Taking Control Read online

  Keep your men away from her.

  Wait, is it your name on the door here? I thought it was mine. It’s cute you think you can order me around.

  The only thing I’d like to order is lunch for Tiny. If it’s too much of a burden for you, then I’ll have Steve do it.

  It pains me that you’d use a prime machine like Steve to run errands. She’s already had lunch with her friend, but I can get your six-figure bodyguard to buy her a sandwich from ‘wichcraft so stop texting me and go buy some company and harass those employees rather than mine.

  “In my fantasies you’re currently texting Kaga, asking his advice on SunCorp,” Louis interrupts.

  I text Thanks to Jake and then slip my phone into my pocket.

  “Your fantasy life sucks then.” I take a sip of Perrier and pick up my chopsticks.

  “Don’t you feel like you’ve been drifting these past couple of months?”

  Deliberately, I place my utensils back on the table and fold my hands together. Piercing Louis with a look, I ask, “Are you bored, Louis? Because if you’re bored and don’t like the pace of our acquisitions, I am happy to write out a letter of recommendation that you can use to shop for your next job.”

  My threat has its intended effect. He clears his throat after a minute. “So it’s like that,” he says with disappointment.

  “It’s like that,” I say softly.

  “Then no, I’m happy with whatever pace you set.” He gives me a tight smile.

  “Great. You and Anna should have dinner with us some night. Let me know when you’re free.”

  “Thanks.”

  The rest of lunch is spent in silence, but I do text Kaga on the cab ride back, not to pacify Louis but because the chase has always excited me.

  The meeting with SunCorp goes long, and it’s not until six that we manage to shunt everyone out of the office. Kaga had left a message with Rose halfway through that he’d heard good things about SunCorp and that the management team was enlightened. I did like them and thought that the investment might make sense, which was why our meeting ran over.

  In the washroom attached to my office, I quickly wipe off the residue of the day. I don’t have the time to take a shower even though the attached bathroom contains one. Having a bathroom wasn’t a luxury but a necessity. There were weeks that I would sleep in the office, trying to establish myself, trying to absorb reams of data so I could best decide which investment was the best one.

  I’ve been overclocking my engine for years, and Louis has been with me for the past five. It wasn’t unusual for us to work on deals for seventy-two hours at a time, only allowing a few power naps to make sure we weren’t so tired that we’d miss something important. And then there were the week-long regulatory meetings when we actually were in the process of acquiring, not just investing. I shouldn’t have been so hard on him. Ever since I met Tiny, my entire schedule has been off. Acquisitions aren’t as exciting as they once were.

  I hunger for something different now, more physical, more personal. The more time I spend away from her, the more I realize how none of this is very important. Not whether SunCorp can accelerate the harnessing of solar energy and increase stored wattage power and definitely not whether that military tech firm can create an invisible cloak. None of it compares to her.

  I’d probably enjoy myself more if I was sitting in the corner of Jake’s front office watching her than enduring any of these meetings. Although I’m not sure how long I’d last before I’d have her bent over the desk.

  The mere thought of her ass-up, her thighs wet with arousal and her tits pressed against the wood desk, makes my pants uncomfortably tight. I decide not to relieve myself. I’ll be home soon.

  FIVE

  TINY LOOKS EXHAUSTED WHEN I arrive home. We eat a subdued meal, and she doesn’t begin talking until we’re in the living room enjoying a little after dinner wine.

  “I feel like a fool complaining about how tired I am when my ass was stuck in a chair the whole day,” she says. I set my glass on the table and gesture for her to turn around so I can rub her tense shoulder muscles.

  “Exerting a lot of energy is exhausting. Doesn’t matter if it is physical, mental, or emotional.”

  “I used to bike sixty miles a day, and I never felt like this.” Groaning, she dips her head forward in a wordless gesture to continue.

  Giving her a gentle push forward, I help her into a prone position on the long sectional cushions in the living room. “Let me help you.”

  She lies there while I unfasten her pants and remove her shirt.

