“Darlin’, I’m building that resort. Things are going to come up along the way. This was one of those things, and I took care of it. I’m happy the mom and little girl have a place to go. But I didn’t promise her anything other than I would get her moved. I don’t owe her a damn thing.”
“How can you say that? She grew up on this beach. She used to vacation here with her family. Harper’s father has never paid her a cent. That trailer park is all they have. Don’t you get that?”
“What I get is that you made the right decision.”
“What are you talking about?” Her eyes glared.
“There’s no way we can do this.” I grabbed her around the waist, despite the way she struggled in my arms. “And you not cause problems for me. You’d write another story just as damaging if you got the chance.”
“Me cause problems for you?” Her tone was irritated.
“You disagree?” I studied her eyes. She was breathing heavy and her skin was still warm from the sun. I couldn’t believe I had spent two days on the beach. We had significantly increased my total number of lazy minutes.
“Ugh. I hate it when you’re right.” She threw her arms next to her side. “If I wrote the story now you’d probably have to buy the rest of South Padre to recover from it.”
“I know I would.” I chuckled. “Now that we have that settled, do you know what you’re going to say to your editor tomorrow?”
She considered my question. It took her awhile to answer. “You want me to trade story choice for this planted piece of public relations?”
“If you don’t report it, someone else will. I’m giving you something to wield before you head into that meeting.” I leaned back on my elbows. The wind fluttered through her hair.
“True. It’s bound to be picked up tomorrow.” She chewed on the side of her lip. “And you think my boss will go for it?”
“It’s worth a try.”
Her face softened. I smiled as she lowered herself on my chest, resting her head over my heart. I tangled my fingers through her hair.
“I’ll try it. But I can’t promise anyone will paint you in as positive light as I will,” she teased.
“I’m hoping one that’s much better.”
“Hey!” She assaulted my sides with her fingers.
I looked at my watch over her head. “It looks like we only have three hours of this weekend left. What do you say we take this party inside?”
“What’s in there?” she teased.
“Your toys.” I winked.
“Oh,” she said with new understanding.
I led her through the living room and to the bedroom. I unzipped the bag next to the bed. I held the pink vibrator in the air and smiled wickedly. I’d imagined all the dirty things we could do with it since the first time she revealed it.
“Have you ever tried this with someone?” I asked.
Veronica shook her head slowly, as she threw her clothes on the floor. Fuck. This girl was a sex panther.
“Never?” I tested her again.
“No,” she whispered as her breasts bobbed free from her bra.
“All by yourself?” I swallowed hard, picturing her using it.
“Yes.”
I turned the vibrator on, watching her eyes light up with the sound. My cock twitched. This was going to be fun.
She crawled toward the edge of the bed, her hands landing on my belt. She licked her lips.
“Oh no.” I tried to push her away.
“I want to play too.”
“Dirty and wicked.” I smiled. “I like that combination on you.”
She giggled. “I’m learning how to take what I want.”
I considered her answer, knowing she studied my every move.
“Then take it,” I growled.
She shoved my pants to the floor as I joined her on the bed. I lowered her to her back as I straddled her facing her sweet pussy. My cock met her lips and my eyes closed. Her tongue licked my swollen tip, drawing the dew between her teeth. Sweet fuck, she was going to kill me.
I increased the level on the toy. Veronica hissed as I pushed the vibrator to her pussy, slick and hot.
She bucked wildly as I simultaneously sank my cock in her mouth and the pink toy between her velvet folds, burying it inside her. Fuck. I was hard as steel watching her writhe under me. Feeling her suck and take my dick deep in her throat.
I pressed the vibrator in and pulled it out, sending vibrations through every part of her. She had the most beautiful pussy I’d ever seen. I stopped to get a taste, taking my time with my tongue. Licking, lapping, sucking until she moaned with me in her mouth.
“Feels fucking incredible, doesn’t it?” I taunted.
But my cock was buried deep in her mouth and she could only answer with a moan. I didn’t know if I had been this turned on before. Fucking her like this. Watching her body come to life. I pumped against her, going deeper with my dick as I turned the vibrator up another notch. I was ready to explore every level it had.
Her body opened to me in a new way. She trusted me. I pumped in and out of her, both ends, giving her endless pleasure. Satisfying her. Fucking her until I heard the sweetest sound muffled in her throat. I ran a finger over her clit as she convulsed and shook, spiraling in her orgasm.
And that’s when I lost it. Watching her come like this was incredible. It was the most erotic experience I had witnessed.
I buried myself deep as my orgasm hit and my cum slid down her throat in one gushing pulse after another.
“Fuck, baby,” I moaned as she sucked me to the depths of her throat.
Once my heartbeat started to slow I pulled out from between her lips and rested the vibrator next to us on the bed. I rolled onto my back.
She crawled forward, nuzzling on my chest.
“That was amazing,” she whispered.
