DEFENSE

by Glenna Sinclair

  It was really an honor to have been asked to listen in on this tonight. This was a big, high-level deal they were talking about, and it was tantalizingly interesting. The things these impossibly smart executives were talking about would launch Shepard Shipments into truly rarified air. The fact that Roland trusted me with all of this—not to mention that he actually wanted my opinion—was incredibly gratifying.

  And incredibly misguided.

  Focusing on the task at hand drove all of my feelings of inadequacy and guilt right out of my mind. There were schematics to figure out, a plan of attack to launch, new properties to purchase and develop, and it felt like the sky was the limit on what these powerful people could do together. Was it always this exhilarating to be on this level of making decisions? There were details to iron out, sure, but that’s what the rest of their companies would do. These people were like gods wielding the power of life.

  Okay, maybe that was too much. I was impressed, at best, and star struck, at worst, by how intelligent the executives all were. I could see why they’d risen to the top in their various companies.

  Most interesting of all was Roland. He conducted all of his business over the phone or via email, explaining those two methods were the most convenient to reach colleagues all around the globe. I was starting to suspect, however, that the real reason he did business that way was to distract from his scar.

  If he was writing an email or talking over the phone, the person on the receiving end wasn’t distracted by the way that dead tissue came to life when he talked about ideas and dreams and futures that could be realized. The more I got to know him, the less attention I paid to the scar, but if he only saw some of these contacts infrequently, they’d never get used to it. Doing business at arm’s length ensured that the focus remained on Roland’s words—and they were good, powerful, thoughtful words.

  The man sitting across from me, his murky blue eyes alight with passion, was nothing less of a genius.

  I couldn’t help myself. Every time I glanced up at Roland, my fingers a constant tattoo of noise on my laptop, I blurred my eyes so I could imagine him without that scar, imagine him whole again. He would’ve been even more handsome than his svelte younger brother. What really made him attractive was the power of his conviction. To watch him talk about something he wanted more than anything was to watch him light up completely, peel back all his layers, and show his true self.

  His true self was amazing.

  Roland wanted to expand his company for his own benefit, sure. He was a businessman; I was not naïve. Yet, he wanted to do it in a way to also benefit other people in markets usually ignored by large North American companies. Africa remained a virtually untapped market for many businesses here, and what Roland was proposing was both daring and admirable. He talked passionately, gesticulating with his hands even though I was the only one who could see him.

  Roland was the better of the two brothers. The thought sprung to my mind unbidden, and I could only half examine it, my fingers aching from all the typing. I saw Dan get passionate about a cut of steak at dinner once, but beyond that, he just seemed so shallow. He liked beautiful things, expensive items, and basically every angle of a hedonistic lifestyle.

  Roland was deeper, more driven, more desirable, in a strange way…

  No. I had to focus. I zeroed in on the conversation, making sure to limit my typos, keeping track of who was talking and when, and making mental annotations of separate points I could bring up if Roland asked me to.

  I didn’t have any right comparing the Shepard brothers. They were as different as night and day—incomparable, really. I was in this office tonight to work and learn, not to daydream about stupid shit. I needed to pay attention.

  “My God,” Cynthia said. “Has it been three hours? I completely lost track of the time.”

  I blinked up from the keyboard, dazed, realizing with a start that it was after eleven o’clock. My stomach gurgled loudly, and I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunchtime. Roland eyed me with a small frown, and I blushed.

  “Well, apologies to your assistant to spoiling her evening plans, Roland, but I think we made some excellent progress,” Mason was saying. I hurried to type in his comments, not wanting to miss a single word, even as the conference call was wrapping up.

  “Let’s speak again, this time next week, and move forward on this,” Farris urged. “This is going to be bigger than any of us—bigger than what this world has ever seen.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Roland said wryly, a smile playing around his lips. “But I am excited. Good night, everyone.”

  I grabbed my notebook as the executives bid one another good night, jotting down my thoughts, not knowing whether I’d be expected to write my usual analytical paragraph to accompany the notes I’d taken or not. I didn’t know if I could limit myself to a single paragraph.

  Roland got up from the chair and carried the phone back over to his desk as I scribbled away.

  I heard him speaking softly into the receiver over the roar of my excitement, but didn’t register the words. I was too busy trying to capture my thoughts, too busy to even acknowledge the fact that I was starving from missing dinner.

  When I looked up, Roland was smiling at me—a real smile that caught us both off guard.

  “Sorry,” we said in unison, then laughed.

  “I’ve ordered us some takeout,” he said. “I hope you like Chinese.”

  “Who doesn’t like Chinese?” I demanded. “But you don’t have to feel obligated to feed me. I’m nearly done. And you’re paying me overtime, so you should probably try to get me out of here as quickly as possible.”

  “If you don’t mind, I want to hear your thoughts on the conference call,” he said.

  “Hear them?” I gulped. I felt like I was better on paper with more time to formulate and polish my commentary. “Don’t you just want me to email them to you tomorrow—or even later tonight?”

