Deliciously Damaged

by Winters, KB

  “No,” he said, serious again. “As alluring as that visual image might be, no. The job would be a position within the IT department. I know you have crazy computer skills and I need someone to work on a special project. It relates to the Plush line and doing some formula changes. I figured that would interest you as well.”

  I took another sip of wine, buying myself a moment to consider his offer. He watched me as I sipped and then grabbed his phone from his jacket pocket. He typed at the screen and then turned it to face me.

  “This would be your starting salary,” he explained.

  I nearly choked on my wine. I sputtered for a moment and covered my mouth.

  The amount was obscene. It was nearly triple what I had been offered— starting salary at Spotlight and even that had been more than I had ever dreamed possible for myself.

  “Cooper…” My voice trailed off, my thought not fully developed.

  “Take the job Allison.”

  “But what about…us?” I asked, immediately wondering if I sounded stupid using a term like “us” to describe Cooper and me.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  I paused, unsure how to explain my thoughts without presuming something that hadn’t been spoken. While Cooper and I had shared some dark things, and certainly had a moment of real, emotional connection, that didn’t mean he was interested in anything more than a physical fling when all his other options were shut down. I still didn’t know what he was up to with the actress, and God only knew how many other women were lurking in the background, waiting to get their claws into him. At my brief employment at Spotlight, I had seen firsthand how many women were ready and willing to throw themselves at him.

  “I mean, how would it look to hire someone you have been, you know…” I got hung up midway.

  “Sleeping with?” Cooper suggested.

  “Yes. Sleeping with. I don’t want another fiasco like at Spotlight with people talking shit and making my life a waking nightmare.”

  He shook his head. “First of all, my employees know better than to gossip about me. And secondly, it’s not something that I’m planning to broadcast around. I don’t want anyone to feel like they have dirt on you. Not that what we’re doing is dirty.”

  “It’s not?” I asked, smiling.

  “Not yet.” His eyes gleamed with suggestion and I felt myself getting aroused again. I thought briefly if I’d left a wet spot on the seat, or God forbid—my dress!

  I looked down at the number again and then back up at Cooper.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  His face lit up with a satisfied smile and he reached over to shake my hand. I laughed at his professional gesture, which seemed absurd, considering my wet panties were still bundled up inside his pocket.

  “Now that we got that out of the way, I want you to come home with me,” Cooper said, suddenly deadly serious. His eyes locked back on mine and I knew, this time, I couldn’t look away.

  I hesitated for a moment, my eyes searching his as my mind teetered back and forth.

  “Allison.” His voice was low, barely above a whisper, and my heart wrenched at the sound.

  As he waited for my answer, he pulled the panties out of his pocket and laid them out on the table between us. “What happened in the car was only the beginning,” he said, leaning over to whisper the promise into my ear.

  My pulse quickened and my mind raced with curiosity. I couldn’t speak—my lips wouldn’t form the right words. All the things I’d wanted to say were flying around inside my head, but I couldn’t capture any of the thoughts long enough to explain it to him. I was afraid to fall, but the thought of saying no and losing him scared me even more.

  I stared into his eyes and I had the overwhelming sense that I didn’t need to say anything. There was no explanation for the thing, the force, the need, the craving between us. In that moment, I knew that it was pointless to fight it. I wanted him. Every fiber of my heart and soul and my body wanted him.

  “Yes,” I exhaled.

  Something flickered in his eyes, a deep satisfaction, but he didn’t smile. Wordlessly, he took my hand and led me out of the restaurant and into the night.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cooper and I spent nearly the entire weekend together at his lake house. I went home with him once we left the restaurant and he drove me back into the city and dropped me off at my apartment on Sunday afternoon. We hadn’t managed to say goodbye without fucking again, this time in my bed, and by the time I woke up Monday morning, I was completely thrashed— in the best possible way. All of my muscles were sore from spending hours and hours making love with Cooper. Things had started in his bed but over the course of the weekend, we had ventured into the shower and on the kitchen table. Recollecting it all was getting me wet all over again, so I rolled out of bed and gingerly went to shower, spending a few extra minutes under the scalding water to massage my aching legs and shoulders.

  Eventually, I forced myself to shut off the heavenly spray of water and went about getting dressed. It was going to be my first day at Brighton Enterprises and I wanted to look my best. Sexy, but professional. As I got dressed, I started to wonder how Cooper was going to react to me. I knew he didn’t think his employees gossiped about him, and maybe he was right, but there was nothing stopping them from gossiping about me, and I was intent on giving them absolutely nothing to talk about.

  I fired up my old clunker car, fantasizing about the day I would be able to go and trade it in for something reliable—a day that would be coming sooner than expected, thanks to the huge pay increase I would soon be receiving. As I started off towards downtown, my mind shifted away from the incredible weekend with Cooper and started to speculate what type of a job I would even be doing at Brighton Enterprises. I’d pressed Cooper for more details over the weekend, but anytime I did, he would shut me down and tell me he didn’t want to talk about work. He would usually follow that up with a hot trail of kisses down my neck…or shoulder…or thigh…which had been an effective tactic for getting me off the topic.

