by Tessa Bailey
Yuck.
“The iPhone doesn’t operate under mind control, Ro,” Oliver said. “You operate it manually. Archaic, I know.”
“Sorry,” Caroline said, quickly selecting Lady Gaga and placing the iPhone back in the cupholder. “So…are you still seeing Holly?”
“Holly?” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Oh, Holly. No, no. We only went on a couple of dates, but then she bought the cat.”
“Getting a cat was a reason to stop seeing her?”
“She attached an engagement ring to his collar and had him delivered to my office. Along with a written marriage proposal.”
“O-kay. Sayonara, Holly.”
Oliver grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s what I get for breaking my one-date rule. Anyway, I have a date with Nina the ballerina tonight. Just the one date.”
Caroline smiled out the passenger window. “You’ve always been a sucker for rhymes. Didn’t you date Sally O’Malley in high school?”
“Sure I did.” She caught his wink reflected in the glass. “Often, too.”
This was why she loved her brother. No matter what was happening in their personal and professional lives, they were still friends. She should just bring up the article. If he was laughing with her, how bad could the conversation be? She started to talk, but Oliver cut her off.
“So, if you had to guess, how big is the brick our father is shitting right now?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“Sorry, but this is just too poetic.” Oliver’s white teeth flashed as he smiled. “Since your article went live, the IT crew has been working around the clock because our website keeps crashing. Our subscriptions have doubled.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “You might have been pretty noncommittal, but this proves people are curious. And buying.”
Caroline massaged her forehead, but it did nothing to clear her jumbled thoughts. The article had been a success? That was…unexpected. “It’s just morbid curiosity. I doubt anyone is taking it seriously. How many readers have canceled their subscriptions?”
“Significantly less than have subscribed.” His expression held none of the I told you so that it should have. Her brother didn’t have that mentality, but it was there between them nonetheless. Was it possible that he’d been right all along? That their readership could be open to more risqué subject matter?
Look at your punishment, Caroline. You’ve displeased your master.
She wanted to tear her hair out. Why wouldn’t those words leave her alone? After their encounter in the limousine, she’d returned to her office only to be plagued by his scent, killing her concentration. When she’d shuffled aside some papers, she’d found the package of licorice he’d left behind. Instead of throwing it away as she should have, she’d brought it home and placed it on her dining room table, leaning down to sniff the package when she couldn’t resist anymore.
Really, she should be worried about herself. Possibly seeking professional help. If it were simply a physical craving, Caroline could have abandoned her moral high ground and gone back for more by now. But the more Jonah revealed to her, the more she cast aside her own beliefs, and that scared her. The big bad Dom she’d created in her mind was also an unwitting father fighting for the chance to know his child. His plight pulled at her, forced her to see Jonah bathed in a different light. Had his visitation case been affected by her article? Her instincts begged her to find out, to comfort him and make it right.
No. She needed to stay the course. Focus on her investigation into Joseph Kimble’s Ponzi scheme and work on catapulting Preston’s back into relevance—without compromising her father’s vision. Saving her family’s publication needed to be foremost in her mind. Not the man who was somehow ruling her body and mind from a distance.
“This doesn’t guarantee the merger,” she finally managed. “It’s too soon to make a decision.”
Her brother nodded, as if he’d expected that. A heavy pause ensued before he spoke again. “I’m not going to ask how you knew about what happens upstairs,” he said quietly. “Just tell me you’re being careful.”
“I am,” she forced past lips that felt numb.
She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally pulled up in front of their father’s house. Oliver drove through the wrought-iron gate and turned into the long, paved driveway. Their father had bought the enormous house in Garden City, Long Island, the very same day Adele, their mother, told him she was pregnant with Oliver. Both she and Oliver were raised inside its walls and, as always, the sight of her childhood home brought on a wave of nostalgia. Posing for pictures outside the front door every single first day of school. Oliver, attempting to sneak out through his window in the middle of the night and getting his pants stuck in the trellis. Seeing her first car parked in the driveway, the one she’d worked two summers to afford. Despite the family’s financial health, there had been no freebies in the Preston household. Laziness or entitled attitudes had not been tolerated.
She stepped out of the car and took a deep breath. Since her mother’s death five years earlier, the house had fallen into a mild state of disrepair. Much like the magazine. Of course, her father had felt the pinch in his wallet—they all had—but Caroline suspected he just didn’t have the same willpower to deal with upkeep. Without his wife to keep happy, he seemed to view the house as shelter and little more, even rejecting her offers to arrange repairs. Her father’s lack of drive saddened her, but she understood. Losing her mother to cancer had affected them all. Regardless of how often they saw their father in the office every day, she and Oliver always made a point to visit him on the weekends. It went along with their efforts to keep family separated from business.
Philip opened the door and stepped aside to let them in. “You two again?”
Oliver grabbed the paper bag full of assorted bagels and cream cheese from the backseat and shut the door. “Someone has to feed you, old man.”
Her father held up a hardcover book. “I feast on words, son. They alone sustain me.”
