Escalation Clause (Stewart Realty Series)

by Crowe, Liz

  This time his face showed her one thing as clear as day—and she was certain hers matched it. Raw need was etched in every plane and angle. She gulped, embarrassed that he could dampen her panties with just a look. He pulled her close, put his other hand to her face and whispered, tickling her ear and making her shiver. “I need your opinion on something. Can you meet me today? Around four? I have to see the money guys in Detroit for lunch. Then I’m free.” He brushed his lips along the curve of her jaw.

  “Cut it out,” she said, eyes closed, loving it. But her knees no longer held her so she perched on the edge of the chair arm.

  “Four p.m. The spec house in Barton Hills.”

  She rose, staring at him. Every nerve ending was on alert. She’d not gone this long without sex in…well since she’d been pregnant with Katie and just after, while they were still dancing around their relationship. The flame he always managed to ignite in her, be it one of lust, happiness or fury burned bright on all fronts. “Why?” She croaked out. “It’s almost done isn’t it? Mo’s done a great job bringing it in on time and budget. I thought you had it sold.”

  “Not yet,” he ran his fingers up her arm. “Buyer walked. But I have a couple of others interested. I want you to look at the kitchen stuff, help me choose since I can’t get either of the decision-making disabled couples to make an offer.”

  “Uh…sure.” She stood, wobbly, and on the verge of jumping him in front of the kids and her friend. She looked over her shoulder. Lila had guided everybody into the kitchen, and it sounded like they were making pancakes. She looked down at her husband. “What is this about Jack? Talk? Or Fucking? Because you know what I—”

  He grabbed her hand and put it on his zipper. She bit her lip at the familiar hard girth of his sex. “Both.” He said, cupping her neck and tugging her close. The kiss was just a ghost of one, nothing like he normally gave. However, having gone without any of it for so long, it felt like the most intimate connection they’d ever made. He ran his thumb over her lips.

  “I have a meeting.” She exhaled. It was the truth.

  “Cancel it,” his voice was low.

  She stood, shook her hair back. “As long as you are prepared to really talk to me.” She crossed her arms, mainly so he would not see how shaky she was.

  “I am.” He got to his feet, stood within centimeters of her, but didn’t touch her. The chemistry of their long-running relationship filled the air, making her breathless. She reached out first, put a hand to his rough cheek. His eyes stayed flat, but then he smiled. “I promise, I will.” He kissed her for real then, holding her close, cupping her breast under the silk blouse, shoving a thigh between her legs. It was amazing, erotic, and then, it was over. He let her go, and walked to the bedroom. She clutched the back of the couch to keep from falling straight to the hardwood floor. When she heard the shower start, she grabbed her purse and phone.

  Lila stuck her head around the corner of the large galley-style kitchen. “You okay?” she asked.

  Sara ran a shaky hand down her hair. “Uh, no. But you know…men.” She shrugged, unwilling to let on how conflicted she was. Even as close as she had become with Lila since the woman had joined Sara’s family, she still kept most of her personal frustrations private. In another life, with other circumstances she would be talking to Blake about this. But of course, she couldn’t. She stood a few more seconds, listening to the sounds of her household—the shower running, the kids laughing, the dog barking at nothing. A thrill of fear lit her brain. She had to make Jack talk. They’d been through too much to give up now.

  She took a deep breath. There were untold crises she had facing her at work and she needed to get to them. “Call me if anyone bleeds too profusely.” Katie ran up and gave her a hug. Brandis hollered “Ma!” So, she picked him up and kissed his already dirty face. “Down!” He demanded, and he was off like a shot, first trying to walk then giving up when crawling proved more efficient.

  The day stretched out as slow as elementary school, the clock seeming to move backwards more than once. The downtown Stewart Realty office felt chaotic, but she knew all was well. The seller’s market had returned with a vengeance that spring. But she and Jack had decided not to let go of their own investment properties—four rental houses near Michigan’s central campus, a small apartment building and a block of mixed retail and commercial he had developed a few years previously, plus the building that housed The Local and a few law offices at the intersection of Liberty and Division. They’d also held onto the penthouse condo in the building he’d developed during that insane year they’d first met. The boom felt false to her, rushed and crazy. But she encouraged her agents to dive in and take full advantage. To not let buyers drag their feet like they used to do when she was still selling.

