He's So Bad (15 page)

“You forged a letter from Tyler?” My head’s spinning. There’s no fucking way I can have this woman run any part of my company.

Grace puts up her hands as if to steady my reaction. “Listen, I didn’t have to tell you any of this. Did I?”

I sigh hard. “No, you didn’t.”

“That’s because I feel like I’m ready to make a new lease on life.”

“Just the other day, you dropped your fucking list on my desk and tried to extort me with it.”

Grace sighs and takes a drink. “I did that half-heartedly.”

I grunt cynically. “What the fuck does that mean?”

She throws her hands up. “You know what? Maybe you’re too perfect to know what I mean by making a new lease on life, but I’m not. Something really woke me up here. Matt and I doing crazy shit in the name of love? I just want to prove to myself and you that I can be a different person, that’s all.”

I sigh and hold up my hand so the waitress can see me. “You want another whisky?” I ask Grace.

“I haven’t even started on this one.”

The waitress is on the way.

“Finish it,” I say.

“But what’s the verdict?”

“I know about new leases on life. I’ll give you one.”

The waitress arrives. “What can I get you?”

Grace slaps her credit card on the table. “Two more whiskeys on me.”

The waitress looks at me for corroboration.

“You heard what the crazy lady said,” I say, smirking at Grace.

She bursts out laughing. The waitress looks at Grace as if she’s insane.

“See? Crazy,” I say.

Grace laughs harder.

W
ednesday morning
…

A
nother day
, another wacked employee to deal with. The person I’ve been waiting for arrives and sits down at his desk. I walk out of my office. I see that Carter’s workspace is still empty. It’s nine thirty. She’s usually one of the first to arrive. I turn my gaze directly across the room to where Matt Franks sits. Strangely enough, our eyes meet. Matt watches me as I walk to his desk.

“Can I see you in my office?” I ask.

He stiffens. “Um, sure.”

I wait until he stands. “After you,” I say.

I glare at the back of his head. I’m more worried about where Carter is than I am angry at Matt for pulling a stupid stunt like using doctored photos to get me to fire Carter. I can’t help but think that I’ve crossed a major line by having sex with her. If I kick myself one more time for not keeping it in my pants, then I’d put myself in the hospital.

Matt stops beside a guest chair in front of my desk. I can tell the guy is so scared that he’s probably already shit himself.

I sit and get comfortable. “Have a seat.”

He hesitates but sits. “I’m sorry, but what’s this all about?”

I look him in the eye, and he squirms. “You have no idea why I asked you to come into my office?”

He shakes his head and gulps. “No.”

I take the envelope out of my top drawer, open it, and show him the photos. “Do these look familiar to you?”

“Um, no.”

I drop the photos in front of him. “Why not? You took them.”

Matt shakes his head in shame. Shit, if I weren’t so empathetic, I would tell him to pack his things and get the fuck out of my building.

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

His eyes are watery. I hope he doesn’t cry. I wouldn’t know what to do if a grown man bawled right in front of me.

“I don’t know,” he says with a sigh. “I was mad at her for…” He clenches his lips.

“Mad at Carter for what?”

“She sort of dicked me around.”

“You went through all of this because she dicked you around? Women do shit like that all the time.”

He shrugs.

I shake my head and let out a sigh of resolve. “Shit, Matt. You know I have to fire you, right?”

“I don’t care. As long as she works here, I don’t want to be here.”

I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor guy. He looks as if he’s only in his mid-twenties, and he’s already having problems dealing with women.

I rub my top lip, trying to think of what to say to him. “A guy has to be pretty out there to follow a chick and take pictures of her with her boss—and then threaten to expose the boss for fraternization if he doesn’t stop fucking her.” I watch to see how he reacts.

He blinks as if nothing I said computed. “I wasn’t trying to get pictures of you and her. She kept saying that she wasn’t fucking around with Tyler, so I wanted proof.”

“Was she fucking around with you?”

“She broke it off with me.”

“So why the hell did you need proof?”

