Taking Control Read online

  “Maybe Friday at the Plaza?” she asks with obvious relief. Not pointing out Mitch Hedder’s manipulation was the right tactic, but at some point she will need to acknowledge his motives are not innocent.

  “No problem. I’ve got a several meetings this week, but I believe my last one on Friday is at three.”

  “And you said you’d stay home today,” she chided.

  “No meeting is more important than you. Nothing is,” I say quietly.

  She’s silent for a long time, and I begin to think she’s hung up on me. “I’m trying to wrap my head around that. It’s just not something I’ve felt in a very long time,” she admits.

  “You take as long as you want,” I reassure her.

  “I love you.”

  I can almost see her biting the side of her lip as she says it, slightly afraid of my response. Her past boyfriends must have been real winners. Someday I’ll tell her that a man secure enough in himself isn’t afraid to say those words. “Love you, too.”

  “Bye,” she says softly.

  TINY

  EVER SINCE IAN KERR WALKED into my life, change has been the only constant. Change and his incredible and undeserving devotion. I love him, and—worse—I’m addicted to him.

  He calls every day to see if I want to have lunch. Invariably that means we have sex, because we can’t be within five feet of each other without wanting to rip each other’s clothes off. It’s bad enough I can’t look Ian’s driver, Steve, in the eye because of all the times I’ve exited the car with my clothes askew. I need to be able to look into my boss’s face without turning all kinds of red.

  Besides, Ian’s got more important things to do than eat with me. He’s in charge of a holding company that is worth a billion dollars. A billion. I can’t even fathom that. Ian wants me to stay home and suck on my toes or something. Okay, maybe not suck my toes, but he actually said I could just sit in his converted warehouse and relax. He dragged me to the rooftop, and while it’s a cool place and I don’t mind spending an hour out there enjoying a cold beer with him after work, the last thing I want to do is sit around and have to think.

  If I’m not busy or Ian isn’t occupying my attention, then all I can do is think about my mom and start crying. I’ve cried enough to float an entire armada. I hate that I cried this morning. I tried to pass them off as hate tears. I hate Richard Howe for all the shitty things he’s done to Ian. Shitty isn’t even the right word for it. More like despicable. If I could read a thesaurus, I’d come up with an even better word.

  “What’s worse than shitty?” I ask Jake when I go back and hand him the mail.

  “Fucking shitty?” He takes the mail and rifles through it. I wonder if he regrets hiring a dyslexic whose reading level is about that of a third grader. He’s never complained about my poor writing skills. I wonder if it’s because he and Ian are friends.

  If I didn’t love Ian so goddamn much I’d run away. Run away from this job I don’t really like. Run away from the lifestyle that makes me uncomfortable. Run away from the grief of my mother’s death. But my love binds me to him more effectively than a pair of gold handcuffs. If losing my mother to cancer was painful, then leaving Ian would be…well, worse than fucking shitty. Way worse.

  The unevenness of our situation agitates me. I don’t feel comfortable at his warehouse. Stupidly, I wonder how many women have slept in his bed or made coffee in his kitchen. He’s very tight-mouthed about that. He says he’s not a playboy. In fact, his lip curled in disgust when I’d even implied it, as if I’d smeared his honor or something.

  And I’ll never be able to buy Ian the same kind of gifts he buys me. His closet is filled with clothes and shoes that cost more than several months’ rent for many apartments. I’m left wondering how long he’s going to be interested in a deadweight girlfriend who has a hard time remembering to smile these days.

  “You’re frowning,” Jake comments, waking me from my reverie.

  “Sorry, boss.” Making a face, I turn to leave.

  “You really dislike this job, don’t you?”

  Oh god, is he going to fire me?

  “No, it’s good. Great in fact,” I lie but at his knowing gaze, I fess up. “It’s not you or this job. It’s being inside. I haven’t worked indoors since my first job out of high school waiting tables. I’m used to being outside and frankly, I miss the rush of my old job. The pressure, the challenge. Out there I felt like I was doing something. Here I feel like the only thing I’m accomplishing is a notepad full of errors”

  “I’m not going to fire you,” Jake chuckles. “So you can stop the gruesome expression that you’re trying to pass off as a smile. I want to find a job that you do like.”

