by Falon Gold
With the remaining hand, I entomb it in her hair and slowly draw her close.
“Ditto. Now, why steal kisses when they’re yours already, Blake?”
“Are they?”
“Every single damn one, from the moment you opened your office door and slammed it back shut on my first day as your deputy.”
Part 3
The Contracted Lovers
~Prologue~
Twenty-three years ago, in Italy
“Camron, you don’t have to respect anyone, but they do have to respect you, son. And if they refuse to, everyone has a price. Find it, then buy their loyalty, even if you have to take their money to get it. It won’t be hard to do with the weaker people who—”
“Your poppa means those that have no money are weaker than those with money, Son, meaning us,” Saleera Powers interrupts her husband, when she sees eight-year-old Camron’s frown. “Their money is easy to access because they usually have very little and it’s all in one place... if they have any at all,” she adds condescendingly.
Like an island, Camron sits between his parents on a brown leather ottoman in the middle of the Italian tile in his father’s study, mere feet from his parents’ high-back, Victorian chairs. He’s used to feeling isolated in his parents’ presence and completely understands what Christophe Powers means by weaker people; he just doesn’t know why his father said it. Yet, he’d sacrifice knowing the answer if it would get him in one of their laps or a hug from time to time.
Affection from his parents is as elusive as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. However, these kinds of talks come a dime a dozen around the Powers’ mansion, where Christophe and Saleera don’t talk to Camron, instead talk at him, bombarding him from both sides with their bigoted way of thinking.
Christophe laughs, humorlessly. “Right, love. People with no money have no power, Camron. They’ll put up with just about anything from those who have both money and power. You already have them and can do what you want in this world to anyone because you’re a Powers. That makes you better than everyone else who should bend at the knee and bend to your will. They will when you open your own branch of whatever business you choose in America someday. It’s your duty to carry on the Powers’ name in the corporate world, add to our influence in it, and succeed in everything you do, even if you have to walk all over someone else to do it. Never get your hands dirty with grunt work.”
Camron’s frown deepens. “What’s grunt work, Poppa?”
Christophe leans forward. “Manual labor, Son, where you actually put your hands on the products you’ll be using to make your life easier as an adult. That’s beneath you. So is making someone else more money than you’ll get out of any deal you strike. Always hire others less fortunate than you to do the grunt work. That’s how the poor live. Off richer people’s benevolence. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Son?”
Camron nods.
Christophe looks over Camron’s head, then raises his tumbler of whiskey from his bony knee to his mouth. His mouth is thin-lipped and cruelly made like his disposition, which he hopes to pass on to his children. So far, there’s only Camron.
Saleera raises her glass of wine and gives an air toast to the ruining of their son.
In fourteen years, Saleera and Christophe Powers will turn a monster loose on Candleton, New York... and on Amari Spencer.
~Present Day Camron Powers~
Stepping from under the ceiling shower’s rain head and body jet sprays before I’m ready to answer the ringing cell phone that’s sitting on the marble countertop of the his-and-her sinks should be a crime. I don’t need a view of the name on the screen to know it’s Former Sheriff Blake Powers calling. Ever since he’s taken it upon himself to rehabilitate me for Amari Spencer and enlist my help to plan his engagement party to Astrid Daniels, I can expect his call every morning. Somehow, he’s managed to convince me that changing my ways is the only option I’ll ever have to get what he has with Astrid: love, happy home, and a child. If I need to change most, okay all the ways I treat women and report to him each move I and his mother have made since she hijacked the planning of his engagement party from me, so be it. But Blake checking in with me daily is getting damn ridiculous.
I turn the water off, plod out of the fogged-up glass octagon to retrieve the phone, creating puddles on the bamboo flooring. I swipe a hand across the mirror. “Blake, your party is still being handled by Ashley, who finished up with the old-fashion mailing out of all the invites a month ago.”
“That’s not what I’m calling about this morning, Camron. Are you alone?”
Why in God’s name does he need to know that? Unless something bad has happened that he needs me to keep confidential. God forbid. Enough shit went down when he was hurt during his stint as Sheriff, developing amnesia. I won’t hear the end of Ashley’s ranting if he decides not to take the helm of the Powers Royal Resort when it opens to the public in two weeks. It was much easier than I thought it would be to sway him to run the newest family business as CEO, essentially getting him back into the family fold. Ashley may have put me up to it, but Blake knows I let her do it for my own selfish reasons and his growing family’s right to be financially stable.
Most of all, I miss the cousinship we had years ago, before Blake put all the Powers in his rearview and didn’t look back. From the time he was six, the Owens gave him something that the Powers couldn’t or wouldn’t: love. He gives the Owens his love and loyalty. Unfortunately, for me, I have no fucking idea what love or loyalty is for anyone other than the Powers. Nothing else besides ruthless business and survival tactics have been taught to me by my parents. Blake is determined to teach me what love and loyalty is for Amari’s sake. If I don’t let him, I could lose her, if I haven’t already.
Unobtainable and unimpressed with my wealth, she’s the opposite of my type. Bedding women is so much easier when they’ve targeted me. Amari targets whatever area I’m not in. I won’t lie and say I’ve waited around for her to suddenly fall in love with me either. According to Blake, I’m an idiot for assuming she would because of who I am, a Powers, privileged, prestigious, powerful... You get my point.