He looks at me as if that’s the hardest question to answer on an IQ test. “But what the fuck? You’re the one who’s fucking her.”

I’m taken aback. “Is that your response to what I just said?”

“Aren’t you?” His tone is demanding.

I look him square in the eyes. “No, I am not and never have.”

He searches my face for the lie I just told. I know he can’t find it. His face turns red as he scratches the back of his neck. “Shit, what the fuck did I do?”

He’s doing exactly what I didn’t want him to do. He’s turned all red and clammy as he wipes his eyes. I get up and close the door so that curious onlookers can’t hear him. I learned a long time ago that the glass is soundproof.

I pat Matt’s shoulder. “Listen, you’re not the first man who has fallen to the wiles of a woman.”

“Then what was she doing with you?” he says.

“Carter and I are old friends.”

He looks at me with furrowed eyebrows.

“My best friend is her cousin. We’re just friends. That’s all. We didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want people to think that I promoted her because I know her. Just like you, she does fucking good work.”

My computer dings. I’ve just received an email from Carter.

Matt squeezes his head out of frustration. “Shit, I just lost my job. What am I going to do?” He searches my face for the answer.

I open the email, and my mouth falls open. “What the fuck?”

“What is it?” Matt asks.

I cover my dismay so that I can continue to handle this ordeal. “Nothing you need to know. So, Matt, I’m going to have to fire you.” Shit, I don’t even like the way that sounds.

“You can’t give me another chance?”

“Would you give you another chance if you were me?”

He gazes off to think. After a moment, he sighs. “I guess I fucked up.”

He and I are still studying each other. I think he senses my ambivalence. I’ve never had to fire a person other than Grace, and the shit just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe in the future, when I’ve atoned for all of my sins against Vince, it will, but not yet.

“Matt,” I say, “today is your lucky day.”

I choose not to fire Matt if he agrees to my stipulations. He has to give me the memory card with the pictures he took, along with the computer he used to download the photos. I’ll keep the computer for forty-eight hours, long enough to get it wiped. As long as he has those photos, he has my ass. Hell, keeping him close and not pissing him off is probably smarter than firing him and letting him keep those pictures to use whenever the feeling hits.

I
’m finishing
up a phone interview with the reporter from
MM
Magazine
. MM stands for money masters, and they’re one of the top financial magazines in the world. I’ve been stuck in silence for a while, trying to keep my composure.

I clear my throat. “He said that?” I ask again.

“I’m quoting Vincent Adams directly. He said that if it weren’t for Robert Tango, A&RT Media wouldn’t be the contender that it is today. He said that you built the business model and structure. You hired the right people, and the company took off from there.”

Like a good reporter, he’s trying to keep my emotions stirred up, and it’s working.

“He also said he’s not surprised that you made your own company successful so quickly.”

I swallow again to take the tightness out of my throat. “I’m flattered.”

“Are you? I’m surprised. I thought you two were best friends?”

It’s time to lie my ass off in order to save face. “We are.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he says.

There’s awkward silence. He’s waiting for me to fill it.

“Okay… well, thank you, Mr. Tango, for this great interview. It’s been inspiring, and I’m sure our readers will think the same.”

“You’re welcome,” I say.

“Oh, one more thing. I heard you’re expanding to New York next summer. Is that true?”

I look over at Jim Nelson, my business development officer, sitting on the sofa. He shows me a thumbs-up. We’ve been waiting for this moment. Any reporter worth his salt, who was fed that information, would bring it up.

I wink at Jim. “Who told you that?”

The reporter chuckles. “I can’t reveal my sources.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to wait and see, aren’t you?”

“Is that a yes?”

“If that were true, then that would be in-house knowledge that only four people in this company would know.”

‘Right… right…” he says. “Well, thanks again, and please be in touch if there’s anything that we didn’t cover that you feel we should have.”

“Will do,” I say and end the call.

Jim stands. “He’s going to run with it.”

“Yes, he is.”

He shows me a thumbs-up and shakes his fist victoriously. “Are you coming tonight?”

“I’ll be there. I just need a moment.”

