by Julie Kriss
Samantha nodded and stood. I heard her follow me the short distance to my door. The lawyers could see us through the glass of the meeting room. They might be wondering what was happening, but I’d forgotten about them.
When we were both inside my office, I didn’t round the desk and sit down. Instead I closed the door and caged her against it with one arm, letting the other drop. She backed up against the door, bumping into it in her surprise. Her lips parted.
“You heard,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“When the Egertons were here. You heard what they said.”
She blinked, and the surprise left her eyes. I was so close I could watch her quickly calculate, the thoughts moving swiftly. “I heard some of it, yes,” she said, her voice cool.
“That’s why you’re pissed at me.”
“I’m not pissed at you.”
I searched for different words. I was so close to her, I could smell her delicate scent. Words weren’t coming easily with that scent in my nose. I’d shrugged off my jacket in the meeting room and loosened my tie, and being in my shirtsleeves in that moment felt almost naked. “You’re not talking to me,” I tried again.
“We’re talking right now.”
Her chin was up, her eyes sparked with quiet defiance. Still, even though I had one of my arms at my side, she didn’t make a move to get away. “It isn’t the same, and you know it,” I said. “Something’s been wrong for days.”
“Why would you think that? You’ve barely been here.”
Were we fighting? I couldn’t tell. “I had things to do.”
“I know. I keep your schedule. Which was suddenly very full.”
“Do you have something to say about my schedule, Samantha?”
“Only that everything became quite urgent as soon as I was worried I was about to get fired. You’d rather avoid me than talk to me about it.”
I looked into her eyes. They were blue, but not a searing blue—more of an understated shade. Her makeup was understated, too, mascara and liner and a light, flattering shadow. My sister was a fashion stylist, and I knew plenty about how women made themselves up. Samantha did it expertly, just as she did everything expertly. I’d never been close enough to see her precise magic before.
“You thought you were going to get fired,” I said. It wasn’t a question. Her words had hit me like a punch in the gut.
She blinked once, looking at me with a trace of scorn. “Of course I thought it. You were set to make a multimillion-dollar deal. Then one of the Egertons made a remark about my ass, and the whole thing was off.”
“That’s what you heard? The ass remark?”
Again, her expression was subtle, but it was there. A wince I was close enough to see. This got to her somehow. Got right under her perfect skin. “Yes,” she said.
So she’d walked away before she heard anything else. “Let’s get the truth out, then,” I said. “He also called you the best pussy in New York. And he said he’d do you.”
She winced again, harder this time. The words hurt her. Oh yes, the Egerton brothers were going to pay. She didn’t speak.
“Does that bother you?” I asked her, not letting up.
“I’m used to it,” she said. “It means nothing.”
“It means nothing, yet it’s bothered you for days.”
“The words don’t bother me,” she gritted out. “It’s the fact that…”
“That what?”
“That he said them to you.”
It was like a slap to the face. I had a sudden understanding of what was wrong with us, and I wanted to rip my own guts out to undo it. “You thought I’d welcome them talking about you like that,” I said. “You thought it would be fine with me.”
“For a second, yes.”
“And it hurt your feelings?”
“Yes, and it made me angry.” She paused, thinking about it. “Furious, actually, because it hurt.”
I felt my hand twitch at my side, but I made myself stay calm. “And then?”
“And then you kicked them out, and I wondered if I’d get fired.”
“Fired for doing nothing but your job?”
That trace of scorn again. “Life isn’t fair, Aidan. If you’d done the deal, Tower would have made a lot of money. So in a way, I cost you millions.”
Money. She thought I gave a fuck about money. Well, maybe she could be excused for thinking that. I certainly made a lot of it. “Okay, you want to talk, I’ll talk,” I said. “No one, and I mean no one, talks about you like that to me. I don’t care who it is. If Steve Jobs comes back from the dead and calls you a piece of ass, I’ll kick him out of this fucking building. Is that clear?”
I heard her slight intake of breath, and she nodded.
I gestured briefly to the door behind her. “If anyone out there gives you any shit, they’re finished. If anyone makes comments about your weight or the way you dress. If any guy asks you out when you don’t want him to. My tolerance is absolute fucking zero. You say you’re used to it, but you aren’t used to it if you work for me.” I made myself say it. “That includes from me. I don’t look at you or talk to you that way, and neither does anyone else.”
She paused for a moment, and then she nodded. She had so much composure, this woman. “Thank you,” she said, her voice calm.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “You can go home for the weekend whenever you want. I’ll see you at the airport on Monday, when we go to Chicago.”
Ten
Samantha
* * *
By Monday, I was a wreck. I tried not to show it; I tried to be calm, professional Samantha Riley. This trip to Chicago should have been routine. After all, I had been on plenty of business trips in my career, sometimes alone, sometimes with my bosses.
None of those men were Aidan Winters.
In the months I’d worked for him we’d only ever been together in the office during business hours, with dozens of people around. We’d never been alone; we’d never even done lunch. Aidan had never suggested it. After the conversation—or was it an argument?—we’d had on Friday, I wondered if that was because he didn’t care to have lunch with me, or because he didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.
