The Dangerous Seduction

by A N Bond

  He showers, relaxing under the steady, hot spray, letting it pound his exhausted, tight muscles. He wraps a towel around his waist and pads out to the row of sinks in the locker room when he’s done. He unwraps the disposable razor and shaving cream from the grooming kit he keeps in his locker and lathers up his bristly face.

  He almost nicks himself with the razor in surprise when he sees Joseph Van Aardt wander into the room from the gym, dressed in sweatpants and a sweat-stained T-shirt, BlackBerry in one hand, crumpled-up towel in the other. He stops when he notices Ryan and their eyes meet in the mirror.

  Joseph gives him a nod. “Good e-mail. That was exactly what I was looking for. Well done.”

  “Oh, thanks, that’s great,” Ryan says, turning around. They stare at each other for a moment and Ryan checks his tired brain for something else to say. “So, you, uh… been working out? It’s early,” he says at last.

  Joseph shrugs. “I don’t sleep much.”

  “Oh, right, like Margaret Thatcher. She used to sleep only three hours a night. And Churchill too, I think.”

  It’s kind of distracting talking to Joseph in this setting. He’s only ever seen him in expensive suits, all buttoned-up professionalism and executive impressiveness; now he’s wearing a tight T-shirt and training pants, his hair is damp with sweat, and his cheeks are still flushed from working out. He looks undone and unwrapped, but still seems completely unfazed, and just as aloof and intimidating as he is when he’s actually properly dressed.

  “You have an interest in British prime ministers?” Joseph says.

  “No, not exactly. I like biographies, and some people are really interesting, you know?”

  “That is true.”

  Ryan huffs out an embarrassed breath and feels the foam twitch on his upper lip at the puff of air. “Okay, well I’m pleased that the stuff I found will help you.”

  Joseph doesn’t say anything for a moment, just keeps looking at him in a way that makes Ryan really conscious of the fact he’s only wearing a towel, his face is covered in shaving cream, and his entire chest and stomach are naked and exposed. He wants to clear his throat, say something else to release the tension, but his brain is not cooperating again. He wonders if everybody feels this tongue-tied in front of Joseph Van Aardt, or if it’s just him.

  Joseph finally breaks the silence: “You should come with me later to the studio. The taping’s at four.” His tone is a little diffident and it takes Ryan a long beat to figure out that this isn’t an invitation or a suggestion, but a command. Still, though, the big boss is asking for him again—for his company this time. It’s definitely a good thing.

  “Okay, yeah. That would be great. I could do that,” he says.

  Joseph nods and gives him a brief smile. “Good. See you later, Ryan.” He walks past him toward the showers.

  Ryan exhales heavily and turns back to the mirror. He’s going to have to mainline coffee for the rest of the day to stay awake that long. Unlike Margaret Thatcher or Winston Churchill or Joseph Van Aardt, he’s not a superhuman. He needs his sleep.

  CONSIDERING HE’S so damn intimidating in person, Joseph actually comes across really well in the interview on The Liza Show. He smiles and laughs and lets his Texas drawl show more than usual, completely charming Liza, who seems just as into the bantering and flirting as Joseph. Ryan stands just off-camera, beside Estelle, and watches the performance on a bank of monitors.

  “But the government case found Mr. McNeil not-guilty, Joseph. He was cleared of all charges,” Liza says. “What makes you think that any new case will reach a different verdict?”

  “Liza, Jack McNeil is sitting on a personal fortune of twelve billion. His wife goes around in twelve-hundred-dollar shoes while my clients can’t afford to buy new shoes for their kids from Target….” Ryan allows himself a brief, smug smile at that and focuses his gaze back on Joseph’s sincere expression. “They were lied to by their boss and the company they worked for. They were lied to by someone they trusted. He told them to put all their money into his stock; then he let them sink when the company failed—a failure brought about by corporate greed and bad executive decision-making. They lost everything and they deserve justice. I don’t know about you, but personally, I don’t want to be a part of a system that lets this kind of thing pass.”