  “It’s better when your reactions are still fresh,” he said. “Plus I just ordered a fuck ton of food. I’ll need help eating it.”

  “It’s your money, Roland,” I laughed. “I don’t know. I feel…like high, I guess. Not that I do drugs. You can drug test me. I really don’t. But I feel really happy after that call. Is that normal? Are you happy?”

  He grinned briefly, and it was beautiful to see. I was taken aback by just how good looking he was—even with the scar. Maybe I’d never really seen it before because he was too busy scowling or frowning. But with that grin…well, I thought back to some time prior, the night of my first date with Dan, and trying to visualize Dan to make myself come and instead picturing Roland there, pushing me over the edge.

  Was there something there?

  “You’re right to be excited,” he said, nodding and pacing around, a bundle of energy. “This could be huge for us—huge for the world. There are more doubts right now than certainties, but all of us are on the same page.”

  My stomach quirked a little bit. “All of us except for Dan, apparently.”

  Roland gave me a sharp look, and I regretted taking that smile away from him. “Explain.”

  “You all said that he wanted to expand to Europe first, before anywhere else,” I said, scrolling back up through my notes on the laptop. “Will Dan be upset that the company won’t be doing that?”

  “You paid closer attention than I thought,” Roland mused. “For the record, I suppose Dan won’t be that happy. But when he understands that, in the long run, this is the best thing for the company, he’ll come around. I don’t even really understand why he’s so interested in Europe, but that’s neither here nor there. What else. Tell me.”

  It was strangely terrifying and exciting at the same time to have Roland’s full, undivided attention whether I was babbling about how cool Mason’s accent was to the dynamics I’d picked up on during the call.

  “Do you think you might be overloading on Asia a bit?” I asked. “If you want to hit both Asia and A
frica at the same time, won’t you need another contact in Africa?”

  “This is all good, don’t stop,” Roland said, scribbling on a pad of paper himself.

  We talked until a chime in the back of the office stopped me mid-sentence, and an elevator door rolled open that I’d never even seen before.

  “Your takeout, Mr. Shepard.”

  “Perfect, Jones, bring it right over here.”

  A security guard, from the looks of it, came bearing two huge plastic bags of food that I could smell from across the room.

  “You weren’t joking,” I said, whistling lowly. “That is a fuck ton of food.”

  The guard gave me a disapproving glance before retreating back to the elevator.

  “Better to have too much than too little,” Roland said, breaking out the containers before handing me a pair of chopsticks.

  “I never noticed the elevator here before,” I said, staring across the room. Now that I knew it was there, though, I could recognize the dull gleam, even in the low light. “It’s your private one, isn’t it? The one I’m never to use.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Myra’s words?”

  “Myra’s words,” I confirmed. “Forbidden.”

  Roland laughed. It was still so unexpected to hear him laugh that I had to join him.

  “That makes it sound like there’s something terrifying up here,” he complained. “No wonder everyone’s afraid of me.”

  “And that spiral staircase, over there,” I said, pointing. “That goes into the penthouse, right?”

  “Right again.”

  I stuffed my face with beef and broccoli until my stomach stopped growling.

  “What’s it like to live here?” I asked. “Aren’t you ever tired of work? Seems like you wouldn’t get much free time if you live in the same building as the company you own.”

  “My work is my life,” he said, shrugging over his fried rice. “I don’t like having much free time. If I’m not working, I’m usually thinking. I don’t like to think about Mina.”

  I flinched as if he’d hit me. Of course he didn’t like to think about the fiancée I’d killed. I plummeted from my high, and the steaming food didn’t entice me so much anymore.

  “We never really…talked…after our last late night meeting,” Roland said, his voice tentative. I had spent the past few hours listening to him being concise, decisive, utterly sure of himself. This trepidation reminded me exactly of that last meeting.

  “We really don’t have to talk about it,” I said quickly. We’d had a surprisingly good night together. I didn’t want to ruin it now. I stuffed an eggroll into my mouth and chewed forcefully.

  “Do you mind if I do?”

  Yes, I did mind. I didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that I’d stolen away his happiness. I didn’t want to feel guilty right now, not after feeling so good. I didn’t want him to get any closer to knowing the truth about me, not when things were so good with my life—at long last. Please, I didn’t want any of that, but I couldn’t deny him. If he wanted to talk about it, then I was going to let him. I owed him that much.

  “I just wanted to say that I understood, you know, if you were angry.” He toyed with the sweet and sour chicken, revealing that he’d lost his appetite on the subject, as well.

  “I’m not angry though,” I said, washing down the eggroll with the soda that had come with the order.

  “Why the fuck not?” His rage was quiet but sudden and intense. I nearly choked on my soda. “I ruined your life.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  “It was.”

  “It wasn’t.” Everything was my fault, but I couldn’t tell him that. Not now. Not ever.

  “How can you be so amazing?” he demanded. “Out of all that tragedy, how can you rise and be such an incredible person?”

