by Cj Howard
“Compliments of Mr. Minken,” the woman had said. “He says that if the fit isn’t correct, contact concierge and they can do an exchange.” The note inserted into the box had been even more gracious. I didn’t know if you would have packed anything for a dinner like this, so I took the liberty of guessing your size. If you have something already in mind, of course you are more than welcome to wear that instead.
There had been a pair of shoes with it, sensible heels maybe two or three inches tall, enough to enhance the effects of the dress itself—without leaving her tottering as she followed her escort. Claire had finished getting ready and had tentatively tried on the dress, unable to quite believe that Benjamin had managed to get her size right. If he’d bought her one too large, she would have been offended at his thought about her weight—even if she knew that, by and large, men had no clue at all about women’s sizing.
If it had been too small, she would have harbored some form of resentment against him even still, but it would have been tempered by the notion that he’d thought her smaller than she was.
It had fit her perfectly—almost too perfectly—clinging to every curve, the hem hitting about five inches above her knee, the shoulder cutouts showing off some of her best physical features while barely concealing her breasts and cleavage. It had fit her so well, in fact, that she had decided not to wear panties underneath; even the G-string she had bought would show—at the hips—if she’d worn it. It had been a risky proposition, but as she approached the end of the hallway, where her escort had stopped at a small, unremarkable door, Claire decided that she would have to live with it.
The door opened as soon as she reached it to reveal a small but lush dining room, dominated by a table dressed in snow-white cloth, two chairs with table settings in front of them placed on either side of the square. There were multiple glasses and a silver bucket with champagne already chilling in it, along with gleaming silverware and beautiful, clean-looking china edged in the same color.
The walls were wood-paneled, and the floor was covered in thick carpet of a dark forest green, everything spotlessly clean. The room itself smelled faintly of polishes and solvents, and as Claire looked around, she wondered just how often Benjamin used it. She spotted the man himself standing at a small bar setup at the opposite end of the room, mixing a drink. Claire took a moment to appreciate the view. Benjamin was a few inches taller than she was, just the same height as she was in the heels she wore. He was dressed in a tailored suit that somehow gave Claire the impression of him being some part predatory cat.
“Welcome, Claire,” he said, and the door closed behind her. “I was mixing myself an aperitif. Want one?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she said, feeling uncertain but unwilling to give the man any kind of opening, any hint as to her state of mind.
“I’m glad to see the dress fits,” Benjamin said, pouring a slightly cloudy, cold-looking concoction into a prepared rocks glass. “I was a little worried it would be the wrong size.”
“It was quite the power play,” Claire said wryly.
“You could have worn whatever you liked,” Benjamin countered. “But when I saw that dress, I thought you needed it, and not just for tonight. A beautiful woman like you deserves a dress like that, just on principle.” Claire felt the heat rising in her cheeks and ignored it, taking a slow, deep breath to regain her composure.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” she said politely. Benjamin went to work once more, opening up the shaker and scooping ice into it, preparing another rocks glass, while Claire watched him attentively. He poured gin, squeezed lime, added simple syrup, and put in a chunk of what looked like cucumber, before closing up the shaker once more and beginning to agitate it eagerly.
“This is actually not the most classic gimlet,” Benjamin told her conversationally. “But I’ve found that adding the cucumber to the shaker gives the drink a nice dimension—more flavor.” Claire shrugged and watched him finish the preparation, pouring the second dose of the mixture into the second glass, and bringing both over to the table she stood close to.
“I’ve never had one before, so I won’t have anything to compare it to,” Claire admitted.
“I hope you’ll like it,” Benjamin said with a smile, handing her one of the glasses. “I fully intend to speak business with you, but I want tonight to be fun, too. I’m not that terrible a person.” He gestured to the table with his newly-freed hand. “Have a seat.”
Claire sat down, and Benjamin took the other chair, raising his glass to her before taking the first sip of his drink. Claire followed suit, sipping her own elixir, and swirling the liquid around her mouth slowly, sampling it. Sharp, sour, and slightly savory from the cucumber, it seemed to dance across her tongue with only the subtlest after-taste of sweetness, balanced with the other flavors. It was a good choice, she had to concede. Her stomach, despite her anxiety about the meeting, started to rumble with the first stirrings of hunger.
“So is this where you threaten me with worse than you already have if I don’t agree to your deal?” Claire took another sip of her drink and then set it down. The second mouthful had been enough to show her that the alcohol content in it was strong indeed—she’d be well-advised to sip it slowly and not let her mind get dulled.
“No threats,” Benjamin said, shaking his head. “I was pretty sure that by now you’d probably have come up with one or two conditions of your own.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that I was actually allowed to come up with conditions,” she said tartly.
“You’re a very intelligent woman, Claire,” Benjamin said, almost chiding her. “I’m sure you’ve thought of something.”
Claire felt her cheeks warm up a little bit and tried to suppress the sensation. “I do have a few thoughts, actually,” she admitted. “I’m not agreeing to the deal just yet, mind you.”