My tolerance is absolute fucking zero. That includes from me.
I’d thought a lot about those words as I went about my weekend. They resonated in my brain as I shopped, cooked, did laundry, went to yoga class. I held Warrior One in the tiny, trendy studio I went to at 40th and Tenth, listening to the instructor talk about oils and heart chakras, and I heard Aidan’s voice in my head, saying those words. I thought about how those words made me feel.
They gave me the shivers. I’d never had a boss who took how I was treated so seriously; the usual attitude was It’s a tough business, so get tough or get out. I don’t have time to listen to your complaining. And I was tough—I could fend for myself at work, and I had no problem speaking up. I didn’t need Aidan to defend me. Still, the fact that he was willing to—that he actually had—made me weak in the knees.
But it was the second emotion I felt at those words that threw me for a loop. Because I was disappointed.
I was all the way to Savasana, staring at the ceiling, when I realized why. It was because he’d said I don’t look at you or talk to you that way.
And deep down, I wanted him to.
Even though Aidan was my boss, even though I worked for him in a job for which I was eminently qualified, part of me wanted him to want me. Sitting in the quiet of the yoga studio, I could admit it, at least silently to myself.
This was very, very bad. I hated that Emma was right. I hated that I finally had a boss who treated me with actual respect, and I didn’t want him to. I hated that I was so hypocritical that I expected Aidan not to stare at my ass, yet I had the urge to stare at his. I hated that I spent my yoga class thinking about his hands and his sexy jawline and the ruthless look in his eyes that turned me on. I hated that the idea of traveling alone with h
im, staying in hotels with him, made my heart skip a beat. I hated that the one man who made me hot was the one man who had set down an inalterable, unbreakable rule that he would never touch me.
I walked home from yoga class in a terrible mood. In my apartment, I tossed down my rolled-up mat, stripped, and had a shower. Then I got into bed naked, slipped my hand between my legs, and pictured Aidan Winters until I came so hard I saw stars.
Afterward I stared at the ceiling, just as frustrated as I was before. Then I got up and made dinner.
Eleven
Samantha
* * *
I was at the airport early, but Aidan was earlier. I walked to our gate at La Guardia to see Aidan already there, sitting in one of the hard chairs, his laptop open on his lap. He was somewhat casual, but he was still the Man in Black: he wore black jeans and a black sweater, expensive and molded perfectly to his body. He was clean-shaven, his gaze fixed on the screen in front of him as one hand absently rubbed his chin. He didn’t notice me until I stood in front of him.
He looked up at me and blinked. He’d been so engrossed he was surprised to see me. His dark eyes quickly took in what I was wearing, then looked back to my face again. Right. Because he wasn’t supposed to be looking at me.
I was wearing loose linen-blend pants and a dark gray tank top. I had ballet flats on my feet and a slouchy cardigan wrapped around me like a shawl, my hair tied up in a ponytail. It was an outfit meant to be comfortable on a cramped airplane, with the extra layer for the plane’s cold air. As an added bonus, it was an outfit that covered all body parts without being fussy or easily wrinkled. It was rather different than what I usually wore to the office, and for a second I wondered if he liked it or not.
Then I remembered I didn’t care.
“Samantha,” Aidan said. “Hello. Did you have a nice weekend?”
I remembered my Sunday afternoon orgasm indulgence, thinking of him, and fought the urge to blush. “It was fine, thank you. And you?”
His schedule for the weekend had been blank, as it usually was. Aidan’s off hours were still a mystery. “It was very restful,” he said vaguely, then gestured to the seat next to him. “Make yourself comfortable. We board in forty minutes.”
“What’s so fascinating?” I asked, taking the seat next to him and putting down my bags. “You barely noticed my existence just now.”
“I always notice your existence,” he said, though his tone wasn’t flirtatious. He paged through the document on his laptop. “This is a report I asked for.”
“From who?” It wasn’t a nosy question. I knew every report due to Aidan, and when it was due. It was my job to make sure every one of them was submitted on time. I’d seen nothing come into his email inbox, so this must have come to his personal account.
“No one you know,” Aidan said, frowning a little. “More of an external thing.”
“Oh.” I crossed my legs and pulled my purse onto my lap. This was fine; we were fine. Everything was fine. Just a girl and her boss in the airport on a business trip. Friday—whatever that had been—was in the past. My strange thoughts of yesterday were in the past. This was business.
I was digging in my purse for my phone when Aidan held up a hand. His watch was silver and black and gorgeous, and it glinted against the soft wool of his sweater. “Okay, okay,” he said with aggrieved humor. “I’ll tell you if you’ll just top badgering me. I can’t take it anymore.”
I smiled. “I knew I could make you give in.”
“You can.” He frowned again. “Truth be told, it’s a report about the Egerton brothers.”
I put my purse down and looked at him. “The Egerton brothers?”
“Yes. Specifically, their history.” He clicked through a few more pages. “This was originally a revenge thing for me, but now I’m finding interesting information.”
