by Virna DePaul
“And don’t worry,” Iris added. “I overheard the reception lady signing up Deena Raj for a stress-dissolving soak in an isolation tank. You can tiptoe out if you have to get back to the office.”
“No way,” Cara muttered. “I did my time for today. I just don’t like thinking that she and Branden know exactly when I log in and log out.”
Iris exchanged the towel for a cushy bathrobe and tied the knot tightly. “Are they, like, a couple?”
The question made Cara cringe inwardly. But she’d made such a point of being nonchalant about Branden Duke she had no one to blame but herself.
“Maybe,” she replied. “Except that she has a wedding ring snuggled up to a big fat engagement diamond on the same finger. How’d you miss that?”
“I don’t know.” Iris made a move toward the curtain as if to check.
Cara scowled. “Stop. You don’t have to peek. And by the way, I don’t think he gave the rings to her.”
Iris’s eyes gleamed again. “You’re talking scandal.”
“These days, there’s no such thing. And if my new boss and his second-in-command are maintaining an inappropriate personal relationship, it’s none of my business.”
“I’m not so sure. Because maybe that shaky resolve you were talking about is really just a front and he’s just waiting to get ‘inappropriate’ with you. Crazy, madly, deeply inappropriate.”
Cara threw the rolled face towel at her and missed. “Get out of here.”
Giggling, Iris swooped through the opening in the peach curtains and left Cara by herself.
Chapter Six
Monday morning, Cara got in a little late. Again. Like five minutes, not a big deal, but for Cara that was uncharacteristic and unprofessional. Unfortunately, it was also becoming a bit of a habit, one she’d be all too happy to blame on the as-of-yet-not-to-be-seen-again Branden Duke. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. Sure, dreaming of him had made for restless sleep all weekend, but he hadn’t been the one to call her that morning just as she was heading out for work.
Greg came up to her as soon as she got off the elevator and stepped onto their floor. “Buzz buzz. All the worker bees are in their cells. Why aren’t you?”
“Blow off, Greg, it’s five minutes—besides, I had an important call. Not that it’s any of your business.”
The tart comment didn’t seem to ruffle him. “Didn’t you get the text about coming in bright and early?”
“No.” She paused for a few seconds to survey the main office area. It was a lot quieter than usual, and there were no traders hanging around talking shop or commenting on an online poker game in progress on someone else’s monitor. Greg seemed to be right about that. “Who sent it? What’s going on?”
A thickset man with a close, bristling haircut came out of a trader’s office, smoothing a tie that was simultaneously too wide and too short. Like him.
Greg looked pointedly in the man’s direction, then back at Cara.
“Who’s he?” she asked in a whisper.
“Mike Gaunt. The new office manager. He’s going around and he’s taking notes.”
At least he wasn’t looking at her. She sized him up in a glance. Ice blue eyes. No visible lips. Expressionless face. Over forty, not yet fifty. Never had any fun because he couldn’t possibly have a sense of humor.
Great. What a day for her to be the Five-Minutes-Late Girl. It was no use telling Mr. Gaunt, if he should ask, that she’d been set to arrive an hour early. She’d been headed out of her apartment right as Windorne Care Home, her brother’s care facility¸ had called, informing her that he was having an episode. As the sound of her voice, even on the phone, was often able to calm him down…
Well, she’d spent almost an hour talking with Glenn on the phone. Most of that time he’d been talking rapidly about a governmental conspiracy and how his phone was tapped. She’d managed to talk him into taking his fast-acting antipsychotic, and the meds had finally kicked in—the last ten minutes of the call had been blessedly calm.
Unfortunately, the phone call and the fact she was late to work hadn’t exactly left her in a calm state.
Gaunt stopped at a cluster of financial-news terminals and took a seat next to Chip, the intern, who’d been parked there to keep him out of trouble. Chip smiled nervously at the unsmiling man beside him and pointed to one of the monitors.
