Breakfast with Mia (3 page)

“But I am
not
a…”

“
Now
, Mia!”

Damian slammed his door shut and I closed my mouth without
another word. He’d never yelled at me before. Something really was happening.

***

At 7:32 a.m., Michael McKinley, 89 years old and founder of
McKinley Security Intelligence Systems, died of a heart attack at Hope General
Hospital. Damian and I had been eating breakfast while every company like
Vaughn & Marley went into lockdown mode with everyone worth anything trying
to get Michael McKinley’s grandson, sole inheritor of his company, on the phone
for ten seconds of uninterrupted begging. The grandson, Todd McKinley, was a
doctor and had no interest in the company, so the whole affair became the
plump, red apple in the Garden of Eden. The question on everyone’s tongues was,
what can we give Todd McKinley to let us have a piece of his apple pie?

Damian stayed behind closed doors with a steady stream of
ladder climbers coming and going. None of them spoke to me. There was so much
nervous anxiety in the air you could taste it and it tasted like sweat and
pheromones. This account made everyone hot. It was a career maker account. A
multi-billion dollar hog of an account.

Near the end of the day when it was clear no decisions would
be made before morning, I knocked a little mousy knock on Damian’s door and
waited for him to give me the go-ahead to enter. It was slow to come, but
finally he called me in.

“Mia,” he sighed with a kind of relief that almost broke my
heart. “Come in.”

His tie was completely unknotted and hung loose and
forgotten around his neck, the top two buttons unshackled. He’d been running
his hands through his hair and it stood out messy and a little sweaty.

I shut the door behind me and made my way around the side of
his desk. He pushed back and slouched deep into the leather of his executive
chair. I held out a coffee to him, extra sugar and cream, though he’d never
even notice. He took it gratefully.

“You read my mind, Mia.”

“That’s what I do, boss.” I slid up on the corner of his
desk nearest him and crossed my legs. His eyes unfocused sleepily and stared at
my knee. Or through my knee. I didn’t think he could actually see me. “You ok?”

“I am very tired. I feel like I’ve been blindsided for eight
hours straight, and we aren’t any further than we were when we walked in this
morning. Everyone wants a piece of this account, and it’s not like I have it to
give. We need it though, at least, we need our competitors not to get it.”

I winced. “So, do you think this is a bad time to ask for a
favor?”

“Sychophantic whore,” he teased tiredly. He sat his coffee
on the desk top and without asking, like this was normal for us, reached for my
legs, uncrossed them, and scooted his chair closer. He took my hips and centered
me. I held still because this was the most physical contact we’d ever had in the
year I’d worked for him. We got along, sure, but something about his exhausted,
beaten down look made me think he was desperate for comfort in a way he’d never
needed from anyone before. It made me want to reach out and stroke his hair,
his shoulders. Damian was a powerful, ambitious man, but he was good too, and
kind and easy going and generous. Moments like these made him vulnerable to the
people willing to devour him for a piece of his empire.

“Mia,” he said seriously. “As long as you don’t ask me for
Todd McKinley, I will give you anything in the world. Anything. Just ask and
it’s yours.”

“Devil,” I chided, and very gently touched his hair. It was
sweaty and dirty from touching it all day long. He groaned a little, closed his
eyes, and set his forehead against my knee. He exhaled weakly and I stroked his
hair back from his face. Something in my chest twisted painfully and for a
moment I couldn’t find my voice. It ran out of the room in terror. “If I’d known
you were in a giving mood, I’d have requisitioned a pony for the cube next to
my desk. Unfortunately, it’s your clout I need.”

He made a strangled laugh against my leg. “My clout is
usually an affront to you.”

“Irony, she’s not lost on me.” Touching Damian like this
made my heart pound like a racehorse in my chest, but men don’t make me nervous
and Damian even less so. This vulnerable neediness was so strange and unwelcome
to him. I felt violently protective. I dug my fingertips into his scalp and massaged
to the back of his neck. His hands tightened on my hips.