Caroline hid her smile, knowing her father, a self-proclaimed literary snob, hadn’t meant his comment as a joke and would be offended if she laughed. Oliver, on the other hand, never missed a chance to needle him.
“I read Playboy for the articles all the time.”
Their father snorted. “So that’s where our readership has gone.”
“Any time you want to borrow an issue—”
“Let me stop you both right there,” Caroline broke in. “The enjoyment of my sesame seed bagel hinges on me retaining an appetite.”
All three of them entered the house, walking toward the kitchen where they spent the bulk of their visits, leaning on the marble island sipping coffee. Just as she crossed the threshold into the disorganized kitchen, her father pulled her to a halt. She turned with a questioning look.
“Oliver, I need a moment with your sister.” Her father nodded in the direction of his home office, just across the foyer. “Go ahead and set up all that nonsense. We’ll be right back.”
She and her brother went still, staring at each other. Oliver’s usual self-assuredness wavered for a split second before he got it back in place, slaying Caroline where she stood. They both knew that tone from their father, and it meant he wanted to discuss business. And Oliver wasn’t invited. It was on the tip of Caroline’s tongue to question her father, something she never did, but Oliver gave her a firm nod, a silent communication that he was fine with their private meeting. Her brother was lying, but she would never call him on it in front of their father, and he knew that.
“No promises there will be any bagels left when you get back,” Oliver said over his shoulder, digging through the paper bag where it sat on the counter.
Once they were enclosed in the office, Caroline turned to her father. “Is everything…okay?”
He tossed the hardcover onto his desk and released a heavy sigh. “Yes and no.”
Caroline sat slowly, very aware at that moment that thi
s was the same room where she’d been told her mother had cancer. “All right.”
Her father propped a hip on his desk, a move that reminded her so much of Oliver. “As you know, we have the final vote in a couple weeks on your brother’s proposal. While your article might have boosted our numbers and earned us some new subscribers, I believe we can chalk it up to rubbernecking. Not the promise of a new business model. I have no doubt the vote will still go as expected.”
He gave her a knowing look, so confident in her rejection of Oliver’s hard work that it made her feel slightly ill. Was she so predictable? Not lately, she decided, thinking of Jonah and immediately regretting it when her pulse kicked up. Focus.
“Right.” She nodded once, already having suspected her father wouldn’t change his position even after the splash her article had made. “So you want to talk about the merger vote now? We should bring in Oliver—”
He cleared his throat. “Caroline, I plan to announce my retirement the same day.”
“Retirement?” She shot to her feet. “B-but…we’re in the middle of…Dad, there might be nothing left to retire from.”
“I realize the timing could be better.” He encompassed the room with a weary look. “I have a lot of time to think. Out here by myself. It’s become obvious to me that Preston’s is sinking because I’m still running it like I did forty years ago.”
Caroline sat back down slowly, positive her shock was showing on her face. Her father rarely, if ever, admitted to mistakes. And never in regards to his management of Preston’s. “So we make some changes. This is good. There’s no need to abandon ship, Dad.”
He shook his head. “I’ve eaten the same thing for lunch every day since we printed our first issue. I can’t even get on board with Casual Friday. There’s no hope of me changing now. I don’t have it in me.”
She swallowed heavily, trying to keep her emotions in check. “So you’re just giving up?”
“Of course not.” Her father pushed off the desk to stand in front of her. “I’m putting Preston’s in your hands, Caroline. I know I’m leaving you with a mess, but you’re the only one I trust to maintain the vision I created, even as you modernize.” He glanced at the door. “I love you and Oliver equally. You know that. But he’s irresponsible. His party days don’t appear to be ending any time soon, and that image will hurt the magazine. He’ll turn Preston’s into something I’d be…ashamed to have my name on. I know you would never do that.”
Caroline waited for the euphoria to spread through her chest, her limbs…but it never came. Here she sat, trust and honor being bestowed on her from her father. This chance was everything she’d worked for and never expected. But she could only think of Jonah and what they’d done. How she would now be even more responsible for condemning his world by voting against her brother. Hypocrite. When she spoke, her voice sounded far away. “For the record, I think you’re wrong about Oliver. His idea might be wrong for the magazine, but he would never do anything to make you ashamed.”
He acknowledged that with a nod. “That might have been too strong a word.” When he placed a steady hand on her shoulder, Caroline forced herself back to reality. “I have every confidence in you. You’re going to make me proud.”
Chapter Twelve
Jonah leaned back in his leather armchair, security monitors glowing around him. Ever since he’d been forced to replace Serve’s manager thanks to the man’s lapse in judgment in allowing the messenger to gain access to his apartment vestibule, he’d been working around the clock. Part of him wondered if his lack of contact with Caroline since their afternoon in the limousine had spurred his debatably drastic action and decided, yes, it probably had. Honestly, if Caroline hadn’t been there, Jonah didn’t think he would have been quite so angry. She’d been placed at risk due to his manager’s actions. He’d been incapable of letting it go unaddressed.
