by Scarlet West
She nodded, her look of surprise blending instantly away. “Very good, Mr. Halston.”
“Thanks.”
I bent swiftly back to the report I was reading, wondering how the hell I was meant to focus today. Considering the night before, and now that morning, I had a lot to think about – and none of my thinking had anything to do with investors or my company.
13
Cassidy
I leaned against the wall at Brady’s place and closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe what my brother had just told me.
It was eight o’ clock in the morning, the sunlight shining through the chink in the window blinds in the sitting room. I was standing in the hallway, wearing the green dress I’d worn the night before, a sweater of my brother’s pulled around my shoulders to keep me warm. I kept my eyes shut, the bars of sunlight making my head hurt. I’d been awake all night, but I was too shocked to feel sleepy.
“How could that happen?”
Brady made a half-impatient sigh. “If I’d thought there was the slightest chance of it, I would never have done this, would I?” he asked.
“No,” I affirmed. “Likely not.”
Brady shot me a look. He was clearly about to say something but thought better of it. He pursed his lips, eyes shut. He looked angry, but anger took the place of fear. And he was very, very afraid. And so was I.
It was like something from a nightmare.
“It happened; it doesn’t matter how,” I said gently.
“I guess,” he agreed. “What matters now,” he added, “is figuring out what the hell we’re going to do?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
The story Brady told me when I got here at three o’ clock in the morning still spun around my head. Five hours later, it made no more sense than when he’d first told me. The difficulty Adam had with his business – the advertising for Rockwell Sports – well, was the least of anyone’s worries when it came to Rockwell.
Rockwell Sports had been a Mafia front, Brady told me now; not a real company at all. Due to a federal investigation, the whole thing had fallen through. It hadn’t been liquidation at all. Now, not only had Adam’s company taken a knock, but Brady – who had convinced Adam to support and popularize the thing – was in danger.
How he had got himself into this mess, I still had no idea. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Brady being involved with the Mob was something I didn’t even want to think about; a problem for another day. Now, we had a very real danger to sort out.
None of what we’d he related seemed real.
“If I don’t get them their money back, they’ll kill me.”
I shook my head. “They can’t kill you,” I said flatly. “That’s murder. It’s illegal.”
He laughed. The laugh had an edge of hysteria to it – at once amused and also desperately scared. I swallowed hard.
“Jesus Cassidy. They kill people all the time. They don’t care about the law,” he said. “That’s the point.”
“I know,” I said tightly.
I felt my own temper start to fray, a mix of terror and a need for answers driving me close to the edge of sanity. I had a sense he hadn’t told me all the details, but at this stage of the game that wasn’t quite the point. The point was that my brother was in trouble – serious trouble – and I had no idea how to get him out.
“We need to tell the police,” I said.
At that moment, the thought of somebody – anybody – with a higher authority than us was tantalizing. I just wanted somebody to help us out of it.
He snorted. “I thought of that,” he said. “They did too – the mobsters. They’ll know, and they’ll kill me.”
“How can they know…” I trailed off as he laughed, a bitter sound.
“They have cops on the inside, too,” he said quietly. “If I tell, if I tell anyone, they’ll kill me. They threatened it.”
I couldn’t think of anything else. I felt myself start to get really scared. What could we do? We had discussed all the fine points, over and over again, and it all centered on one thing. We had one week to recuperate all the money that was lost in establishing the fake business, or they would kill Brady.
I looked at my brother. He had lost weight, I noticed – his cheeks sunken, his eyes hollow. I hadn’t noticed it when we’d met, earlier. How long had he kept this secret from me? He looked older than I remembered, but at once terribly vulnerable; more so than he did when he was a kid. His face was pale and there were rings around his eyes. He was standing with his back to the wall, dressed in a faded sweatshirt, his fists balled. I felt an urge to comfort him.
“Brady…”
“Wait!” he interrupted, flapping a hand to shush me. His eyes widened. “I think I have an idea.”
“You do?” I felt my soul soar.
An idea was like gold right now – better than gold.
“What is it?”
. “I know of an investment – a real one, this time – that could make that much money in a week. Trouble is, there’s no way I have enough capital to put into it to get that amount in return. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
He was looking at me with his eyes alight. Fevered, almost. I felt my heart grip with a fist of ice.
“Adam could invest in it with me,” he said, the words all coming in a rush, falling over themselves to get out as he planned ahead. “If he could put, say, three, four hundred thousand into the investment with me, then we could make the amount back in a week. I know we could. If…” he trailed off. His eyes hung on me.
“What?” I asked, feeling nervous. “What can I do?”
“You have to help me, Cassidy,” Brady said. He sounded more pained than I had ever heard. “Please! Convince Adam to invest in this with me? It’s my only chance.”
I frowned. I knew Brady was good at coming up with good ideas – but this one was born out of fear for his life. And something made me think Adam wouldn’t be in a hurry to comply. The last deal he’d done with Brady had nearly cost him his company.
“I can try, Brady,” I said slowly. “But what makes you think I can convince him? You’re the finance brain, after all: he’s got no reason to listen to me.”
