Taming Graeme (Taming the Billionaire) (32 page)

 
“Oh, so which hotel are you staying at?”

 
“I’m staying at Graeme’s house. James is driving me in and out. It’s much nicer. Mrs. Green made me Irish Lamb Stew for dinner.  I’m just going to climb into the bath here now. It’s funny though, being here without Graeme.

 
”Oh, Linda, you should see the clothes he bought me on Saturday from the Armani Collezioni at Harrods! I feel like a princess and look like a real banking executive!”

 
“Wow that must have set him back a pound or two.”

 
“Thousands, I think. He wouldn’t let me see the prices. But he said these men here would give me more credence if I look the part, and he’s right as usual.”

 
“Has he called you today?”

 
“Yes, at mid day, and of course he drove me to the airport this morning. He paid Mrs. Dawson off, says I’m not sleeping there again. He says we can worry about where I’m going to live when I come back from Ireland.”

 
“Really?”

 
“Hmmm. I suppose I’ll find a share in a house or a flat. If you move in with Michael, perhaps I can just take over your spot in that house?

 
“He did tell me he was teaching you tonight. I think you get him for one more class as well.”

 
“The girls will love that. There are five of us in the class, and the other four were all swooning over him. Well, three of the other four. They’ve all got high hopes of attracting his attention, especially Naomi. I think she’s another Francine, eye out for the money. Michael says I shouldn’t say anything at all about Graeme’s private life, so my lip is zipped, but they all seem to know he’s ultra rich.”

 
“That’s probably for the best. Oh, the first new girl started in the Secretarial Pool last Monday, I forgot to tell you. Her name is Hailie, and she was pumping Amanda all week for information about Graeme as well. Once she heard he’s a widower, she was licking her lips. She’s twenty eight, so much closer to his age than me, and she is very attractive. Dark hair and eyes, great figure. She wears wonderful clothes that accentuate the positives, if you know what I mean, and her makeup is perfect!

 
“Every day at tea she’s brought the conversation round to him, asking where he lives, all about his dead wife, his daughters, his past girlfriends, what cars he drives, where he likes to holiday.”

 
“And I’ll bet Amanda is stupid enough and likes the sound of her own voice enough to tell this Hailie everything she wants to know and more.”

 
“Linda, you’re spot on. I found out a lot I didn’t know about Graeme listening to it all.”

 
“Didn’t you tell me Graeme said what Amanda knows might fill a thimble? That girl just talks to make herself sound important. She’s only his second cousin, and nearly twenty years younger than him. Not somebody who he’d confide in, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention to anything she says, Olivia.”

 
“You have a very good point. But I can just tell, Hailie is working out a strategy to snag his attention...”

 
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Who did he sleep with last night?”

 
“Me.”

 
“Who does he call his little kitten?”

 
“Me.”

 
“Who did he take to Ireland for a dirty weekend?”

 
Olivia giggled. “Me.”             

 
“Who did he just buy Armani clothes for?”

 
“Me.”

 
“So don’t give her another thought.”

 
“He gave me an American Express card, Linda. A black American Express card. A companion to his card.”

 
“No limit, eh?  He trusts you, Olivia.”

 
“I hope so. He has no reason not to.”

 
“Oh, I see our Doms coming now, call me tomorrow if you get a chance....

TWENTY

  Olivia had just filled the bathtub with jasmine scented bubble
s
when her mobile rang. She’d pulled a little table over by the tub and carefully placed her mobile on it, just in case Graeme called while she was in the bath.

 
“Hello...”

 
“Hi, baby. I just got home. What are you doing?”

 
“Just filled the tub and climbed in. How was the course? Linda called me. She says the other girls in the class are all drooling over you.”

 
He laughed. “Linda flatters me. They were quite sloppy, Linda included, so I used my riding crop a lot tonight.  They get me again next Tuesday. Their graduation is next Thursday, and I hope you’ll be back for that. Michael has something planned...”

 
“I’ll do my best, but, Graeme, I’m seeing some things I don’t understand. I’m glad John Taylor is coming Friday. I think I’ll be here next week as well, to sort out this mess.”

 
“What do you mean, don’t understand, Olivia?” Graeme’s voice had become all business.

 
“I’m finding two sets of documents for the same trade, and there are discrepancies...the numbers are quite different. But consistently different, about 20% each time. Not every trade, maybe every fifth or sixth trade.  Also, I can’t see where the profits went off those trades, they seem to disappear.”

 
Graeme’s voice became quite sharp. “Have you mentioned that to anyone there?”

 
“No, I thought it might not be wise, because if it’s what I think it is, you may have a very dishonest employee...i didn’t even want to talk to John Taylor about it on a Bank telephone in case somebody was listening in. I decided to wait until tonight, so I could talk to you about it first.”

 
“You think somebody is skimming the profits?”

 
“Graeme, I don’t have that much experience, but I do have an eye for detail and I remember a certain Vice-Chairman remark I have elementary math skills, and two and two are adding up to something very smelly.”

 
“The efficiency experts I hired just said the reporting was a mess. I don’t think they looked past the piles of paper laying about everywhere. In any case, I’d told them to concentrate on the Depositor accounts, to make certain everything was in order with the Bank’s customers.