“Poor kid,” Greg said. “But at least you can get into your office without Gaunt seeing you.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.” She strode away and turned the corner. Most likely Branden Duke had cleared out and left the actual running of his new acquisition to this guy.
She went into her office and was confronted by the soles of a different pair of masculine shoes. Bigger than Greg’s. Much bigger. Which was because they belonged to Branden Duke.
Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth went dry. She let her gaze drift upward, mentally caressing him even as she tried not to. The object of her scorching fantasies grinned at her as if he could read her mind. Cara stiffened her spine.
“Is there an invisible sign on my door that says Put Your Feet Up on My Desk?” she asked, not lightheartedly.
“No. Sorry about that.” He swung his legs down and stood up. “My back was acting up. Too much tennis this weekend. I play a hard game. Guess it caught up with me.”
Cara didn’t know how to respond to that revelation of human weakness, so she simply said nothing.
“Anyway, let’s start over. Good morning. Nice to see you.”
She was rattled by his presence, seriously so. Most likely because it was nice to see him. “Sorry I’m late.”
“No problem at all. It happens,” he said affably.
“That’s nice of you, and as the owner you probably can say that and mean it, but the new office manager…I don’t want to give him the wrong impression,” she said. She didn’t want to sit in her chair, not when he was standing.
“Don’t worry. Mike’s not as tough as he looks. Did you meet him?”
“Not yet.” She stepped around Branden, catching a faint whiff of fresh citrusy aftershave. His skin was as sleek as his smile. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes. I wanted to take you up on your offer to copy those files.”
Cara tried to remember the parts of her sex fantasies in which she controlled him, but somehow imagining him naked didn’t help calm her nerves. “Sure. Just give me an hour.”
“Not a problem. I’m keeping Max’s assistant. She knows the company inside and out. You can bring the files to her.”
Jean had been at Dubois & Mellan longer than anyone else. Cara liked and trusted her, although they didn’t hang out at lunchtime or anything. But it was nice to know that there was a friend in front of what was now Branden Duke’s office. She was going to miss Max more than she thought.
“I’ll do that,” Cara stated.
“I’d appreciate it.”
She could feel his gaze on her when she glanced down at the morning mail, not quite turning her back to him. Some animal instinct made her not want to do that. His eyes met hers with the same dark intensity, not that she was likely to get used to it, when she looked up. He grinned again and went out through the open door without saying good-bye.
Cara blew out a breath and sat down at last, scrolling through emails and answering the important ones before burying herself in paperwork.
She lost track of time until the phone rang. Cara peered at the little screen. Outside number, one she knew.
“Hello.”
“Hi, sweetie. It’s your mom.”
Cara could tell by the sound of her mother’s voice that there was a problem. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh nothing. Well, my property taxes. I just found the form under a lot of junk. It’s more than I can pay right now,” her mother said shakily. “You know how it is, end of the month.”
Which was when her mother was most likely to call. Janine Michal Finch had never gotten her life together after
her husband’s death. It’s as if her broken heart had broken her spirit, too. She tried to make ends meet, but her health was bad and she’d inevitably miss too many days at work and would get fired. Money management was a foreign concept for her—Cara’s dad had been the breadwinner and the one in charge of the budget and finances before he’d died. Her mother had accepted her financial dependency then, and now, too.
How different her mom was from the vibrant, cheerful woman Cara remembered from her youth. A woman who’d put on disco music and dance in the kitchen with her kids. A woman who once convinced her husband to drive them in an old Chevy across the country just to see the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. A woman who could make cannolis like nobody’s business.
Cara couldn’t remember the last time her mother had made cannolis. But it had to be before her father had died.
Cara bit her lip and blinked back the sudden rush of moisture in her eyes. Life was what it was now. Her mom was who she was. They were alive. They had each other. That had to be enough. “I’ll take care of it, Mom.”
“I’m sorry I let it slide. I can pay you back.”