  But now, finally alone with my thoughts, I couldn’t help but wonder what this important job was he so desperately needed my help with. I stared blankly at the back of the car in front of me at a red light and turned the question over in my mind. Why, with all his billions of dollars, networking and resources, could he not find someone else to do this secret task? Why was I suddenly the only one who was qualified? He could sidestep the question all he wanted, but it just didn’t add up, and the more I worked it over, the more the whole thing was freaking me out. But the exquisite pay was proof that I had something to offer, and I instantly felt better than I had in a long time.

  I parked in a nearby parking garage and rushed—as much as my sky-high heels allowed—to get upstairs and check in with Kimberly at eight-thirty, exactly. This was a real job, a very important job, and I resolved to be as professional as possible in hopes that would calm my conflicted mind and also put the kibosh on any office drama. I couldn’t have a repeat of the Spotlight situation, with a bunch of catty bitches gossiping behind my back at every turn. The goal was to blend in, keep my head down from day one, and never give anyone room to question how and why I got the job in the first place.

  “Good morning, Ms. Rand,” Kimberly sneered as I approached her desk. “I see you took my advice on your fashion choices.”

  Okay…well, that was one catty bitch I wasn’t going to be able to win over. Luckily, I figured that Cooper had enough control over her to keep her in line and that she’d be smart enough to realize that spreading shit about me all over the office would not win her any points with Cooper, which seemed to me to be something she was very interested in.

  “Good morning. You can call me Allison,” I replied. I did my best to offer her a genuine smile. As much as I wanted to reach out and bitch slap her, I knew it would be best to not give her any more ammo. So, as much as it pained me, it was going to be the “kill her with kindness” approach.

 
; “Mr. Brighton will be with you shortly. Would you like some coffee?” It was clear that she had been instructed to offer me a drink. Her teeth were bared but it was a very frosty smile as she waited for my reply.

  “No, thank you.” I let her off the hook, even though a coffee did sound fantastic, and went to take a seat on the plush leather couch across from her desk. I fished around in my purse and pulled out my phone to keep me occupied while I waited for Cooper to come get me. I checked my email, played a quick game of solitaire, and then went back to my email and started cleaning out junk mail, my eyes glancing at the time every few minutes.

  Where was he? It had been fifteen minutes and still no sign of him. I was getting antsy but didn’t know what else to do but continue to wait. My fingers started drumming along the arm of the couch but I stopped myself and lay the hand back in my lap.

  Finally, he came sweeping up the hall from the direction of the elevator bank. I watched as Kimberly’s face instantly brightened at his arrival. She held up a thermos in his direction but Cooper turned to me, completely ignoring her. Her face dropped and she set the cup back down. My gaze shifted to Cooper but I could practically feel her glaring at me from across the room.

  “Allison, good. Follow me,” Cooper said.

  I followed his lead as he turned and led me back to the elevators. There was one waiting to go down, so we stepped inside. Cooper pressed the button for the sixtieth floor, two floors below.

  “My apologies for being so late this morning.” He glanced at me when he spoke, but didn’t try to hold my gaze like he normally did.

  “No worries,” I answered, fighting the urge to ask him if everything was okay. He didn’t seem himself at all, and I couldn’t help but feel that it was somehow my fault. As we stood next to each other in silence, I was struck by an overwhelming need to know. Suddenly, I wanted to push, to know what had kept him. I wanted to know everything about his routine, his life, the actress, everything. I closed my eyes tight and willed myself to get it together and wrangled my curiosity before it shot out of me like a champagne cork on New Year’s Eve.

  Luckily, the elevator beeped to signal our arrival at our floor. Cooper ushered me forward. His hand just barely grazed my low back to indicate a left turn but just as quickly as his hand was on me it was gone, leaving me relieved and aching for more of his touch, all at once.

  Around the corner, I found myself smack dab in the middle of what I assumed to be the IT department. There were cubicles all clustered together in the middle, with other offices around the outskirts. The cubicle walls were lowered but my heart sank a little, not relishing the idea of being trapped in a box again.

  “This is the IT department, your new home.” He spread his hands out wide and flashed me a small smile before he started walking again. I hurried to follow after him. “I’ll introduce you to everyone, but first, I want to show you your office.”

  “My office?”

  He nodded. “You know, desk, chairs, computer.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I just figured I would have a cubicle.”

  “Aha. Well, you’re in luck. You will actually have an entire office to yourself. The project I want you working on is very…classified…so to speak so it becomes very important that you have a private space.”

  My mind continued to spin as he finished looping around the cubicles and gestured to a small office that was sandwiched between two other office spaces. The occupant of the one to the left of mine looked up and waved at us as we walked by.

  He extended his arm, gesturing to the middle office, and I stepped past him to enter the room. It was a pretty simple space, but there was a window with a view of the city, the walls were painted, and the furniture was nice. It was more than I would have ever expected for myself. I wanted to thank him again, to express how much of a difference this opportunity was making for me, but I remained silent.