  “I don’t think being Jake’s dispatcher is the right thing for me. I’m making so many errors taking messages and my notes are filled with pictures because it takes me more time to write out a word, but it’s like forcing everyone to play Pictionary with me. I feel stupid. I hate that feeling.”

  I avoid the topic of her previous job as a bike courier. “Give it some time. You’ve only been there a few weeks.”

  She grunts her disgust into the cushion but allows me to unhook her bra, a lemon-yellow confection of lace and silk. My hands smooth over the curve of her shoulders and down over the blades into the hollow of her spine. She has a few dark freckles on her back and a mole halfway down on the right side.

  I follow the line of her ribs from the back around to her side and try to rub away her tension with light pressure. Gradually she begins to relax, her limbs loosening and her breathing evening out. I remove her panties so that I can rub her ass better.

  “Sorry for complaining,” she mumbles.

  “I hear no complaints.” I lean over and press a kiss against a bare shoulder. “Just my woman sharing her day with me.”

  Besides, I think, how can I fix what’s wrong if she doesn’t tell me her troubles?

  “Do you plan on doing anything else now that I’m all naked and relaxed?”

  My lips curve against her skin. “I have many plans for you.”

  I allow my fingers to brush the roundness of her breasts and sweep over the apples of her ass cheeks in feather-light strokes until she’s squirming beneath me, trying to turn over. But my weight pins her down.

  “I’d like you to execute those plans now,” she says, and by this time, her breathing isn’t as even or as deep.

  I slide my fingers between her legs. “Let’s see if you’re ready.” Liquid heat greets me, and we both moan as I slide two fingers inside her. Her ass rises to allow me greater access, and the tight rosette of her asshole peeks at me from between her round cheeks.

  I drag my thumb down the crevice to her pucker and circle it. “Someday, bunny, I’m going to take you here.”

  “I don’t know,” she begins, lowering her hips as if to hide from me, but I lift her back up as I stroke her tight cunt.

  “You’ll like it.” My thumb dips inside the little hole and I feel her walls close around me, sucking me instinctively.

  Slowly I begin to fuck her with my fingers, lightly in the ass and more forcefully in her pussy. “Touch yourself, bunny,” I order.

  Her hand dips between her legs to work her clit and it takes almost no time before her orgasm is upon her.

  “Oh, fuckkkk,” she moans as we stroke together toward her finish. Her cunt walls are like a vise on my fingers, making me use more force to plunge in and out of her. She barely notices that my thumb is knuckle-deep in her ass. My cock is hard and aching behind the wool and cotton barrier of my clothes.

  “Come on, bunny. Let it go.” I curl my thumb downward and she explodes like a rocket.

  “God, oh God!” she shouts. Her ass pushes hard against my hand and then I’m drenched with her come.

  I pull her into my lap, wiping my hands on my abandoned suit coat. Thousand-dollar suit serving as a post-coitus serviette? Sounds about right.

  “Shh, bunny,” I croon, rocking her a bit as she shakes and shudders in post-orgasmic delight. “Liked that, did you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was the pre-fingering massa
ge that did it,” she snarks back, gulping in air.

  “Maybe,” I say. “Let’s go upstairs now. My cock may break in half if it doesn’t get some attention.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  I take special care not to overwork her that evening so that I can start the next day off right. This time we share a shower in the morning, and my smug smile sits on my face until I arrive at the office.

  “YOU HAVE AN UNSCHEDULED VISITOR.” Rose informs me when I arrive. She does not like unscheduled visitors. Her strict adherence to routine is what makes her a great assistant. “He said you’d want to see him.”

  She hands me a card. It isn’t a business card but rather a calling card with the name MITCH HEDDER in a bold but old-fashioned font. Underneath his name, the lettering reads “purveyor of fine things.”

  What a fucking tool. “He’s right,” I answer. “I’ll see him today, but from here on out, he’ll need an appointment.”

  She smiles in satisfaction, and I leave the card on her desk to throw away. Rose has placed Mitch in the large conference room down the hall from my office. The table seats thirteen, six on either side, with my chair at the head. Unlike my office, this room is modern with a glass-topped steel table and white leather Herman Miller chairs. One side of the room is paneled in walnut and the other is a bay of windows overlooking the Hudson.

