After showering together, and dressing together, Alex buckled his belt, looked Kari over, and smiled. “I’ve got to get back,” he said, “but you take your time. Stay in here the whole trip back if you prefer. Or do whatever you want. Nobody will bother you.”
Kari smiled. “Okay, thanks,” she said.
But something was bothering her. Alex saw it in her eyes. “What is it?” he asked.
“About that contract, Alex,” Kari said.
Alex stared at her. Was she about to ask for a favor, the way every woman he’d ever slept with had? Was she about to ask to be placed at the head of the line? Or for him to not even have a line, and just give the contract to her? Had he read her completely wrong???
“What about the contract?” he asked her.
“No, thanks,” she said.
Alex was perplexed. “What do you mean?”
Kari had given this considerable thought as soon as she decided to let him go there with her. “I can’t,” she said.
“You can’t what, Kari?” he asked.
“It would be fantastic,” she said, “but I can’t . . .” She looked him in his eyes. “You need to take me out of contention.”
Alex stared at her. He hadn’t expected to hear that! He was blown away. “Why?” he asked her.
“Why? Because I slept with you, Alex. I just knocked myself out of the running. I can’t accept a contract after doing something like this. It’ll be all kinds of wrong, and that’s not what I’m about anymore. I’m trying to live right. I fail most of the time, but I’m trying. It would have been great.” He’d never know how great! “But no. Give it to somebody who haven’t slept with you. Award it to somebody who earned it the right way.”
Alex was stunned. Was she for real? He’d never met anybody like her. Not ever. A woman who was struggling as it was, but was willing to do the right thing even if it could cost her a lifeline. He just stared at her. He didn’t know what to say. Had he finally met somebody who wasn’t after his money, or his body, or even his contracts?
“I’ve got to go,” he said, and decided to just leave. He was alarmed and surprised and excited, all rolled into one. He didn’t know if he was ready for this. He didn’t know if he could take on a woman like Kari, because he just might, as he had done with every woman before her, break her heart.
And that could very well break his.
Kari knew she wasn’t ready for this, either. She went to the back window inside the bedroom, where she could see a limousine waiting for Alex. He got off the plane and made his way to that limo, with his glide-like walk she was becoming more and more familiar with. He really put it on her right, and not once but twice tonight. She’d never felt so sweet after sex in her life. But it was bittersweet. Her decision to let him go there probably meant the end of what could have been a very nice friendship. Not to mention a lucrative business arrangement for her and her ladies. She liked Alex. He made her feel warm and protected. But her stupid ass; her horny ass, probably ended their relationship.
But when he went to get into the limo, he looked over at his plane again, as if he was still shocked by her decision; as if he figured she was nuts for turning down that great opportunity. And it made her smile. She was crazy, alright, for turning it down. And not like a fox, either. Just crazy!
But as she watched Alex get in that limo, and the limo drove off, that song, Tracy Chapman singing Fast Car, danced in her head:
“I remember we were driving,
Driving in your car.
Speed so fast, felt like I was drunk.
City lights laid out before us
And your arm felt good wrapped ‘round my shoulder.
And I-I-I, had a feeling that I belonged.
I-I-I, had a feeling I could be someone.
Be someone.
Be someone.”
Kari stopped with the dreaming, and the songs dancing in her head, and got out of his magical world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Alex kept his promise. His plane got her back to Apple Valley, and his car and driver got her home. He was off a couple hours, however. Instead of walking through her door around midnight, it was around two am. But she checked on Jordan: he was fast asleep. The house wasn’t in any disarray. She was overall pleased.
But disappointed too.
She sat on the edge of her bed. She’d been to the Big Apple, to New York City, but spent the entire time on a plane, and allowed a man to make love to her that she hardly knew. What happened? Was she that sex starved? It had been a while since she’d had some. That was the truth. But she’d turned down many guys before tonight. Almost all of them, in fact.
But then some smooth-talking billionaire comes along and she opened her legs without hesitation. That was so not her!
But then again, the man she was describing was so not Alex Drakos, either. He was no smooth talker at all. He didn’t have to be. All he had to do was dangle contracts in her face and the whore in her leaped up like a dancer, and grabbed at the chance!
But that wasn’t true, either, she thought, as she fell back on her bed. She was nobody’s whore. And she would have slept with Alex if he didn’t have a dime to his name. She liked him like that. She didn’t know him yet. Not like that. But what she knew, she liked. He just seemed so nice!
But was it worth losing a dream contract? Not that she was a shoo-in to begin with. What company was going to award a small, untested company like hers a major contract like that? But the way he made love to her, better than any man ever had, almost made her want to say yes, it was absolutely worth the loss.
Almost.
Oh, well, she thought, getting up. She couldn’t mourn what she never had. She headed for the tub.
But before she could remove a stitch of clothing, or turn on the water tap, knocks were heard on her front door. Hard, desperate knocks. The kind that caused her heart to immediately begin to pound. It was after two am. It could not possibly be good news this time of morning.