I stared at him. My hands had gone cold.
He looked away from the document and at me. “I suppose you should know this about me, Samantha,” he said. “I am not a very nice person, especially in business. You’re going to learn that, since you’re going to be meeting my partners.”
I blinked, my eyes dry. Revenge. He was talking about revenge for someone making a comment about my pussy and my ass. “You mean because your partners know you so well,” I said.
Aidan nodded. “We’ve known each other since we were fifteen. I suppose you’ve heard the story of how Tower VC was started?”
“Dane Scotland invented a database software, and you sold it for millions of dollars.”
“Forty-six million, to be exact. We were twenty-one. I don’t know much about software, but what Dane created had something to do with making databases easier to crawl and access, even across multiple platforms. Very big databases. So a company like Apple, for example, could look at what was selling in every store across the country—updated by the minute.”
“Impressive,” I said.
Aidan smiled. “Dane’s mind is impressive. The rest of him is a little rough around the edges.”
I nodded. I’d never seen a photo of Dane Scotland. He was based in Chicago, and he wasn’t a gossip media darling like Aidan was. “What about the others?” I asked.
Aidan scratched his chin. “I’ll give you the honest answer, I suppose. Noah is our partner in L.A., which works for him because he is deeply devoted to sleeping with models and movie stars. Alex is our Dallas partner. He’s the only one of us with a criminal record.”
My lips parted in surprise, but I tried to keep my composure. “Oh?”
“He was eighteen,” Aidan said. “He was in a fight that went wrong and got too violent. Unfortunately, that fight was with his own brother.”
“I see.”
Aidan smiled again at my politeness. “We all grew up in Chicago. Our home lives were difficult in different ways, for different reasons. When we left home, we moved in together in a run-down old apartment that cost us four hundred dollars a month. We lived there while we finished school, and we all worked menial jobs while Dane built the software. When we sold it, we used the money to start Tower VC. The rest is history.”
I thought about that, four teenaged boys living in an old apartment that was better than home, trying to make a better life. “It’s a good story,” I said.
Aidan shrugged. “My point is that even though I have money now, it doesn’t change my roots. I’ve fought for everything I have, and I’ll keep fighting if I have to. I may wear nice clothes, but I basically come from nothing.”
“I know that feeling,” I said. “I come from nothing, too. Though I also come from something.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Please explain.”
I bit my lip, hesitating. It wasn’t a story I told many people. But I had the urge to tell it now. “You know my sister, Emma? I think you met her when you hired Executive Ranks.”
Aidan nodded.
“Well, Emma and I are adopted. We were found abandoned outside the doors of a hospital. I was a baby, and Emma was one.”
“Jesus,” he said softly.
I nodded. “From the way the story was told to me, we weren’t hurt. It didn’t look like we were starved or abused. We were just… left.” I let out a breath. “Anyway, we were adopted together by our parents—our adoptive parents—and they took good care of us. Emma and I grew up in a safe, loving home with parents who wanted us. So that’s what I mean when I say I came from nothing, and also from something.”
He was watching me, his dark eyes unflinching. “I’m glad it turned out so well for you. But it must be a strange piece of your life, not knowing who your parents are.”
He’d gotten right to the heart of it, as usual. “I love my parents. And they handled it the right way, telling me about the adoption when I was ready. But it makes me think differently about myself, I think. I’ve had to make my own identity, create who I am, in a way that others don’t. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what parts of me are me, and what parts of me are my biological paren
ts. If any parts are me at all.”
I’d never spoken like this to anyone, but Aidan didn’t flinch. “I know that feeling,” he said.
I wanted to hear what he meant by that, but they called us to board the flight. We took our seats in business class, and Aidan went back to his laptop, the conversation apparently over.
I thought about working, too—I should work. I had lots to do.
But somehow, unburdening myself had made me both light-headed and exhausted. Just a few words, a few sentences, bottled up for so long and finally spoken aloud. It made me feel like I’d climbed uphill at a run.
I laid my head back against the seat, and I was asleep by the time takeoff was finished.
Twelve
Aidan
* * *
Chicago was colder than New York. It was a little bit uglier, a little harder, and these days it was more dangerous and less touristy. It still felt like home.
Samantha was quiet on the drive to the hotel. She’d slept soundly through the entire flight—maybe unburdening herself to me had tired her out. I hadn’t minded, because she looked good even when she slept in an airplane seat. Besides, I hadn’t wanted to talk about my own history. I also hadn’t wanted to talk about what was in my report about the Egerton brothers.
I’d read the report twice over during the flight, and it was very juicy, but I was distracted. I kept thinking about what Samantha had told me, picturing her and her sister abandoned on a hospital’s steps. Anything could have happened to two tiny, defenseless girls. The world was shit. I owed their adoptive parents a thank you.
Not that I’d ever get the chance to give them one, since Samantha’s personal life was none of my business.
My phone rang as we pulled up to the Four Seasons. It was Noah. “I just landed,” he said when I answered. “Are we drinking or what?”
