by Renee Rose
How would she survive working for this man? He stole her breath with every glance.
* * *
Jack came into his office without an invite and plopped into the chair opposite him. “What’s with the new girl?”
For some reason it bothered him Jack called her a girl. “Ashley Bell. She’s my new assistant. She was working in marketing.”
“Hmm.” Jack looked at him.
He knew what he was thinking. It was what Karen thought. Even Ashley thought it. He found a hot piece of tail and he wanted her to parade in and out of his office in short skirts to brighten his day.
Well, hell. It might be true. Every time he caught her scent, his body heated like it wanted to mark her. But she wasn’t just a pretty face. The girl had all kinds of bright ideas, and her fearlessness intrigued him. He didn’t know why he, a natural alpha, had been such a nancy at running this company. Not at managing the people, but at making changes and shaking things up. Ashley’s ideas all affirmed his natural instincts, which he had been ignoring.
He shrugged. “She’s brilliant. I don’t know why her talent wasn’t being put to better use, but it is now.”
“I see,” Jack said drily.
The hairs on the back of his neck bristled, but he drew a deep breath to regain his temper. “What do you need, Jack?”
“Listen, I’ve been thinking. Everyone knows you don’t really love running this company. I’m willing to buy out your share of the company. I mean, I don’t have the money now, but I think we could come to an arrangement—some kind of payment plan for the controlling interest. You and Leon’s family would be taken care of for life, and I would take over the nitty-gritty of running things.”
Jack had suggested this before. Ben didn’t know why he was trying it again.
“No.”
Jack’s face flushed, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t know anything about running a gaming company. You’re taking us into the ground. Suma Games is about to run us over and everyone on the board of directors knows it.”
He swallowed back a growl, standing up. The alpha in him wanted to threaten Jack’s job, but the truth was, losing Jack would be a huge blow to the company. He steadied his breath. “I’m about to start making changes,” he said, putting a note of warning in his voice. “I have no intention of leaving this company or running it into the ground, so get used to my leadership.”
Jack stood up, the muscle under his right eye twitching. “You have no clue what you’re doing,” he said as he stalked to the door.
Ben didn’t answer, but he gave him the alpha stare all the way out the door.
When Jack had disappeared in the elevator, Ben left his office and walked into Ashley’s.
“Hi,” she said, flashing him that brilliant smile. She had perfect teeth, gleaming white between her glossed lips.
He liked that she didn’t jump to her feet or look ruffled this time. As if they already had a casual relationship, where one of them leaned against the doorway of the other’s office. He did just that, folding his arms over his chest. “What did you decide about the advertising meeting?”
“I invited them,” she said, looking slightly defeated. “My own ego is far less important than getting cohesiveness back in this company, especially where you’re concerned.”
His eyebrows shot up to his forehead. “What do you mean back in this company?”
She flushed. “I just mean, from what I’ve heard, the company has lost morale and divided into factions in the past few years.”
“Since I took over, you mean.”
“Yes.” She met his eye.
He admired her courage in telling him the truth. “So you think it’s important for me to stroke some egos?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, rising from her chair and coming to sit on the opposite side of her desk, facing him.
Her scent enervated him, and the sight of her long legs crossed loosely at the ankles fired a jolt of lust through him.
“I think there’s a delicate balance. It isn’t your role to stroke egos, necessarily, but if people don’t feel like you’re looking for their valuable contribution, they’ll just get in the way. You want them working hard to please you.”
I definitely want you working hard to please me. “I certainly do,” he said.
She must’ve caught his thoughts because her eyes shot to his, widening slightly. Her pupils dilated when their gazes locked and he caught that heady whiff of her arousal.
She tore her gaze away, touching her lips with her fingertips, and looking over her shoulder at her desk, as if something important might be there. “Anyway, I figure if my ideas get stomped on, I can always campaign privately with you.”
He wondered what a private campaign would look like. Strip tease in his office with the door shut? The image of her crawling across his desk on her hands and knees rose in his mind, unbidden. Damn. He needed to get a grip.
She’s not a shifter.
“That’s awfully cocky of you,” he murmured.
She flushed, but must be catching onto his humor, because she smiled. “I’m sure you’ll be putting me in my place on an hourly basis.”
For the first time in ages, he laughed—actually threw his head back and laughed. “Count on it,” he said, still smiling as he walked out.
Karen watched him emerge with interest. He supposed the sound of his laughter would be completely foreign to her.
* * *
Ashley slipped out of her dripping swimsuit and dried off in the YMCA locker room. Before she became Ben’s assistant she swam in the mornings before work. Now she got to work so early that she had to go in the evenings, sometimes quite late.
Not that she minded. Her first week had already given her the most exciting work of her life. Only working for the president of the United States could be more interesting and thrilling than working for Ben Stone. Hell, he exuded as much power as she imagined the head of state did, maybe more.