“Fuck, yeah. Incredible.”
I was worried I might get used to this, but the instant I heard her moan my name, I knew I was okay with that idea. I’d crack open another bottle of wine and spend the night loving Veronica into oblivion if it would make time stand still.
Eighteen
Veronica
I straightened the pleats on my skirt. I rehearsed what Aiden and I had gone over. This was the right thing to do. I had to remove myself from the situation. I had flashbacks to my ethics class. It heavily focused on slander and defamation, but I hadn’t forgotten the discussion on sources. The last thing I wanted to be as a new reporter was labeled as unethical and biased. I held my breath and counted to eight. Somehow that always seemed to help, but right now all I felt were sweaty palms and a nervous stomach.
“Strickland, come on in.” Janet called across the newsroom. Her door was cracked.
I closed it behind me and turned to take a seat.
“Did you have a good weekend?” I asked.
I knew nothing about Janet’s personal life, other than she was married. She wore a simple gold band on her left hand. There wasn’t a picture in the office. Not even a shot of a dog, or a landscape.
“It was a weekend.” Her lips were so thin they almost formed a straight line when she wasn’t smiling. “I got your email. Let’s talk.”
There was too much silence. Too much space in between our words. “Well, thank you for seeing me so quickly this morning. I need to talk to you about something.” I could feel the plan unraveling. Janet stared at me, and my resolve to be a hard-ass negotiator seemed ridiculous.
“It’s Monday. My schedule is filling up. What do you have for me?” She chewed on the bottom of a pen.
I didn’t know how Aiden did this every day. How he faced people and walked away with exactly what he wanted. He wasn’t just good at it. He was amazing.
“Last week you mentioned that you thought there was a possibility I could change over to straight features.” I twisted my hands in my lap. I was using weak words. I knew it. “And anyway, I thought we could make that transition start a little sooner.”
&nbs
p; Janet looked puzzled. “Sooner? How so?”
“Yes. See I need to remove myself from any stories pertaining to Aiden Thomas. And it seems like maybe the timing is right to go ahead over to features.”
“And why do you have to come off the Thomas stories?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I just do, but I have a story I thought I could give the reporter you assign to the resort.” My words sounded ridiculous. I couldn’t string together one impressive sentence.
“You haven’t answered my question. And if you have a story, why isn’t it already written?”
“Okay. That’s a good question.” We didn’t analyze enough of Janet’s reactions. Aiden was used to overcoming negotiation obstacles. I didn’t even know how to barter in a flea market.
“Look, Strickland, we all get assignments we don’t particularly like. That’s the news business. This happens to be a business journal. We serve the southern half of Texas. So, we don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing what we report. We have a readership that depends on us. We have an obligation to those readers.”
“I’m sleeping with him,” I blurted out before she could finish.
I had worked there three months, and in those three months I had seen Janet angry, happy, pleased with a well-written story. This morning I saw what she looked like when she was surprised.
“With-with?”
I could barely look at her. “Yes. With Aiden Thomas.”
The tiny office erupted with her laughter. “You can’t be serious.”
I nodded. “I am. We started dating after the interview.” I blurred the timeline a bit.
“You realize he’s a complete womanizer. He’s nothing short of the business equivalent to George Clooney, the eternal bachelor.”
“But he got married last year to that amazing attorney.”
She rolled her eyes. “You understand what I’m saying. He’s Clooney-esque. You’re willing to sacrifice your career for a man like that?”
I ignored the part where she slammed Aiden’s character.
I shook my head. “No. Not sacrifice. That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to cause any problems for the Record. I can’t report on him any longer. I’m telling you it would be unethical. I’m here to be open and transparent about it.”
Janet sighed. “But you were hired as the business beat reporter for South Padre and Port Isabel. I don’t have anywhere else to put you, Veronica.”
Oh, God. It wasn’t a good sign she used my first name. “But you said I could do features.”
“You have to prove yourself first and on top of that I would have to move Cecelia somewhere. She’s on features now. There’s nowhere else for her to go.”
I shook my head. This could not be happening. “But you made it sound like it would be soon. Like there was a position now for me to slide into.”
Janet folded her hands together and laid them on the desk. “I’m sorry if that was how you interpreted it. I didn’t promise you a different job.”
“No, you didn’t,” I admitted.
“I guess this puts us both in a pickle.”
I wondered if there was some way I could untangle myself from the information I had deposited on her desk. If only I hadn’t thought being ethical was so damn important.
“I can report on anything else, Janet. Anything. I’ll switch to advertising or sales. Or maybe I could help out with editing. I used to edit at the Daily for the other reporters.”
Her cheeks filled with air, and then she expelled it into the room. “I’m going to have to think about this.”
“So, I’m not fired?” I asked timidly.
“I’m going to have to consider all of the options and consult with HR. I was going to send you to the Costas meeting this morning, but I clearly can’t do that. Shit.” Her pen rolled on the floor.