  Ryan glances at the monitors; Liza’s face is in close-up on one of them, nodding, and she’s hanging onto every word from Joseph’s mouth, her lips slightly parted and color high in her cheeks. The other three screens are all Joseph, his face and body caught by different camera angles. The light in the studio is flattering, highlighting the golden hint of five-o-clock shadow on his jaw and his long eyelashes. He finishes his speech with a joke that makes Liza laugh. He smiles back at her, making the fine lines around his eyes crinkle, his irises looking vividly green. Ryan finds himself staring, and feels a strange, weightless sensation in his belly.

  He feels Estelle turn her head and look at him, and he whispers, “He’s good,” to her.

  Estelle smiles knowingly, like it’s a given.

  The interview finishes and Joseph gets up from his seat, taking Liza’s hand. She says something to him and Joseph laughs, showing teeth, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the spot where Ryan and Estelle are waiting for him. He says something else and makes an apologetic face, before he’s tugging his hand out of hers and striding across the studio toward them.

  “She asked me to dinner,” he says when they’re safely ensconced in the back of Joseph’s private car. “Wanted me to check out that new Thai place with her. The one that’s gotten all the amazing reviews. Apparently Donald Trump’s a regular.” He snorts dismissively, but he looks pleased with himself. He turns his attention to Ryan, and Ryan stiffens under the scrutiny, feeling like a fox caught in a couple of high-beams, pinpointed and exposed. On Joseph’s other side, Estelle is coolly scrolling through her BlackBerry, taking zero notice of either of them.

  “Do you like steak, Ryan?”

  He shrugs, trying to make himself sound relaxed. “I’m from Texas, what do you think?”

  Joseph snaps out a grin, looking pleased with the answer. He leans forward in his seat, knees brushing against Ryan’s as he raps on the driver partition. It scrolls down with a soft whirring sound. “Dave, take us to the Grill. I want a steak.”

  “Okay, Mr. Van Aardt,” the driver says.

  Joseph sits back in his seat. “I fucking love steak. Estelle doesn’t, though, huh, Stell?”

  She looks up from her phone and gives Joseph a long, considering look. “I care about what I put in my body.”

  Joseph laughs. “Okay, okay. Dave, you hear that? Take Ryan and me to the Grill, and drop Miss Levereux at her place.”

  Joseph turns his attention back to Ryan. “Should you call someone? Let them know you’ll be late? Girlfriend?” He pauses, raises an eyebrow. “Boyfriend?”

  Ryan feels his stomach get hot and tight at the question and he silently berates himself. It’s New York City, for Christ’s sake; there are plenty of gay dudes around, some probably working at Chase Mackey Van Aardt. It’s not unusual for Joseph to ask him that question or even make that assumption, and there’s no reason why Joseph shouldn’t ask him. Of course, he isn’t gay and he definitely doesn’t have a boyfriend, but he’s not going to be offended if Joseph thinks he might be gay, and anyway, Joseph might be gay himself. He knows that Joseph doesn’t have a wife or kids and there’s surprisingly little gossip linking him to anyone. At least nothing Ryan found during his research, because yes, he looked, of course he looked, he’s a good attorney, he looks at everything. So, yeah, Joseph Van Aardt might be gay.

  The tight, nervous feeling in his stomach isn’t going anywhere; if anything, it’s getting worse. He can feel Joseph’s eyes on him like a physical thing, piercing and dark and far too knowing.

  “Fiancée,” he says finally. “I have a fiancée. But she’s used to me working late.”

  “I’ll bet. So, have you gu
ys been together a long time?”

  “Six years.”

  Joseph raises his eyebrows. “Six years? That’s impressive.” He’s about to say something else when his phone goes off. He pulls it out of his inside pocket, glances down at the display, and grins, an unpleasant, sharklike sort of a grin. “Ray Collins. Should be interesting.”

  “Ray Collins? McNeil’s attorney?” Ryan asks.

  “The very same,” Joseph says. He smirks, lifts the phone to his ear, and says, “Well, hello, Ray, how are things your end?”

  THE RESTAURANT is nice, swanky and expensive, and way, way out of Ryan’s price range. He swallows over the mini panic attack and quietly tells himself that surely Joseph (or more likely the firm) will pick up the check. Joseph doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would expect him to chip in with fifty-fifty at the end of the night. Not that he really has any kind of idea what sort of guy Joseph Van Aardt actually is, of course.

