Filthy Rich

by Virna DePaul

  Cara was still staying at Branden’s penthouse, and she was often present for Alex’s daily updates. They were no closer to making sense of Branden’s stalker or Cara’s role in things, but she and Branden had ample time to become more obsessed with each other.

  And oh, God, was she ever obsessed.

  Agreeing to stay at his penthouse while the threat was still out there had been both a blessing and an undoing. Because except when they were at work or dining out, they were having sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex. In every position known to man, and some she’d never even imagined in her wildest fantasies.

  But what shook her world most was how, after they collapsed, physically and sexually spent, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, fingers entwined, legs scissoring, her head on his chest, rising and falling with each breath, his heartbeat strong in her ear. His breath gently moving her hair.

  She knew now how he fell asleep—how right before he’d completely drift off his entire body would stiffen then jerk, as if jolted by an electrical current, then he’d sigh, pull her close, kiss the top of her head, and drift off.

  She knew how he’d wake in the dead of night and reach for her if she’d drifted away from him in sleep. How he’d curl around her and cup her breast in his palm. Kiss the back of her neck. Make small, warm sounds in the back of his throat.

  And she knew how he’d sometimes whisper her name when he thought she was asleep.

  What she didn’t know, however, was what was happening to her.

  For once, Iris wasn’t returning her calls or texts. She’d sent one brief text, saying Spr bsy—job hunting—will txt in a few days. Cara hadn’t known what to do without having her friend available to discuss the chaos that was currently Cara’s heart and mind.

  Because chaos was the only word she could use to describe the churning of emotions and thoughts that wouldn’t leave her alone during those empty moments. The moments when she wasn’t crunching numbers or when she wasn’t having sex with Branden or when she wasn’t laughing with him over some stupid thing he used to do to his little sisters. She’d come to not only respect him over the last few days, but like him a lot. And need him more than a little.

  And that scared the shit out of her. After her father died, her mother had fallen apart, leaving Cara to bear the burden of responsibility for herself, her mother, and her brother. Her mother had been dependent on her father for everything—her dad had always been in control of the major decisions in the family, including the finances, and her mother had been lost upon his death. No way did Cara want that to ever happen to her.

  She made her own way in the world.

  And she could never come to need Branden. That would set her up for a huge fall.

  But God, resisting his help, his care, his concern, was getting to be difficult.

  Crunching numbers not only kept her aware of her job, but kept her mind off Branden.

  Mostly.

  A knock sounded at her office door and she jerked. Before she could say, “Come in” or “Go away,” Mike Gaunt stuck his head into her office.

  “Hello, Ms. Michal. I know it’s Friday and you’re probably going to want to get out of here early, but do you have a few minutes?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. That wasn’t the answer she really had on the tip of her tongue, but what else could she say?

  Mike stepped in, looking as nervous and uptight as always and carrying a folder in his hand. He sat down across from her and put the folder down on her desk. “Can you help me understand this?”

  Cara glanced at the folder but didn’t pick it up. “What is it?”

  “Look at it, please. I came across it purely by accident. Before I take it to Mr. Duke I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain.”

  Cara didn’t like the sound of that. She picked up the folder and looked inside. It was one of her reports related to the sale of stock in a company located in Switzerland. She had run the report, then given it to Max. It listed out the terms and what the share cost would be in a “lit market,” a traditional exchange. Presumably, Max and his brokers had run with the information, offering the stocks to high-frequency traders who used incredibly fast technology to view the offers and to buy or sell within milliseconds. The price wasn’t listed out to the public until after the sale was complete. That was how most business at D&M was done. They were one of the biggest dark pool traders on Wall Street.

  Cara was staring at the report and as she did, she could feel Mike Gaunt’s eyes on her. After a few minutes, she looked up.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Gaunt, I’m not seeing any issues with this.”

  Mike made a face that made it evident he didn’t believe her. He put his hand out. “May I?”

  Cara handed the report back to him.

  “Who is S. M. Mahoney?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  He held the paperwork out for her again, saying, “Look at the sender and recipient of this email.”

  Cara did. It appeared the report had been forwarded—by her—to someone named S. M. Mahoney. That didn’t make sense, though. She always sent a copy to Max, or now Branden, and cc’d it to Jean…but that was it. The original email, sent to Max and Jean, was attached to this one that had been forwarded to a man she’d never heard of. And she’d certainly never pass on confidential information.

  Tension ate at her gut. “I don’t know who that is, or why he or she was sent a copy of this report.”

  “It’s a he. His name is Samuel Mason Mahoney and he is the CEO of Whitaker Enterprises.”

  “The company that ended up purchasing this stock?”

  “The very same.”

  “But I don’t understand. I didn’t send this report to him.” By now bile filled the back of her throat and she swallowed hard against the acrid taste.

  “It came from your email address.”

  “That’s what this indicates, but I didn’t send it. I sent it to two people, the same way I do every report, and if it goes anywhere from there it’s up to them. I did not forward this. It had to be someone else who accessed my account somehow.”

  Gaunt sighed and said, “I was really hoping that you would have an explanation for this. One that made sense.”