  “Why? It’s not your responsibility to find me a job. Is it because of Ian?”

  “No. It’s because you’re a tremendously hard worker. You’ve done a job you don’t like without complaint for the last four weeks. That kind of work ethic is hard to find. With your attention to detail, good memory, and quick mind, you’d make a great field agent.”

  “But?”

  He gives me a knowing look but not a sympathetic one. Jake has no interest in complainers. “You’d have to write reports, conduct background checks—basically, you’d have to read and write better. Think about it.”

  His last words are a dismissal, and I return to my desk. The rest of the morning I contemplate his advice. Learn to read and write better. I pretty much gave up on the whole reading thing in elementary school.

  Once I’d been diagnosed as dyslexic, I’d been taught a lot of coping strategies, such as better visualization and memorization skills. I have a rocking good memory, which is why I’d been a good bike courier. I knew landmarks all over this city and could find an address easily. I paid attention in class, and if my notes looked more like hieroglyphics than words, it worked for me. That’s what I used now—more pictures than words.

  Jake is telling me I need to stretch myself. My mom was always accepting of the way I had compensated, and since I’d had a job and a place to live, learning to read and write better never actually occurred to me. Plus, if there was anything I hated more than being viewed as weak and unequal, it was school. I make a face even though no one can see me.

  At noon, I call to Jake, “I’m going to lunch.”

  “The office will be locked when you come back. I have a meeting with a tech firm to take a look at some security systems. Put the machine on.”

  “Will do.”

  Another reason I’m not lunching with Ian is because today I’m having lunch with Sarah Berkovich, an old high school friend. She’d called me a week ago saying she saw the notice in the Observer about my mom’s funeral. It would never have been there if I hadn’t been standing next to Ian. In fact, my name wasn’t even mentioned below the picture of him standing behind me with his hand on the small of my back. The caption read Ian Kerr, billionaire investor, attending the funeral of a friend, Sophie Corielli.

  Sarah and I are meeting at Telepan—a place I wouldn’t have been able to eat at before Ian. Even though the prices are considered midrange, it still would have been too expensive when we had five digit medical bills hovering over us and I struggled to make rent on a one bedroom fifth floor walkup on the far Upper East Side. There was some pleasure in being able to agree that Telepan was just fine when Sarah suggested it, instead of having to say I needed to bring a sandwich from home.

  Sarah is already there when I arrive. Her dark brown hair is full of wiry curls, which are about the only distinctively Jewish thing about her other than her last name. She has a heart-shaped face and a sloped nose that curls up just slightly at the end, making her look pert and mischievous. As I enter, she stands and hurries to the door.

  “Vic!” she cries, and pulls me against her five foot eight inch frame. Thankfully she’s wearing flats instead of heels, so I don’t feel like a complete shrimp next to her. My family—and Ian—call me Tiny. Everyone else has their own variation of Victoria. For Sarah,
it’s Vic. Her generous breasts squish against my smaller frame. As she leads me back to our table, every male head and some of the female ones turn to watch her.

  “God, you haven’t changed at all,” she says as we sit down.

  “Neither have you. You look amazing, as always.”

  She uses a hand to smooth some of her wild curls back. “I’m getting better at putting on makeup, I hope.”

  “Definitely,” I laugh. We’d had a sleepover once with Sarah acting as the cosmetologist. We were going for smoky eyes but ended up looking like frightened raccoons.

  “Before we go any further, I have to apologize. I’m so sorry that we lost contact. I had no idea that your mother was sick.”

  She looks sincere, but I hope she doesn’t start crying. Sarah was a weeper in school and if she tears up here, given my precarious emotional health, I’ll join her, which will be an embarrassing mess.

  “Thanks, but no apologies are necessary. We moved close to the hospital and kind of lost touch with everyone. Plus, you went to Pace and I didn’t.”

