I’d be walking out with his heart.
“Hello, Mason,” he said, walking over and extending his hand to me. And, of course, he was Phone Sex Dude. When the hell had his voice gotten that sexy? “It’s been awhile. You’re looking hot. How’s the lover-slash-lawyer?”
“Luke’s fine,” I said, shaking his hand a little more intensely than I probably should have. But hey, he once broke some poor woman’s hand for the hell of it. Let him know what it felt like.
Okay, maybe the tightness of my grip had more to do with me being slightly distracted by how damn good he looked in his tailored pinstripe suit with his charcoal button down and his chic purple tie. But like hell would I ever admit that out loud.
“He still having trouble getting it up?”
My eyes narrowed. “I still can’t believe that Christy told you how we met.” I shook my head, teeth flashing. “I can’t believe you talked to my best friend at all.”
Rex shrugged, looking amused. “She worked at my prison. I was required to talk to the social worker before release. Don’t blame me for your girlfriend spilling the story of you meeting your man when he bought over the counter erectile dysfunction meds from you. I see you’re looking for new work, though.”
“I honestly wasn’t sure you’d see me for this interview,” I admitted, eager to get off the topic of Luke’s penis. I didn’t even like talking about his not-so-impressive manparts when I was drunk on a girls’ night out, much less with Rex ‘Big Man’ Bennett, in the middle of his office.
“Me? Refuse to see you?” Rex flashed me a grin. The wicked shine in his eyes should have left me feeling uncomfortable, but instead it made the butterflies in my stomach start fluttering their way down to my groin. “What, just because you were arrested in front of my apartment for peeing on my doormat six months ago? Life’s so much more interesting when you’re around.” He leaned forward, his luscious lips close enough to me that my breath sped up. “You realize I got that one on tape. Security cameras, you know.”
If I’d thought my face was red before, it was on fire now, and I quickly changed the subject. “I heard that your last assistant was fired.”
Rex’s eyebrows went up, lips twitching in amusement. “Fired, huh? I suppose that’s one way to put it. I prefer ‘terminated.’”
Mrs. Cho let out a snort, shaking her head as she flipped through… was that a sniper rifle catalogue?
“Tell me, who did you hear about this job from?”
I shrugged. “I just overheard some of your lawyers talking about it.”
“Hm,” Rex said, nodding slowly. Somehow I didn’t think he believed me. He gestured toward the hallway behind him, which I presumed led to his office. “Shall we?”
I nodded, following him down the hall. I made a point to drop back a step or two so I could get a quick look at his butt, because when a man wears pants that fit like that, a girl can’t help herself. Even if she does despise him.
The hall was wider than average, almost like a room itself, with laboratories on both sides. The walls were frosted glass, so I could see fuzzy versions of the people working inside but couldn’t really make out any details. The end opened into a bullpen office area which held at least a dozen cubicles and stairs that rose up to a collection of offices above.
Rex gestured for me to follow him up the steps, and I obeyed like a good little girl, eyes still locked on his gently swaying hips and tight ass. We stopped in front of a corner office which also had glass walls—minus the frost and plus blinds—and was surrounded by a neat collection of bonsai plants.
Rex opened the door and I stepped in, my eyebrows going up. It was a very minimalistic but elegant space, with classic furniture in dark woods. The walls were hung with giant canvases of vividly colored flowers done mostly in an impressionist style.
The piece hanging over the desk really caught my eye, as it was obviously painted by an amateur, where all the others looked like they'd been purchased from galleries. It was a couple kissing in a field of flowers, but instead of your usual Valentine’s style heart hanging over their heads, it was a cartoonish looking human heart with ‘Felicia’ painted across it on a ribbon like people use when they tattoo names on hearts. Whoever Felicia was, she must really mean a lot to Rex. Maybe as much as Franklin meant to me.
Apparently my interest was notable, because Rex gave me a tight smile and said, “My half-brother painted that for me.” While his voice had been loud and vibrant with a touch of husky sexiness only moments before, these words seemed hardly more than a whisper in contrast, still friendly but with a slight touch of wistfulness as he stared at the painting. “I don’t see him much.”
“How come?” I asked, and Rex shrugged.
“He’s scared of me.” The way he said the words, it didn’t sound like he gave much of a damn, but his eyes were sad as he settled into the leather chair behind the massive black oak desk.
I pursed my lips. “Well, you have been arrested for assault and battery something like ten times,” I pointed out, knowing that I was probably screwing my chances for getting this job by being a bitch, but unable to help myself. “And have been in prison twice.”
