by Dale Cadeau
“How did you get into investments after the army? It doesn’t seem to be something that would go together.” James had to think fast at her question. He really didn’t know too much about investing and with her quick mind, he was sure that she would pick up anything that sounded wrong.
“My brother made a name for himself while I was gone. Since I didn’t want to be a cop like Dad, I thought I would give it a go.” James gritted his teeth at his next statement. “My brother taught us everything we know. We are very grateful to him.”
“Who’s your brother? Maybe I’ve heard of him.”
“Nosy much?” James couldn’t lie about this, she already knew his last name and Avery was smart, she would put it together soon.
“His name is Chase Braden. He has an investment firm on the other side of town.” James couldn’t stop the pride sounding in his voice. His brother was a pain, but he was still proud of all he had accomplished.
“Oh, I heard of him. Isn’t he some golden child when it comes to investments? Didn’t he make his first million before he was twenty-five?”
“Yes, that’s him.” At James’s answer Avery had a fascinated look on her face.
James was starting to feel very uncomfortable the way the conversation was going. He had to get her back on track and talking about herself.
“Why aren’t you working for him uptown? If I was a millionaire I would take care of my family,” Avery asked again, taking him away from his thoughts.
“Oh, he does help us other ways, just not money. The guys, me included, wanted to do it ourselves. By the way, you didn’t tell me what your parents did for a living?” James tried to get her off the subject of his family and turn the conversation back to hers.
Avery threw her napkin on her plate and reached for her purse. “I think it’s time that we leave. It’s a long drive back to the office. I don’t know about you but I’m getting sleepy.” Covering a fake yawn, Avery escaped James’s question.
James looked at Avery. She didn’t fool him. She wasn’t tired, just tired of the questions. He would let it go for now. Signaling the waitress, James asked for the tab.
The long drive back to the office was done in quiet. The only sound was the soft sounds of the jazz station on the radio. As he drove through the night, James wondering how he could break down her barriers.
Avery was trying to think of ways to avoid telling him more.
Avery didn’t want to tell James anything else about her family. She was really starting to like him when he wasn’t so bossy, and her job was a dream. While she didn’t want to lie to him, she didn’t want him to look at her the way most people did after knowing that her parents were involved in drug distribution. He seemed to like her so maybe she could distract him with sex. Most guys, when sex came into play, stopped asking questions. Yes, that’s what she’d do. She really didn’t have the first idea how to seduce a man, but hopefully he would take the hint without her having to do too much. Avery opened the first two buttons of her top and let a little skin show.
James looked over at Avery sitting silently beside him, every now and then biting her lower lip. He could tell her brain was working a mile a minute thinking of ways to put off telling him about her family. Watching her start to fidget, he watched her reach up and unbutton her top.
Oh, that was the way she was going to play it. He would just have to show her that she didn’t run the show. Parking the car in front of the office, James rounded the front and opened the door for her. Helping her out, he noticed she wasn’t meeting his eyes, but made quite a show of stretching her long legs before taking his hand and standing up. Looking shyly up at James, Avery raised her hand to the open v of her blouse, drawing attention to her creamy skin. Oh, James looked, but there was no way James was taking the bait.
Reaching the bottom of the steps leading up to her apartment, James gently turned her, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. Avery’s startled eyes looked up at him.
“Aren’t you coming up?” Avery asked James, wetting her dry lips.
“No, little one, at the restaurant you mentioned you were tired.” Turning her back around to the stairs, her patted her ass and told her to get some sleep.
Avery walked up the stairs with her head looking backward, watching James walk down the hall into his office. Well, that went well. I guess I’m not sexy enough. I guess I got my signals mixed up. Maybe I was a one-night stand. Maybe this was his way of soften the blow by taking me out to dinner. A pity date.
James sighed as he closed his office door. Another night on the couch. He would have to think about expanding into the next building, if this went on much longer, and make himself an apartment. He wasn’t spending any time at his penthouse on the other side of town with wanting to keep an eye on Avery. Tonight he had thought he would be spending it in her bed, but he wanted her to trust him with everything. He could see she still didn’t when she evaded his questions at the restaurant with her fake yawn. She also had to learn that he called the shots when it came to sex, not her. His unruly cock had been at half-mast, raring to go since he picked her up. Tonight would just be another night he took himself in hand.
She was the only one James wanted since he had seen her, but she was not going to lead him around by his cock. They would both have to learn. James moved his cock into a more comfortable position in his pants before he sat on the couch and took his shoes off.
James was not used to going without. He always had a willing woman whenever he needed one. He knew his looks helped, but with a last name shared with Chase—the golden child—they all assumed he had the same bank account. James couldn’t be bothered to correct them. Those kind of women were a dime a dozen and James was tired of a revolving bed. He wanted someone just for him, someone to come home to every night. Six months ago, he would have shuddered at the thought of only one woman. But after seeing Avery, he knew he was hooked. She just seemed to reach something inside him, something he didn’t even know he had been missing or searching for. Being with her, he felt at peace. He wanted to wrap her up and keep her only for himself. He found he could be a very possessive man. He was even jealous of Clay’s easy repose with her. Throwing his jacket off, he lay on the couch.
