Mesmerized

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Mesmerized Page 24

by Ward, Alice


  “I have no interest in being the man Chaz Pennington was. You can assign that to my relationship with Gretchen if you want, but it’s not bias. It’s a code of ethics, simple as that. Each and every one of you have gotten to where you are today by working hard and dedicating yourself to your careers. What right do we have to take that away from someone else for no reason other than because we can?” I scoffed and straightened up. “If that’s the people who make up the Pennington’s Board of Directors, then I have no interest in being part of this company, and I’ll be glad to part ways.”

  Nobody said anything. Nobody looked down at their hands or exchanged glances with one another. All attention was squarely on me for several long seconds after I finished speaking. I threw my hands up in a sign of finality, and Harlan was the first to break character in the scene of deadpan statues.

  “That was a mouthful to digest.” He leaned back in his chair, pressed the pad of his index finger to the corner of his mouth, and gazed up at the ceiling. “Would you mind excusing us for a moment, Cash? I think we need to discuss the wisdom you’ve just imparted to us.”

  I scowled, assuming he was being sarcastic, but I strode from the room without reply.

  The snap of the door closing behind me set my hair on end, and I considered leaving. Walking out of the building and never coming back. Fuck it all. But I didn’t want to make any rash decisions. What happened to me and my career was barely even a blip on my radar of concerns, but I never would’ve forgiven myself if the board chose to move forward with their plan to take over Gretchen’s property because I acted foolishly.

  So, I pulled out my phone and dialed Drew, if only to keep my sanity long enough to see through what I’d started.

  “Man, I haven’t heard from you in so long that I thought you died in the tundra.”

  “Funny.” I fell back against the wall with a clumsy thump and stared at my loafers. “I think I might’ve just bought myself a one-way ticket to Pennington’s purgatory.”

  He snorted. “How the hell you manage that?”

  I told him about my outburst. “It doesn’t matter, man. I don’t give a shit if they oust me. I’m not even sure this is what I want to do, anyway. But I’ll be damned if I won’t do my best to make sure they leave Gretchen alone.”

  “Only you would fall so hard for a Yankee girl that you’d give up the family fortune.”

  “No.” I was harsher than I intended to be, but he sounded too much like the board members who’d accused me of the same sin. In more eloquent terms, of course. “It’s not her. It’s the principle of it. Remember when we vandalized that new Pennington’s and got busted by the cops? We did that because we hate this corporate shit. But then my dad died, and I got thrown into it, and I forgot I hated it until she made me remember.”

  “Maybe it’s a good thing that you fucked it all up, then. You shouldn’t waste your life being miserable, ya know?”

  I nodded, and we continued talking for a few minutes more before the door opened again and Harlan’s head popped out.

  “Come on back.” He spied the phone pressed to my ear and frowned. “We’re ready for you.”

  “Gotta go, Drew,” I said into the mouthpiece.

  “Later.”

  I hung up, stuffed the phone back into my pocket, and reentered the conference room. The air was thick with tension, and the expressions around the table were too varied to gauge a read on what had happened during their private discussion.

  Harlan tapped the arm of my chair to indicate he wanted me to sit, but I dismissed him and remained standing as I waited for them to drop the bomb that they were taking Gretchen’s land, firing me, and erecting a massive statue in Tulsa’s center in my father’s honor.

  “So, we heard what you had to say.” Harlan tilted back in his seat and brushed his hand over his scruffy gray beard. “While we didn’t care for the tone, you made some points worth considering. We’re willing to come to a compromise.”

  My jaw dropped in sheer shock. If there was one person on the face of the earth less movable in his positions than my dad had been, it was Harlan Dade.

  “We will talk to the team to see if they can configure the space around Ms. Laughlin’s property without losing square footage or parking space. If it can’t be done, we’ll continue as planned. If they are able to design a newer plan to suit both our needs and hers, however, we’ll adjust as necessary, and Ms. Laughlin will be free to retain her land, store, and residence without further bother from us.”