Amari can barely stand to be in the same room with me. At this rate, I’ll commit murder to get her to smile for me. She hasn’t done that since I hired her.
“Camron, are you still there?” He’s impatient as hell.
“Yes, I’m here and alone. What’s going on, Blake?”
“Nothing. Just making sure you’re not giving Amari any more reasons to hate you.”
I wince. “She doesn’t hate me, and I haven’t dated anyone else in months. Trust me, my man parts are feeling the strain. I’m this close to locking her in the damn office and seducing her since I don’t want anyone else.”
“Yep, you’re in love.”
I scoff at my image. “It’s not like she would notice though. She spends every available minute thinking she’s hiding from me.”
Crushing the phone between my shoulder and ear, I grab a towel off the chrome bracket over the toilet and wrap the thick cotton around my body.
“She hides because you’re a jerk, Camron. You’ve got your work cut out for you there. Building a relationship with her is going to be the hardest thing you ever do, after she’s been watching you screw around for years. First, you must earn her trust, which is why I asked if you were alone. Continue keeping the other women away. Amari falling in love with you will come later... hopefully.” If I don’t screw it up first is what he leaves unsaid.
If you ask me, I don’t screw up at all. If I listen to Blake, that’s what I’ve been doing since meeting Amari. Out of the two of us, he has to be right, because Amari wants nothing to do with me. No one in the Powers family has what he has with Astrid: mutual love and respect that’s not gained from tearing somebody down and successful business dealings. Both love and respect pour off Blake and Astrid in suffocating waves when they’re tuning out the whole world around them. It’s worse when they�
�re about to disappear into a bedroom together.
I’m tired of not having that with Amari, screwing up with her, and screwing around with women who mean nothing to me. For a few months now, I haven’t been able to ignore that I want to settle down with only her. It started way before then, when I didn’t recognize exactly what my heart wanted, nor was I ready to. Her heart doesn’t want the same thing with me, period.
BJ starts to whimper in the background. Blake coos to his infant son, while making the racket that comes from fixing his one-month old’s breakfast at his kitchen sink. I’d recognize the sounds from the making of a bottle in my sleep, after listening to him do it every morning for months.
“How different can love be from running a business?” I ask. “You spend hours with another person, convincing them to put their trust in you. I can do that standing on my head,” I continue.
“You have no idea how different love and trust are. Trust is even harder to pull off, especially when a woman has already decided you’re untrustworthy. I have a bad feeling you’re about to learn the difference today. That’s why I’m all up in your business this morning.”
Being a sheriff has activated hunches that would’ve spared Blake a head injury during a burglary, if the owner of the hotel being raided had stayed out of the commotion. Now, Blake’s a businessman like his parents wanted, and his feelings are being used to investigate my nonexistent love life.
I huff. “You and your feelings, Blake. You were not as subtle as you think you were the other mornings. You can fall back though. After I take Amari on a few trips, focus only on her for a change, and take her to bed, she’ll love me back. What girl wouldn’t, when I can give her everything she wants in and out of the bedroom?”
He scoffs. “So damn arrogant. Screwing her senseless and spending money on her isn’t going to get it. She’s not a gold digger and can deal with less drama from battery-operated boyfriends who women don’t have to wonder about their whereabouts when they’re not in the same room with it. It’s what she needs that’s going to give you the most problems.”
“Man, what does that even mean?”
“Exactly, Camron! You don’t know what it means because you don’t know the first thing about loving anyone. That’s your parents’ fault, so I’ll take pity on you and tell you. What Amari needs from you can’t be placed in a box with a pretty bow on top and delivered or purchased from the corner market.”
“I wouldn’t go to the corner market anyway. Who knows where they get their goods from?”
Blake exhales heavily into the phone. “Oh my God. Who cares where they come from? And it doesn’t matter because you don’t go anywhere to get what she needs, Camron. You reach deep inside, pull out the best of you, and offer it to her no matter where you are. If you’re sincere and she wants what you have to offer, she’ll offer you the same. Now, the second step to getting mutual love and respect: she doesn’t open a door or pull out her own chair ever.”
I’m sure Malisa Owens’ father taught him that because Blake’s father sure as hell doesn’t do any of that for Ashley. If Saleera doesn’t open the door, she doesn’t get in any building either.
“Give the best of me. Open doors for her. Everything I say off the top of my head is wrong. I got it.” I really don’t—reaching deep down isn’t something I’m used to doing, as well as censoring what I say.
I’ll conquer those battlefields for Amari though, even if it kills me. Now, what am I going to do about talking to her? Feel my way through it is going to have to do until I get the hang of loving someone.
The slow creaking of my office door two rooms over echoes softly through the quiet in the bedroom and bathroom.
Amari.
“Got to go, Blake. Amari’s trying to sneak in with a contract that needs my attention. If I don’t catch her, she’ll drop it on my desk and run. She might actually hide somewhere other than the copier room this time, and it’ll take more than a shout or a couple steps to find her.”