Chapter Fourteen
James was woken the next morning from his less-than-comfortable sleep with yelling coming from the reception area. Sitting up quickly, he reached under his pillow and grabbed his gun.
Quickly he walked and opening his office door, James took in the scene going on in the front sitting area. Avery was standing behind her desk with her arms waving and pointing at the door, yelling at Danny to get out. Danny was leaning on the front door with a wide smeary grin on his face.
“You’ve come up in the world, haven’t you, sweetheart? Do you think you’re too good for us now? You move out of your apartment and start living with a bunch of men. If I would have known you were like that, me and the guys would have moved in with you.” He turned and laughed at his buddies standing behind him just outside the door.
“You get out of here. I’m not that kind of person, I work here, and that’s all.” A spitting-mad Avery was now standing behind her desk, still shaking her finger at Danny.
“Sure, doll, but what kind of work do you do? You can’t be that dumb to think a business like this would start up in this area and not be just a front for the usual business that goes on around here. Come on, doll, you’ve probably seen the deals being held in the back alley.
“That’s why I’m here. Nobody steps on my turf. I can’t have these guys taking my business away. I have a reputation around this area as the guy to come to when you need a little fix. These dudes have to be made to understand that. We’re here to make them see sense, that’s all.” Danny, with a bold jaunt to his walk, was now coming into the office, the others starting to trail in behind him.
James stepped out of his office wearing only his pants, bare chest rippling, and holding his gun pointed at Danny. “Danny, didn’t you get our message
the last time we met? I’m sure Angel has sharpened his knife again so maybe you could get the point this time.”
“I’m not stupid. I checked out the place before I came. Only you and Avery are here. Are you going to try and shoot me?” Danny slowly inched closer to Avery as he watched James holding the gun on him. The next minute, before Avery knew what was happening, Danny leaped and grabbed her around her waist. Avery lost her breath at Danny’s tight grip and her eyes bugged out in fright.
James clenched his free hand into a tight fist. He knew his hands were tied. He couldn’t make a move and not hurt Avery at the same time.
James looked out the front door, a smile suddenly coming across his face. James could see through the glass door. Angel and Clay had the other guys of Danny’s group herded into a circle with their hands held up. They must have been out there behind the group all the time Danny was making his speech and grabbed them as he rushed in and seized Avery.
Looking back at Danny, James spread both of his arms out, sweeping the front office space. “Did you notice your gang is no longer with you?”
Danny looked through the door and blanched. He pulled Avery even closer to him and waved the gun that he must have had hidden. “You let them go and I’ll give you Avery. We only came here to talk to you. You didn’t have to start things by bringing a gun into it.”
James assessed the situation. He knew Avery was scared, but he could also see that Danny was more bark than bite. “OK, let’s both put our guns away and we’ll have that talk you want.”
“You go first,” Danny shouted, waving his gun around again. “And what about my guys? Tell those dudes to let them go.”
James looked at Angel and nodded before laying his gun on the carpet to one side of his office door. Knowing that Angel was keeping Danny in his sight, he could count on Angel having a knife in him faster than Danny could pull his trigger, long before he would have time to hurt Avery. Danny pushed Avery to the side of her desk and slowly laid his gun down on the top of it.
“OK, let my guys go. We don’t want any of this shit, we just have to talk about the territories around here and this one is ours. You can’t—”
James raised his hand, stopping Danny in midsentence. “Why don’t we take this into my office?”
Angel and Clay were escorting, well, shoving, the others in front of them into the building.
Danny, getting Dutch courage from having his gang around, went to pick up his gun but Angel’s knife got there first before he could touch it, just missing Danny’s hand. The knife embedded itself in the wood beside the gun.
“You leave that alone. You can have it back after the meeting.” Danny looked into Angel’s glowing black eyes, then looked at his hand that was almost cut off, and folded. James turned, leading Danny and his gang into his office. Clay and Angel followed, still holding their lowered guns at their sides.
James could almost feel the steam coming out of his ears. He was holding himself on a tight leash. Watching Danny grab Avery had made him want to beat the shit out of the little punk. If it wasn’t for the gun in Danny’s hand, James probably would have rushed him and done just that. He knew he could have gotten to Danny before he could have done any harm. But one look at Avery and he knew his hands were tied. She looked scared to death and would probably panic and get herself shot before he could reach her. He couldn’t take the chance, so he had gritted his teeth, promising himself that Danny would pay for manhandling his woman. Walking behind his desk, James sat down stiffly and could feel his hands clench back into fists. Oh God, he wanted one moment alone with this punk. He didn’t want to sit here and talk to him. Clay and Angel were the last ones through the door. Clay turned and locked it while Angel kept his eyes on the group.
“Are you the boss?” Danny spewed at James with one hand on the desk, leaning over into James’s personal space.