  It was an offer too good to be true. One nobody in their right might would ever reject. I suddenly understood how Gretchen must have felt when she was presented with a deal of a lifetime. There was one vital difference between her and me, though. I agreed, and I agreed fast before they could change their minds.

  “I’ll let Gretchen know.”

  “Let us know what she says, will you?” Silas chimed in. “We’re starved for entertainment ‘round here. That tantrum of yours was the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

  I grinned and sauntered from the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Gretchen

  My footsteps were heavy, my heart heavier, and I wanted to do nothing but crawl into a corner and cry. While the displays and products and sounds and smells in my shop were completely normal, there was something very, very out of place that was tearing me apart. Boxes. A whole stack of them from floor to ceiling in the corner behind the service counter.

  After talking to Cash, then talking to Greg, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to lose Auras, so I’d cleaned myself up after unburdening my woes onto Elena, and we’d gone to the only FedEx store in town to stock up on boxes.

  I didn’t want to be surprised when I received my letter, phone call, or visit of immoral eviction and end up losing my stock on top of everything else. It was only the next morning after Cash told me about the board using the Council to snatch up my property, but I figured it was as good a time as any to start the packing process. My fate was inevitable.

  “Hey, I don’t think you’ll want to pack these up like this.” Elena brandished one of the Himalayan salt lamps. She’d spent the night with me in my apartment — I was liable to pick up drinking to ease my pain if I was left alone, she’d claimed — and volunteered to help me start boxing extra inventory when we got up. “We should’ve bought bubble wrap or something.”

  “I have the original packaging for all of those in the back. They can go in that before being packed into the box.” I tried to pick up the cardboard cube I’d stuffed with tarot decks, but I’d filled it too much and couldn’t lift it. With my frustration and misery already teetering on the edge of a total breakdown, I whimpered and tried again. Too heavy.

  For the umpteenth time since the previous afternoon, tears sprang into my eyes. I kicked the box and dropped to the floor to push it instead. Elena looked up, saw my face, and set down the lamp she had just unplugged.

  “Aw, honey, don’t.” She crossed the shop to where I was crouched on the floor, inching the surprisingly heavy stash of tarot cards with grunts, and rubbed her palm consolingly on my shoulder. “Don’t cry again. It’s going to be fine.”

  “How’s… it going… to be fine?” I was out of breath and angry, and my question came out as choppy as storm-riled waves. “I’ve got nowhere to live… nowhere to make a living… my boyfriend’s a thousand miles away, if I even have one anymore…”

  “You’ll stay with me.” She bent down to grab one of the box’s flaps and started pulling while I pushed. The cardboard made an awful shushing sound against the hardwood that made the hairs on my arms stand up, but it was more progress than I’d made on my own, so I didn’t complain. “Good thing your brother insisted on getting a two-bedroom, and good thing I’d insisted on keeping it when we split up.”

  I tilted my head to give her an indignant look. “Yeah, and then what? I fill your apartment with crystals and jewelry, then throw the doors open and let customers traipse right on thro
ugh?” I threw my weight against the box, pleased when it shot a full foot forward. “You’re sweet to offer, Elena, but I don’t think that’s the solution.”

  The door jingled before she replied. I looked up as she turned around, and my eyes landed on a face I’d been so worried I’d never see again, much less see again so soon.

  “Thought I was the only one who could get you so red-faced and sweaty, darlin’.”

  Cash’s dark eyes twinkled mischievously, and the grin on his face was contagious, but I couldn’t do anything except ogle him. I was half-heartedly convinced I was hallucinating.

  Elena, on the other hand, was far from dumbfounded. She slammed her hands onto her hips and jutted her chin out with the kind of attitude only supermodels were able to successfully pull off. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s nice to see you too, ma’am.” Cash tilted his head respectfully, but his stare didn’t move from me.

