Dirty Secrets (5 page)

CHAPTER

Alex had planned to spend the afternoon going through more of his father
’s files, trying to decipher the old man’s shorthand in his planner, or possibly trying yet again to break into his email. IT assured him that they could easily reset the password of any one operating on the server, but somehow, every time they tried, the system redirected them. They were working on it. They swore.

He’d been shocked to see the beautiful distraction from the previous night—Zoey—walking into his office like everything he needed to push the troubles of his father’s passing out of his mind and refocus on the tasks at hand. He’d planned on giving her the interview she needed for her ridiculous rag, and then he’d meant to screw her until she screamed, send her on her way, and get back to work.

Only there was something about her. He’d swung to the Dom side of things his entire sexual life, and he’d never had any trouble finding women who wanted to sub for him. He loved the atmosphere at Chez Vous, and the way that no one seemed any more interested in learning about his life outside of the play space than he had there. But there had always been something so very compliant about the women he met there. Zoey had a fire in her eyes that said he was going to have to convince her to kneel, each and every time. That it would never be a given. It was a delicious sensation. He wanted to feel it again.

It had been ages since someone took his cock in his mouth of their own volition, and the way she’d listened to him, just teasing at him, not trying to deep throat him—it had set him on edge more than he’d anticipated. The sensation of slipping inside of her, the fantasy fulfillment of taking her on the desk at work, the way she’d shuddered when he was fully sheathed in her, it had left him gasping, barely able to control his reaction at all.

There was no small part of him that was irritated with how quickly he’d come, that was convinced that she’d gotten dressed again because she was disappointed in him. He’d tried to tell her that he had every intention of kneeling down before her and licking her until she had to bite her wrist to choke back the scream, but he hadn’t been able to get the words out. And then she’d started asking prying questions about the old man, and he’d lost his shit, in part because of his irritation at her shutting down, but more because he was frustrated with himself.

So now he was sitting at his desk, his cock semi-hard and controlling his brain, and tapping at his desk, trying to think of something other than the spiced scent of her body as he’d joined with her, breathing into her neck, inhaling her.

As pissed off as he still was, he wanted to see her again.

A chat window popped up from Bridget, his assistant. He clicked on it with a lot more force than was strictly needed.

Your mother. You’re late for your 3 p.m. On your way?

Fuck.
Yes
, he sent back, and stood up, straightening his shirt, pulling at the noose of a tie, and making sure that the line of his cock was not readily apparent in his trousers. Olivia had turned a blind eye to his partying thus far, but she would have very strong words about a white reporter leaving an ass print on his desk. And the worst part was that she would insult him in such a way that he couldn’t possibly take offense. Her superpower was the ability to turn him into a little boy shuffling his feet on the rug within three words, when she chose to.

Alex had a nice office. The old man had furnished it for Alex when he turned 21, and came into his shares at the company. At that time, there wasn’t much that actually had his name on it, and he spent correspondingly little time in the office.

The old man, of course, had ruled from the corner office. Olivia had suggested that Alex could take it over, but he found he had no interest in it. Philip’s ghost was still in every single tuft of the rug. He’d keep the office he’d never actually managed to use.

What had always interested Alex, though, even when he was a kid, was that his mother had an office, too. It was smaller than the old man’s, smaller even than the one Alex had been given. The decor was nowhere near as plush or luxurious. But Olivia had worked behind her desk just as many hours as the old man had—more, sometimes—and it hadn’t taken him long to realize that whenever a client came to visit the offices, they came through Philip’s office, for sure, but no one ever left without paying a visit to Olivia Blankenship. It was just not a thing that was done.

His mother’s personal assistant, an older man named Aaron who’d been with both the company and their household since Alex was a kid, was standing next to her as Alex walked in, going over the agenda for an upcoming charity event that she was attending. If he’d thought she’d been working long hours before the old man kicked it, after they’d buried him, it had only gotten worse. The only time he saw her was at the office. Claire, his little sister, had things even worse.

His mother looked up, and she beamed when she smiled. She moved around Aaron, and wrapped Alex up in a hug that felt warm and motherly. Which immediately made him worried that she was up to something. “Darling,” she said. “Everything all right? How are you holding up?”

He returned the embrace as much as he could stand, and then stepped back. Olivia looked gorgeous as always. Her makeup perfectly fit her skin tone, several shades darker than his own, and her curls were as precisely placed as if she’d just walked out of a fashion shoot. Alex had gotten his hair, his coloring, and his eyes from his mother; everything else about him was cut from the same cloth as his old man.

Olivia wore a black skirt suit with a lilac blouse, the very picture of the professional in mourning. It was a wonderful act. The only person Alex knew who had hated his father more than he had was Olivia.

He dropped into the seat on the visitor side of her desk; she sat down next to him, rather than back behind the desk. She waved at Aaron, and the older man bowed his gray head and disappeared, shutting the office door behind him. “I’m fine, Mother.”

“Yes, you always are,” she said. The tone wasn’t as cutting as she could manage, but it wasn’t exactly generous either. “I want to talk to you about the work your father left behind.”

