Just Me

by Graysen Morgen

  ~ ~ ~

  Cassidy continued to go to work as usual. Her heart leapt into her throat every time she heard a knock on her door. She’d told her friends about her events of that night.

  “Oh my god Cass.” Trina was shocked. Wendi was more intrigued at the fact that she ran away instead of following through.

  “What made you stop? I mean she’s gorgeous, if I were gay I’d be after her!”

  “It’s not that simply Wendi. She’s my boss for crying out loud! Sleeping with her would be a huge mistake.” Cassidy downed the entire glass of Soco in one sip and waved for the bartender to bring her another.

  “Who pulled away first?” Trina watched her best friend’s face. She could see the straining lines from not eating or sleeping. She’s really taking this pretty hard.

  “I…I don’t know, I guess I did, hell I was on top of her!”

  “Woo hoo!” Wendi hollered, only loud enough for them to hear it.

  “Damn it Wendi.” Cassidy smiled and shook her head.

  “Was it good? Is she as good a kisser as she comes off to be?” Wendi wasn’t letting up. Trina was glad someone was asking, she wanted all of the details too.

  Cassidy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was the most extraordinary thing that I have ever felt. My body was on fire, burning for her touch. “Yeah, she’s a great kisser.”

  “Well then, what’s the problem?”

  “She doesn’t want me like that, I mean, we could never, she’s my boss, it just doesn’t work like that Wendi.”

  “Have you guys talked about it?” Trina sipped her drink when the bartender returned.

  “No, there’s nothing to talk about.” There never will be. End of story.

  Cassidy leaned her head back against her desk chair and smiled, recalling the headache she woke up with the next day, she had prayed to the toilet gods for hours. She swore she’d never drink again, eventually her friends dropped the subject of Ian Wiley as the weeks went on. Before long, two months had passed. March wasn’t far off and Spring was around the corner. That alone was enough to give her hope. Hope for what, she wasn’t sure.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ian sat behind the large mahogany desk in the giant office. A soft leather couch sat along one side of the room, the rest of the walls were covered with photos, diplomas, certificates, and other important or sentimental documentation. She’d just made the second phone call that she dreaded. She hung up knowing she had all of bases covered since she’d started the ball rolling the day before when she made the initial call from the study at the estate. She cradled the receiver on the phone and dialed a familiar extension on the intercom. After that she called the number back and left the speaker phone going. The tiny light on the corner of the phone was only noticeable on her side of the desk.

  “Yes.” The male voice answered.

  “Benjamin, this is Ian Wiley. Can you meet me in my office right now?” Her tone was strong, suggesting he would meet her no matter what he was doing.

  “Uh…yeah…yes ma’am, I’m on the way.”

  A few minutes later she heard the knock on the door.

  “Come in.” She sat with her hands folded on the desk, the screen saver was running on the computer close to her. She wasn’t surprised to see Frasier Higginbotham come through the door. Rat bastard! “What can I do for you Frasier?”

  “Miss Wiley, Benjamin Bradford said you called a meeting.”

  She wanted to smack the smirk off of his face and stomp on it. Instead she kept her cool. “I did.” She said flatly. “Between he and myself.”

  “Oh, well then, would you mind if I sat in? We have some new deals to go over” She cut him off.

  “Not right now Frasier, I need to speak to Mr. Bradford alone. I’ll brief you when I’m finished.” All he could do was nod and back away. The man waiting in the hall next to him walked inside of the room.

  “Shut the door and have a seat Benjamin Bradford.” He did as he was told. She knew the rat bastard wouldn’t be able to listen in. There was no way he could ease drop, someone would see him lingering in the hallway.

  “What can I do for you ma’am?” His skin was pale white, she knew she scared the shit out him and she hadn’t even spoken yet. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.

  “Well, you can start by telling me the truth.” She stared sapphire blue daggers directly into his eyes.

  “Uh…what…what do you mean? I don’t understand” He fumbled over his words as if English was a foreign language to him.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush Mr. Bradford, you know what happened to those deals with Amtrak, CSX, and a few smaller companies. I want the truth and I want it right now.”

  “We…I told you, production and logis”

  Her voice went up one octave. “Benjamin you know as well as I do that I’ve already been to the plant and seen the records, those deals never made it to production, therefore logistics never saw them either. Now, let’s try this again. What happened to them?”

  “I…I don’t know, I told you.” She could see him shaking in the chair across from her.

  “You told me a little white lie, as a matter of fact, you’ve told me a few of them. Listen to me Mr. Bradford, it is in your best interest to start from the beginning and tell me the truth.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” His voice was trembling. “We couldn’t meet their deadlines and…and well that’s it.”

  She slammed her fist on the desk, hard enough to rumble everything sitting on it. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t get mad Benjamin, but you’re seriously pushing my patience here. Let’s try this, I already know what happened and who the deals went to, you need to tell me how this happened. Now I’m only going to ask you one more time, after that, well, I guess we will see what happens then wont we?” She dared him to lie again, her eyes bore holes into him.