  “Did you come all the way back up here just to gloat?” I knew Elena’s temper, and it was spicier than mine. She also had the traits of a mother bear protecting her cubs when it came to me. Cash was about to get a verbal beating if he didn’t kowtow soon, and maybe a physical one if he continued with the good-natured taunting.

  He was evidently unconcerned. “No, I came all the way back up here to piss you off.”

  I heard the note of humor in his reply, but Elena was either ignorant or not in the mood because she flung a finger out in front of her and waved it around. “Listen, you arrogant prick, you’ve ruined my best friend’s life more than you even fucking know, and pigs will fly before I let you do any more damage. Do you understand me?”

  Cash leaned to the side slightly to pointedly look past her at me. “Should I leave?” He waggled his eyebrows, making me smile.

  Elena answered for me. “Damn right, you should leave! Go back to your tractor-pulling, bull-riding, soul-crushing home, and we’ll forget you ever existed!”

  Judging by the flash of annoyance that crossed his Adonis face, she’d hit a nerve. “Excuse me. This doesn’t involve you, so I suggest you lower your tone and let Gretchen speak for herself.”

  “If it involves her, it involves me.” Elena crossed her arms and puffed out her chest stubbornly.

  “Keep this up, and you’re going to ruin everything for her like you claim I have.” He moved toward us to get a better view of me. “I’ve got good news, darlin’.”

  “Yeah, right,” Elena scoffed.

  Cash cast her a silencing look, then returned his attention to me. “The board is going to talk to the architectural design team to see if they can figure out a new plan that works around your existing property.”

  “What?” It was the first thing I’d said since he came in, and it was a raw croak.

  “As long as the architects can do it, Pennington’s won’t bother you anymore. You’ll be able to keep this place without any more problems.”

  I slowly stood, my hands shaking. “Are you… are you sure?”

  He beamed. “Sure as a coyote stalking a prairie fox in a tall, ripe cornfield.”

  My heartbeat quickened, and warm pressure spread across my chest. Gram. With quiet confidence, I turned to Elena, smiling gently. “Would you mind letting us talk for a little bit?”

  She eyed him suspiciously as she addressed me. “If that’s what you want, but I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do.”

  She pursed her lips, glared at him for a moment more, then hugged me. “Call me if he’s a dick.” I laughed. She grabbed her purse off the floor and stalked past him to the door, but before she left, she rounded on him one last time. Her “Finger of Attitude,” as I called it, was waving at him again. “You’ll make sure she’s happy, if you know what’s good for you, or I swear on all that’s holy, I will hunt you down and cut you.”

  He chuckled, but I raised my eyebrows. “She’s not kidding, Cash.”

  “I’m not.” She stabbed him with a final glower, then left.

  Without Elena’s overbearing presence, the tension in the air lifted noticeably. I walked past the box to Cash and fiddled uncertainly with my bangles. “So, barring an unforeseen construction problem, I can keep Auras right where it is?”

  “Forever and ever.”

  “How?” It was the question that burned most in my mind. After the months of constant nagging from the company, I couldn’t imagine the higher-ups at Pennington’s bending on their position.

  His dimples winked at me. “I told them they’re a bunch of selfish shitheads, basically.”

  I smiled, too, but I was also immensely flattered. Cash was CEO, but the board had authority over him, and his going against them so aggressively could’ve been a huge mistake for his future. “Why would you go to bat for me like that? Your reputation and your career is on the line.”

  Rather than answering, he started looking around. His eyes fell on the box full of tarot decks behind me. Gently pushing me aside a bit, he grabbed a set of cards and extracted them from their case. I watched him start shuffling.

  “What are you doing?”

  He met my confused gaze. “I’m going to read your future.”

  EPILOGUE

  Cash

  I placed the shuffled deck on the countertop and flipped over the first one. “Three of Pen… ah, Pentacles.” Covering up my stumble, I put on my most convincing voice. “You used to be independent and happy, but you experienced some hard times and loneliness.”

  “That’s not what that means.”