  “Pam!” She yelled for her assistant. “I still need BPOs for those houses in the township. Oh, and tell Allen and Drew I gotta change our four o’clock.” She glanced at her watch; the classy, subtle Patek Phillipe Jack had given her several years earlier. “See if they can meet now. I have an hour.” She sat, dashed off a few emails, sifted through a stack of bullshit on a large deal quickly going sour for one of her rookie agents. She smiled at the two men when they appeared in her door. Allen David was a super hotshot salesman, had been for years, but with another brokerage. She’d lured him away the year before, promising private office suites, room for his huge staff of assistants, and the prestige of being affiliated with the largest and most successful regional real estate office around. It took him a month to disentangle from his former broker but since he’d been on board, her numbers had doubled, and he’d added a distinct edge of humor and fun to the office.

  His business and life partner, Andrew Rollins, stood beside him, Bluetooth earpiece at the ready. Both men were brutally handsome, always dressed in top-shelf suits and ties. Allen was slightly taller, and reminded her some of Blake with his snapping green eyes and close cropped brown hair. Drew was average height, with wavy dark blond hair and bright blue eyes. They were, in a word, adorable. But at the moment, she was not happy with either of them.

  “Hi guys. Please, have a seat. Sorry I had to change the meeting time.” She shut the door and leaned on her desk.

  “Nice shoes,” Allen said, flippantly.

  “Yeah, I know. Listen, you guys have got to stop sending business to Northern Title. We agreed, I thought. You know Stewarts has an issue with them. We only use Arbor and Chicago. Northern’s management is shady and I, for one, don’t want our clients signing any of their paperwork.”

  Allen leaned back in his chair. He was a vision of masculine perfection. You would never in a million years pin him as openly gay as he was. Drew was even more manly. She’d been out with them before and had not been surprised at the steady stream of women who would eyeball them, buy them drinks, and openly flirt. They ate it up. But while Drew had admitted he would consider himself bi-sexual if he were single, Allen had come out in high school and had never looked back. “Fine,” he said. “I just—”

  Sara held up a hand. “I know, you have a relationship with them from your former brokerage. You promised me you would move it all over when you came here. However,” she went around and sat, opening a file that contained a completely botched closing package for a large deal and an influential client. “This is bullshit. These numbers are wrong, no matter that they got everything they needed in a timely manner, including funding from the lender. And I had to hear about it from our client?” her voice rose slightly. She’d learned in the past years as a manager to hold her temper, not expect everyone to work at the same level of detail as she did, but these two should know better. Something felt wrong about the whole thing.

  Drew glanced at Allen, then away. She looked at them. “I needed to know about this from you, the second it fell apart at the closing table. You’ve been babying this client way too long. Longer than you normally do, and I let you, but Jesus, guys, this is a fucking forty-thousand-dollar commission at stake, and that�
�s just my cut. What the hell?” She slammed the file closed and shut up, prepared to listen. Another skill Jack had forced on her as manager—don’t do all the talking. It lets people off too easy.

  “I think the money is dirty,” Allen said running his hands through his hair. “My seller wants out from under the building, with good reason, it’s a white elephant. But the buyer,” he shrugged. Since Allen was “double dipping” representing both sides of the deal, it was a much more delicate operation. Both parties had to agree to let him handle the negotiation between them. And he had with his typical alacrity, but things had dragged on way too long and now, the closing had been totally botched and she’d gotten an earful from both buyer and seller. “I am afraid the buyer wants the building for …”

  “What the buyer wants to do with a run down, crappy empty building in downtown Ypsilanti is not your business. Your business is to sell it and close the deal.” She pointed at him. “Why do you even care?”