“Then I’ll see you later.”

Jim leaves my office. Tonight a group of us, including all of my company officers and chief and principal architects, are getting together to celebrate our story in MM Magazine. The article is about me, but I would have no success without them. Drinks and dinner are on me.

I take my cell phone out of my top desk drawer and contemplate calling Vince. I hadn’t given him much thought lately until the reporter mentioned him. I got the message—as far as he’s concerned, our friendship is done.

I also had to forget about Carter. Two months ago, the Wednesday after we spent the weekend together, she sent me an email to say that she’s quitting and won’t be back. She said it was too stressful to work at a place where everyone but me wanted her gone. I responded,
“No hard feelings—be happy.”
She responded,
“Likewise.”

I had a severe pain in my chest for at least three days after that. If I weren’t so busy building a company and a new house, then I swear I would’ve accepted that I had a broken heart. Sometimes I still miss Carter. I know she’s still in touch with Tyler, but he and I don’t talk about her.

I’m staring at my phone, willing myself to pick it up and call Vince. He’ll probably let it go straight to voicemail, but I can’t let the possible rejection detour me. I swipe the phone off the table, and just before I plug in Vince’s number, it rings.

I gasp. Shit. It’s him. “Hello.” I sound desperate, but I don’t care.

“Hey, Rob, how are you?” He sounds happy.

“I’m good. How are you?” I sit up and look around, wondering if anybody is noticing that the one thing I wanted most to happen is occurring right at this second.

“Actually, it can’t get much better.”

“That’s good.”

“And congratulations on
MM
. I’m proud of you, brother.”

He called me brother. “Thanks.” My voice cracks. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“So…” he says, changing his tone. “I’ve been thinking. Maggie and I are finally tying the knot. And um, there’s only one best man for me.”

Energy rises from my feet to my head, and I shoot out of my seat like a rocket. “Are you asking me to be your best man?”

“I am,” he says.

“Yes.” My tone is definite.

“And I’m sorry for treating you like an ass, brother.”

“No, don’t you apologize. The shit I’ve done to you, I’m lucky you’re talking to me now.”

This is what reward looks like. Both Grace and Matt have been working out perfectly. Instead of judgment, I utilized empathy. I may have fucked Carter, but I didn’t fuck her over. And now, the one fucking thing that I wanted in this whole fucking world has happened.

Vince is silent, then he clears his throat. “Well, the wedding is going to be in Colorado.”

I clear my throat. “Oh yeah?”

“Maggie doesn’t like it, but she’s willing to go through with it if it makes me happy.”

“Your sisters are going to drive her nuts,” I say.

“They already are.”

I chuckle and sit back down. It seems I’ve garnered a lot of attention from my staff. Zoe and everybody else are watching me curiously. I wink and smile at Zoe. She blushes. I have to stop doing that. The women in the company are getting more aggressive about pursuing me. But there’s only one woman I’ve been dreaming of fucking, and she’s all the way in Washington, DC.

Vince and I talk some more about what I’ve been doing for RT Creative, business-wise. He gets me caught up on A&Rt Media.

“How in the hell did you get both of your initials in A&Rt, and I only got A for Adams?” Vince says.

I laugh. “Remember we tried Vt&Rt and A&T, but that sounded too much like the phone company.”

Vince laughs. We’re talking to each other like old times. Hours pass, and we’re still on the telephone. Before I hang up three hours later, I promise to fly out to Colorado next week for one week.

Matt Franks knocks on my door. I wave him in.

“Ready, boss? You’re our designated driver.”

I hop to my feet. “I’m ready!” I grab my coat, smiling like a circus clown. Life couldn’t be better.