  “I was living out of a car, unless you’ve forgotten,” I said sarcastically. “I’m not amazing, Roland. I’m stupid. I’ve made mistakes.”

  “Only because I took your parents away from you,” he said.

  “No.” I was adamant on this point. Maybe I couldn’t tell him the whole truth, but I could get really close. “It was the fault of the driver who hit all of you and whatever decisions she made that night. You’re not at fault. You never were. You were just unlucky, Roland. So were my parents.”

  “I’m telling you this to push you away, and you refuse to go away,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  “Push me away?” That hurt more than anything he’d said. “Do you want me to leave your company? Are you firing me?”

  “No, of course not,” he snapped. “You’re an enormous asset—more than I could’ve imagined. To push you away from me.”

  “Why?”

  “I…fuck! For whatever twisted reason, even if I’m practically twice your age…”

  “You’re not twice my age,” I said patiently. “I’m about to turn twenty-two, and you’re thirty-five.”

  “I have feelings for you, Beauty.” He sounded as if he were in agony, and then I realized what he’d said.

  “Feelings…for me?”

  “I’ve taken away everything from you, and somehow you don’t hate me,” he said. “You’ve weathered my moods and been someone I can trust. I don’t know fucking how you do it, but you don’t even cringe when you look at my face. I haven’t felt anything for anyone since—since Mina, but now I have these feelings for you, and…why aren’t you telling me to fuck off, goddammit?”

  “I don’t want to tell you to fuck off,” I said slowly. “I’m…well, if we’re being perfectly honest here, I’m really flattered. Really, really flattered.” I chose my words carefully. “You’re so intelligent and passionate and I could really see how much you cared about this company and what it can do for the world during the conference call. I saw something in you tonight that I haven’t seen before, and it was amazing. You’re amazing.”

  “Just say the ‘but,’” Roland groused. “But you can’t be with someone who looks like me, not when you look the way you do.”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to say,” I said vehemently. “And your scar really isn’t that bad. It’s easy for a person to get used to looking at, though I can’t imagine that it’s easy for you. It reminds you of…of that night. The truth is…I’m kind of seeing your brother.”

  “Daniel?” Roland sounded perplexed. “What do you mean, kind of seeing him?”

  “We’ve gone on a few dates,” I said. “He said he’d like to show me around the city, and I agreed. It’s been…fun.” That was a white lie. It’d been incredible, but I was pretty sure Roland didn’t want to hear all about the intense sexual tension that had been building between Dan and me. We were still taking it slow, but it was a fire all the same. Soon, I didn’t think either of us could control it.

  “I wasn’t aware that you and Daniel were dating.”

  “I hope I haven’t gotten us in trouble,” I said quickly. “He’s assured me that there aren’t any office rules about dating.”

  “There aren’t, really, as long as both parties are consenting adults,” Roland said, looking troubled.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to apologize. “I kind of thought…well, you two are brothers. I thought he’d maybe tell you.”

  “We’re not that close,” he said. “Daniel’s sexual exploits don’t interest me in the slightest.”

  Wow. That was a clear slap to the face, and both of us winced.

  “You know, I think I’d better get going,” I said, standing up. “It’s pretty late, and I have to be up early in the morning. You want your coffee and newspaper on time, don’t you?”

  “Beauty, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say…I’m really glad you agreed to sit in on the conference call. I really do value your opinion on everything. You’re sharp as a tack, and you’re not afraid to tell me the truth.”

  There was one truth I was afraid to tell him.

  “I hope I didn’t
ruin our working relationship with what I told you right now,” he said. “I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable that I have feelings for you.”

  “I don’t,” I said simply. And then, because I felt like I owed him something, “I feel for you, too.”

  “You don’t have to say that,” he said. “You really don’t have to pretend.”

  “I’m not pretending,” I said. “I admire you a lot. If it weren’t for Daniel, maybe I’d let you take me around Seattle. I’d like to…even though I’m just your assistant…maybe we could be friends?”

  Roland didn’t speak for so long that I wondered if I should just walk out.

  “You know,” he said, “it’s been a long time since I’ve had a friend. I think I would really like that, if it’s all right with you.”

  “All right with me? It’s better than all right. You know that friends aren’t mean to each other, right?”

  Roland gave a short laugh. “I’m still your boss, Beauty. I’ll tell you when you fuck up.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Good night, Roland. Thank you for everything.”

  “Thank you. You’re giving me more than you know.”

  What could be said for the fact that I drifted home feeling like my feet were barely touching the ground? What name could I give to the feeling that a man as great as Roland could think more of me than he let on? And what could I do but despair at the fact that if he ever suspected my involvement in the wreck, it would kill both of us?

  Chapter 12

  I’d gone to sleep late, but the next day, I awoke chipper and excited to get into the office. Even if Roland and I had ended things on a somewhat awkward note, I still felt pretty positive about everything. I felt more confident that even if I did start off being a pity hire, at least I was beginning to prove that I was more than just a pocket to stuff money into. I could be a valuable asset.