  Body language is as important as any words being voiced, and the glass-topped conference table prevents my guests from hiding their reactions under a layer of wood. With the clear table surface, I can view every leg twitch and hand wring.

  Mitch Hedder must realize this, because he’s not sitting. Instead, his hands are tucked into the pockets of his tan dress slacks and his back is turned. I can’t read his expression or observe his hands, but I can see the determined set of his shoulders. He’s tense and his legs are slightly braced apart. There’s no question that he’s looking at the door, watching for me.

  “Mr. Hedder,” I say, entering. I pull out the seat at the head of the table and sit down. He can stand like a lackey or sit below me. Either way I’m in control, and as a bonus, I don’t have to shake his hand. With a wave, I gesture for him to sit.

  He hesitates, no doubt wondering if sitting or standing gives him an advantage. Neither, of course. He’s had to come to me, and therefore he’s already the supplicant. Finally recognizing the futility of standing, he rounds the table so he’s seated with his back to the door but can still look out the windows.

  Hedder is fit. His broad shoulders are encased in expensive and expertly tailored double-breasted blue wool. Stick a nautical cap on this guy and he’d look like he stepped off a yacht in Palm Beach. With a full head of multicolored blonde hair, which he no doubt dyed regularly, I can see his appeal to a certain class of older women. Fifteen, twenty years ago, his allure would have been even more potent, and it’s easy to imagine him charming Tiny’s sweet mother off her feet.

  “Beautiful view you have here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Employ many people?” His question is casual, but I don’t make the mistake of thinking anything he wants to know is just friendly interest.

  “Not many. Around one hundred or so.”

  He shakes his head in mock disbelief. I don’t for a minute believe that he doesn’t know exactly how many people are employed here. “So few to run such a large enterprise, but I suppose it’s the holding you refer to, rather than your varied and far-flung interests. Don’t you even have business in the Far East?”

  “The Far East? I didn’t know that term was used anymore. But if you’re referring to the continent of Asia, I don’t know many who aren’t interested in the Asian market, either for importing or exporting purposes.”

  He turns away from the window to face me, hands lying lightly in his lap. “A billion dollar multinational company headed by a man under the age of thirty-five is unheard of if you aren’t a tech genius. Yet here you are. A financial savant. A man known to have never stepped wrong. Whose investment savvy is the stuff of legend.”

  “I’ve had losses and mistakes. I suspect they don’t fit with the current narrative,” I respond. His flattery is the gradual build to some great crescendo which he expects will evoke a response. Either I erupt in anger or effusive pleasure. I don’t think he’s decided which way he’ll play it. My nonchalance is making him rethink whatever scheme he arrived with.

  Many people might underestimate Hedder, but this man is a predator. I know this because I am too, but my prey are companies and, well, a certain five foot four inch blonde with light green eyes. Lonely women are Hedder’s targets, based on the research I’ve had done on him.

  “Yes. Ian Kerr is a golden boy. Everyone wants to touch him, hoping that his brilliance will rub off on them. But no one becomes as successful as you in such a short time without having a few skeletons in his closet.” With this opening salvo, he smiles as if to lessen the sting of his accusations. He is right, of course. I have many skeletons in my closet. The money I used to build my current empire has been washed clean, but it had unsavory origins. I don’t really give a shit unless it bothers Tiny.

  I don’t think it would. She, of all people, would understand how desperation can drive one to take measures that could fall outside the laws of state and propriety. If you were starving and someone you love was hurting, you’d do anything. She gets that.

  So does Mitch; he’d do anything to keep himself happy.

  Because I don’t care what Mitch thinks, I remain silent. We stare at each other—or at least I try to look him in the eye—but he can’t maintain contact for more than a couple seconds before he drops his gaze.

  “I know we have plans for dinner this Friday, but I wanted to come and take your measure. For Tiny’s sake.” His eyes flick over me. The dollar signs add up as he calculates the cost of my suit, my watch, and even my pocket square. The perusal ends as quickly as it starts and his attention moves back to the window. He watches himself smooth down the lapel of his jacket. As he stares at his reflection longer, I realize that he’s more interested in looking at himself than watching others.