“No. Just get caught up. I can cover it.”
There was no use in offering financial advice or suggesting a course in money management. Cara had supplemented her mom’s fixed income as soon as she’d started making real money.
“How soon can you make the payment?” Her mother’s pleading voice sounded faded and weary.
“I have to overnight a check. You know the tax office doesn’t take credit cards.”
“Okay then.” There was a brief pause. “Have you—have you talked to Glenn lately?”
“I just talked to him this morning.”
“And how’s my sweet boy?”
Cara closed her eyes. Glenn was her mother’s sweet boy. He was Cara’s sweet brother. But that sweetness was often trapped now in the body and mind of a man plagued by intermittent psychotic events, something their mother had a very hard time dealing with. Which is why Cara handled all matters concerning Glenn’s care, including the cost of the expensive live-in facility with the staff that was the best they’d found. Windorne Care Home was good to Glenn, and she willingly paid through the nose for excellent treatment of her brother.
“He’s good, Mom,” she said, deciding not to tell her about the incident earlier that morning. “I’m sorry I’m so busy. I’ll call you tonight, okay? We haven’t had time to talk.”
“That would be nice,” her mother said. “You could come out to Brooklyn, you know.”
A sense of longing swept over her—longing to see her mother, not necessarily a longing to go to Brooklyn. Visiting the small row house she’d spent her teenage years in was depressing—the furniture was the same, only even more shabby, and the interior and exterior walls needed painting. Her former bedroom was now used to store a jumble of miscellaneous items in crushed cardboard boxes. Somewhere underneath them was her old mattress and box spring and maybe even the desk she’d built out of a door and plastic crates. The neighborhood was sunk between two elevated freeways on the distant frontier of Brooklyn and would probably never be hip. Or gentrified, either, which meant the mortgage wasn’t a monster.
Cara tried to help her mother with the house, but it was all she could do to keep up with the missed mortgage payments and property tax payments.
What would her father say if he saw how her mother lived now? Cara could still remember how he’d come home from work each evening and go straight to her mom, kissing her full on the mouth and hugging her, telling her he loved her.
No wonder her mother’s heart had broken.
“I miss you, Mom,” she said, her throat suddenly constricting. “And I love you. More than you know.”
After hearing her mother’s soft and loving response back, she ended the call and returned her focus to work. The pale slanting light coming in through her office window was her first hint that the long workday was drawing to a close. Mike Gaunt hadn’t made it as far as her office. Cara put him out of her mind and squelched her resentment at the idea of having to justify her job a second time.
The phone rang again. Another Brooklyn number, familiar, but not her mother. She picked up, cradling the receiver on her shoulder while her fingers moved over the keyboard.
“Hey, Iris.”
“Hello there. Did you look at Gawker today?”
Cara had no interest in gossip sites. Iris was a devotee. “Nope. Don’t read it.”
“You should.”
“I wouldn’t want it to appear in my browser history,” Cara said.
“Use your smartphone,” Iris singsonged.
She stopped typing. “Why?”
“I’ll stay on the line,” Iris said.
Cara took out her smartphone and pulled it up. She glanced at the headlines as she scrolled through them until one stopped her cold:
“Hot Mystery Babe Flees Decadent Slumber Party at Money Mogul’s Mansion!”
There was a photo of her outside the grand front doors of Branden Duke’s Long Island mansion. She looked disheveled. Wantonly so. The blurb was even worse.
This pouty blonde with honey-dipped hair was spotted in the wee hours trying to escape the pleasure palace of money mogul Branden Duke. Don’t ask us who she is. Just tell us if you know. Bonus question: why has Duke muscled in on the exclusive brokerage firm of Dubois & Mellan? Their richest clients want to know if their investments are safe. So do we. Lock up your stocks and bonds and your daughters, New York. The man is too sexy and too smart.
“Holy hell,” she breathed. “What is this? Who took that picture?”