“I am willing to give you a week,” Benjamin reminded her. “We can discuss things in as much detail as you like before you make your decision.”
Claire settled more firmly in her seat, suddenly all too aware of the fact that underneath her dress she was bare from the waist down. “So my conditions,” Claire said, taking a quick, deep breath. “I don’t want the debt growing any more—or to have to work off any other debts my dad might come up with. I’m assuming you could put the word out to the other casino owners and have him banned from the city?”
Benjamin’s eyes widened slightly. “That’s a direction I wasn’t expecting you to go in,” he said. “Yes, I do have those kinds of connections.”
Claire felt her heart beating faster—yet it felt somehow like it was beating slower, all at the same time. “Good. Then I want him to be unable to go to any of the casinos. No gambling whatsoever. In fact…” Claire licked her lips. “In fact, if you could make it so that he can’t even be in the city comfortably, I would want that as a condition of me working for you.”
“Easily done,” Benjamin told her. Before they could move onto the next item on Claire’s list, a small door on the other side of the room opened to reveal a server in pristine whites.
“First course,” the man, who Claire thought was maybe all of twenty-one, said. “This is an amuse-bouche of lump crab meat and roasted tomato sorbet, served on endive.”
Claire glanced at the man who had invited her to dinner and wondered if the rest of the courses would be equally skimpy as the tiny plate laid down in front of her, on the other plates.
“This is a very civilized old multicourse meal,” Benjamin told her. “The later courses will be much more substantial.” Claire couldn’t help smiling in spite of her nerves. “Like the gimlet, this is sort of meant to get you excited about the real food to come.”
The server left, and Claire helped herself to the one-bite dish in front of her, letting the slightly spicy and earthy, yet sweet tomato sorbet melt on her tongue to mingle with the almost prickly bitterness of the endive and the buttery, briny taste of the crab. “I
could eat five of these and not notice,” she told Benjamin.
He chuckled and nodded. “Fortunately there’s plenty of good food to come,” he said. “It’s about eight courses. I thought that would give us sufficient time to talk.”
Claire considered that for a moment. “Yeah, I’m guessing that as long as the courses aren’t all as small as this, that would give us time to talk,” she finally agreed.
“So what are some other conditions you have in mind?” Before she could answer, the server came in again.
“This is the second course, a veloute of summer squash and basil,” the man said, bearing two shallow bowls to the table on a tray. Claire glanced at Benjamin and thought that he was—oddly—trying to impress her. But why? The dress and shoes, the private dinner… he already has me on the hook for Dad’s stupidity. What would he want to impress me for? To fluster me? That seemed the only likely reason. He wanted her confused, flustered, so that she wouldn’t advocate for herself so hard, so she would go along with his deal with as few conditions as possible.
The soup, she had to admit, was even more delicious than she would have thought— perfectly smooth on her tongue, with the sweetness of the squash tempered by the slightly licorice-tasting sharpness of the basil. “I think we have a good ten or fifteen minutes before the next course,” Benjamin prompted her.
“I want to be clear too that any work I do with you or for you is completely legal,” Claire said, reminding herself of the little list she’d made. “You can’t ask me to risk being thrown in prison myself in order to help pay off my father’s debt.”
“Absolutely not,” Benjamin agreed, “though it’s sensible of you to make that stipulation.” He smiled and continued eating his soup with polite movements.
“And the dress code you have for me… I know you already said that it won’t be anything that I would be scandalized to wear at any other job, but… I want to make clear that I should have veto on any particular rule in it.” Claire held Benjamin’s gaze.
“We can negotiate the dress code if you like,” he said smoothly. “I am sure you’ll have some notions on how you’d like to adhere to it, and within the confines of it—I’m happy to let you go wild. In fact, the job would come with a clothing allowance, since I’m obviously not going to be giving you sufficient time to properly move out here first.”
“Why would you give me a clothing allowance when my father is already in debt to you?” Claire set her spoon down. “Unless you’re including that in the debt?”
“It wouldn’t be an allowance if I was holding it against you,” Benjamin countered. Claire felt her cheeks burning and picked up her gimlet, taking a sip to try and help herself cool off. “Don’t be embarrassed. In your position, I would probably double-check everything too.”
“I just don’t understand why you would give me money—basically—when you’re making me work to pay you back for my father’s debt,” Claire said, setting her glass back down.
“Because it’s a cost of business,” Benjamin explained. “Ultimately, for me personally, the amount of money your father owes me is nothing. I wouldn’t miss it if someone stole it from my bank account—of course, if someone did that, I would have them prosecuted because it’s important that people know they can’t steal from me without repercussions. Do you follow?”
Claire pressed her lips together. She had to admit that it made a certain amount of sense: as a businessman, whose main source of active income was the casino, Benjamin had to maintain a reputation. He couldn’t let someone—even someone as insignificant as her father—get away with running up a big bill and walking away from it. He had to make sure that everyone knew he wasn’t running a charity, and he wasn’t running the casino for fun. He was in it to make money. If you owed him money, you had better find a way to pay it back.
“I guess I can see that,” she said.