“It’s about my sister’s bachelorette party on Friday. She
wanted to have it at this hot new Place-To-Be-Seen club downtown. I said yes,
sure, because we’re beautiful girls, right? How hard could it be to get in? As
it turns out, pretty hard. You can’t just be young pretty girls anymore,
apparently, you’ve got to be elite, prestigious young pretty girls with a name
they want on their guest list. I already told her I’d get her in and now I’ve
discovered I am too small to even make it on the waiting list. I was hoping you
could twist some arms, storm the doors like my corporate knight in shining
armor.”

I could feel his breath against my skin. He didn’t speak for
a moment as I massaged his neck. “You’re talking about Michael’s, right?” he
asked finally.

I pulled my hands back in surprise, “Yes! How did you know
that?”

He groaned and tightened his fingers into my waist, dug his
fingertips into my skin. “Don’t stop, Mia.”

It was too intimate. When I lowered my hands back to his
neck I suddenly felt like something we were doing was wrong. I touched him, and
he felt strong and new beneath my hands, but this seemed too close to something
else and all my instincts screamed
stop
.

Once I’d resumed, he relaxed again physically. “I’ve been to
a few meetings there. You’ll like it. It is very you.”

“
You’ve
been there?” I almost laughed, but that just
seemed mean.

“You don’t know everything about my every waking moment,
Mia.”

“Somehow I doubt that, boss.”

He made a tired little laugh. “I’ll have your name on the
guest list. They will bend over backwards for my name. And your tab will be on
me. Don’t argue. I can’t fight you tonight.”

“Ok,” I said, and he slid his hands down my thighs to my
knees and sat up, his eyes glassy and red.

“You should go, Mia. I have a lot of work to do still
tonight.”

My hands came away from him and I struggled between wanting
to put them back and wanting to get the hell out of the room as fast as
possible. “I’ll have some dinner delivered here for you. Don’t work too hard,
Mr. Vaughn. You can’t make Todd McKinley answer if he’s not ready to.”

“I can make him do whatever I want, Mia.” He pushed away
from me, the cool, put together CEO retaking his body. “That’s how I got to
where I am now, by making people answer the phone when I call.”

Four

Silver strappy heels that glitter –
check
. White
thigh-high stockings and matching garter belt –
check, check
. And the
dress? I scored big when I found this little white and silver cocktail dress in
a consignment shop downtown. It’s got a sweetheart neckline and a-line silhouette
that made my breasts look fan-freaking-tastic. The bodice was tight with silvery,
shimmery beading that promised to sparkle beneath the club lights, and a
feathery satin skirt that fell just over the garter straps. I opted to
accessorize down with just a white satin ribbon collar and fake diamond beads
threaded on a matching white satin ribbon bracelet that tied in a butterfly bow
at the inside of my left wrist. Standing out against the white and silver I
secured the strands of dark fire engine red hair in a messy, coquettish up-do.
I felt delicious and there were few things I found more empowering than feeling
strong and beautiful. Tonight I wanted to stake hearts with a single, sultry
look. Tonight I wanted to be the one everyone listened to and wanted to be
loved by.

Damian went above and beyond and sent a limo to retrieve the
lot of us. I only kind of knew my sister’s girlfriends, but they were all
impressed. My sister, Cassandra, mumbled “this must be a dream,” on repeat as
we drove to the club.

Michael’s fit on the corner in front of a big high rise
hotel, squat and black and perfectly cube shaped, like an ultramodern Borg
ship. We had rooms in the connecting hotel.

A line stretched from the front doors down the walk and
halfway around the building, and our limo pulled right up to the Guest’s Only
valet. A man in a tuxedo took my hand and escorted me to the door with the
girls close at hand. They ogled the line we walked right passed and the bouncer
who took my name and then personally walked us through the front doors. A woman
in line yelled “
Cock sucking bitch!”
and I grinned because that wasn’t
even the worst thing I’d been called that week. At least this time I kind of
deserved it.

It was not hard to see why Michael’s made beautiful young
people crazy. A wash of plum incense doused us when the curtains parted, and in
the cool air the sound of piano playing some haunting melody from a small
raised stage in the far corner, just beneath the heavy, techno base of heart
throbbing dance music. Where we were led was wonderland, bruise purples and
blues, blacks and lilacs. Every inch of the club was draped in fabrics, tactile
and billowing from unseen breezes. The light was low, muted, pointed along
pathways between small isolated islands of couches and lounge chairs in a
variety of fabrics and styles from modern to Victorian throwback. Beautiful
women whispered into the ears of beautiful men, and everyone drank glowing
liquid from martini glasses. The patrons touched each other intimately,
casually, slowly in time with the music.