  The waiter forestalls any more apologies. I haven’t looked at my menu, but it’s a pizza place. I figure they have cheese pizza. After he takes our order, Sarah asks, “Are you still messengering? That’s what you did after high school, right?”

  “No. I got in an accident and thought I would look into something else, so I’m dispatching for a security firm.” I’d actually gotten beat up by a paranoid drug addict, and my inability to get right back up on the bike got me fired, but she doesn’t need to know those kind of details.

  “Oh no. I didn’t realize it was dangerous. You’re okay now though?”

  I nod. “Yes, all healed up. How about you?”

  “I graduated two years ago with a BA in English, which netted me a publishing assistant job. If I didn’t live at home, I wouldn’t be able to go out at all.”

  “I hear you.” I completely understood those kind of money problems. Every dime I had went for food, rent, or paying down Mom’s medical bills. I didn’t have the time, energy, or—most of all—the money to go out to a bar or a club. Now I have Ian, who seems intent on seeing that everything I missed out on before is brought to me on a silver platter. It’s nice but overwhelming.

  “Hopefully I’ll get a promotion one of these days into an editorial position, make a little more money, and then finally move out on my own. But I don’t want to live so far outside the city that I’m taking a two hour train ride to and from work.”

  “But do you like your job?”

  “Love it. I’d do it for free if I had to. I get to read manuscripts all day, work with authors, give input on covers and stuff. I once wrote the back cover copy of a book that got published.” She pumps her fist. “My boss, Diane, tells me that the dewy innocence in my eyes will dry out after I’ve read my share of crappy manuscripts or dealt with awful authors, but for now, I’m still full of youthful exuberance.” She smiles back at me, every ounce of her joy visible in her face. I can’t help but return her grin.

  “I forgot how cheerful you are all the time.”

  “Irritatingly so, according to Diane,” she says, unperturbed. “I’m guessing by the lack of gushing that you aren’t as in love with your job as I am with mine.”

  “Unfortunately, no. It’s okay, but I can’t see me doing it for the rest of my life.”

  “Do you even need to work?”

  “Because I’m dating Ian?” I ask.

  “My god, Vic, it’s like winning the lottery and The Bachelorette at the same time.”

  “It’s better,” I admit. “Not gonna lie.”

  She slaps the table and hoots a little too loud, but I don’t mind. The waiter delivers our food and in between bites of cheese pizza, we catch up, talking about people from high school, particularly her hated ex, Cameron O’Toole, who she’d discovered was cheating on her while she was at Pace University and he was at Columbia.

  “Cam is just finishing his MBA. New York is sick with business school grads, and they’re all insufferable. No offense to your boyfriend.”

  “He never went to college, so no offense taken,” I say.

  “No college? Wow, one of those dropouts like Jobs or Gates, huh?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You guys have a lot in common, then,” she observes.

  I’m taken aback by this. “What do you mean?”

  “Neither of you went to college. You both made your way successfully in the world despite it. That’s cool. I see why you fit.” She reaches across the table and pats my hand. “You’re surprised, but you shouldn’t be. You’ve always had your shit together. Even though you had your reading disability, you still sat in class like it was no big deal. You never asked for accommodations and you went out and got a job before half the class was employed.”

  She’s more right than she knows. Ian and I do have a lot in common. We both lost our mothers too young. We both love too fiercely. We’re both a little lost without each other. I’ve got to stop letting insecurities get in the way of our relationship.

  “So did you confront Cam?”

  “I did one better. I re-recorded his voicemail to say ‘You’ve reached Cameron aka ‘Cheating Bastard O’Toole.’ I like to cheat and have sex without a condom. You may want to get a checkup to be sure I haven’t passed around an STI. Leave a message.’”

  “You didn’t.” I’m laughing so hard I have to press my napkin up to my mouth so I don’t spray pizza all over the table.