  I ignored her and turned over another. “Knight of Wands. You’re now safe, secure, and have found someone important.”

  She watched me warily, and I could see in my peripheral vision that she desperately wanted to correct my analysis of the card but didn’t want to ruin the moment. I revealed the final card and pointed to it.

  “The Hierophant.” Her lips turned up as I clearly butchered the pronunciation. “This is your future. You will be fulfilled in your career and loved in the arms of the man of your dreams.” Those sensual lips lifted more, and I took her by the waist. “I love you, Gretchen. Going up against the board was something I did because I refused to stand for unethical dealings, but I realized it was my love for you that led me to that self-discovery.”

  Her breath hitched, and she pressed her palms to my chest. “You know what?”

  “What’s that, darlin’?”

  She turned her mouth up to mine, but just before our lips met, she murmured, “I love you too.”

  I kissed her. Our breath mingled, and our chins brushed as we closed in on one another. My cock started to harden, but I cared more about swallowing all the love she’d just professed than satisfying a primal need. With the tip of my tongue, I eased her upper lip open, then slid inside to taste her. She met me with eager passion, and the two muscles engaged in a fiery tango.

  “You know what else?” She pulled back with a slight pant.

  “What else?”

  “I…” She hesitated and glanced around. I watched her gaze zooming from one shelf to another, taking in the eclectic items and mismatched décor, trailing over the details of the hardwood to the paint strokes on the paneled wall. “I don’t think I need to keep this place.”

  I wouldn’t have been more surprised if she’d told me she was secretly the same witch from my dream. “What?”

  She nodded, and resolve settled on her face. “Yeah. After the other day, I didn’t have any choice but to think about what Auras means to me. Obviously, I was focused on the nostalgia and memories. But… I came to realize I’ve been holding on for nothing else than sentimental value and stubbornness.” Her wavy, coppery hair shuddered around her face as she shook her head. “My memories are my memories no matter where I am. I don’t want my fear of losing them to hold me back from making new ones.” She raised her glowing façade to me. “I want to hold on to those memories because they are definitely beloved, but I also want to make new ones. With you.”

  My heart
swelled in my chest, and my erection swelled in my pants. I crushed my mouth to hers again, but this time, it wasn’t sweet. I was hungry, a starved wolf who hadn’t realized just how starved he was until hearing the words that tantalized the palate. My hands started roving, my tongue broke the barrier well before she offered, and I was buzzing from head to toe. I needed her. All of her.

  Now.

  “Hold on.” I unwound my arms from around her and moved to the door in two long strides. Hooking the lock, I returned to her. “We don’t need any deviant voyeurs looking on while I stake my claim.”

  Her cheeks pinkened, and her pearly teeth poked out to nibble her plump lower lip. I nudged those teeth out of the way so I could nip that lip myself. A light moan floated from her mouth. Grinning, I started walking forward, backing her through the aisle until we reached the same place at the back of the store where we’d made love during the thunderstorm.

  I was throbbing.

  Snaking my hands beneath the hem of her shirt, I skimmed her sides to the band of her bra. Her back arched to present those delicious breasts to me, and I accepted her offering by pushing her top up to her underarms and yanking the lightly padded cups from the fleshy swells. I bent and suckled a tight nipple between my lips where her tongue had been shortly before.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, and her shudder prompted me to clamp my teeth down around the sensitive tip. Her fingernails curled into my shoulders.

  This was right. This was the future I greeted willingly, the one I gladly stepped into and looked forward to experiencing from start to finish. Where my career took me didn’t matter as long as I had this woman, this beautiful, eccentric, whimsical, hardheaded woman, to call mine.

  “I love you.” I sighed the words against her nipple, then kissed it. “I love this.” Down to her belly. “And this.” My fingers fiddled with her zipper and button, and I shimmied her leggings down her legs. “And these.” I caressed her thighs, then bit her panties and dragged them down as well to reveal her pink, sweet parts. I pressed my lips to the ridge just above her clit. “And that.”

 

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