Under Contract

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t look so stricken. That’s why I have lawyers. I should have realized that moving that kind of money into your account would send up a flag. It wouldn’t for the accounts I’m used to dealing with, but yours was...” he trailed off, seeming to realize what he’d said.

  “Pitifully small? Yes, I know that. You don’t need to protect my feelings.”

  He folded his hands on the desk, the letters trapped beneath. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He meant about the submitting, not the size of her account. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m just some helpless female who needs you to take care of her?” It rankled badly, that he seemed to be so capable, so proficient at dealing with everything, and she’d so far been only good at playing sex slave. Or not even playing at it, but being that. Taken care of. You need that from me.

  “I don’t think you’re helpless at all, but yes—I think, in this way, you do need me. Is that such a terrible thing?”

  She didn’t know. Maybe. She’d always thought of herself as a capable woman. Smart. Educated. She had a Masters in landscape design, after all. Who doesn’t know to pay their goddamn income tax?

  “Celestina?”

  “I don’t know, okay?” She stood again and picked up her bag. “I should get back to the girls.”

  He got up and put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t like leaving things between us this way.”

  “I just need some time. To think. Thank you for helping me with this.” She lifted her chin. “I’m grateful.” She said it because it would prick at him and it did, the annoyance settling in the lines around his mouth.

  “All right. Go think. Are you okay to drive home?”

  “I’m capable of driving a car, Ryan.”

  His jaw flexed. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. You’re obviously upset. Ernesto can—”

  “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night then, if I don’t talk you before.”

  Tomorrow night? Oh, the benefit. “I don’t know if—”

  “If you intend to keep your promise to go with me?”

  Her turn to set her jaw. He would phrase it like that. “I’ll keep my damn promise.”

  He smiled, though he didn’t look happy. But he kissed her cheek and let her go. “Good night, Celestina. Sweet dreams.”

  Unable to muster a reply, she turned and left. Realizing as she got in the car that he hadn’t walked her out.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  For a while after Celestina left, Ryan sat at his desk and brooded. He reread the letters, shaking his head at both her foolishness and his own, then made some notes for his CPA and lawyer to look into first thing in the morning. It might take some doing, but they’d get it cleaned up.

  Fixing things with Celestina might not be as easy.

  She hadn’t been happy with him when she left, that much was obvious. It seemed clear that he’d handled things incorrectly, but he wasn’t sure how. She’d acted like he’d betrayed her trust somehow when all he’d done was offer to fix the problem. She’d brought it to him to fix, hadn’t she? Ridiculous that she had looked at him with that wounded pride. Okay, he shouldn’t have said that about her needing him to handle things for her, about her liking that. It might be true—he certainly wanted it to be true, that she at least needed and craved what he could give her, even if she didn’t love him yet—but she hadn’t liked hearing it.

  What did he know about having a long-term relationship? His parents had been lousy examples. If he was honest with himself, as he should be if he wanted this thing with Celestina to work, he’d kept clear of all but the most shallow encounters for precisely this reason. Once the relationship progressed beyond casual fun and intense sex, he floundered. He lacked the skills and he needed to shore that up fast.

  Clearly he was out of his depth. Any other time he had a problem he’d consult with an expert. But who could advise him on the twisted channels of a woman’s heart?

  Maybe another woman.

  Picking up his phone, he hit the speed dial. Cat answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, boss! How are those tablets working for you?”

  The question of the hour, though not in the way she meant. “Fine. Perfect. I’m not calling about that.” Not exactly.

  “Shoot.”

  Now that he had her on the phone, he felt like an idiot. But Cat was a woman and she understood how he thought, so he’d followed the impulse. “Can I ask you a question? About women?”

  The pause stretched out long and inauspicious. “You’re asking me about your love life?”

  “You’re right. It’s inappropriate. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “No, no—that’s okay. Just color me surprised. I happen to be a woman, so I might know the answer. What’s the question?”

  “Hypothetical situation. A woman is upset and comes to her...boyfriend—” what an empty word, he needed a better one “—with a problem.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m not sure it’s relevant, but let’s say she made a big mistake, a foolish one, and he offers to fix it for her. But she gets mad at him.”

  “Uh-huh. Did this guy in any way imply that her big mistake was foolish?”

  He rubbed his temples. “Yeah, he probably did.”

  Cat whistled, like a bomb dropping. “Guy is fucked then.”

  His heart sank. “Seriously?”

  Cat’s laugh rang through the connection. “Okay, okay—that was mean. Your hypothetical guy made several classically male errors. First of all, your boss can tell you that the mistake you made was foolish, but your boyfriend can’t. Secondly, when a woman is upset, she wants comfort and sympathy, not to have the problem fixed.”

  “But she came to me to fix the problem.”

  “Of course she did. And I’m sure you will, as you’re Mr. Fix-It. But what a woman wants most from the man she loves is for him to give her comfort. To tell her that she’s not an idiot. To understand and forgive her when maybe it’s hard for her to forgive herself.”