“Three times,” Rex corrected, sounding remarkably good-humored considering the topic. “The third time was only for two weeks. In France.” He paused, crossing his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow at me. “While we’re on the topic of prison, would you like to explain to me why you’re applying as the personal assistant of a man you despise? Because if you have plans to murder me, there are much better ways. Ones that don’t involve being arrested ten minutes after the bullet leaves the gun and enters my skull. I know people who can give you some tips.”
My shoulders tensed, eyes narrowing. Rex was being much too nice, considering he obviously suspected I was up to no good. Hell, he was being much too nice in general. Not that he’d ever been anything but polite to me in the past, but we had almost never been alone, and according to his reputation, he was quite the animal. Was it possible that Wesley was actual
ly right about the guilt thing? Was that really why I was sitting here, being treated almost decently by a man infamous for making women cower in fear from him?
No. Absolutely not. Rex Bennett had no conscience. This was a man who’d stolen a heart from a needy boy, smashed an innocent woman’s hands to literal pieces, attacked a police officer in the middle of a bar, beat up a prostitute, and set a building on fire. And those were only the things that I knew for certain, the ones that Luke had managed to find in the man’s records. There were hundreds of other crimes that were only rumor in the gossip columns or on the streets of Manhattan. And yet, somehow, the media still loved him, still considered him one of their precious New York City celebs and wanted him waving on the red carpet, a big smile on his perfect fucking face.
The bastard.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I snapped, which was mostly true. I wanted him clutching at his left arm, gasping for breath as he died, his heart broken because I’d stolen it away. But I didn’t want to kill him myself.
“Then what do you want?” Rex replied. “Not to work for me, that’s for sure.”
I bit my lip, not entirely sure what I should say. I’d come up with some vague answers about being involved in companies supporting cardiovascular research on the way over, but they sounded like the ridiculous lies they were with Rex coming right out and asking me.
I took a deep breath. “I want information. On you. Things I can use against you. What better way to find out your secrets than to work for you?”
Rex nodded slowly and turned to his computer, which was the only thing on his desk other than the phone. He began to scroll along the screen, tongue flicking against his lips in a way that made those crotch-butterflies double their fluttering.
“I have your resume here. Looks good. You sold Viagra at your last job, right?”
My cheeks went red yet again. Apparently it was the color of the day. “An off-brand kind. Over the counter ED stuff. Telemarketing and door to door.”
“So you have some experience in medical sales,” he said with a nod, which wasn’t the reaction I’d really been expecting considering his reputation for being a dirty bastard. “And a biology degree? From Mercer County Community College?”
“Yeah, I know it’s not exactly Harvard, but it’s something.”
He snorted, waving the words away. “You should have seen how useful my Ivy League law degree was in prison. Eddi the Crocodile and J-Man Jitters had to teach me how to make booze in a Ziplock bag.”
“Why the hell would someone call themselves Eddi the Crocodile?” I asked, and Rex shrugged.
“I dunno, because I never asked. Half of the men in there had names that sounded like they came from either picture books or porno movies. I think it’s a prison culture thing. They told me their names; I smiled and nodded.”
I nodded, and Rex continued to scan his computer screen.
“Have you ever had anyone approach you about me?” he asked, and I stiffened.
“What does that mean?” I asked, pretending to be confused by the very idea. Shit, did he know about Wesley? I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised. This wasn’t exactly an ingenious plan we had going on here. But it was better than sitting at home, hating my life, hating my job, hating my man, my only joy coming from dreams of tears on Rex’s face.
Rex shrugged. “I have a lot of enemies. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’re working with someone to get inside my company. Which would be fine, if I thought you knew what you were getting into. Unfortunately, I know that you don’t. So before I hire you—because I am going to hire you—I just want to warn you to be careful. You may think you’re in charge of whatever you’re involved in, but I guarantee that someone is using you to get to me. You are correct that I am a very bad man, but I am much, much worse than the man you think that you know, Mason, which means my enemies are equally as bad. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
I stared at him, the butterflies in my groin fluttering back up to my stomach. Or, technically, I guess they were still down there, too, because Rex was really damn hot when he was acting scary.
“You’re hiring me even though you think that I’m working with an enemy of yours? Why would you do that?”
Rex shrugged. “I think you’re beautiful. Never hurts to have beautiful women working in your office.”
I blushed, then blushed even harder when I realized he’d made me blush, the bastard.
“Plus this way I can keep an eye on you instead of having to look over my shoulder.” He frowned. “The question is whether or not I should take the vase you knocked over in my apartment last year when you filled my shampoo with rotten milk out of your paycheck. My insurance refused to pay on it since I didn’t press charges on your clumsy ass.”
I snorted. “You had insurance on a vase?”