  “I…we…” He took a shallow breath. “The deals, we overbid…then forced them to pull out, we said we couldn’t complete the orders.” His forehead was covered with beads of sweat.

  “And you did all of this on purpose?”

  “Yes, but I …we…”

  “Who is we? Who helped you with this?”

  “Frasier Higginbotham, it was all his idea.” He hung his head.

  She could feel the blood boiling in her body. It took everything inside of her to hold back, she desperately wanted to ram this asshole’s head through the concrete wall and spit in his face on the other side. “Why did you two do this?”

  “Hinkley…Frasier made a deal with Hinkley.”

  “What deal?” Now she had three people to beat the shit out of.

  “We would purposely mock up our bids and production so that the companies would have to go to Hinkley. They were cutting Frasier and me a small part of the profit.”

  “Okay how long has this been going on?”

  “I don’t know a year or two.”

  “How many deals Benjamin?” Her voice was even higher now, and her tone lower.

  He swallowed loud enough for her to hear it. “Uh…I don’t know…”

  “How much money then?”

  “I…I really don’t know…I’ve gotten a little over a million so far.” He looked away form her. All of a sudden a deep voice was heard through the room.

  “Miss Wiley I believe we have enough here. The authorities are waiting outside of your door for him.”

  “Thank you Max.”

  “Who’s…who’s that?” He began fumbling around looking for the person that had been speaking. Ian turned the volume off on the speaker phone, stood up and started to make her way around her desk.

  “That was Maxwell Guthrey, of Guthrey and Meyers, Attorney’s at Law.” She smiled. He was never prepared for what happened next, her fist met his face with extreme force, his head rocked back as if her hand had gone through him. Blood squirted from his nose and trickled from his mouth where a tooth had been. Her hand hurt she figured she fract
ured it, but she didn’t care. As soon as he tried to come at her she swung the door open. Four Aspen Police officers rushed in and grabbed him. One of the men turned to her.

  “What happened to his face?” He smiled.

  “I don’t know, he fell out of his chair.” She grinned, her right hand was behind her back. She was surprised to see the power in her right hand considering she was actually left handed. You're lucky I didn’t shoot the son of a bitch.

  “That bitch broke my nose.” He was trying to stop the blood, that’s when he realized his tooth was also gone. She smiled and waved as they handcuffed him and escorted him from the building. Ian went back to the desk and turned the volume back on.

  “Max?”

  “Yeah, what happened?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “What about Higginbotham?”

  “They’re waiting for me to talk to him, he has no idea. I’m about to call him in here.”

  “Okay, make sure they’re out of sight.”

  She called Frasier into her office and began the same speech that she’d given Benjamin Bradford. Frasier also didn’t bite at first. Her hand throbbed, she knew it needed ice, this only made her angrier. She was passed the point of pissed off.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, we’ve already been over this.”

  “I audited the records Frasier, I know what you did, besides your little buddy just ratted you out.”

  “What?” He looked confused.

  Her voice went up. “I said Benjamin just told me what you and he did. He told me all about Hinkley.”

  “You dyke bitch!” He jumped out of the chair. “You don’t deserve this company, if your father knew you were a dyke he would’ve given it to me. I should be running this place not you!” He was screaming at her, she stood to meet him face to face, only the desk was between them. The brown haired man stood a few inches taller than her.

  “You rat bastard, my father was about to fire your stupid ass before he died.” She said flatly with a loud tone.

  “This place deserves to go into the ground, you’ll run it there anyway. I was only making some money and setting myself up to take over when you did, you lousy bitch!” He leaned forward to hit her and she moved around the desk, knowing damn good and well her attorney was recording and witnessing all of this.

  “You missed, see that’s the problem with you Frasier, you do everything half-assed. That’s why I caught you.” That’s when he tried it again, this time she grabbed his collar and shoved him against the door. He was surprised at the strength coming from a small person. When he came off of the wall she caught him square in the mouth with her left hand and all of her body weight behind it. His whole body rocked back. The cops heard him hit the wall and were already halfway into the room when she hit him. None of them saw the blow though. Now her left hand hurt just as bad as her right. Frasier lunged at her, but the cops grabbed him before he could get her. He was screaming at her all the way out to the patrol car waiting out front.

  “My god Miss Wiley, are you okay?” The deep voice called out. She ran over to the desk and grabbed up the receiver.

  “Yeah.” She let out a deep breath. “I’m fine.”

  “That was close, at least we did get confessions from both of them. I’ll have this in front of the grand jury by Monday. We have enough documentation to take Hinkley down too.”

  “Good, that’s what I was hoping for. Keep me updated, I’m sure this will drag on for a year.”

  “Not if I can help it, but you know how the corporate world can be.” He tried to console her, he’d been her father’s lawyer since he took over the business when she was ten.

  Ian hung up the phone. She took a deep breath and looked down at the purple bruises forming on her hands. God damn it! She sighed, then called Carey Stewart and William Goody into her office. Once they arrived she called the plant and asked Richard Masters to call Cassidy Harland into his office, shut the door and leave the speaker phone on.