“I might look dumb, but I can see,” he retorted, grinning. “I can see how he’s been looking at you.”
“Brady!” I blushed. How had he noticed so fast? “No! How can you say that?”
I felt quite shocked. I had been in Adam’s bed a few hours before. Shame curdled in me at the thought, mixed with annoyance at Brady, for guessing. “Come on, Cassidy,” he said, coyly. “I know he’d do whatever you suggest – you hold way more sway than I could.”
“Brady, no!” I said, shocked. “I can try and convince him, because you need some help. But there is no way that I am using my “sway”, as you say, over Adam, for this.” I felt my face heat with shame.
He looked crestfallen. “It might help?”
My jaw dropped. “Are you seriously trying to pimp me out Brady? You want me to fuck your friend, so he’ll give you money to get out of this clusterfuck you’ve gotten yourself into?” Now I was pissed.”
He had the good sense to look sheepish. “No, I’m so sorry, Cassidy,” my brother said swiftly. “I didn’t mean it like that. Forgive me?”
“Listen, I know you’re scared, but if you ever – and I mean ever – suggest something like that again, I’ll kick your ass myself,” I told him. “And you should,” he said contritely. “I really am sorry Cass. All I’m asking is that you talk to him if you could,” he said.
I was still seething inside, but at this moment, my hurt ego meant less than Brady’s possible demise. Between me feeling all kinds of confused about sleeping with Adam and Brady’s life being on the line, I knew which was more important.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I agreed. “But I can’t promise anything.”
“I know,” he said. His eyes met mine. The same hazel color as mine are, they were wide and white-rimmed and wild. I could
see exactly how afraid he was, and how desperately he held it off. I felt a pang of sorrow, both for the fact that he hid the depth of his terror from me and because he had trusted me to do something I was convinced I couldn’t pull off.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I’m going to go back to my apartment, and I am going to try and think of a way to fix this. I’ll call you as soon as anything comes to me. And you keep in touch, okay?” I added, afraid for him.
“Okay,” he said. “And, thanks, sis.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said.
As I walked over to the door, I reached out and squeezed his arm. I didn’t want to think about how dangerous it was, how possible it was that I might not get the chance to squeeze his arm like that again.
He took my hand in his. His eyes held mine. I could see they were calmer, now, more rational. More like Brady. I could also see shame in his eyes, and regret. Whatever it was that had gotten him into this, he felt worse about it than I could ever make him.
“Look after you,” I said as I paused in the doorway. “Please?”
Leaning on the wall, in his t-shirt and faded jeans, my brother looked like a gray ghost. He nodded.
“I will. You, too.”
I took a taxi back to my place, and as we flashed through the streets, I fought my way up through the dull haze of numbness. The rational part of my mind didn’t want to believe any of it was real.
14
Adam
I had barely slept, so when I woke up on Friday morning my body ached, and my head felt fuzzy and sore. I lay with my head on the pillow and sighed. I couldn’t help that my first thought was of Cassidy.
I got up and headed to the shower. I still hadn’t heard from her and it was beginning to make me crazy. I couldn’t quite believe it. Nothing quite like it had ever happened to me before. Sure, I’d had one-nighters – more of them than I could count – but I had been careful not to sleep with people who worked for me. With all of the rest, there had been a strong sense that it was a one-night thing. With Cassidy, I hadn’t thought that way. I wanted to see her again.
I had at least hoped to see her at work.
I turned the shower on, sighing as the hot water sluiced over my sore muscles, making them ache less. I slathered on my new mint-smelling shower-gel, breathing in the steam and hoping that it had the power to refresh me, as the bottle claimed it would. It didn’t seem to help much, though, so that, when I was sitting at the breakfast table, my head still hurt. And I still felt down and stressed.
I thought back to my conversation with Brady the day before. I still didn’t believe that there had been an emergency that he couldn’t have told me about. It had to have been a lie to cover up why Cassidy really didn’t want to talk to me. I had considered calling her again, after work, but the brittle, perfunctory tone of her note had made a strong impression. I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about the interruption. Besides, I was technically just her boss. It was really none of my business.
I finished my coffee and headed down to my car.
I strode into work at quarter to eight – almost unheard of for me. Mrs. Halston beamed.
“Mr. Stern! You’re bright and early today, sir!”
“Yep,” I murmured. “Can I have those forms, please? And a coffee?”
“Of course, sir,” Mrs. Halston said, handing me a bundle of papers. “All ready for your signature. I’ll get the coffee. Is everything alright, sir?”
“It’s fine.”
I pushed open my office door, closed it, sat down and groaned.
“Get your head out of your ass Stern,” I chided myself under my breath.
My company’s bottom line might be looking up following our recent campaigning, but I still had a lot of work to do. It wasn’t helping if my mind was on Cassidy in Brady’s apartment, imagining a dozen different dreadful crises.
I was trying to sign the last of the forms – an important one, dealing with our agreement to promote a new sport drink – when I heard a sound that made my heart leap.
“Morning, Mrs. Halston,” Cassidy’s voice said. Light but low, her tone carried through the door.
“Cassidy!”