  The waiters seem to know Joseph and greet him by name as they lead the two of them to a secluded table in the corner of the restaurant. Someone materializes a moment later with a bottle of red wine, which Joseph runs an eye over before he nods approval, indicating for the waiter to pour for them both.

  Joseph picks up his wine glass. It’s one of those enormous fat-bottomed goblets that only seem to exist in really swanky restaurants. He raises his eyebrows at Ryan and says, “What should we drink to? A successful day’s work? Your second week on the job? You’re making quite an impression, Ryan.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

  “Oh. Well that’s… that’s good. Thanks.”

  They clink glasses, and Ryan watches Joseph sip his wine and sigh in appreciation. He leans back in his chair and surveys Ryan interestedly. Ryan sips his own wine, feeling that same hot burn of self-consciousness that he felt in the car. Joseph is staring at him like he’s trying to make him out, and not making any pretense of doing otherwise. At least the wine is nice. It’s smooth and obviously expensive, just like the whisky in the Dallas Ritz Carlton three weeks ago, and it’s definitely helping to settle his churning stomach.

  “So, on a scale of one to ten, about how uncomfortable are you feeling right now?” Joseph says, breaking the silence.

  “Sorry, come again?”

  Joseph smirks, the corner of his mouth lifting as he runs his forefinger up and down the stem of his wine glass. He’s got nice hands, long shapely fingers and neat nails, the tendons in the backs of his hands flexing as his fingers move. “I’m guessing you’re at least a six. Am I right?”

  Ryan feels the warmth flood his cheeks, the stupid blush making him want to duck his head to hide his face. He forces himself to keep meeting Joseph’s gaze. He shrugs, says, “Yeah, six is about right, I guess.”

  Joseph chuckles, takes another sip of his wine. “Yeah, I bet.”

  Joseph is in just his shirtsleeves, unbuttoned and obviously relaxed. His suit jacket is placed carefully over the back of his seat. At some point when Ryan wasn’t looking, Joseph loosened his tie and unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt; Ryan can make out soft pale skin, a smattering of brown-gold hairs, and the shape of his collarbones in the exposed V. Joseph’s eyes are dark in the subdued lighting, and when he turns his head to gesture to the waiter, Ryan is caught suddenly by the line of his profile: the curve of his cheekbone and the stubby dark fringe of his eyelashes. Of course he knows that Joseph is a good-looking guy, he’s known it for a while. He’s long been resigned to the fact that he’s the kind of guy who notices such things about other men, no matter how much he doesn’t want to, but there’s a difference between knowing something objectively and actually noticing it, of being aware of it on a physical level, of feeling it deep down in the pit of his stomach like a hot tug.

  His mind drifts suddenly back to Duane’s wedding reception and Duke Grayson listing into him with foggy eyes and pawing hands. The memory makes his gut twist up in a way that isn’t at all pleasant, and he drops his eyes to where his hands are joined on the table, to the place on the third finger of his left hand where his wedding band will be one day. He tries to conjure up Daisy’s image in his head, to remember the look on her face when she’d said yes to him, but his brain is refusing to cooperate. He takes a gulp of wine.

  It’s just because he’s the boss, he thinks. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just because he’s the guy with all the power, the guy that can make or break Ryan’s future career. He’s the guy who’s hopefully going to teach Ryan everything he knows, the guy who recruited him—picked him—over everybody else. It’s just because he’s grateful to Joseph and he’s flattered that he got picked out of all those other people who sent their résumés to Chase Mackey Van Aardt, and Joseph is an impressive guy, has already accomplished so much at his age, anybody would be in awe of him. And yes, objectively speaking, the man is attractive. It’s one of those undeniable statements of fact. Everybody knows it. Even Liza herself asked him out to dinner because she wanted to get in his pants. Anyone would be impressed by being wined and dined by Joseph Van Aardt. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s not like the dumb teenage thing with Duke Grayson, or like those other times with those other guys.