Clay stepped forward. He knew James was close to losing it. “I’m the boss, but James can speak for all of us. Now, why don’t you tell us what your problem is?”
Danny stood up from his slouch and looked back at Clay. “You’re horning in on my turf. Yous can’t just come into this area and take over. There are territories and this is ours. Everyone knows if you want or need anything to come to us. Now you have some of our customers coming to you. Sez you have better prices and that’s just not right. I don’t want to go to Carlos, but I will if yous don’t listen. We can keep this friendly between ourselves, just clear out and we’ll keep him out of this. We see him every two months when he collects his cut. He’s got ears in this neighborhood and will soon get wind of the deals yous have already done and will come after his cut. He doesn’t take kindly to greedy dealers, if you get my drift. Clear out and I won’t say a thing.” Danny stopped to catch his breath.
He sounded more like a whiny kid than a drug dealer, James thought to himself. He kept his face blank when Danny mentioned Carlos. He didn’t want Danny to have a hint they knew about the dealer.
“Carlos? I never heard of him. We don’t share with anyone. This is our business and if you want to tell this Carlos, go ahead. We have dealt with worse,” Clay spoke, playing the heavy. Clay wanted Danny to keep talking. Maybe they could get a bead on where Carlos made his pickups.
Danny put his hands in the pockets of the jeans that were hanging off his ass. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, man. This guy is a real mean dude and has the backing to prove it. We’ll just leave now and see how you handle him. I would be very interested to watch your big mouth taken down.” Danny looked around at his gang and nodded toward the door.
“We’ll just see who is left standing when Carlos finds out. I’m sure it won’t be you.” Danny and his gang started to leave the office with smirks on their faces.
Angel unlocked the door and stepped through before them, another knife poised in his hand. His eyes never left them as he watched them file past Avery’s empty desk. Danny stopped long enough to pick up his gun, hiding it in his belt, and left, following the others.
Angel, after he was sure that they had left, stepped back in and closed James’s office door. Leaning on it, he folded his knife and put it away in the hidden sheath in his boot. “Well I think we’ll have Carlos’s attention now. Danny’s probably making a call as we speak.”
James stood up, trying to get his anger under control. It hadn’t subsided with Danny’s leaving. Walking to the side board, he slid a panel open with shaky hands and poured them all a drink. He knew it was early when Clay and Angel both raised their eyebrows at him, but took their glasses anyway. Clay sat on the couch and Angel resumed leaning against the door.
“Let’s find out more about when Carlos does his pickups and get a plan together. When we have it set up, we’ll inform the Feds and they can take him down. It will be one less headache for us to deal with. Maybe we should let Avery in on this plan, in a very small way, mind you. We don’t want her in any danger. But it just might get Avery to start believing and trusting us. This just might be the opening we’ve been waiting for.”
“I think you’re making a mistake,” Clay said from his seat on the couch, his drink untouched. “Avery is too smart. She will put the pieces together when we bring in the Feds. It won’t take her long to leap to the conclusion we are looking into her. I know you want to get this whole thing over and clear her, but if this was any other client, you wouldn’t take this chance and blow our cover. Think, man, with your head, and I mean the one on the top of your shoulders. We all like Avery, you know that. You seem to be making progress getting closer to her. Let’s just let it play out a bit longer. As soon as Danny tells Carlos that she’s with us, he will be thinking we are also after the stash of drugs her father hid. We can’t allow ourselves to go off half-cocked now.”
James slumped back in his chair. He hadn’t taken a sip of his drink either. Who was he kidding? It wouldn’t help. Rubbing his hand wearily over his face, he looked at Clay, then at Angel still holding the door up. “I just want Avery as f
ar away as she can be from this stuff. I think we should tell her, but OK, we’ll play it your way. But we’ll have to be even more on guard now that Carlos will know we’re here, thumbing our nose at him, and that we have Avery. Let’s get her in here and think of something that will make sense to her.”
Angel shrugged, opened the door, and gestured for Avery to step in. After watching Danny leave, she had returned to her desk from the kitchen where she had fled. Angel never did have much to say, but he agreed that they would have to be extra vigilant in the future. Clay and James seemed to be fixated on Carlos, but Angel had a feeling that Danny could also be a real threat when backed into a corner, like they had done to him today.
Avery meekly crossed the threshold of James’s office. Taking in the solemn faces looking back at her, her nervousness increased. She expected the look from Angel, he never had much of an expression on his face at any time, but on the others, it bothered her. James met her halfway and sat her down in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Avery, we think it’s time for you to know what’s going on here.”
Avery straightened her back, preparing for the worst. Had she been right all this time? “If it’s drugs, I don’t want to hear and I don’t want anything to do with it.” James’s hand clamped her shoulder down to stop her from bolting from the room.
“Yes, it does concern drugs, but not in the way you’re thinking. I would like to think by now that you know us a bit, that you would give us the benefit of a doubt and listen to what we have to say before you make any decisions. The investment firm is only part of our job.” James clamped down on Avery once more.