  “Okay now that I have everyone’s attention I’ll get to the point. Obviously Mr. Goody and Mr. Carey, you guys can tell by the mess that there was a small scuffle in here.” Both men looked around and nodded. “Mr. Benjamin Bradford, Director of Locomotive Services, and Mr. Frasier Higginbotham, Executive Assistant, are no longer with the company.” She heard gasps from all around, everyone was questioning her. “I caught both of them in a scandal with J.R. Hinkley.”

  “What! Oh my god!” Richard Masters couldn’t hide his surprise. “That son of a bitch!” He was disgusted.

  “It’s okay Rich, I know, trust me. That’s why some of the pictures are laying on the floor in broken frames. Things got a little physical with both guys.” She looked down at her purple hands that throbbed as if they were in vises.

  “I’m sorry Miss Wiley.” Rich apologized for losing his temper. Cassidy sat in silence, wishing she was in that room instead of two and a half hours away on the phone.

  “Anyway, I know none of you were involved. Just so that all of you know, this will be a long courtroom battle, and we’re now down one director. I can run without an assistant, that’s not a big deal, but we will need to step it up and try to straighten out this mess with Locomotive Services.

  “I can definitely help out Miss Wiley.”

  “Thanks William.”

  “Me too.” Carey Stewart added.

  “Alright, it sounds like this isn’t going to affect us on the home front.” She smiled. “Just so all of you know, the entire records for Wiley Steel have been audited and everything else is clean. I want to thank each of you for being trustworthy employees. William, you and Carey will be a big help to me here. Rich, you and Cassidy…” Her heart skipped a beat. “You two are always on top of your game, thank you both.”

  “Let us know if we can help in anyway Miss Wiley.” Cassidy spoke with respect for the company like everyone else, but the blond could hear the concern in her voice. She felt her pulse race when she heard the brunette’s voice.

  “Thank you Cassidy, I appreciate it. Okay everyone, that’s all I have so far. Thank you all, I know this is a pretty big mess, but I believe in this company, just as my father and grandfather did, I’ll do anything and everything in my power to keep this corporation at the top.” No matter what.

  Chapter 13

  The middle of February brought more snow than Ian ever cared to see. Her precious YLESGRL sat in the warm garage begging to be driven fast and loose. Damn the weather. She thought as she sat in the study staring out the window. She’d spent the past week on the phone, talking to her lawyers as well as the State Attorney’s Office. She wished with every ounce of her being that her father was still alive to handle this. Part of her knew she was strong, but the other parts were scared to death. Then, she had the ever-present thoughts of the moment she shared with Cassidy on the couch. With tomorrow being Valentine’s Days she decided to do something that her heart and mind were fighting over, she dialed information to get the phone number that she needed.

  “Hi, I’d like to order your nicest bouquet, please.” Ian leaned back in the chair and ran her hand through her messy short hair.

  “Yes ma’am, would that be roses or”

  “Yes please, how about an array of yellow and pink with baby’s breath.”

  “Yes ma’am, we can definitely do that. One dozen then?”

  “No. Let’s go with two, and make it perfect, the cost doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes ma’am. Who and where is this being delivered to?”

  Ian thought for a second, she didn’t know Cassidy’s home address, she could of course call the office to find out, but then that would be conspicuous. “It’s going to Cassidy Harland. Are you familiar with the Wiley Steel Corporation?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good, she’s one of the executives there, please deliver it to her office.”

  “No problem. I’m assuming you want this delivered tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes, please.”r />
  “Okay. And, what would you like the card to say?” Ian almost dropped the phone. She had completely forgotten about that part. What would she say? What could she say? Everyone would already be asking about the flowers and who they were from. She knew Cassidy was professional and would never dare tell them they were from Ian, but still, what the hell would she say on the card?

  “Uh…” Then it hit her. “Please put this on the card: No regrets, only friendship to build on. Sorry I can’t be, Just Me.”

  “Okay, I got it.” The woman repeated it back to Ian, then paid for it with a credit card that she had in Giles’ name so that she didn’t get hassled when she made purchases over the phone. This had been a secret between them since she was old enough to get credit cards.

  Bad idea Wiley. What have I done now? I can’t seem to control myself when it comes to this woman. Ugh!

  ~ ~ ~

  The young man parked the large white van at the curb and stepped out. As soon as he walked into the massive building he heard the receptionist speak from behind the tall desk on the left.

  “Hi, I have a delivery for Cassidy Harland.”

  She could barely see the man behind the giant vase of flowers that he was holding. “Thank you, if you would just set them on the counter over there, I can sign for them.” She reached up and scribbled on his clipboard. As soon as he was outside she called the extension for Cassidy and Richard’s shared secretary. Ten minutes later the bubbly young woman appeared at the desk. She looked shocked when she saw the arrangement, nevertheless, she grabbed the large vase and took it back to the brunette’s office. Cassidy was over in the production room so the secretary left the beautiful mass of flowers sitting in the middle of Cassidy’s desk. Then she waited for what seemed like hours.