Executive Perks (25 page)

Aaron, damn him, smiled. “I think I can figure out what I gave you.”

“It’s not funny,” she said.

Brendan, meanwhile, returned to his seat, his mouth twisted in a scowl. “I take it there was something you forgot to mention about your funeral home adventure, Virginia.”

“Something that was none of your business.”

Brendan darted a look over at Aaron. “So does this mean you’ll sell us your stock back?”

“Brendan!”

“What? You‘ve forgotten about that awful quick, Virginia.”

“I had a few other things on my mind,” she muttered.

“Yeah, I noticed. Kind of gross, guys. A funeral home?”

“There was a lot of time to kill, Brendan. And you know how terrified I am of funeral homes.”

Aaron sat up straighter. “Actually, that’s a very good point. Who knows that story?’

“What story?” Brendan asked. “Oh, you mean the Uncle Victor thing at Grandpa’s funeral?”

“Just the family,” Virginia admitted.

“Brian too?”

“I don’t know. It’s not exactly something we banter about at holiday time. When my father was alive, he was so incensed about it that you couldn’t even mention it in his presence. He never forgave Victor for it.”

“That’s your uncle who works here?”

“Yes, my grandfather’s sister’s husband.”

Aaron stood up and began to pace.

“Can you delete that thing?” Brendan asked, gesturing at the computer.

“I don’t know. Should we? It’s probably evidence.” Virginia wasn’t too thrilled about the thought of Detective Baker watching the recording, but rules were rules.

“If it’s anything like the other one,” Aaron noted, “it’ll disappear of its own accord.”

“No great loss in my book,” Brendan muttered, slinking lower in his chair.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Brendan, I’m a grown woman.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t need visual aids to get that. Thanks.”

“It’s not like I taped it and showed it around. I’m not exactly crazy about having that in existence.” The raw sexuality in only the few seconds of the tape she’d seen reminded Virginia of how primitive turning to Aaron for that kind of comfort had been. How it still was, even last night. It was true what Brendan had said. She hadn’t given a thought to the stock or all the objections she had had to seeing Aaron to begin with.

She glanced down at the screen again. The sex tape was gone, but in its place was a nice little message, for her presumably. She sucked in her breath. This was more pointed than the other mischief, though she supposed the dead body showing up might have just been the first signal of an escalation in whatever this maniac had in mind.

Aaron turned from the windows where he had been contemplating the view. “What is it?” He read the computer screen.

“What?” Brendan asked, approaching cautiously.

“
‘I’m going to kill you, you little bitch. The real you
.’ I guess that takes some of the mystery out of it. We know for sure who he’s after.” Virginia stared at the screen.

Brendan opened the office door and instructed Virginia’s secretary, “Find that cop who was wandering around here. He was with Uncle Victor last I saw him. Bring him down here.”

By the time Detective Baker made it back to Virginia’s office, the message had also disappeared. But this time at least there were three witnesses to its existence.

Aaron relayed the whole story, including a curt reference to what the tape had shown.

“I’m not exactly shocked that you two were at it,” Baker said, despite Virginia’s red face and Brendan’s scowl. “I must say I am a little surprised there were cameras. Not because some twisted asshole might have filmed it. Christ, they film everything nowadays. Some shmoe throws up his spaghetti, they got to film it for YouTube.”

Virginia didn’t even want to ask. A lot of modern cultural references, or at least any tied to reality TV or the infinite permutations thereon on the Internet, went right over her head and she never objected.

“But we missed the cameras in our search. I am a little surprised about that. It must be some pretty damn sophisticated device to escape detection. Of course, we weren’t looking for it. We’ll go back.”

“They’re probably gone by now.” Any one of them could’ve pointed it out, but it was Aaron who had.

“Maybe. So, ah, where were you after the fuss last night, Mr. Winston, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“He was with me,” Virginia said. “He brought me back here and then I met him uptown, way uptown, and we spent the night together at his apartment. He wasn’t sneaking back to New Jersey to unearth some hidden cameras.”

“You ever heard of accomplices, lady?”

“I think we’re getting off track, Detective,” Aaron pointed out. “We already know you suspect me. Maybe you can start broadening your list of suspects.”

“Well, I got Miss Beckett on it too,” he offered.

Brendan guffawed. “That’s absurd.”

“Maybe,” the detective conceded. “But just don’t go anywhere, you two.”

“Actually, I think that would be a mistake. Staying here just seems to be allowing things to keep happening. I think the important thing is to make these things stop happening while you cops figure out who’s behind it. And to do that, Virginia should leave the city. She’s obviously the target here.”

Virginia was no chicken, but Aaron’s argument sounded reasonable. “I could go to Bransport, I suppose, but then something happened at Bransport, too,” she pointed out.

“What the hell is Bransport and what happened there?” the detective asked.

Aaron ignored him and answered Virginia instead. “But that’s still your domain. We need to get you away, somewhere that this person doesn’t have access to.”

She and Brendan traded looks. “I really can’t get away right now.”

“I can handle the company, Virginia. Aaron’s right. Maybe go to one of the other houses. Maybe the Arizona one.”

“As long as it’s still a Beckett place, there’s a chance this person could know of it. I’ll take you to one of my houses.” Aaron didn’t hesitate to offer and Virginia didn’t want to admit how much she liked that idea.

“Smooth, Winston,” Brendan observed. “Maybe you’re behind all this just to whisk Virginia away.”

“I wish I were,” he admitted grimly.

“Can I get the phone number of your ex, that Julie babe, then? At least, I assume she’s your ex.” Brendan didn’t seem to notice Virginia staring daggers at him. “She was hot.”

“What happened to Linda?” Virginia grumbled under her breath.

“She talks too much. It’s distracting.”

“Yeah, sure,” Aaron agreed easily. “But what do you say, Virginia? Are you game for getting away?”