  Well, not love in this case. He didn’t fool himself about that. But the principle still applied. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”

  “She came to you first, right? All upset, you said?”

  With tears streaming down her face, holding on to him with a total lack of reserve, as she hadn’t before outside of sex. He was an idiot indeed. “Yes. She cried.”

  “Okay, the good news is she turned to you, so she trusts you. You probably just destabilized that trust a little. Maybe pissed her off.”

  “Yeah, she left angry.”

  “So, give her some time to stew and be angry. Meanwhile you do your Mr. Fix-It thing and then you grovel.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Cat’s laugh came through almost as an evil cackle. “Yeah, probably not your forte. But it’s what she needs. Tell her you know you screwed up, that you’re sorry and you want to make it up to her.”

  “I should buy her something.”

  She paused. “I don’t know her, but I advise against it.”

  “Why?”

  “Okay—you’re my boss. I need some kind of permission to speak freely here.”

  “You always can, Cat. You should know that.”

  “About work, sure. This is dicier territory. Personal.” She heaved out a sigh. “So, you’re a generous guy and God knows you’re loaded, but you tend to use money to interact with people.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Like instead of talking to me about what a good job I’ve done, you pay me double and give me perks.”

  “And this is a problem?”

  “I was afraid that woul
d piss you off. Let me make it clear—it’s totally not a problem for me, because I work for you. You pay me to do my job and, sure, I’ll happily take whatever bonuses you toss my way. That’s how our relationship works. But with your girlfriend, it’s a different dynamic. She does not work for you. If she really cares about you, which I’m hoping is the case because you should dump her otherwise, she’s not in it for the money. Don’t let making things right with her be about the money.”

  He wasn’t sure about that. What else would she be in it for? Perhaps for the sex. He harbored no illusions otherwise. He’d learned to crush his own idealism and denial first and foremost. Too easy to let those get in the way of a more realistic goal. But he’d asked for expert advice and the principal rule of that was considering the answer carefully, no matter his own knee-jerk response. “What do I make it be about then?”

  “The lurv, Boss. Give her that sweet, sweet lurv. It’s all any of us really want. Also? In the end, keep in mind that she’s a person just like you are. Don’t worry about how a woman thinks. Figure how you’d want to be treated if you fucked up because you were foolish. Operate from there.”

  * * *

  Ernesto picked the three of them up, the girls cheerfully greeting him by name. How quickly they’d fallen into a familiar routine of being chauffeured about. Tina hadn’t said anything to them about the possible job or her second thoughts on moving in with Ryan. Probably fifth and sixth thoughts by this point. She’d known he wasn’t Mr. Sensitivity, had gone into this with her eyes open, that though they shared an intense emotional connection, it had never been about...whatever she’d hoped for from him the night before.

  Really, it was her fault for expecting otherwise.

  Still, the argument with him, the way they’d left things, reminded her acutely of being married to Noah. Especially in those later years, when he grew more distant, uninterested in her woes—or anything she said at all. She’d learned to keep things to herself rather than facing his indifference.

  She didn’t think she could do that again. It had seemed possible, that the riches and easy life Ryan offered, along with everything else, would compensate for his emotional shortcomings. That going in with her eyes open, knowing exactly what he offered and what he wanted from her, would keep her expectations under control. Clearly it hadn’t worked that way. She’d unthinkingly run to him last night, expecting some of the same understanding comfort he showered on her when she broke down in scenes.

  Foolish of her. As she’d been in so many things. Ryan had been right to call her on that.

  The thing was, if she moved in with him, buried her pride and handed over the monumental mess of her finances, which would include everything from Ara and her parents, too—something they all would have hated, even if the dead can’t feel shame—then Ryan would be handling things for her. She wouldn’t learn to do things better. She’d be selling herself, after all. Giving herself to him in exchange for security and blissful ignorance. And she knew from experience that nothing had ever made her feel lonelier than being married to someone who didn’t really respect her. Not even being alone.

  She should have realized that by now. Noah hadn’t left because of the girls or her grief over Ara. That had been a convenient excuse. He’d wanted out and took the opportunity. Something else she should have extracted a lesson from, if she was ever to grow up and be an adult in charge of her own life.

  The adult, the honorable and independent decision would be to do whatever it took to land that job and start their lives over.

  “You look really pretty, Antina,” Josie said. Her voice held a bit of a question, sensing some of Tina’s unhappiness.

  Don’t people freeze to death there?

  “Thank you, sweetie.” She’d checked the tablet, but Ryan hadn’t added anything for the evening ahead. No salacious offers or instructions on how to dress. He might be pissed at her still. Or disgusted with her foolishness on the tax thing. She’d finally texted him to ask what she should wear and he simply replied anything cocktail and that he trusted her judgment. The whole exchange had been curiously formal, with none of his usual banter or pushy ways.

  It might be a long evening.

  She cleared her throat of the nerves. “Don’t say anything to Ryan yet, either of you, about moving in, okay?”