  “Scout’s honor, I did. He deserved it. He’s a technological idiot, so I went ahead and changed his passcode so he wasn’t able to fix it. I think it was at least a week before he got some help and the message was changed. I heard through the grapevine that all his friends were mercilessly mocking him about it, and that no one wanted to go out with him after that.”

  “That was genius.”

  “I know. It still makes me smile, even though it happened three years ago.”

  “I’d like to do something like that to a guy I know,” I admit. “Embarrass him so much he’s shunned by his friends.”

  “Public humiliation is hard. What’d this guy do to you?”

  “Enough.” I don’t want to reveal that it’s Ian who has a vendetta against Richard Howe. He wouldn’t want me spreading his private business, and besides, what hurts Ian hurts me.

  She looks thoughtfully at me but doesn’t ask me to elaborate on what enough means. “Who is it?”

  Looking around to see who is next to me, I lean in and gesture for Sarah to come close so I can avoid other people hearing. “Richard Howe.”

  “Ed Howe’s son?” she hisses. “Ed Howe, the family-first mayoral candidate?”

  “Yes,” I hiss back.

  “Come on. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.” She stands abruptly. The waiter comes over immediately. Sarah and I fight for the bill, but I tell her Ian is paying and she gives in. We walk a little ways down 69th Street West toward Amsterdam.

  “Are you afraid that he’s trying to break you and Ian up?” she asks finally.

  I choose my words carefully, because I don’t want to lie. “I think that he’d do anything to hurt us, Ian particularly. He’s really jealous of Ian’s success.”

  “I can see that. Who wouldn’t be jealous of Ian? Rich, good-looking, has a hot blonde girlfriend.” She winks at me and I give her a weak smile. “Did he hurt you?”

  “He’s trying to,” I say. It’s as much as I feel comfortable saying, but it’s the truth.

  “What you really need is dirt on him. Like I got on Cam.”

  “I know,” I say glumly.

  “Look, I’ve got to go back to the office,” she says when we reach Broadway. “The best thing I can say is to follow him around. Get on your bike and shadow him for a few days. See if there’s anything you can find that would embarrass him. Once you find it, go to him and say that you’ll release that information if he doesn’t leave the two of you alone.”

  “But what kind of in
formation?” When Ian and I first met, his goal was to use me to get information to blackmail Howe. I can’t really tell Sarah that, and I know Ian would be furious if I engaged in any kind of flirtation with Howe. But following him around? Maybe Sarah has something.

  “You won’t know until you follow him. Might be fun.” A cab finally stops, and Sarah climbs in. “Let me know if you want help.”

  With that, she waves goodbye. Seconds after the cab pulls away, Steve pulls up.

  “Does Ian know you’re following me?” I ask. I get in because if I don’t, he’ll just follow me up the street.

  Steve grunts once which I take as a yes. On the ride back to Jake’s office, my lunch conversation swirls around in my head. Sarah reminding me how Ian and I do fit together. Her suggestion that I follow Howe. Then there’s Jake’s idea that maybe I could do fieldwork. It’s a lot to take in but all in a good way.

  IAN

  WHEN I ARRIVE AT MY office building downtown, Malcolm Hedder is waiting for me. He pushes away from the granite wall as I climb out of the car.

  “You’re a long way from Queens.” He looks out of place down here in his dark wash jeans and white T-shirt, a modern day James Dean.

  “Throw her back,” he says without preamble.

  “So she’s a fish?”

  “She doesn’t belong with you.”

  “If you cared so much, you should have taken better care of her when you had the opportunity. She’s mine now.” Steve’s turned off the vehicle and has stepped out of the car, his hand on the roof.

  I shake my head in warning. I can handle this. “I’m fine,” I tell Steve. “And you have better things to do.” He squints at me, making up his own mind. Having decided that I don’t need him, he leaves. He needs to get up to Jake Tanner’s office so that he can watch Tiny. Now more than any other time, we need to be vigilant about her safety. Malcolm is lurking outside of my office, demanding her return as if I’m holding her hostage, Howe still breathes, and now her long-lost stepfather is demanding a meeting.