  Allen stood, anger flashing in his eyes. Drew stayed seated. “Sara,” the softer-spoken man said. “We want to move this deal over to Arbor. We think,” Allen put a hand on his shoulder but Drew ignored it. “I think Northern Title is fronting the money. You know Jim Williams is a crook. We all know that. It’s why Stewart won’t deal with Northern anymore. But we were stuck because the buyer insisted, claimed he wouldn’t sign closing papers at any other title company.”

  Sara sat back, flabbergasted. This was not the answer she expected. The typical “Northern Title people are idiots” discussion and agreement to never use them again after they got this one closed was all she wanted. She put a hand over her eyes.

  “Okay, I…shit….”

  “How can I dump this buyer now?” Allen demanded. “I need to, and want to. I also want to report Northern to the state for mishandling escrow funds. But this buyer is…a little intimidating lately.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the two men. They were both college scholarship athletes, one in baseball and one in soccer. They were fit, imposing figures, hardly easily cowed by a fussy client. She recalled the subtle threats the buyer had flung at her on the phone that she had discounted as the usual bluff and bluster of blowhard rich guys who weren’t getting their way. She shivered, realizing that it was potentially more than that. “Let’s get Jack in on this one.” Allen said. “He….”

  She stopped him. “No, not yet. I’ll tell him about it, but frankly, the seller is entitled to pick the title company where his property transfers so it seems to me, you and your seller can say to the buyer you are switching it to Arbor. He has to show up and sign. We have a contract. If he wants to breach and be liable, that’s fine. But in the meantime I’ll file another report with the state about Northern, citing your concerns.”

  “Sara,” Drew leaned on the other side of her desk. His bright blue eyes were full of worry. “I don’t think you’re hearing us. These guys are dirty. I’m pretty sure we’re talking drug-money kind of dirty. They want the building as a front, for I don’t know what, but they won’t sign anything that isn’t at Northern. They’ve made that clear. I say we close it there and walk away, lucky to have our tires intact.”

  “No, I’m not gonna be bullied.” She put a hand to her forehead, her brain spinning with the new information. “Let me dig into it a little. Tell your seller we are working through some details and hope to have a date for closing for him soon. And, if you honestly think it is drug money, we are obligated to go to the police.” She bit her lip, her nerves snapping with this latest disaster.

  Allen blew out a puff of air, and leaned on her door. “You need to get laid, sister.”

  “What?” She looked up at him, felt her face redden. “Jesus, Allen.”

  “No, seriously, you are as tense as a violin string. You and the boss man need to get your act together. You are seriously losing it. And from what I hear he is not much better.”

  “How would you …. Oh.” She recalled she’d spilled everything to him over drinks about a month ago.

  Allen came around and gave her a perfunctory shoulder massage. “Damn, even your shoulders are bound up. Listen,” he leaned on her desk, staring at her. “This thing is beyond us now, you can’t handle it. Don’t even try. Let’s get Jack in on it, and let him contact the cops. I don’t want to be in the same room with this buyer ever again. The guy is a thug and his true colors are really showing now. I’m afraid if you try and intervene he’ll… I don’t know….”

  She stood, staring at him. “So, you think, because I haven’t ‘gotten laid,’ I’m going all Wonder Woman on this trying to fix it myself?”

  Allen shrugged. She frowned at him, then at Drew, who looked away. She dropped back into her chair, her head pounding with anger. “You know what, get out. I am the manager of this office and I will handle it. You tell your seller what I told you. I’m not afraid of some two-bit crook trying to deal Northern Title in on a crooked purchase. Fuck that six ways to Sunday.”

  “Sara,” Allen started, but she pointed the door.

  “Go. And keep your god damned opinions about my sex life out of our conversations.”

  He raised an eyebrow and left. Drew sat a minute staring at her. But she ignored him until he followed Allen out. Her ears rang, her face was hot when she dialed Jack’s cell number on reflex, then stopped. She would handle this. They were overreacting. She called Northern, left a message for that crook Jim Williams telling him he could dump the Harris Street file. She was taking it to another title company.