Her cell phone buzzed and she dived for it. She’d been trying to get ahold of Melissa for the entire day and it was odd for her sister not to at least text her back. She smiled when she saw the screen. It was Melissa.
“Hey, where have you been?”
An electronically disguised male voice spoke into her ear. “We have your sister.”
She caught the phone as it fell from her fingers. “W-what?”
“You will find a laptop on your kitchen table. Replace Ben Stone’s with that one. Meet us in the northwest corner of the third floor of the parking garage at 7 p.m. tomorrow night and bring Stone’s computer. If you tell anyone, your sister’s dead.”
“Ashley, I’m all—!” her sister’s voice, calling out from a distance to the phone, cut off.
“What have you done to my sister?” she snarled, rage taking over her initial shock.
“Shut up. If you want to see your sister alive you will do everything we tell you to do.”
The phone line went dead. She jabbed the buttons, calling back, but of course it went straight to voicemail, as it had all day. Damn.
She threw her clothes on, her entire body trembling. What in the hell was going on? What did they want with Ben’s laptop? And where did they have her sister? Did they mean they would trade her sister for the laptop?
She yanked her phone back out of her bag and texted: I will not give the laptop until you release my sister.
She stared at the screen after hitting send, but of course, no answer appeared. Without bothering to blow-dry her hair, she picked up her gym bag and jogged out to her car. They said the laptop was on her kitchen table. That meant they’d been in her house.
Should she call the police?
If you tell anyone, your sister’s dead.
She wanted to call Ben Stone. It seemed like he would know what to do, and besides, this seemed to involve him. But they were probably monitoring her phone calls.
Melissa. The thought of her sister being hurt or scared made her chest tighten painfully. No wo
nder she’d been worried all day. Her twin intuition had been going off.
She drove home, speeding the entire way. When she arrived, she jumped out of her car. No sign of break-in at her front door. She put the key in and turned it.
Everything looked normal. She walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. There, on the table, sat the laptop. She sucked in her breath, the hairs on her arms standing on end. Was someone in the house right now? Were they watching her? She looked around, training her ears for any sounds. Slowly, she walked toward the table and opened the laptop. It did look just like her boss’. But how would she ever swap them out? He always had his with him. He took it home at night and brought it with him to meetings, even to lunch. Probably the only time he didn’t have it was when he went to the bathroom. And it wasn’t like she could just run in and swap it out in front of Karen.
Hell.
Her belly twisted into tight knots just thinking about it.
Why did they want her to replace his laptop? Were they stealing company secrets? Or sabotaging something? Maybe inserting bad code into the security system or something? Getting his thumbprint swipe to unlock things?
She put the laptop in her satchel and sat at the table, too upset to eat anything. She chewed on her thumbnail. Well, she had all day to make the swap. She would think of something. But what if he didn’t come into work for some reason? Or was in meetings all day with it?
She stood up and paced, imagining every possible scenario she could come up with. None of them were great. Midnight came and went. She couldn’t even think about sleeping.
* * *
He knew something was wrong the moment he woke up that morning. Shifter instincts are always spot on; the trouble is, he didn’t always know how to decipher them. Like the night he’d met Ashley.
The sense grew stronger as he got off the elevator.
“Good morning, Mr. Stone,” Karen said.
“Morning, Karen.”
He walked to Ashley’s office. The instinct had been about her last time. She didn’t look up at first, which was odd for her.
“Good morning, Mr. Stone,” she said when she did. Her face was pale and she had circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly. “Just a bit of a headache. But it’s not a migraine. I’m fine.”
He smelled the acrid scent of fear. What was she afraid of?
Unable to think of what to say to get her to open up, he turned and walked away. This was one of those moments where he could have used charm lessons from his brother.
Their father had been rude and gruff like him, but Leon had possessed the gift. He could talk anyone into anything. Everyone liked him, and he’d made such a great leader. Ben, on the other hand, was a Class A Asswipe. And he led like their father had. Which is why he didn’t want the responsibility of his brother’s pack.
He left her alone for most of the day. By afternoon, though, he could sense her agitation through the walls. But it was none of his business. If she had something on her mind of a personal nature, he had no right to force it out of her. Still, it raised the protective instincts in him. He wanted to fix it, whatever it was.
He couldn’t get anything done with Ashley fretting in the office next to him. It was one of the reasons he hated having anyone else working on the same floor as him. He hoped this didn’t become a regular thing. By four in the afternoon, he picked up his laptop, ready to head out early for the day.
Ashley came barreling out of her office. “Are you leaving?” Her voice was three pitches higher than usual.
He stopped and turned slowly. “Yes, why?”
“Um, I, uh, wanted to go over some stuff with you. Can you stay for just a few more minutes?”
The smell of fear tingled in his nostrils. He scented desperation. What in the hell was up with her?
He turned back to his office and held out his arm with a bow, as if ushering her in.
She gave him a wan smile. “Thanks. I, uh, will be right there. I just have to grab my notes.”