C
arter moved to Washington
, DC, two months earlier, and it had been so cold that she could barely stand it. She had hoped she would hate Metropolis Architecture and go crawling back to Robert to ask for her old job back, but that hadn’t been the case. She loved DC. The weather was forty degrees colder than it was in California, but the general spirit of the city couldn’t agree with her more. She had friends in DC. They’d all tried to hook her up, so she had been on many dates. But with all of the nice and professional men she’d met, none of them could make her stop thinking about Robert Tango. The things he’d done to her body when they made love… the depth of their kissing and touching…

Since moving to DC, she had let her hair grow out and returned to her original ash-blond. She sold her motorcycle and bought a small fuel-efficient car for weekend drives to Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and everywhere in between. The east coast had some of the best real estate on Earth, and she visited so many construction sites that her mind stayed full of ideas for her new clients. She didn’t live far from work, so on the weekdays, she caught the bus to the office.

Tonight she had a date with another guy her new friend Janelle had set her up with. Most of her girlfriends were her age and already married. They had careers but were planning on popping out the babies as soon as they turned thirty. Carter thought of them as nice women but from an alien planet called Crazyville. Regardless, she couldn’t sit in the house every night, so she spent time in the best bars, restaurants, and nightclubs on the planet. DC had every scene a person could look for—jazz, Latin, Caribbean, rock, pop, and some spots had them all.

She sat at her desk waiting for her date to arrive. He was supposed to pick her up from the office at six thirty. Three of her girlfriends had stayed behind to get a glimpse of him. Janelle, the one who had set her up, said he was a solid ten, and the other women wanted to see if that was true.

The phone in Carter’s purse rang. She scrambled to open her purse and answer it. At first she thought the guy was calling to cancel on her. It was snowing out, but he was only coming from Georgetown to Dupont Circle.

“Hello,” Carter said without looking at the name on the screen.

“Carter?”

Shit, it was Allie. “Allie, what do you want?”

“I want you to get on an airplane and come to Denver next week. Did you get the invitation?”

“For Vince’s wedding, yes. But I can’t leave early. I have work.”

“You have work unlike me?”

Carter sighed and rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I said.”

“Don’t you love your cousin, Carter?”

“Don’t pull that crap.”

“What crap?” a man with a smooth tone said.

Carter jumped and looked behind her. Her mouth dropped open. There stood a tall, dark, and handsome specimen of a man.

“Allie, I have to go,” Carter said.

“Carter, Monday? Please.”

Carter noted that her cousin had resorted to shameless pleading.

The guy smiled. Janelle had said his name was Rico.

Carter raised a finger and mouthed, “One second.”

Rico raised a hand and mouthed, “I’m fine.”

“You can’t stand us up this time,” Allie said. “Vince’s girlfriend is being a bitch. He’s convinced her to give us three spots for bridesmaids, and Lexie backed out, so now it’s only Allie, you, and me.”

Rico was looking right at Carter, and for some reason, she was embarrassed to have that conversation in front of him. She cradled the phone to her ear and whispered, “I haven’t agreed to anything. And isn’t she the bride?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s not over until they both say I do.”

Suddenly Carter felt so bad for Vince. He had the worst meddling sisters.

“I was thinking that maybe I can get Rob on our side,” Allie said.

“Robert Tango?” Carter looked at Rico as if he had been privy to some deep dark secret she was keeping from him.

“Your old boss, yes.”

“He’s going to be there?”

“Vince said he was the best man.”

Rico smiled at her. Her mind replaced his face with Robert Tango’s. Gosh, she missed him. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

“Yeah?” Allie sounded excited.

“Monday?”

“Morning. Monday morning.”

“Okay. Now I have to go.”

Allie hung up without saying good-bye. Carter shook her head and brought the phone down from her ear.

“That sounded intense,” Rico said, wearing a sexy grin.

“It was.”

“Are you ready to eat dinner?”

Surprisingly, Carter had to think about it. Robert Tango would be attending Vince’s wedding. She remembered that that was all he had wanted—to restore his friendship with Vince.

“Sure,” Carter said. There was nothing wrong with spending an evening with a nice-looking guy even if she was thinking about Robert all night. “I’ll get my coat.”

He waited as she got ready to leave. When Rico and Carter walked past her new colleagues and friends, the girls gave her a thumbs-up. She was smiling so hard, and they had no idea of the real reason why. None of them. Carter knew that the next time she made love, it would be to the man she had always loved.