“I’m working on it,” he said. “IT assures me that they’ll be into his email in another day. They’ve just been saying that for days. His PA has no idea what the shorthand in his journal is about. So we’re rather at a loss of how to move forward—”

Olivia waved an imperious hand to cut him off. “That’s what I want to talk to you about, Alex. There’s no point in dredging through all of that old nonsense. Everything we need to know is in the public records of the company. Honestly, being a CEO—it’s as much about being a figurehead as it is anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s easy work, but it’s also not manual labor.” She reached out and patted him on the hand. “You can thank your grandfather for that.”

Alex swallowed his sigh. It was hard work. Throughout most of his childhood, he’d believed that Grandpa had actually held the patent for vaccines. The way Olivia told it, it had seemed true. He had patented part of the machine that was used to mass produce vaccines from eggs, but that was hardly the same thing. Still, it had made him a millionaire veterinarian in upstate New York, and he’d done everything he could to make sure that his only daughter had an easier life than he had. The story had gotten trotted out every time his parents fought throughout his childhood. Olivia liked to point out that Philip had only married her for his money, because without it, he would have been ruined, and he liked to tell her that he’d paid his own way for her, so she ought to spread her legs more often. It had been a delightful way to grow up. “Mother, I think it’s worth knowing what Philip was up to. We both know that things have been weird around this company for years, and we need to know what’s happening before we get blindsided.”

Damn the woman, she caught on far too fast. Served him right for thinking that he could put one over on her. She narrowed her eyes, all facade of motherly warmth fading away as she tapped on perfectly manicured fingernail against a shade of lipstick that exquisitely complemented the lilac of her blouse. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Did someone say something to you?”

He could deny it, but what was the point? “A reporter had some questions about Philip. About the wording of his will.”

Olivia cursed, viciously. It was nice to hear. It was about the only time he ever heard his mother’s native Georgia accent. It was also entertaining to see such a perfect lady swear like a sailor. “No one knows about that. No one.”

He gave a shrug. “No one except you, me, Claire, everyone else who was at the reading of the will, the lawyers. It’s the Internet age, Mother. There’s no such thing as privacy any more.” He tapped his index finger against the arm of the chair. “Is it something we need to worry about?”

Her eyes slapped to his with a force that made him rock backwards. “Why would you ask that question, Alexander?”

Yes, there it was. The feeling of being twelve years old, called onto the carpet for some small slight, suddenly fearing that he was going to piss his pants. “If Claire and I are the only children that Father ever had, then what difference does it make whether the will states that his shares in the company go to his children, or to Claire and I specifically? The only reason it makes sense for you to be so upset about this, for you to have sworn Claire and I and everyone to secrecy is that he wasn’t always careful when he was fucking around, and you know it.”

“Alex,” Olivia said, standing. Her tone was somewhere between a plea and a command, and he found that he didn’t want to hear it. She stared out the large plate glass window behind her desk, surveying the city. Had she done that often when the old man was alive, staring out into the city skyline, wondering whose bed he was warming this time?

“Someone’s going to find out if it’s true, Mother,” he said. “If there’s a potential scandal here, it makes sense to get ahead of it. If there’s another heir, find them, buy out their stock, and move on.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Alex,” she said. It was like he was 7 again, instead of 27. Everything about him bristled at her tone. “It’s taken care of.”

He stood, ready to continue the fight, but the office door burst open, and years of training made him shut his mouth. It was one thing to argue with his mother, it was another to do it where other people could see and hear.

He expected to see Aaron bursting through the door again, ready with some trumped up emergency, but instead, the man coming through the door was a total stranger to him. He was tall, about Alex’s height, but cast from a much more solid mold. His shoulders were broad, and his hands and forearms were thickly muscled. He had the look of a manual laborer; he didn’t look much older than Alex, but he looked like the life he’d seen had been much harder. His skin was a deep olive brown, and his features were rough hewn. His eyes, though, his eyes were somehow familiar. The man nodded to Alex, then directed his attention to Olivia. “We must speak,” he said. He stepped into the room without waiting for her permission. His voice had a hint of a Latin accent, not enough to sound first generation, but very likely he’d grown up speaking more than one language.

Olivia’s eyes were crackling with anger, and her voice cut across the room like a whip. “I told you not to see me here.”

Alex had to put his hand to his mouth to cover a smile. Far be it for him to judge; the woman had put up with his father’s crap for enough years. If she’d found herself a pair of Levi’s on the side, who was he to judge? It was slightly creepy that the dude was his age, but still. As long as everyone was a consulting adult, it wasn’t his place to throw stones inside this glass house. “Please excuse me,” he said. “I’m sure you two have quite a lot to talk about.”

“We’re not finished, Alexander,” Olivia snapped again.

Alex froze. It was exactly the tone she’d used when she was mad at the old man. He let his expression chill down like a glacier before he turned back to her. She flinched away as his eyes found hers. “I think we are, Olivia,” he said. He put no particular emphasis on her name. He didn’t need to. She stepped back as if he’d slapped her, and he made for the door in the stunned silence. The man stepped aside, and Alex walked down the hallway toward his own office.

He heard Olivia snap at the man, her voice louder than she perhaps meant it to be as she asked “Arturo, what in the hell are you thinking?” He couldn’t resist a grin as the door to her office shut. Maybe she’d be making her own ass print on her desk. He certainly didn’t want to think about the details, but anything that made the woman relax just a little, specifically towards Claire, would only help him out.