The waitresses wore costumes that crossed demure Victorian
with Old West whores. A woman wearing a ruffled Victorian gown with the front
cut open and pulled back like curtains to reveal tiny purple bloomers leaned
over the laps of several older men and refilled their drinks from a bottle of
chilled wine. Another waitress wore a black leather bra with gun hostlers and
riding chaps. Everywhere were corsets and garters, gloves and flowers tucked
into elaborate hairstyles. They were costumed and theatrical in a classy,
executive gentlemen’s atmosphere, though beyond the lounge I could see bodies
grinding and throbbing in time to the deep, gut vibrating bass.

 “Oh Mia!” Cassandra gasped and took my hands and gazed
around like she’d just nose-dived down the rabbit hole. “I can’t believe you
got us in, but oh I could kiss that boss of yours.”

I laughed and felt deeply impressed myself. “I’ll pass on
the compliment.”

We were led to a private alcove and my sister’s friends
crowded her and gushed and fawned over men who passed and gazed desperately at
them. Honestly, I was a bit of a tag-along. My sister was my only companion
here, and it was clear she needed her horde of friends just a fraction more
than her sister that night.

I felt strange here, when there were so many women more
beautiful than me within arm’s reach, not exactly the powerful seductress I’d
set myself out to be that night. I honestly didn’t want to return to my room
alone that night. Excusing myself, I slipped out of the booth and went to the
bar alone.

A runner of black lights along the bar top made my dress
glow in a way that made me feel otherworldly. I leaned into the bar just enough
that the back of my garter belt would show and waved for the bartender. The man
beside me turned his head, grazed my body with a hungry, satisfied gaze, and
smiled cat-like into my eyes. He turned fully into me and boy was he handsome,
all broody and dark lidded with eyeliner and neat, white teeth. He wore an
old-fashioned bowler hat in an ironic, hipster way and I thought, I could so do
worse. Sexy eyes drove me wild.

“Hi,” he murmured and grew bold enough to scrape the back of
my bare arm with his fingertips.

“Hi,” I answered, and
bat-batted
my eyelashes at him.

“Two house specials,” he told the bartender and in a second
we were poured the glowing drinks that smelled like plum and wine and tasted a
little like sangria. A black light embedded in the little V beneath the chalice
gave the drink its hypnotic light effect. We clinked rims and sipped and I
couldn’t help myself because it was this club and my clothes and this man who
couldn’t stop sneaking touches of my bare skin. I leaned on my tip-toes and
gave him a fluttery, flirty look.
A touch me more
look.

“I have been waiting for you all night,” he confessed.

“Tell me,” I purred.

“Jesus, you’re sexy as hell. Your name. Please.”

“My name is Mia,” I told him honestly, though sometimes I
wasn’t as honest. It depended on the night, but tonight I was searching for
Mia, the gorgeous girl who desperately wanted to be pursued.

“My name is Mark and I would very much like to continue
buying you drinks tonight. Do you dance?”

“Cheers,” I threw back the rest of my drink in three, small
gulps and the alcohol flooded my thoughts with a warm, tingling feeling. “I
love to dance.”

“Perfect. Stay here, have another drink, and I’ll be right
back. I need to go blow off my friends and then I’ll drag you onto the dance
floor. Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

I turned back to the counter and I motioned the bartender
for another house special and watched Mark disappear into the crowd. The warm
sangria feeling slid down my body and my hips swayed prettily to the haunting
melody, ready to be whisked into the dark, smoky dance floor.

A hand slid around my waist and leaned in so very close and
whispered against my ear. “Sychophantic whore.”

Every nerve in my body lit up like an atom bomb, sizzling
deliciously into a core fire between my legs. I tensed and stretched back
against the body without considering the consequences of my actions. The breath
against my ear inhaled sharply and held me still with both hands.