“Janet, really I’ll cover whatever the Record needs.”
“I hear you. But the Record needed you on the resort. I needed you to write another piece like the one on the mom and daughter. I needed someone who could write about the politics of the resort, but that person is no longer you.” Her eyes softened with disappointment. It was worse than any look my mother had given me. “Now head home for the day. If something non-Thomas related comes up, we’ll call you in, but that man is all over the island.”
I rose to leave, worried I would trip over the tight space before getting out the door.
“Hey, what was the story you had for me?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. It was an idea on the environmentalists. Not a very good idea anyway.”
I closed the door behind me. It might have been the one thing that stuck from my conversation with Aiden. The only thing. He told me not to show all my cards too quickly. I still had one card and only a few hours to figure out how to use it.
* * *
I stared at my laptop. The screen displayed the words “no search results found”, and I thought I might be sick. There were no reporter positions posted within a sixty-mile radius. I paced around the studio, bouncing from the bed to the bathroom and back again.
I thought of ten things to do, and five minutes later couldn’t think of a single thing to do. Janet was meeting with HR to determine whether I could keep my job. Aiden told me he had conference calls all day and wouldn’t be able to see me until late tonight. I couldn’t call him. I wondered if he would be disappointed in how I handled the entire meeting.
If I lost my job I didn’t know what I’d do. I had a bit of savings stashed away, but it wasn’t enough to stay in South Padre indefinitely. With summer winding down, most of the seasonal jobs were drying up. I wouldn’t even be able to get a position waiting tables.
I threw myself back on the bed. I couldn’t leave. I had just found him. I had just discovered how much fun the island could be. I had my first friend here. I groaned.
I was still holding the story hostage, although I didn’t know why. My time had to be running out. The local paper would have someone scouting the City Hall records, and it was only a matter of time before a reporter discovered Aiden had purchased the lot and was processing permits for trailer hookups.
I walked back and forth in front of the bed. Aiden wanted me to be able to separate my emotions from work. I closed my eyes to see if it was even possible. The problem was with my eyes closed all I could see was him. Ugh. Bad start, Veronica.
If he were dealing with this crisis, what would he do? How would he negotiate his job back?
I flipped the screen open on my laptop and typed in the search engine.
Nineteen
Aiden
“Carter, I want the three Austin properties sold by the end of the quarter.”
“Yes, sir. I have them listed with Tia.”
“Good.” I looked at what else I had on my checklist. If I could make it through the next two calls, I might be able to call Veronica for dinner plans. “And I’ve decided to hold the commercial space in Houston. It’s not the best time to sell, and the rents there are high enough. Take it off the list.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll be in the office Thursday. I’ll drive up in the morning, or fly depending on what kind of time I have.”
It was an eight-hour drive. I usually got on the road at five in the morning to make it into the office by one.
I could hear the excitement in the voice. “We’ll be happy to have you around.”
“It’s been a while. All right. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I looked at my watch. I had five minutes before the call with the attorney. Make that four.
My phone beeped. They were calling in early.
“Harold, good to hear from you. Tell me what you have on the environmentalists.”
After speaking with the attorneys I knew the resort was in good hands. As much as the Guardians of the Dunes wanted to cause trouble, they didn’t have a legal case against the development. There were no endangered species present, and we would have to follow the same building codes that all island constr
uction did. It appeared they weren’t the threat Commissioner Costas had promised.
My biggest issue with the group was going to be the attention they were getting. I hated to start a new project with bad press, but hopefully by the end the residents would be so excited about the resort and the new jobs they wouldn’t give a damn about the months they had to put up with high-pollution dump trucks.
It was close to six. One more call, and I could end Monday. At least the working part.
I waited while the operator set up the conference call and the investors dialed in one at a time. There was always someone late to the table. This time it was Keith Higgins.
“Keith, ready to talk money?” I joked. The man didn’t have a funny bone in his body.
“That you Thomas?” he asked.
“Sure is. What do you say we flip to page five of the preliminaries so we can come up with a number that will work for all of us?”
I directed the call, walking them through the projections my team had put together for us. I was venturing into a small oil and gas company. It was less risky if I partnered with a few others for the first time. Once I had a handle on the business I would either buy them out or move onto my next acquisition on my own.
Finally, I ended the call. The conferences were over. The analysis. The debates. The cajoling. My head swam with numbers. I walked to the fridge and reached inside for a beer. I tossed the cap on the counter.
The only thing that would make this beer better is if Veronica were here. I pulled my phone out to call her.
“Hey girl, hungry yet?” I should have asked her to come over straight from work. I wanted to get lost in her arms, lips, and laughter after the day I had.
“Hey. I don’t know if I can eat.”
“What’s going on?” The beer slid down my throat.
“Can I just come over?” she asked. There was more in her voice, but I couldn’t tell. I only knew she was upset.
Don’t Go Page 17