In the absence of his manager, he’d decided to promote from within, giving one of his longest-standing employees a temporary promotion, but he didn’t feel comfortable with a new person at the helm just yet. Everything appeared to be running smoothly in the club tonight, but where would he go if he left the room? The empty apartment upstairs or the one in Brooklyn?
No matter where he went, he would think of Caroline. Every time he closed his eyes, she was there. Standing in his bedroom naked, save for a skimpy pair of red panties. Bending forward to present him with her ass, that lacy black thong hiding all her secrets. God, something about the way she wore panties, riding low on her hipbones, the material fitting snugly over her pussy, leaving no mystery as to what was beneath…it was enough to move a man to tears. On the heels of that image came her unforgettable ass in the air, begging for a slap from his paddle as she called him Master. Hell, picturing her fully clothed, simply talking to him while she fiddled with her glasses, made him hard.
The sexy, elusive, mouthy intellectual had done a fucking number on him.
Jonah sat forward as a familiar blonde moved across the main monitor and sat down at the downstairs bar, effectively interrupting his licentious thoughts. It took him no time at all to place her. She’d been with Caroline that first night at the club. He made a sound of disgust when he realized he’d been eagerly scanning behind her for any sign of Caroline. Where’s your pride, man?
His gaze narrowed as she ordered a drink, downed it in one shot, and ordered another immediately. Having been fascinated by Caroline that first night, he hadn’t paid the blonde much attention, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the girl was on a mission to get plastered. Having been there in the past, he recognized the signs. Every so often, she would turn in her seat as if looking for somebody, shoulders slumping in disappointment when she presumably didn’t find him. As far as he knew, she hadn’t submitted any paperwork to be allowed upstairs. So what was she doing here?
Suddenly, she jolted off her stool, swayed on her feet, and began stumbling her way through the crowd, attempting to keep her chin raised resolutely. Jonah knew without a doubt she was headed for the elevator to bring her upstairs. It occurred to him that Caroline might have confided in her friend about their relationship and felt a wave of satisfaction over the possibility. Did the blonde think she could drop Caroline’s name and get a free pass upstairs? Not likely. She was visibly drunk. Not to mention, something about her current demeanor didn’t sit right.
Coming to a quick decision, Jonah grabbed the phone and called down to one of his security guards. “Hey. There’s a blonde headed your way. She’s wearing bright yellow. Can’t miss her.” He waited for the grunt of confirmation. “Keep her there. I’ll be right down.”
Jonah reached for his phone to make a second call then, slightly annoyed by the anticipation slithering through his gut. Just the idea of hearing her husky voice in his ear made him growl a little in the semi-darkness. Would the memories of how she’d submitted to him not once but twice be obvious in her voice, or would she be a good enough liar to hide it?
She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
Hiding it, huh? Not if he could help it. “Sweetheart. It’s been days.”
Her breath hitched at his tone, just audibly enough for him to hear. “Why are you calling? It’s late.”
“It’s nine thirty.”
Caroline grumbled. “Not enough people subscribe to the nine o’clock cutoff anymore.”
Jonah smiled against the phone, but it faded fast. “Did I catch you in the middle of something?”
“Maybe.”
“Caroline,” he warned, in a tone he knew she would correctly interpret. One he wished to use on her a hell of a lot more.
A long pause ensued before her sigh echoed through the phone. “I’m watching Iron Chef.”
Some of the tension drained from his body, but most of it stayed. The picture she’d unwittingly painted of her stretched out on a couch in pajamas made him wish like hell they were in the same room. “What’s today’s secret ingredient?”
“M
angos,” she answered, clearly not pleased. “Why are you calling, Jonah? I’m not agreeing to any more sightseeing trips around the city.”
His jaw tightened at her brisk dismissal. The fact that she clearly wanted nothing to do with him. God, if she were standing in front of him, he would prove her ten kinds of wrong. “Be that as it may, you might want to get down here. Your friend, the one who accompanied you the first night, is here. She’s had a lot to drink and—”
“What? Eliza?”
“I don’t know her name—”
He could hear her running. “Th-the blond Alexis Bledel look-alike.”
“—nor do I know who that is.” He laughed under his breath. “What is with you and matching people up with celebrities?”
A door slammed. “I don’t know. Just a nervous habit or something.”
“Who am I?” Jonah asked curiously, enjoying the fact that in her distracted state, she wasn’t weighing and measuring every word that came out of her mouth.
“Um…you? You stumped me for while.”
“But?”
“A young Marlon Brando. Circa On the Waterfront.”
Jonah’s lips edged into a smile. In the background, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of New York City traffic.
“I’m getting into a cab now. Be there in a few.”
“Be safe.”
“Hmm.” She called out Serve’s location to the cab driver. “And Jonah? Thank you.”
He kept the phone to his ear a full minute after she’d hung up.
…
A security guard met Caroline outside of Serve and led her through the writhing bodies on the dance floor to Jonah’s private elevator. She rode it alone, cringing at how her ancient gray T-shirt and faded black leggings looked in the harsh fluorescent light. In her haste to leave the apartment, she hadn’t bothered to change, nor had she paid attention to which footwear she’d jammed her feet into.