Detective Baker had just observed the conversation, saying silent during the debate. Then he said, “Well, I am just the investigating officer here, but I’d say I’m not wild about my two best suspects disappearing together. Call me crazy.”

“Detective Baker, I got a lawyer you’re going to love to meet.”

Aaron took out his cell phone and dialed. “Rye, get over here.”

Virginia should have been thinking about what she had on her calendar in the short term, or whether Brendan was really ready to assume control without her guidance just yet. Yet somehow, she wasn’t.

Being whisked away by Aaron Winston had a nice ring to it.

Chapter Eight

Aaron had wanted to go to his place in Maui, but the joint New York/New Jersey detective squad investigating the murder, which Detective Baker represented, wasn’t so keen on the two of them crossing the Pacific. But Rye got them over the hump of letting Aaron and Virginia out of the state. Money talking maybe. Or maybe just the prospect of preventing the murder of a prominent citizen within their environs. Aaron didn’t care how Rye did it, either way. Though Virginia might. So he didn’t ask.

He and Virginia surrendered their passports and set off for a small island he owned off the coast of Oregon.

He had insisted on departing as soon as they could, leaving no word of where they would be except to Brendan and Rye. He’d even insisted they leave from his apartment, with Virginia in a short dark wig and sunglasses. She looked as sexy as a brunette as she did as a blonde. He tried to keep it light, though, since someone was trying to kill her after all. He didn’t want her to have to deal with him pawing her on the way out to their secret hideaway as well.

He’d save that for when they got there.

But once they had boarded the G-650 in his hangar at Teterboro and shared a bottle of wine through a smooth takeoff, he found his predictable little mind turning to just one thing. The one thing it always turned to when Virginia Beckett was within reaching distance. He doubted the briefcase of papers he’d stashed in the overhead compartment could keep his attention for even a second with her sitting on the plush seat across the aisle from him.

The pillows of clouds outside the windows blocked out any sunlight and she had switched on her overhead light, extracting a book from her oversized purse.

“You like to read?” he asked her idly, knowing in all probability her answer.

“Love it. You?”

He shook his head no. “Not unless it’s financial statements. I prefer more vigorous, er…” He drifted off, glancing at the cover. “Faulkner?”

“I was a frustrated English major.”

“All sound and fury signifying nothing, eh?”

She smiled and bent her head to the book, still wearing the wig, he realized since they had thought it best to try to shield her identity from the pilots as well.

“It’s the one line I remember from high school English,” he persisted. “About the only thing that made sense to me at the time.”

She hummed a noncommittal response and proceeded to ignore him. Probably just as well since he had exhausted his literary repartee, such as it was. Fumbling in the pocket on the wall in front of his seat for the iPod he kept there, he turned up instead a telltale row of linked foil packages, pulling them out slowly and holding them up in the air.

It had to be a sign.

She was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “You do have stock in that company, don’t you?”

“No, but now that you mention it, I was thinking of buying some.”

“You seem to be cornering the market,” she observed, the length of the string of condom packages really quite impressive. Just went to show his flight crew had the right priorities.

“I hate to have them go to waste,” he said lamely.

Her glance at the closed cockpit door gave him hope. But then she buried her nose in her book again, murmuring, “That’ll have to wait until we have some privacy.”

“BFD doesn’t have a corporate jet, does it?”

She scoffed, not even looking up. “Of course not. I sold it as soon as I took over. Waste of money if you ask me, good for nothing but stroking fat-cat egos.”

“Yeah, that’s why I have one. But anyway, since you don’t, let me point out that one of the benefits of a private jet is the
private
part—the absolute, inviolable privacy during the flight.”

“With a pilot and a copilot right there? I don’t think so.” It was impossible to believe that she was really continuing to read as her eyes glued on the pages seemed to suggest.

“They’d never come in here during a flight.” He wiggled the packages at her, prompting a smile as she finally looked up. “They know better, believe me.”

“I’m sure they do.” She closed her book, unbelted her seatbelt and unceremoniously climbed onto his lap, straddling him, unbuckling his seatbelt as she went. In keeping with her very un-Virginia-Beckett-like disguise for the trip, she wore not one of her usual pencil skirts and jackets, but instead a wide, flowing cotton skirt and peasant blouse, perfect for what he had in mind. The ankle boots that had completed the outfit she’d kicked off some time ago.

Linking her hands around his neck, she leaned down and kissed him, sweet and simple, her skirts spread out around them. No tongue even, but the pleasure of it coursed through him and she rubbed the vee of her legs underneath her skirt against the zipper of his jeans. One eyebrow arched, and he slid a hand beneath the billowy cotton to check. “No underwear.” It was not a question, but she shook her head anyway.

“Just ankle socks.”

He tugged one edge of the skirt up to see the white lacy socks on her cute feet, her legs folded alongside his. “I like them.” He started to slide one shoulder of the peasant blouse down and she shook her head no.

“No?” he asked.

“No. Clothes stay on.”

“Clothes stay on.” He reached underneath her skirt and unzipped his jeans, shoving the boxers down to let his cock out as she lifted up a little to accommodate the motion. “For the most part.”

“Just in case,” she agreed, sliding her wet slit sinuously down the length of his bare cock.

He shivered and fumbled for the condoms. “Tease,” he scolded, ripping one of the packages open and sliding it down onto him. Then sliding her down. Hot, wet, tight.

Whoa. Was there something wrong with him that she still continued to feel so fucking good, no matter how many times they did this?

Her inner muscles gripped him, as they always did, and his cock pulsed. “I could stay like this, all day, your sweet cunt fisted over me.”

“Do you talk dirty on purpose to turn a girl on? Or do you just talk like that?”

“Like what?” he asked innocently.

“Never mind.”