  Besides, even if Ryan might have a stupid little guy crush on his boss (which he’s pretty sure he totally doesn’t have), it doesn’t mean that anything’s actually going to happen. He’s got Daisy and she’s a great girl and he loves her and they’re engaged.

  “How old are you, Ryan?” Joseph asks after the waiter’s vanished once more with their order.

  “I just turned thirty-two, a month back,” he answers.

  “Pretty old for you to be only on your second job, only three years qualified. What have you been doing all this time?”

  “I retrained,” he says. “I didn’t study law the first time I was in college.”

  “I bet you were one of those kids who could never figure out what they wanted out of life,” Joseph says. He’s still smiling, though it’s that unpleasant smile again, the derisive note to his voice giving Ryan no illusion as to what Joseph really thinks of kids who “could never figure out what they wanted out of life.” Ryan’s first instinct is to defend himself, not everyone is a mini-megalomaniac-in-waiting, knowing exactly what they want to do with their life from the moment they leave the womb, but he thinks better of it.

  “No, I knew exactly what I wanted, except it didn’t work out. It’s all on my résumé.” He thinks of Joseph’s words to him in that strange interview at the Ritz Carlton: Everyone’s hiding something, Ryan… what are you hiding? “I’m not hiding anything,” he adds, catching and holding Joseph’s gaze.

  Joseph must remember that conversation too because he nods his head, his expression half-ironic, half-impressed. “I never read résumés. I’m not interested in how well people can bullshit on paper; I want to see them bullshit to my face. So, what were you doing before you went into law?”

  “I wanted to be an actor.”

  “Really?” Joseph sits back in his chair, quirks up one eyebrow. “Interesting.”

  “I trained in theater at college. I was even in a couple of plays. Like, Off-off-Broadway. It was my dream. Well, it used to be.”

  “So, why’d you change your mind?”

  He hesitates, then goes for the truth. “Honestly, I was never that good at it. Not good enough to be successful or rich or famous. And I wanted—I want to be rich and successful. I’m not bothered about the fame part, but I do want to have influence. And to have influence you have to have money; the two of them pretty much go together. I want to have influence, to be able to change things.” He gives a self-conscious sort of a shrug. “To make a difference. Like with this case. Like with what you do. You make change.”

  Slowly, Joseph’s mouth curls up into a genuine, but not entirely nice, grin. Wolfish, Ryan thinks, like an animal circling his prey, like someone who can see inside you and know exactly what you’re thinki
ng. “I want to learn from you, I want to be as good as you. I don’t know if I will be, but that’s what I want. Sure, acting’s got its own perks, if you’re any good at it. But the law is where it really matters.”

  Joseph nods; he looks almost impressed, and Ryan feels his face flush, not with embarrassment this time, but with genuine pleasure. “You surprise me,” he says. “Not many people are so honest.”

  “I don’t see any point in lying to you,” Ryan says.

  “You wouldn’t believe how many people try anyway.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  Joseph takes a long sip of his drink before he answers. “Yes, I’m beginning to see that.”

  Chapter 2

  RYAN DOESN’T see Joseph over the next three days. He’s in court, winding up another case, an intellectual property lawsuit. The client, a young MIT graduate, is claiming his idea was ripped off. The defendant is running scared, or at least that’s what the gossip around the office says. Ryan is busy anyway: he’s finally gotten to work on the McNeil case, trawling through witness statements, timelines, and endless and exhausting e-mail trails from ex-employees of McNeil Industries. He’s been assigned all of the Corporate Operations team, and they’ve got a lot to say, most of it completely irrelevant to the case.

  He spends the next three days going through the files, writing up lists of questions for the employees he’ll need to interview, noting points for clarification and contradictions in their statements. Not all of the Corporate Ops team are part of the lawsuit, and it’s one of his jobs to figure out why some of them don’t feel the same level of animosity toward their former boss as their coworkers.

  The news about him accompanying Joseph to the TV studio and for dinner afterward is all over the office already. It seems to have had a negative effect on most of his coworkers, who have made up their minds that he’s trying to sleep his way to the top, never mind that it was Joseph who asked him to help out in the first place.