I jumped up, then sat down again, feeling ridiculous. Tension drained from my body and I grinned with relief. I hadn’t realized I’d feared the worst – that something terrible had happened to her.
I needed to play it cool, not go running out of my office like a crazy person and grab her.
I nodded to myself. I couldn’t rush her the moment she got in through the door. It would look weird. All the same, it was with a big smile that I settled down to reading through the last of the forms. Just the sound of her voice had some effect, and I was looking forward to seeing her.
At lunchtime, I seized my chance. Leaving my desk early, I shrugged my jacket on – glancing at myself in the mirror, to check that it sat properly – and hurried to the coffee machine nearest her office.
“Cassidy, hi!” I greeted her through the door as I took a coffee. I tried to hide my pleasure, strove to seem normal. “It’s good to see you.”
But my voice didn’t sound much like my own. It sounded high-pitched and forced. I couldn’t help it. My body was setting off an internal fireworks display that would make New Year in Central Park look underdone. My cock throbbed, my blood fizzed, and my heart soared. I found my eyes straying down her lovely body, starting at the full breasts that pressed against the starched white blouse and heading down to her curvy hips.
“Oh,” she looked up from her laptop, a small furrow between her brows. “Hi, Adam.”
When she turned back toward whatever it was she read, I felt my breath whoosh out of me like I’d been kicked.
What the fuck?
I coughed. “We missed you, yesterday,” I said awkwardly.
“I filed for leave,” she said quickly. “I told Mrs. Halston I had an emergency. I know it won’t be paid leave – I do understand.”
I smiled, though I wasn’t amused. “I wasn’t worried about that,” I said, hurt that she thought I had been, “I was worried about you. You’re okay?”
“Yes, yes,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. Is it lunchtime?” she added, standing up and lifting her coat off the chair back.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Are you going to go down to the café across the street?” I sounded hopeful.
“I’ll probably get takeout at the store,” she said, shrugging into her jacket. I tried not to notice how well it fit her sweet body.
“Oh,” I said, trying not to show my disappointment.
I looked around the corridor. The hallway was empty, and she was standing just inside the door, an arm’s length away, and all the other offices were locked already. I could risk saying something more private.
“Cassidy,” I said, stepping into the office, my voice soft. “Look, about the other night…”
“I’m sorry, okay,” she interrupted swiftly. “I had to go. I had an emergency.”
“I know,” I said softly. “You said so, yesterday.”
“Yes.” Her eyes, which had avoided mine until now, met mine. Defensive, they held my stare with a wary defiance. I was surprised.
I don’t know how I had expected her to react to the night we’d spent together, but it surely wasn’t like she was acting then. She was clearly really upset about something – and I reckoned the reason was because she was ashamed of what had happened between us; and angry with me. I cleared my throat.
“I understand you had an emergency,” I said coolly. “I am allowed to ask for more details.”
“It was a family emergency,” she said tightly. She was leaning on the wall behind her desk, now, looking wary. “I can’t say more than that, and you aren’t actually entitled to any additional information.”
That hit me like a slap. She was looking at the floor again, avoiding my gaze. Did she really want to think of it like that, to treat me like her employer only?
“Fine,” I snarled. “But, next time you have to miss
work, I’d appreciate you letting us know beforehand.”
“It didn’t say anything in the contract…” she began.
“I don’t care what it said in the contract, it’s common protocol,” I snapped. I was really mad now. “I expect you to adhere to it, regardless of whether you’re Brady’s little sister or whether we fucked or not.”
She stared at me, her face ashen.
I went white. Of all the things I had expected to say, that was the absolute last thing I had intended. I couldn’t believe it. She was looking at me with the same sort of shock I felt. Her brown eyes were huge, and I could see tears in them, though none of them fell. She looked at the ceiling, her lower lip trembled.
“ Cassidy, I…” I started to say.
“Fine,” she said thinly, looking directly at me. Her eyes blazed. “If that’s what concerns you, don’t worry. It’ll definitely never happen again.”
I stared.
She walked past me, through the door, then looked at me as she put the key in the lock, waiting for me to get out.
“Cassidy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I will get you that market report by two-thirty,” she said thinly. She stepped around me carefully. “Wouldn’t want you to think I’d expect a lengthened deadline just because we fucked.” “Cassidy, wait.”
She didn’t say anything, though, just walked past me down the hallway and downstairs.
I heard her high-heeled shoes click on the tiles.
I leaned back against the wall and let out my breath in a long sigh.
“Damn it, Adam – you’re an absolute idiot.”
I couldn’t actually believe what I’d done.
How had I gotten so mad? I had been concerned, calm, interested in hearing about her emergency. It had really bothered me, too – I had spent the night tossing and turning. Then, because my ego was apparently pretty fucking fragile, I’d lost it at her. I shook my head. What the hell was wrong with me?
I walked slowly down the hallway, feeling defeated. When I got back to my office, I hesitated at the door. Mrs. Halston was still there, busily working. I considered telling her I was going home and taking the rest of the afternoon off, but I knew I couldn’t. I sighed and headed to lunch instead.