  “Well, I don’t,” she said, her tone both angry and defensive. She wasn’t going to let her fear show. “Because I didn’t send that and I don’t know who did. Therefore, there is no way that I could possibly explain it. Would you like me to make something up?”

  “No. I’d like the truth, however. I’ll have to take this to Mr. Duke.”

  “That’s fine,” Cara said. “I’d like it on the record that I’m not happy about you saying that like it’s a threat. I have every confidence that Branden—Mr. Duke—will believe me when I say I didn’t send it.”

  Gaunt raised an eyebrow, which indicated loud and clear that he’d heard the rumors about Cara and Branden. In his defense, they were no longer just rumors, but it still pissed her off that he was sitting there thinking she would get special treatment.

  She didn’t need special treatment. She did her job to the very best of her abilities, and she hadn’t sent that report to someone other than the people she was supposed to.

  “That will bode well for you, then,” Gaunt said. “And as for what’s on the record, I’m not threatening you. Mr. Duke hired me to do a certain job and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “Good for you,” Cara said. It probably wasn’t wise to be so snippy. Gaunt seemed like the type who would hold a grudge, but he had very effectively ruined her entire day with his false accusations.

  He stood and started to go, but at the door he turned around and said, “For what it’s worth, Ms. Michal, I do believe you. Unfortunately, my opinion doesn’t really count for much around here.”

  Somehow she found that hard to believe. She figured anyone who worked for Branden was the best for the job, and therefore his opinions would hold a huge amount of weight. Still, Cara now felt bad for having cursed Gaunt
under her breath. “Thank you,” she said as he went out and closed the door.

  She picked up the phone to call Branden, then hesitated.

  It was exactly what Gaunt and others would expect her to do. Exactly what she’d told herself she wouldn’t do.

  Run to her boss. Her lover.

  She put the phone back in its cradle. She would let Mike Gaunt do whatever he needed, and when Branden asked her about it, she would state her case. She couldn’t mix business and the pleasure Branden gave her after hours.

  Cara returned to what she’d been doing before Mike interrupted her, but the numbers swam in front of her face. Something bad was going on at D&M, and somehow she’d gotten involved.

  Less than a half hour later, there was another knock on her door. She debated not answering, even hiding under her desk, but eventually called, “Come in.”

  The door opened and Gail stepped inside. “Sushi? Or Thai? We’re going out to lunch today and wanted to see if you’d take time away from your precious numbers to join us.”

  Tammie appeared behind Gail, all smiles. “I vote Chinese, actually. And there’s a new mani-pedi place that has a lunchtime special. We can bring in boxes of lo mein and eat at the same time.”

  Cara pursed her lips. She didn’t get out much, and with Iris busy job hunting, she’d missed female companionship. Maybe lunch today would be a good idea—Tammie tended to talk nonstop, which could be a nice distraction.

  Suddenly, Deena Raj appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in a white Chanel suit with a perfectly tailored A-line skirt and a red silk camisole just peeking out from underneath her jacket. Both the white and the red looked stunning with her olive skin and raven hair. She smelled like Chanel No. 5.

  Cara stood up. “Hi, Deena,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “Hello, Cara,” the woman said, and smiled pleasantly at Gail and Tammie.

  “Um, lunch another time?” Gail asked, obviously nervous to have the other woman suddenly appear.

  With a smile, Cara tipped her head, then gave a quick farewell wave as her two coworkers exited her office. She turned her attention back to Deena Raj.

  “Please sit,” the woman said.

  Cara did so, and Deena sat in the same seat Mike had occupied less than an hour ago. Actually, she didn’t sit so much as melted into it. Everything she did seemed to be done with such grace. Against Cara’s will, jealousy spiked through her spine.

  “Cara?”

  She suddenly realized that Deena had been talking and she hadn’t heard a word.

  “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

  Deena raised one perfectly designed eyebrow and said, “I asked who else has the password to your D&M email account.”

  “No one. This is about the report Mike showed me awhile ago?”

  “Yes. Since Branden’s busy, Mike brought it to me. I’m not your boss, Cara, but I am helping Branden clean house around here. This report is exactly the sort of thing we’re concerned with.”

  “I can see why. I can only tell you what I told Mike. Not only do I not know S. M. Mahoney, but I never send my reports to anyone other than Max and Jean…and now Branden. If it was forwarded from my computer, it wasn’t me who did it.”

  “I understand. Unfortunately, who struck the key on the computer will be a difficult thing to prove. Mahoney bought that stock at a very low price. He sold it the following week at market value. He made over ten million dollars off the sale. This looks very much like an insider tip…”

  Deena’s gaze was so direct Cara felt like it was penetrating her brain. She actually wished that it was, so that Deena could see Cara was telling the truth.

  “I don’t know what to say, Deena. I promise you I had nothing to do with this, other than preparing the report and sending it to whomever I was supposed to. I can’t prove that, but if you check my other reports you’ll see that I never sent them to anyone other than Max, Jean, and then Branden after he took over.”

  “We will check those. Again, it’s unfortunate that history alone won’t be enough to prove anything,” she said as she stood up.