“It was Ming Dynasty,” he said, and I shrugged, making it clear I had zero idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. I majored in biology, not Boring Pottery 101.
Rex smirked. “It was appraised at half a million dollars.”
I choked, literally gasping for air. “What?! You can not take that out of my paycheck! I wouldn’t have a paycheck for, like, a decade!”
Rex laughed, obviously at me, shaking his head. “No worries. It was a fake, anyway. My buddy made it. He is damn good, though, and no one had a clue it wasn’t real.”
Wow. It looked like Rex actually did have a forger for a friend after all. I wonder if his name was Bob Ross. Maybe that Shady Lady chick knew more than I thought. But somehow I doubted the forger was also a super spy. Possibly a Martian, but definitely not a super spy.
“You really think you could have gotten an insurance payout on it?” I asked, having to admit the idea of having something you stick flowers in be worth so much you could get an insurance policy for it seemed crazy to my underprivileged ass.
“Oh, I definitely would have received the payout if I’d called the cops on you. Of course, my insurance investigator is always suspicious of me, so she would have tried to find another reason to stop the claim. She’s an ex-girlfriend.” He paused. “I’m pretty sure she only fucked me for the chance to prove my Maserati is stolen. Which, for the record, it is not. My Hummer is, but I wasn’t the one who stole it—I bought it from a lot that deals in very second hand vehicles. I’ll have you know I felt extremely violated when I found out what she was and why she was giving me such amazing head. This is why I prefer prostitutes.”
“Because they don’t try and mess with your insurance scams?” I said, hoping my tone conveyed my obscene amount of disbelief at his words.
“Exactly,” he said with a satisfied smile, sitting back and nodding seriously, as if pleased that I’d understood him perfectly. God help me.
“Is it good to confess these things to the person whose goal in life is to make you miserable?” I said, sort of wondering if the stupid thing was pointing it out to him. “I could be recording you.”
“White noise generator on the wall. Oh, yeah, and also I have your phone.” Rex reached into his desk, pulling out my phone and sliding it across the desk toward me with a smirk on his face.
“How the hell did you get my phone?!” I snapped, grabbing it and clutching it to my chest like a lost baby. “I know I had it after they searched my bag!”
“Yeah, you just didn’t have it after you came close to getting wet between the legs—by that, I mean, you nearly fell on your ass in a public fountain and my boy Valentine caught you.”
“The cute janitor?” I said, shaking my head. “He stole my phone? So much for work keeping him out of prison.”
“They wouldn’t be able to keep him in, anyway,” Rex said with a shrug. “He’s too good with security systems. The kid is nuts, but he’s a master of computers. Gotta love how genius and crazy always seem to come hand in hand. Don’t be too mad about the phone. He steals everyone’s. He took mine, too.”
“Why?” I said, feeling lost.
Rex shrugged. “Because h
e can? Look on the bright side. When I got mine back, everything was the same, but the operating system ran twice as fast. I bet yours will, too. You might have more long distance minutes, too.”
“Great,” I muttered, shoving the phone deep into my purse. I guess I should be glad I hadn’t brought the phone Wesley gave me to the interview.
“So, are you taking the job or not?” Rex said, sounding as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “Because I do actually have other things to do today than sit here and watch you pout.”
I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I would not claw his eyes out. That would ruin my plan. “Yes, I’m taking the job.”
“Brilliant,” he said, once again not sounding like he gave a shit. “Can you start tomorrow? Eight o’clock?”
“Works for me,” I agreed, still feeling shocked that I’d gotten the job at all. Shocked and more than a little suspicious. Rex was known for being a pretty tricky man. Was this his way of trying to get my guard down and…? Okay, I wasn’t entirely sure what the ‘and’ would be—I was the one who’d spent the last ten years trying to ruin his life, not the other way around. But I was sure if I gave it some serious thought, I’d come up with something.
“Great. Come with me, and I’ll show you to your office.”
I sat up straight at those words. Did his say office, as in an actual office? Not a cubicle or a desk but a real office? I licked my lips.
“Let’s go,” I agreed as I stood, ignoring his smile as well as the massive lump in the front of his pinstripe pants that showed he was apparently quite happy that I was taking the job. Or else just a very big guy. Seriously, did the dude have a pair of socks stuffed in there? I didn’t care how tall he was, he couldn’t have a dick that size. Could he?
I followed Rex out of his massive office to the smaller one on the right. It was tiny compared to his, but next to my last job, it was a damn castle. The wall looking over the bullpen was glass, as was the one that looked into Rex’s office, allowing me to view him at his desk when the blinds were open. And him to view me, which was kind of creepy. What if I wanted to masturbate at work?
Heart Thief (Black Market Billionaire Book 1) Page 3