  Carly went from bouncing to suspicious immediately. “Why not? Did you change your mind?”

  “I never made up my mind in the first place. All I did was ask how you two felt about it.”

  “But you sounded like you wanted to,” Josie pointed out.

  “I thought I did, but it’s not that simple. I need to sort some things out first.”

  “Like what things?” Carly demanded.

  “Grown-up things that are none of your business.”

  “You guys had a fight, huh?” Josie looked crestfallen. “I figured.”

  “Mom and Dad fought.” Carly nodded at her aunt. “Not like you and Uncle Noah, with the silent-treatment thing, but they’d yell and then make up after.”

  “Yeah, Mom told me the making up was the best part.” Josie snickered.

  Tina remembered that, too, Ara praising the virtues of make-up sex as the best way to clear the air after a fight. She and Steve had always enjoyed a much more passionate relationship than Tina and Noah had. More like she had with Ryan—without the contracts and kink. And an actual relationship instead of a business contract.

  “Maybe so,” she allowed. “I just need time to think.”

  Judging by the rebellious tilt of Carly’s chin, that was not going to happen. Sure enough, as soon as they climbed the steps, Ryan greeting them at the door, she said, “Hi, Ryan! Can we explore the house and pick out our rooms?”

  Tina ground her teeth and clamped a hand on Carly’s shoulder. “Good evening, Mr. Black. Thank you for inviting us over.”

  Carly glared at her and Josie actually giggled. Ryan, who’d been watching her intently with some unfathomable emotion behind his steely gaze, broke into a charming smile just for the girls. “I think calling me Ryan is just fine. And yes. Feel free to look around. We might have to do some remodeling, but see what you think.”

  “Surely they shouldn’t have free rein...” She trailed off at Ryan’s lifted brows. He’d promised to sanitize and didn’t like her thinking he wouldn’t have.

  “Locked doors are locked for a reason. Anything unlocked is fair game—that reasonable, Carlotta and Josefina?”

  They happily agreed and took off, not even bothering to tell her goodbye. Leaving her awkwardly alone with Ryan. If he always knew his decision before he walked in the room, she was his polar opposite—never sure what she’d decide until she was in the moment. Probably what made her a poor planner compared to him.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, uncharacteristically tentative.

  “Fine. Thanks. How are you?”

  “I mean...how are you feeling?” He seemed to be searching for words. “Are you still...unhappy?”

  What was this about? “I’m fine. I won’t burst into tears and embarrass you at the benefit or anything.”

  His jaw flexed. “That’s not what I meant. It occurred to me that you might rather stay in. We could watch a movie with the girls. I shouldn’t have insisted on keeping this date tonight.”

  “Well, I got all dressed up.”

  “And you look beautiful.”

  She knew she didn’t. The dark blue cocktail dress had to be ten years old, but it was the only thing she owned that would be fancy enough that he hadn’t seen her in. “Thank you.”

  He was definitely behaving oddly. Not at all his usual charming and arrogantly confident self.

  “Well.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we go then?”

  “All right.”

  The limo pulled smoothly away. Ryan poured her a glas
s of Spanish wine without asking and offered it to her, pouring another for himself. The silence stretched out a little too long. Maybe she should have taken him up on the offer to stay in and watch a movie. At least the girls would have covered the awkwardness with their chatter.

  “You should know—” Ryan cleared his throat. “My lawyers and CPA are looking into both issues. We should be able to resolve things reasonably soon. I wouldn’t have had time to report the monetary gifts to you, which I would have claimed on my own taxes, so the laundering suspicions should be laid to rest quickly. As for your income tax, my CPA says you are far from the first person to fail to file in the wake of a family’s member’s passing. She says it’s quite common, in fact.”

  “Ah.” She sipped her wine, not sure if that made her feel better, to be offered that excuse.

  After she didn’t say more, he continued, “I know you feel like it’s a capitulation, but I’d like you to consider meeting with her. Take in all the paperwork you can find and let her sort it out. That’s her job and she’s the best.”

  Of course—Ryan always employed the best. “I thought you wanted me to give everything to you to handle.”

  With a bit of a sigh, he took her hand. “I would, if you wanted me to, but maybe it’s better if Pam does it. She’ll keep your confidence, if that concerns you. She won’t share anything with me.”

  “Was that this Pam’s idea?”

  “No, mine. I thought about how I’d feel if I made a mistake in the business. I’d trust my lawyer or CPA to know—as they do on this fiasco—but they don’t judge and they know what they need to in order to do their jobs. That’s why professional confidentiality exists.”

  “Okay.” She let out a breath, feeling slightly less hunted at that prospect. “I’ll probably do that. Clearly I’m no good at dealing with this myself.”

  “You’re a landscape designer, an artist, not a tax lawyer or CPA. That’s why I surround myself with the best people, so they can help me do the things I’m not good at.”

  She managed a small smile for that. “I didn’t think there was anything you’re not good at.”