Jordan, whose room was just off from the living room, had just gotten out of bed himself, and was stretching and yarning, as Kari hurried past his bedroom door. “You’re back?” he asked her sleepily. “Who’s at the door?”
“Just wait there,” Kari ordered her teenage son, and hurried to the window on the side of the door. When she saw three police cars in her driveway, and Chief Lindsey at her door, her eyes stretched.
“Open the door, Kari!” Lindsey ordered.
Kari quickly complied.
“Who is it, Ma?” Jordan asked when he saw his mother unlatching the front door. But Kari was too anxious to find out herself to answer any questions. She opened the door.
As soon as she did, Lindsey and his men barged on in.
Kari was puzzled. “What is it, Chief?” she asked.
“There he is!” Lindsey said to his men. “Get him!”
“Get who?” Kari asked, as his men ran past her toward Jordan. Jordan, perplexed too, began backing up. “What are you doing?” Kari yelled. “Leave my son alone!”
Kari was about to go and assist her son, but Lindsey pulled her back.
“What are you doing?” Kari cried when the cops grabbed Jordan and threw him to the floor.
“Ma!” Jordan cried. “Ma!”
“What are you doing?” Kari asked again. Then she turned to Lindsey, who still held her back. “What are they doing?”
“He’s under arrest, Kari,” Lindsey said.
Kari stopped attempting to pull away. “Arrest? For what?”
“Rape,” Lindsey said.
Kari was dumbstruck. “Rape?” she asked. “Jordan?”
“And murder, Kari.” Even the Chief hated to say it.
Kari was floored. She was absolutely baffled. She could not believe it! It was as if the world suddenly stopped making sense at all. Her son and rape and murder in the same sentence?
“Who?” she asked. “Who are you claiming he raped and murdered?”
“The Shuler girl,” Linds
ey said. “Which means it’s going to be a scandal. Get ready.”
“Marvena Shuler was dead? Marvena had been raped? And they think Jordan did it?”
She looked at her son. What in the world was going on? Even he had stopped crying and calling her name as they lifted him up from the ground in handcuffs. He looked defiant now. More angry than surprised. But it couldn’t be. Kari knew it couldn’t be!
“Take him to the station,” Lindsey ordered, as his men began to drag Jordan out of the house.
“Don’t say a word, Jordan,” Kari yelled after him. “Don’t say one solitary word!”
Lindsey turned to leave too.
But Kari had enough still within her to grab Lindsey’s arm and remind him that her son had better not become a punching bag for any of his bloodthirsty men. “Not a hair on his head,” she warned Lindsey with clenched teeth. The street in her was ready to come out that night.
Lindsey stared at her. He was one of the men in town she turned down when he asked her out. He thought she should have been honored that he bothered to ask her, and that she had caught his eye. But she acted as if she was too good for him. Her. A bitch not even that great looking. He snatched his arm away from her, and left.
The door closed behind him, and Kari’s back fell against it. She wanted to slink down to the floor in a total meltdown.
But she thought about her child, and what they said he did to Marvena Shuler. Joe Shuler was a powerful man in Apple Valley, and wouldn’t be above breaking all kinds of laws to get justice for his daughter.
Knowing that, stiffened Kari’s resolve. She had no time for meltdowns.
She hurried to her bedroom, grabbed her keys and cellphone, and called Benny Church, the only lawyer she knew, as she ran out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The first thing Alex wanted to do when he woke up the next morning was to call Kari. It was the strangest reaction he’d ever had to any woman he’d ever slept with before. He knew she made it home safe: he made certain a limo was waiting to drive her home. But he still wanted to phone her.
He didn’t phone her. That would have been too revealing for a cautious man like him. But the fact that he didn’t call was not going to negate the fact that he wanted to.
And by the time he showered and dressed and was in the limo heading to Manhattan, to Drakos Capital, he was thinking about her again. He wished he could have spent all night with her. There was just something about her that made him feel hopeful and even happy. And the way she seemed so interested in him; not in his success, not in his money, but in him, was a different world for Alex.
When she told him to preclude her from consideration in that housekeeping contract, he was dumbstruck. There was no other way to describe it. She was thoughtful enough, and ethical enough, to tell him no. They slept together. That changed everything for her. He couldn’t think of anybody, himself included, who would have turned down the opportunity to win a lucrative contract just because sex was involved.
Then he shook his head. “Special lady,” he found himself saying, as he thought of a way to describe Kari.
“What’s that, Boss?” his bodyguard, Mike, who sat on the passenger seat in the front of the limo, asked him.
Alex smiled. He didn’t mean to speak it out loud! “Nothing,” he said, feeling sheepish.
But then, just as quickly, he spoke again. “Fuck it,” he said out loud, causing Mike to turn around again, as Alex grabbed his cellphone, and called Kari.
But she didn’t answer. The phone rang and rang and then went to her Voice Mail. Alex ended the call. He didn’t leave a message. And he felt embarrassed again. He was all excited about her. But what if she was less so about him? It would be a strange place for Alex to be in. He was usually the pursued, not the pursuer. But this was Kari he was talking about. Nothing worth having, he always said, was going to be easy. Kari was no exception to that rule.