“So to have you working for me, I need to ensure that you have adequate clothing for the job, as well as housing and food and sufficient ability to entertain yourself in off-hours,” Benjamin explained.
“Do I get an entertainment allowance too?”
Benjamin chuckled. “All of my employees get vouchers to Vegas shows at other casino-hotels and for events in the city, and there’s a reserved block of tickets for any events the Halston puts on, for off-duty employees,” he said. “One, because employees that are well-paid and receive good benefits work better. Two, if there’s something another casino is doing better than we are, I want to know about it. Three, it continues a steady stream of goodwill.”
“You… are very shrewd,” Claire said. It was not the sort of incentive that she would have thought of in his place, but it made sense the way he’d explained it to her.
“It wasn’t completely luck that brought me to the spot I’m in right now,” Benjamin said, smiling.
“So I’d just be like any other employee of yours except no paycheck and I’d be getting clothes,” Claire said.
Benjamin shook his head. “You would be getting paid,” he told her. “This is not indentured servitude—at least, not to the extent that would be illegal.” He sipped his drink and continued. “You’ll be receiving a little less than half of what you would normally make as my personal assistant, with most of it going towards your father’s debts to this casino and to me personally.”
“I don’t think you ever actually told me specifically what the ‘personal services’ debts added up to,” Claire said, remembering that little fact.
“That’s not important,” Benjamin said with a shrug. “If you agree to work off your father’s debt to me, you will be actually taking home about forty thousand dollars over the course of a year.”
Claire couldn’t resist making a face at that; she had worked hard to build up to a salary of almost seventy thousand dollars a year—to go down to forty thousand dollars seemed degrading. But then she remembered that that would be less than half of her pay—the other half would go to her father’s debt. So she was actually going to be making more than her real job, especially once he added in the clothing allowance, room and board, and entertainment. She could put away the forty thousand dollars—or at least most of it—to rebuild her life after the year was over.
“That’s very generous of you,” Claire said finally.
Once more they were interrupted by the arrival of the next course. Claire realized that she had actually managed to finish her soup, even with all the conversation. “This is grilled prawns with a light lemon-garlic sauce, served over polenta, with fennel and tomato salad.”
“I think it’s about time we opened the champagne, don’t you?”
Claire hadn’t quite finished her drink, but she saw that Benjamin had finished his. She knocked back the last of her gimlet and nodded her agreement. The server opened the bottle and poured two glasses before returning the bottle to its nest of ice. Claire tried to assemble her wits about her as much as possible. Don’t let him keep you off-balance. Stick to what you know you want to demand.
“What else do you want to make sure is noted in your future contract—assuming that you decide to sign?”
Claire sampled one of the prawns, with a little bit of the soft, creamy polenta, and sipped her champagne. If she took her time, she should be able to keep as much control as possible.
“If you try to make me have sex with you or anyone as part of my job, I will refuse,” Claire said firmly.
“I am not interested in coercing anyone to have sex with me,” Benjamin said. “If you were to have sex with me, you would do it of your own free will, because you wanted to.” He smiled slowly. “Though I will admit that this dinner with you was planned with the intention of seducing you.”
“And here I thought you just wanted to dazzle me with your class and prestige, and make it hard for me to say no to your proposal,” Claire said wryly.
“You’ll either take the deal or you won’t,” Benjamin said with a shrug. “The dinner is because I would like to get to know you—and I
know this deal is the thing that’s at the top of your mind, so I’d like to get those details out of the way as quickly as possible. After that… ” he shrugged again and held her gaze.
“I am not going to sleep with you just because you feed me a delicious dinner,” Claire told him matter-of-factly.
“I went into this knowing you were far more demanding than that,” Benjamin said. “But the dinner does give me an opening for convincing you that sleeping with me wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“Give me the pitch, then,” Claire suggested, amused.
“You’d enjoy yourself,” Benjamin said. “More than I think you expect.”
Claire raised an eyebrow at that. “I’d enjoy myself sleeping with the guy who’s holding my dad hostage?” But she felt a little tingle at the simplicity of Benjamin’s assertion. He wasn’t being lewd about it—he wasn’t claiming that he’d make her scream or that he would go down on her for hours, as if those things were as appealing to women as they were to the men that suggested them.
“I make it a point not to do anything unless I’m pretty sure I’ll be good at it,” Benjamin explained. “I wouldn’t try to have sex with you unless I was pretty sure that I would be able to satisfy you.”
That intensified the heat that had begun to hum through her hips, and Claire remembered—again—that she’d gone without panties under her dress. Her cheeks warmed up, and she took a quick breath to try and steady herself.
“That’s quite the pitch,” Claire said.
“You have all night to consider it,” Benjamin told her. “If you decide at the end of the evening that you don’t want to come up to my room here, then fair enough. I’ll let you get to your own bed in peace. But think about it.”
Claire sipped her champagne and looked at the exquisitely cooked shellfish and vegetables and polenta in the bowl in front of her. “I will,” she said, meeting his gaze once more. “But I’m not promising anything.”