“You tell me,” Iris said. “Although you look great.”
“I look like a hot mess,” Cara countered. “All I was doing was waiting for the…car.”
“Car?”
“Branden Duke’s limo. He…uhm…arranged for his driver to take me home after Greg bailed on me.”
“Really? Funny how you keep leaving so many little details out. Exactly what did you do to earn that favor?” Iris asked. “Your lips look…hmm. Crushed by passion? And who tousled up your hair like that? You said it was just a kiss. This doesn’t look like a girl who got a mere kiss.”
Cara stared at the photo.
“This was days ago. How come it got posted now?”
“Gossip sites don’t put everything out there instantly. They have to bank a few juicy scoops for when there’s nothing going on. What, do you wish they hadn’t waited?”
“No, but—”
“I’m telling you that’s how it works,” Iris said, just full of information that made Cara’s head hurt worse. “Otherwise it would all be firemen rescuing teeny kittens, although that works if the kitten is cute and the fireman is sexy and as we all know, a lot of them are. I have the calendar to prove it.”
“Shut up,” Cara said, a hint of laughter in her tone but still stressed. “Just shut the f—” She swiveled in her chair at a firm rap on the open door. Mike Gaunt stood in her doorway. “Frog up. I’ll call you back.”
“You frogging well better,” she heard Iris say cheerfully.
She whisked her smartphone off the desk and into a drawer before pasting on a wide, fake smile. “Oh, hello. You must be Mr. Gaunt. Please come in.”
The stout man entered and chose a chair, sitting down without leaning back. Cara took a deep breath. “Sorry. That was a friend of mine. I usually never take personal calls in the office.”
A semblance of a smile appeared on his face, as if Mike Gaunt wasn’t too accustomed to making them. “I know. The phone records confirm it.”
Not just a manager, she thought with dismay. A micro-micromanager with control-freak eyes. Which were boring into her.
“You have a completely clean record, in fact. There are employees here who abuse their perks and privileges. But not you,” he said. “You could be our poster person for work-appropriate conduct.” That awful pseudosmile appeared again.
Cara guessed that Mike Gaunt didn’t r
ead Gawker. And she thanked her lucky stars for that.
Chapter Seven
“Hmm. It’s a little out of focus.” Branden had pulled up the photo on his monitor at Cara’s request. “Let’s get rid of the glare so I can get a better look.”
He pushed a button. New blinds with ultrathin metallic slats began to lower automatically, concealing the tall windows inch by inch. The heavy silk drapes in old gold—the color of serious money, Max Dubois used to say cheerfully—had been removed from Max’s former office. The old making way for the new.
She nodded.
How could Branden be so nonchalant? Cara could guess. The view had to be different when you lived on top of a mountain of money. A hint dropped on a gossip blog that he was up to no good, financially and otherwise, proved exactly nothing, and he had lawyers and PR flacks at his beck and call to take care of bad press. To say nothing of outside tech specialists who could make oh-so-embarrassing online mentions sink down in the rankings. She didn’t.
He touched a few keys. “There. Saved. For future reference.”
Should she ask why? On the other hand, she’d saved it, too. Just not on her work computer.
Given the pictures she’d seen of him with different women during her Google searches, and the noticeable absence of any mention of a wife or family, Branden was definitely not a married man, and she was certifiably single, which didn’t matter, since a photo like that would definitely give the wrong impression to future employers, if she had to move on. And she very well might. Somebody at Dubois & Mellan could have already seen the innuendo-laced post with her picture. It only took one person to get the whispering started.
Cara Michal. Sleeping her way to the top.
Really not something she wanted on her invisible résumé, meaning the one that headhunters put together when doing an Internet search on new clients. She’d get instantly booted down the ladder, from the top rung to the bottom, and starting over as a cubicle rat at some two-bit brokerage was not part of her career plan or her life plan. She didn’t just have her mouth to feed, but her mother’s. And most important, Glenn’s.