He got out of the limo at the entrance doors of Drakos Capital, entered the crowded lobby, and made his way up to the top floor: to his office as chairman and CEO. His Chief Operating Officer met him at the elevator, and escorted him in.
“The Carmichael Group is connected for the teleconference. The Apple Valley Team is connected for the videoconference. And the board is waiting for the final work on Upshaw.”
“Upshaw is a no,” Alex said as he continued to head for his suite of offices.
“No agreement was reached last night?”
“None.”
The COO opened the door for Alex when they reached his office suite. “They walked away from the bargaining table, or did we?”
“We, of course,” Alex said as he entered.
“Duly noted. I’ll notify the board. Who’s on first?”
“Apple Valley,” Alex said, and entered his office alone.
He removed his suitcoat, walked behind his desk, and placed the coat over his executive chair. He wore black trousers, a white dress shirt, and black-and-white fashionable suspenders. The big screen in his enormous office pulled up, and his team in Apple Valley, Florida, sitting around the conference table in the house he was renting in that town, came onscreen.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Alex said as soon as the team appeared. He stood behind his desk with his hands on his hips.
“Good morning, sir,” said Priska Rahm, the session’s moderator. She couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous Alex looked in those uber-chic suspenders. “You look very refreshing today,” she said.
“I apologize for being unable to return to town last night,” Alex said, “but I’ve got some pressing matters here in New York to attend to. What do you have for me?”
Priska looked at William Beckham, the chief negotiator, to take the lead. “We’ve been running into a few obstacles, sir,” he said. “There’s still resistance.”
“Not good enough. I want this project to succeed, gentlemen. Promise the locals whatever you have to promise them to get this done. I want to expand my brand into this area of business, and I expect you to make it happen. I expect you to earn those paychecks for a change. So don’t talk to me about any fucking obstacles. Talk to me about progress. Now where do we begin?”
“Which area would you like to begin, sir?” William asked. “The legal, the logistics, or the practical area?”
“The who do we need to convince to win enough votes to proceed area,” Alex shot back. “Fuck logistics. Fuck legal. What kind of people are we dealing with?”
Priska looked to Jim Hines, the chief investigator on site. “We’ve already split the town into three camps, sir,” Jim said. “The first are those who oppose the measure, but we believe they can be bought. The second camp is those who oppose the measure, but will require the smearing of dirt, on our part against them, to secure their vote.”
“And the third camp?” Alex asked.
“The never-in-a-million-years camp. The forget-about-it camp. They have no shame, so shame is out of the question: they will not support the measure.”
“Which, as of right now, is the largest group?”
“Those who currently oppose the referendum, but with some promises and a little arm-twisting will come around. That group,” Jim said.
“Then focus on that group first,” Alex said. “In the meantime, get all the dirt we can get on the second group.”
“And the third group, sir?” William asked.
“You guys forget about the forget-about-it group. I’ll handle them.”
The Apple Valley team was pleased. “Yes, sir,” William said, speaking cheerfully for all of them. Maybe this project was what Drakos needed to get out of his funk!
But Priska wasn’t so quick to believe it. Alex was a businessman first. He knew how to handle his business no matter what funk he was in. Even after his son killed himself right before his own eyes, Alex still made his awful daughter pay for her crimes against his empire. She may have gotten a slap on the risk: a two-year jail sentence to be followed by probation. But that was only
because the prosecutor, an older, horny man, had more sympathy for the wide-eyed beauty queen of a daughter, who knew how to bat those big, blue eyes and plead ignorance to any and all crimes, than her own father would ever have. When it came to his business, he was all-business all the time. But Priska knew him, and she knew those men were confusing his devotion to his work, with coming back from the abyss.
They would find out soon enough, she believed, that the new Alex, this unhappy, feet-to-the-grind Alex, might just be here to stay.
“How many of the town’s business owners are onboard?” Alex asked.
“I would say seventy, eighty percent,” William said.
“Not good enough,” Alex said. “What are you people doing? The business community is our biggest asset. We need all of them onboard. Or damn-near all. I’m talking ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent.”
“It hasn’t been easy, sir,” William said. “We’ve had to promise contracts left and right to get the support we do have.”
“Where’s the main resistance? The big businesses?”
“No, sir. We have near-unanimous support in that community. But they are few and far between here in Apple Valley. The ma and pop operations are the mainstays. They’re the ones holding out.”
“Give me a breakdown. What contracts have been promised so far?”
“You name it,” William said. “From catering contracts to concert promotions to housekeeping contracts.”
“Negative on housekeeping,” Alex said. “I’ve got a company already in mind to handle that area.” Kari might have taken her company out of the running, but Alex hadn’t taken her company out of the running. In fact, when she turned down the chance to win that contract, she all but sealed the deal for him.
Alex Drakos: His Forbidden Love Page 12