  A narcissist to the core. But I should’ve known that by his history of nonstop pleasure seeking. He needs to be watched carefully because Sophie Corielli, Tiny’s mom, wouldn’t have fallen for him unless he wielded some sort of magic. Sophie was too smart to be taken in by an ordinary man.

  “I’m interested in everything to do with Tiny,” I respond. Beyond the yachting gear, I note he’s wearing a gold Rolex. Everything about him says money, from the carefully cut and dyed hair to the upscale clothes and his well-manicured hands. And it makes me want to leap over the table and throttle him.

  “Then we have a mutual interest.” He leans forward, tearing his eyes off his reflection and directing them toward me. His expression is set to earnest, but the only thing this man is earnest about is himself. “My son told me that Tiny was settling down, and with her mother gone—God rest her soul—it’s my duty to take up the parental reins. Sophie would have wanted that.”

  There’s no question in my mind that the very last thing Sophie would want is Mitch Hedder hanging around her precious daughter. I don’t know why their four year relationship ended, other than Sophie had gotten tired of Mitch’s roving eye. I do know that Mitch has spent the last seven years completely devoid of contact with Tiny and Sophie.

  While they were struggling to make ends meet, while they were crushed under crippling medical bills from Sophie’s fight with mantle cell leukemia, while Tiny had to turn to delivering drugs for her stepbrother to make sure that they could afford treatment when Sophie’s cancer came out of remission, while all of that was happening, Mitch Hedder was accumulating enough wealth to deck himself out in designer threads and twenty-thousand-dollar watches. And not once in that time did he reach out to help them.

  Strangling him with my own hands would probably be too good an end for him.

  “It surprises me that you would say that, giv
en your lack of attention and care toward the Corielli ladies in the last, oh, seven years or so.” I find it a struggle to maintain an even tone, my anger toward him is so great.

  He doesn’t notice. With a careful hand, he smoothes down the back of his hair. “I was under strict instruction by Sophie to never darken her doorstep. I wanted to honor that.”

  “Even when she had cancer?”

  “There was little I could do.” He gives a negligent shrug, one shoulder raised slightly to express…helplessness? Maybe that move works with the ladies down in Florida, but it just pisses me the hell off.

  “Your watch could have paid off half their medical bills.”

  We both look at the gold-encrusted timepiece. He grimaces. “This old thing?” After a rueful shake of his head, he says, “No, this piece wouldn’t have touched even a tenth of the debt. You should know. I heard you paid it all off and that you’re planning on donating even more in memory of dear Soph.”

  My blood boils even hotter. “You knew exactly how much their debt was?”

  “Malcolm kept me informed from time to time.” He looks over his shoulder then, perhaps feeling my animosity creep down his spine. “I suppose it’s too early for a whiskey. I’m parched.”

  “It’s barely ten in the morning, Mr. Hedder.”

  “You know the old saying. It’s five o’clock somewhere.” His smile dies slowly at my stony glare.

  “Not only is it barely ten in the morning, but you’ve wasted fifteen minutes of my day. That’s fifteen minutes too many. You have five minutes to state your business, and then I’m walking out of here.”

  “Now wait a minute. I’m here to look out for Tiny. If you care about her, as you profess, then you won’t mind my hanging around a bit. I’ve got some things of her mother’s that Tiny might be interested in. Unless you’ve got something to hide, I can’t imagine why I’d be a bother to you.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Hedder. I’ll summarize your visit. You show up uninvited to my office. You suggest that I am of questionable character. You challenge my suitability to marry—yes, marry,” I repeat at his look of surprise, “a woman you have ignored for the whole of her adult life, leaving her and her mother to struggle for every penny, to be worn down by worry, to be crushed under a mountain of debt while you act as the pretty appendage for some rich old socialite in Palm Beach or perhaps even San Tropez. You fail to show up for the funeral of this woman’s mother, and yet you believe that we care about your opinion of us?”