 
“We probably wouldn’t have sent you over if it wasn’t for that ten thousand pound fine two weeks ago, and me noticing it was the fifth fine in fourteen months.” Graeme paused for a moment, thinking.

 
“Shall I get the internal auditors in?  We can send a team over and tell everyone we’re just bringing systems into line. We won’t even tell them it’s an audit team.”

 
“You know, I think you might. From the comments I’m hearing, the old owners were doddery and more interested in their racehorses than this Bank, but you knew that already. It was probably easy for some dishonest employees to pull the wool over...and I don’t like Tim O’Rourke.

 
“He’s really coming on to me. He puts on the good old boy act, but his eyes are very cold and sharp, and I think he wants to have dinner with me so he can get me drunk and see if I’ve uncovered anything he wants to keep hidden. And if he’s up to no good, perhaps there are others who are lining their own pockets in other departments as well?”

 
“Pet, you are worth your weight in gold, no, twice your weight, because you’re light as a feather. How are you feeling, tired?”

 
“I am, and my back aches. I’m going to enjoy to this nice hot bath now, and pretend you’re here with me, Sir, and any minute your cock is going to bob up above the water, for me to love.”

 
“And I’m going to pretend you are with me here, baby and I’ve got you straddling that cock, riding your stallion.”

 
“A bucking stallion,” she said dreamily.

 
“Have you been looking at your breasts, ‘Livi?”

 
“Looking at them and remembering…”

 
“Remembering what, ‘Livi?”

 
“Remembering how fantastic I felt while you were covering them with love bites. Remembering how amazing it was when you put those leather cuffs on me and blindfolded me, and...and owned me….”

 
“I’ve been remembering that too, ‘Livi.”

 
“I thought about it all the way over in the plane, Sir.”

 
“Thought about what, kitten?”

 
“Your cock, Sir and how wonderful it felt, how wonderful you made me feel…”

 
“I’ve been thinking about it, too, baby. I’ve been thinking about my hard cock in your velvet soft pussy, with you totally helpless.”

 
“Is this what they mean by telephone sex, Graeme?”

 
“Mild telephone sex, baby.  I’ll call you in the morning, shall I, before you leave for work, and we’ll have some more telephone sex?”

 
“That would be lovely,” she breathed.

 
Graeme looked down. His cock was rising out of the water now. Even her voice over a mobile connection all the way from Belfast made him hard. Sighing, he reached down and took matters into his own hand, imagining kitten naked, cuffed, blindfolded, spread open, on that bed...

 
She slept well, in the huge comfortable bed under a feather duvet. He did not. The bed felt empty, and he kept waking, reaching for his little kitten to cuddle, but she wasn’t there.

 
He called her at six, to wake her with salacious comments, and get her hot and bothered.

 
“I want you as frustrated all day as I am,” he told her. “I want you bitchy today, to keep that O’Rourke at bay. Are you still sore from the weekend?”

 
“Not really, not like I was yesterday.”

 
“Well, just keep that O’Rourke at arm’s length. I hear he’s a ladies’ man.

 
“You mean I can be rude to him?”

 
“As rude as you like. You’re mine, baby. I own you and no young Irish Lothario has permission to sniff around you...”

 
At ten past seven her mobile rang and it was John Taylor. Graeme had called him with Olivia’s suspicions. John didn’t ask her when she and Graeme had spoken, for which she was grateful.

 
He gave her a short list of things to check.

 
James had her at the Bank by eight, and she was able to gather most of the information John wanted, and fax it over to him, before Tim and Danny wandered in at nine. The other three traders had of course been at work for some time, and were too busy to care what Olivia was doing. In any case, Tim had told them to keep their distance from the paper pusher from London.

 
She made quite a point of going over the new reporting format with Danny, and even invited Tim to join them in the study session, explaining that since he was Department Head, even though he wouldn’t have to worry about the procedure, he should have a nodding acquaintance with it, in case Danny was ever sick.

 
Tim didn’t pay much attention at all. He was much more concerned with how the Yen was trading against the U.S. Dollar and kept wandering off to check on the traders.

 
Tim planned to totally disregard the new reporting system once Olivia went back to London. He was arrogant enough to think he’d get away with just that. He needed confusion, chaos, to hide his covert activities. So Head Office might bitch, but so what? As long as he was making them a profit, he was sure he’d get away with it.

 
All owners just looked at the bottom line, didn’t they? Owners didn’t bother with details, just how much you were pumping into their bank accounts.

Noon came, and Tim announced he was taking her to lunch. She surprised him by smiling and agreeing.

  “Shall we go to your hotel’s dining room,” he almost leered.

 
“I’m not staying at a hotel,” she told him. I’m staying at a private home. We’ll go to the same restaurant I took Danny. It was very nice, and the food was excellent and the service efficient.”

 
“Oh, so the limo and chauffeur belong to your friends?”

 
She didn’t answer.

 
Tim talked about himself and what a good job he did for the Bank, and how indispensable he was for the hour it took them to consume their food. When coffee was served he changed the topic to how he was one of Belfast’s most eligible bachelors, sought after by crowds of beautiful women, not only because of his earnings, and good looks, but because his bedroom skills were legendary...Olivia wanted to be sick...

 
“But enough about me, what about you, Olivia? Are you married?”