She returned with a stack of things, which she placed on her lap, rather than the top of the desk.
“Okay, you’ve been acting weird all day. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s just a headache, I swear.”
Her eyes didn’t meet his, but seemed to be looking at his briefcase. “Okay,” she said, drawing a breath. “I just wanted to get your opinion on some ad ideas I have for the campaign.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It couldn’t wait till tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry,” she exclaimed, standing up out of her chair and setting the stack of things on his desk. “You’re in a hurry? Let me just show you this one thing—” She pushed a notebook under his nose, and at the same time she lunged across his desk and knocked a cup of cold coffee all over him.
Anger surged. Without a doubt, she had done it on purpose. Why would she try to trick him? His blood turned cold. He leaped back, dripping as she ran around to his side of the desk. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I will clean this up if you want to go to the restroom and get yourself dried off.”
He smelled her sweat and fear even under the stench of coffee covering him. Reason won out over the instinct to pick her up by the throat and demand what was going on. He’d learn more watching her follow through on her game, whatever it may be. He walked out without a word.
He didn’t go to the restroom, though. Karen was already up out of her desk, handing him a towel from the bar area where she served coffee or water to guests.
He kept his back to his office, watching from the corner of his eye as Ashley darted around and opened his briefcase. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but he gave her enough time to finish it before he turned back. She was frantically wiping down surfaces when he came back in.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know you have to go. I shouldn’t have kept you here.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said.
She didn’t even notice the rebuke, a sign of her complete distraction. She gathered up her things and rushed back to her office. He saw his laptop poking out from under a piece of paper in the stack of things she carried.
He grit his teeth. What the hell had the little minx just done? And why? He shut the door to his office and closed the blinds. Setting the briefcase on his desk, he brought his nose down to it and sniffed. All he smelled was the damn coffee. He carefully opened the top of his briefcase and looked in. His laptop lay where he left it. At least it looked like his laptop. But was it a little shinier?
He sniffed. He detected a faint tar or pitch smell. Was it a bomb? Several seconds ticked by as he stared at it, assimilating that thought.
Why did Ashley want him dead? Or better yet, who had put her up to it? Was she a professional? No, she’d blundered the whole thing terribly. She definitely wasn’t a pro. He wondered how much she’d been offered to commit murder.
Bitterness swelled in his chest. Betrayal coated his tongue, clung to his clothing and skin. He had trusted her, brought her into his inner circle of one. He should have known better. No one could be trusted.
He sat and stared at the laptop for a long time, wondering what to do with it. Calling the police did not even enter his list of possibilities. Shifters did not involve law enforcement. If anything, they tended to work on the fringe, outside of the normal boundaries of the law. He considered whether anyone in his brother’s pack might help. Stanley, the new alpha, might know what you do when a bomb is left on your desktop. But he’d purposely kept his distance from the pack since Leon’s death. He just needed to get the bomb someplace out in the open, where it wouldn’t kill anyone when it went off. But what if it detonated before he disposed of it? His fingers tightened on his desk.
What was Ashley’s plan? He should be trailing her. Damn, he needed help. Sighing, he picked up his cell phone and dialed Stanley.
“Ben,”
Stanley answered, sounding surprised. He’d been friendly enough, trying to get Ben into their fold although there had been subtle threats about the pack not liking lone wolves. As Ben was the largest and most ferocious wolf, Stanley had come out and said he would stand back if Ben wanted to be alpha—no challenge necessary. When Ben refused, Stanley had told him he expected his presence at their meetings, but he’d ignored the directive.
“Got anyone who can talk me through disabling a bomb?”
Stanley was silent a moment. “Mark Ruhl. He’s our insider in law enforcement. He works for the DEA. You need help right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me just a minute.”
“Thanks.”
He hung up. When the phone rang, he picked it up, even though he didn’t recognize the number.
“This is Mark Ruhl. I hear you need some help?”
He exhaled. “Yeah. I believe there is an explosive in my laptop.”
Chapter Three
Ashley picked up her satchel with Ben Stone’s laptop and stepped into the elevator. Her limbs dragged, weak from being so wound up for past twenty-four hours.
It’s almost over. Then Melissa will be safe and you can go to the police and tell Mr. Stone what you’ve done.
She took the elevator to the third floor of the parking garage and got off. Clutching the satchel to her chest, she walked forward, toward the northwest corner. She had parked her car there that morning just to familiarize herself with the area. The cement walls echoed with her footsteps, the smell of exhaust and gasoline oppressive. The lot seemed empty—no other cars, no people, nothing. She stood and waited. Had she heard the time or place wrong? No, the words were still echoing in her mind. Third floor, northwest corner of the lot. She opened her car door and sat down on the seat with the door standing open. Sweat trickled down her ribs. She thought she heard a door close, but when she looked around, she only saw the stairwell door, and no one was near it.
Time ticked by. Five minutes, then ten.