  At three p.m. she got a call from a strange number, but answered it by rote. “Is this Sara Thornton, manager of the downtown Stewart Realty office?” The voice was soft, male, and non-threatening, sounding more like a salesman than anything else.

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  “Why, yes, you can. You can march your hot little linen suited ass back to Northern Title, meet me there and close this fucking deal. I’ll be there tomorrow at nine a.m. If you aren’t, then you and everyone around you will regret it.”

  She stared at the phone that had gone dead in her hands for a solid five minutes before calling the police.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sara drove out to Barton Hills, Ann Arbor’s most prestigious private neighborhood on the northwest side of town and let anger fill her chest, replacing the terror that had gripped her since the call almost an hour or so ago. Fucking men, with their attitudes, thinking they could push me around with lame threats. She screeched to a halt in front of the large, imposing mansion Keystone had built in the last year with Maureen at the helm. She smiled, thinking about Jack’s sister. She made a mental note to call her, invite her over for some girl time. Hopefully, after she and Mo’s brother fucked and made up in this empty house.

  She shivered in anticipation, all thoughts of the asshole on the phone and Allen and Drew’s worried faces gone in the blink of an eye—the one where she blinked and saw him, Jack, standing at the top of the steps, light gray suit and subtle blue tie, looking amazing as usual. As he read something on his phone his blue eyes darkened. She gulped and realized for the umpteenth time that everything about him turned her on, no matter how hard she resisted it. She got out and started up the steps.

  “What the fuck is this, Sara?” He shoved the phone at her, nearly making her lose her balance. Her ears were still buzzing in anticipation of the fine time she was about to have with her estranged husband, talking and screwing their way back into a some semblance of normalcy. This sudden mood shift threw her off. “God damn it.” He stomped into the open door of the house, leaving her to read the email sent from Jim Williams at Northern Title informing him that Stewart was in breach of contract over the property at 110 Harris Street, Ypsilanti, Michigan as of eleven a.m. today. That he, Jack, could expect papers served immediately forcing their seller to sell at the time and place of the buyer’s choosing.

  “Jesus,” she dropped to the top step, overwhelmed and exhausted and on the verge of tears. Once she realized Jack was not going to
reemerge she hauled herself to her feet and went inside. He stood, leaning against the plywood, temporary countertop, design plans spread out behind him. His eyes blazed with fury. She took one step towards him realizing this was perhaps not going to end as she thought. “Honey,” she whispered.

  His jaw tightened and a shudder passed through him. She was in tune to his body language and read it immediately. His eyes narrowed and he met her halfway, holding her close and laying a tongue-tangling kiss on her so fast she moaned and wrapped her arms around him. “Wait,” she whispered, not meaning it, when he picked her up and started down the back hall.

  He put his lips to her ear and his words sent shockwaves through her so strong she shook. “I am going to take you somewhere you know you want to go. Right now. Right here. And you will not talk, or complain, or protest. You will however, come. A lot. And then we’ll talk. Because if I don’t do this now I am either going to kill the next person who speaks to me or asks me a question or ….” She put a hand to his face.

  “Jack, this isn’t the answer.”

  He tossed her on the bed, his jaw set. “Oh, yes it is, Sara. You just don’t realize it yet. I am through playing games. You need to let me have control. Right fucking now. I’m in charge and you are not gonna regret it.”

  She gasped at the sound of ripping silk, grinning when he yanked her skirt down and off as he tossed the remaining scraps of her blouse to the floor. She squirmed on the bed cover, her brain fogging over and going to a familiar place—the place where she did give up control. A familiar haze stole over her, forcing relaxation through her every bone, muscle and sinew at his words.

  She gasped and stared up at the ceiling, her body frozen with a sudden acceptance of something. She couldn’t do this, not anymore. If she gave up the tight reign she had on herself, this thin thread of sanity she’d been gripping like a drowning sailor to a life preserver since losing Blake, she would have nothing.