  “You can decorate however you see fit. I will have a proper name plate outside the door installed by the end of the week,” he rambled on.

  I acknowledged his words with a nod and ran my finger along the edge of the desk, feeling the smoothness of the polished wood under my fingertips.

  “All right, one more thing to show you and then we can make the rounds and meet the rest of the team,” Cooper continued as he turned and left the room.

  Cooper gave a brief tour as we walked around the office and led me to a new room on the opposite side of the floor as my office. I stepped inside and lights automatically flickered on overhead. It looked like an employee lounge area, except it was on a whole other level than what I had pictured. There were sleek looking leather couches, like the one in Cooper’s office, on two walls, with a couple of matching chairs completing the large sitting area. Then there were two long, espresso-colored wooden tables with matching chairs in the middle of the room. On the farthest wall there was a full kitchen that looked like something out of Architectural Digest. It was contemporary but warm with dark woods and stone counter tops. Two commercial-sized refrigerators stood side by side. One of them had clear doors and you could see an array of prepackaged sandwiches, fruit, veggies, drinks, and snack items.

  “Wow. This is incredible. Completely not what I was picturing,” I said, my eyes struggling to take it all in. Everything was so well organized, and it seemed as if a lot of thought and personal care had gone into this room.

  “What were you expecting? Cheese puffs and nachos?” He smiled at me.

  “Well, yeah! Kind of. I don’t know.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Seriously, though, Cooper, this is amazing.”

  He shrugged. “I care about my employees and wanted to make a nice space for them to hang out and provide healthy meals to save them money and time. I figure it’s the least I can do, considering how hard everyone here works.”

  I nodded, feeling silly for gushing about everything like a small town bumpkin on her first trip into the big city.

  Cooper spent the next hour introducing me to the rest of the small—but obviously tight knit—team before we went back to my office. He shut the door behind us and I felt myself relax, thinking we would finally be able to act normal around each other.

  “All right,” he started. He gestured for me to take a seat behind the desk, and he sank into the opposite chair once I was seated. “Let’s talk about what I need you to do.”

  My heart fell a little as it became obvious he didn’t want to talk about anything personal. I tried my best to tune out my disappointment and focus on his words as he gave me the rundown of my job description.

  “What I need you to do is…investigative…in nature,” he said, emphasizing the word. “Plush is in need of an overhaul, a re-branding if it is going to stay afloat. I happen to know that you are a skilled programmer and are very…ass kicking…I think was the term used to describe your skills with tech stuff, and recovering information. The fact that you were able to access such a complex and secured database like Spotlight’s showed me that you’re perfect for this job.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to hack?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that. Let’s just say I need to know what the competition is using in their products. You know a lot about the cosmetic ingredients. I still have your scathing review of Plush products saved to my email. And I know you have the abilities to get the information and decipher it.”

  He leaned back, his speech apparently concluded. I gaped at him, not sure I even believed what he was asking of me.

  “Cooper, that would be illegal. I mean, I can get you the general ingredients, but as for a recipe or anything proprietary…I don’t know.”

  “I know this is asking a lot, but you have to trust me. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t very important.”

  “But what do you need it for?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Cooper—”

  “Allison, that’s the job. For right now, that is what I need you to do. End of story.”

  I nodded at his words,
although the ramifications of what he was asking me to do were still pinging around my mind. I could go to jail—to prison! Maybe for life! “I’ll think about it.”

  “Excellent.” He stood and swept out of the office, closing the door behind him.

  My heart crashed at his sudden disappearance and a new fear crept in, wondering if maybe getting me to this point had been his end game all along.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The rest of the week drug on and only seemed to confirm my suspicion as there was no sign of Cooper. Every morning, I arrived on time and went directly to my office to work on the project Cooper had assigned to me before he had dropped off the face of the earth. At some point, on my first day, he had emailed me the name of the competitor he was interested in, along with a list of all of their products. I had spent the week making a spreadsheet of all the products and listing out each ingredient. I had worked every day from eight-thirty to five and had seen no sign of him. I’d even stayed late a few days, hoping maybe he would come by once the majority of the other employees had gone home for the day.

  Nothing.

  By Friday, I was more than a little irritated. I had called him a couple of times, but had hung up before leaving a message, never able to find the words to say once the beep sounded. I had started to write multiple emails to him, but never knew what to write. I didn’t want to be clingy and desperate-sounding and I didn’t want to release my rage and alienate him even further. In the end, I always deleted the messages and tried to refocus back on work.

  I was typing away at my desk when an assistant came by and gave me an envelope. It was stamped with the company logo and my heart soared, wondering if it was from Cooper. I tore it open and it was only a paycheck stub showing what had been deposited into my account. I couldn’t help but push away my frustration for a moment as I stared down at the huge number. And that had just been for my first week! I also noted another figure—five hundred and three dollars. The line next to it said Misc.