Blake’s healthy laughter punches me in the ear. “Best of luck to you, cousin. You’re going to need it. Over and out.”
At least someone is enjoying the difficulty I’m experiencing at Amari’s hand. She’s proving harder to pin down than the wind.
Part 3
The Contracted Lovers
Chapter One
A few minutes earlier
~Amari~
Dreading, resenting, and hiding, all of which I’m doing right now between two file cabinets, is how I spend my work days at Powers Enterprises, and during business trips with my boss. The dread originates from wondering if I’ll come to work one day and find him balls deep in a random woman in the corner office that we share, instead of behind the side wall that hides his bedroom and ensuite bathroom. Yes, he actually sleeps and bathes there to avoid getting up at the butt-crack of dawn for the forty-mile commute from his suburban mansion. He’d never get here on time with the horrendous morning traffic.
It’s the other conveniences the secret room behind the wall provides that he doesn’t take advantage of: blocking his kissing and fondling sessions with women at his desk from my sight. When he’s in the middle of one, I have a horribly dependable knack for needing to get in the office. Walking in on him having sex is all that’s left for him to do in front of me, and it’s coming, sooner or later. I’m avoiding that for as long as I can.
Resentment for his highly inappropriate behavior in the workplace, how uncomfortable it makes me feel, and being too accustomed to the lifestyle that my job enables to quit has been growing since I accepted the position as his personal assistant over five years ago. The mistake of thinking I’d struck gold when I was called in to interview for the position, which I didn’t apply for but stupidly accepted when he offered me an obscene amount of money yearly, would become apparent quickly.
Dumb enough to develop a crush on him at first sight before he said anything about money, I will never admit to out loud. Although, I have a damn good excuse for the short-term attraction I felt: Mr. Powers is gorgeous, beyond rich, has an Italian accent, and is brilliant when it comes to making money. What girl wouldn’t go goo-goo eyed over him? Especially when tall, dark, and handsome is too lame of a description for him.
Inky-black eyelashes, dark, oval eyes. They stand out from chiseled facial features covered in smooth, olive skin. His deceptively lean build is assembled of muscles formed and maintained by daily martial arts workouts in the rec room complete with pool. On the top floor of the building is where he hones the air of a predator surrounding his hand-tailored suits, an unbreathable fog that women succumb to by the dozens, happily. Not me of course.
He doesn’t walk but stalks wherever he goes. Renowned for his business acumen, he’s often asked to do speaking engagements all over the world about his success in the real estate industry. Except, no one speaks about how he ran through personal assistants and women like a starving wolf does meat before I was hired. That’s because anyone who has any knowledge of his actions can’t discuss them openly. I signed a nondisclosure agreement too, before I realized why he needed it.
Only a few days in his employ passed before he showed me his true nature—a man whore who’s impolite as hell. Thank God that he outed himself before I fell in love with him. Since then, I’ve spent most of my days ducking him in the copier room that’s two doors down from his brothel... or uh, office, whenever I can. Although he wouldn’t ever allow me to make the copier room my personal office, I sure as hell try, every day. Don’t know why though. Other than it’s as far as I can get from him while still in shouting distance, it doesn’t do me any justice when his secretary, Sheryl Wright, can always track me down there whenever she needs to pass something off to him.
The regretful expression she wears every time she has to feed me to the lion in its den is why I consider her a friend. She can’t help Mr. Powers is constantly buying up dirt cheap property globally, flipping it to make a hefty profit, so I don’t take it personal when she shows up wit
h something pertaining to his business that I have to take straight to him. However, coming out of the copier room for reasons other than going home for the day is just as much dreaded as finding him screwing somebody.
But, oh how I wish I had every right to lock the door before Sheryl starts the downward spiral of my day with the soft rapping of bluntly-shaped manicured nails on it. Then she barges in, in beautifully-cut skirt suits before I can tell her to go away. At least, she gives me some warning. Everyone else just walks in whenever they need to use the copy machine, which is their right. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, especially not when it’s Mr. Powers who’s gotten down off his throne long enough to look for me himself. It’s too bad that I don’t have another place to hide after paperwork has landed on Sheryl’s desk stationed right outside his office.
Instead of slipping the forms under the door for him to find, she slides them and her pity across the closest file cabinet’s top to me. When I think about it, she’ll probably get fired for making him bend over to pick them up, if she put them under his door. I even tried ducking down once after she knocked. She took the time to look for me between my iron havens. Now, I just beg her to take the freshly-typed contracts for another Powers’ acquisition or payroll sheets to him herself, even though it’s my job to stand between him and his other employees.
Whenever she gives in to my pleas, and that’s not frequently, it doesn’t do either of us any good. Mr. Powers makes her turn right back around, with instructions for her to bring me to him, too. I get a few more minutes of peace though, so the begging is worth it.
On the really bad days, when I rather face off with a spitting cobra than be here, because I know he’s entertaining a woman, and Sheryl refuses to enter his inner sanctum, she starts giving suggestions about what I might find when I do. Bare asses are usually included in her description. I haven’t seen one yet, but she always gets my middle-finger for her jokes. Then she laughs her ass off, while I slink toward his office.