  Cara stood, too. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  Deena studied her intently, as if seeing Cara for the first time. “I’m not sure. But Cara, if you have done something wrong, don’t think warming Branden’s bed will protect you. Because it won’t. And I’ll do anything to see Branden protected.”

  —

  Branden had been in a meeting when the calls came in from Mike and Deena. Now, standing in the hallway, he checked his messages.

  The one from Mike said, “Mr. Duke, I’ve found something interesting that involves Miss Michal. I’d like to speak to you about it as soon as you have a free moment.”

  The next one from Deena said, “Call me. Your girlfriend has found herself in the middle of a mess.”

  Branden looked at the time: eleven thirty. He had another meeting at twelve thirty. He called and rescheduled, then instead of calling Mike or Deena, he held the phone in the palm of his hand, staring at it as if the weight was unfamiliar. Uncomfortable.

  He shouldn’t call Cara first. She wasn’t his girlfriend, as his sister had said. He hadn’t had one of those since college. But what he did know was she was his.

  Ownership came easily to him now. But finding a way to get what he wanted had been a learned skill.

  He’d grown up with nothing.

  His shoes and clothing came from the church give-away basket. Toys were things he found in the garbage or in the edges of the local park, like the deflated soccer ball with the red streak down the center he never could tell was Sharpie or a bloodstain, or the armless GI Joe he’d come across while Dumpster diving with Deena one hot summer afternoon. Those items may have been small, but they were his. With those rejected things he’d ended up with, he’d learned to hoard. To possess. To claim as his.

  And when he wanted something he couldn’t find in a Dumpster? As a small kid who didn’t hit his growth spurt until his senior year in high school, fighting for what he wanted wasn’t in the cards for him. But negotiations? That’s where he’d made his fortune. If he saw a kid at school with something he wanted, he’d watch for a while, assessing the kid, figuring out what he wanted.

  Then he set about getting it for him.

  He’d traded a beat-down of the class bully in order to get one kid’s collection of Pokémon cards in the first grade.

  Exchanged a month’s worth of homework for another kid’s lunchtime Twinkies in the sixth grade.

  The more he’d grown into his looks and the more wealth he attained, the more people had begun to want things from him, women included. He’d been fine giving them what they wanted, be it money, jewelry, clothing, vacations in Fiji, even cars. The reputation of being seen with Branden Duke. He gave plenty—but he refused two things: one was bragging rights—he usually had women sign a confidentiality agreement before sleeping with them. The other was his heart. He’d had a few women tell him they loved him, or ask to be loved, or hint about weddings—the minute he felt someone was inching too close to the whole in-love thing, he bailed. And he usually told women up front that his heart was off-limits.

  Although with Cara he hadn’t asked her to sign the confidentiality contract, and he hadn’t given her the no-love conversation.

  Maybe that was because he hadn’t yet figured out what she wanted from him.

  And what he wanted from her.

  Odd that out of all the women he’d been with, he couldn’t figure out what Cara wanted—jewelry? Prestige? A Hawaiian vacation? Keeping her reputation aboveboard was what she’d claimed she wanted, but once the world thought they were sleeping together, she’d accepted his invitation to dinner and had made it clear she wanted to sleep with him. Money? Yeah, she needed more than most, as his background check had shown, since she was basically supporting her mother, but she was doing so well at D&M that he didn’t think she was insatiable about money, and she’d never asked him for a dime. Sex? She’d loved
every damn thing he’d done to her body, then had turned around and given right back to him what he’d given her.

  So what did she want?

  And now Cara was supposedly in a “mess” at D&M, but hadn’t called him to fix things for her.

  No, she probably wouldn’t ask for his help even if it was the very thing she needed.

  The woman was too independent for her own good.

  So wait—was that what she wanted? Independence?

  But that didn’t make sense. He had everything to offer her—money, position, security…but she resisted anything he could give her except orgasms.

  Fuck. He needed to get the hell out of his head and just call the woman. Ask her straight-out what it was she’d dug her way down into.

  He punched the autodial button assigned to her, and when she answered, bluntly said, “Join me for lunch.”

  A brief silence met his statement, then Cara quietly asked, “Have you spoken to Mike or Deena yet? Because that might affect whether you really want to have lunch with me.”

  “I was in a meeting. Got messages from them both. I know they’re concerned with something having to do with work. I’d rather hear the news directly from you, but you were the only person I didn’t have a call from. Is everything all right?”

  “No.”

  Frustration pitched over him. This was exactly the problem he had with Cara. Her determination not to ask for help. Not to need anything. Not to need him. He resisted stating the cliché—“no man is an island”—and instead blew out a slow breath, then said, “Yet you didn’t call me.”

  “I don’t want to run to the principal’s office with my every little problem,” she said. Branden could tell by the sound of her voice that she didn’t think whatever was going on was a “little problem.”

  “Fine. You’re being called to his office and he’ll force you to talk…”

  Cara laughed and said, “That actually sounds like fun. Kinky, but fun…”

  Branden smiled. This woman either had him completely fooled or had absolutely nothing to hide.

  And he figured it was the latter.