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“You sent everyone home.”
She seemed to recognize this was out of character. She poured beer into the glass she hadn’t been drinking from. “Sit,” she said. “Taste. I think this will complement our spin on Boston beans and bacon.”
This was one of their appetizers, served on lace-thin triangles of sourdough toast. Unsure what he was getting into, Trey sat and sipped. “Yes,” he said. “That combination ought to work.”
When she said nothing, he studied her. He was irrationally content to be in her presence, though he disapproved of the dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked thinner than the last time he’d seen her, and she couldn’t afford to miss the weight. That bothered him. This job was supposed to ease her burdens, not add to them.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She let out a ragged laugh. “I had a moment today when I was convinced everything was crap. I honestly thought I needed to toss out every recipe and start again from scratch.”
“Ah,” Trey said. “That’s when you sent your crew home.”
“I wish. I sent them home an hour later after my head chef told me I’d better. When every other word I say is ‘fuck,’ he knows it’s time to rein me in.”
“Smart man.”
“Good man.” She took another swig from the bottle.
“You know, Rebecca, Monday night doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Sure it does. Trying to be perfect is what keeps me sane.” She said it wryly, but he sensed it wasn’t a joke. Worried, he wrapped his hand on her bare forearm. He didn’t like that she eased away.
“Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be laying my doubts on you.”
“Why not? Can’t we be friends as well as employer and employee?” Though he strove to say this lightly, he wasn’t certain he’d pulled it off.
Rebecca’s big gray eyes rose to his. The steadiness at her center seemed to look straight into his heart. Fuck, he wanted her. His cock was abruptly aching, his chest tight with longing to nestle her against it.
“Can men and women be friends?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he answered cautiously.
“Do you have any?”
“You’ve got me there,” he confessed ruefully.
“Raoul is my friend, but he’s married. And older. I think I’m kind of a daughter to him. Maybe men and women can be friends as long as they don’t want to have sex.”
She made him sadder than he could say—not for philosophical reasons, but because he craved a tie to her. If friendship were all she’d give him, he’d take it.
“I like to think,” he said, “that with the proper motivation, people can set aside one sort of desire in favor of another.”
Rebecca burst out laughing. “I think I’m drunk,” she said. “That actually sounded good to me.”
“Maybe I should take you home.”
She looked at him. Her pupils were dark with wanting and something else, something that went deeper than attraction. Did she know it was there? Would she let it matter? She reached out, fingers brushing the hand he’d flattened on the table. Though her touch retreated almost at once, tingles radiated up his arm.
“That’s nice of you,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure a taxi would be safer.”
~
Zane was doing a piss-poor job of forgetting Rebecca. He’d tried not thinking about her, but whenever he let his guard down, she crept into his thoughts. This annoyed him immensely. Screw the woman if she couldn’t realize they might—might, he emphasized—have the makings of a special connection.
Might doesn’t pay the mortgage, his father had liked to say, usually as a prelude for pimping Zane out at Alexander Sporting Goods. God, he’d hated those workdays. High school football hero stuck with his dad’s jokey arm around him, hawking number jerseys to kids while his latest bruises throbbed on his back or thighs. He’d loathed being used that way, knowing if he said no, he’d get a worse beating. A real man earns his keep, his father would say. Don’t tell me you aren’t one.
Grimacing, Zane shut down the computer on his desk. Things were bad if he’d started down memory lane with his shit of a dad.
“I’m here!” Mystique announced, appearing at his office door in a cloud of Dior and expensive hair products. “Don’t everyone stand up and clap at once.”
Her real name was Missy Kroner. Mystique was what she went by for modeling. Fluent in French and English, she was amusing, sexy, and an undeniable hard worker. Zane had seen her intermittently over the last three years, though he took care not to date her too often. Mystique’s ambitions most definitely included becoming Mrs. to a high-profile wealthy man, someone who’d add luster to her mystique—if you’d pardon the pun—without overshining it.
“Hello, Missy,” he said, getting up to kiss her soft cheek. Even in her stilt-heeled white go-go boots, he was taller. Humming with catlike pleasure, Missy twined slender arms behind his neck. She was fully made up and, as a result, didn’t tongue-kiss him.
“I forgot what a lovely big brute you are. Clearly, it’s been too long since we’ve seen each other.”
She pouted, which wasn’t his favorite expression, though her expertly painted mouth was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Rebecca’s, his treacherous memory pointed out.
“Oh, you know,” he said vaguely. “We moguls get caught up in doing mogul stuff.”
“More like bad boy stuff,” she quipped. “I can’t believe I convinced you to come away for the whole weekend.”
Zane was having qualms of disbelief about that himself. “I like Montreal.” He stepped back slightly to stroke her shining brunette waves over her shoulders. “And you know I enjoy having you polish up my French.”
“I’ll show you what I’ll polish,” she teased, slapping one perfectly manicured hand around his crotch.
It was six thirty on a Friday. They were in the empty hall outside his and Trey’s executive offices. With the exception of the janitors and him, headquarters had cleared out. Zane let Missy back him leggily into the nearest wall. As she intended, a few squeezes of her fingers got a rise out of him.
“You’re a naughty girl,” he said, palming her narrow butt. Continuing the theme of the go-go boots, she wore a sixties style flowered minidress. Under it, he discerned a teensy thong.
“The naughtiest,” she assured him, her voice husky.
Missy loved sex and he liked having it with her. Nonetheless, when she batted her fake eyelashes, he couldn’t help thinking of centipedes. He was shamefully grateful when a shadow moved in Trey’s office, distracting him from her. Trey had left earlier. No one ought to be in there.
“Excuse me,” he said to Missy, pulling free of her groping hands. “I need to check on something.”
Trey’s office was closer than his to the elevator. He must have forgotten to lock up, because the door was open.
An older woman in a yellow polyester pantsuit was rifling through Trey’s desk. The papers on top were scattered, and she had his bottom left drawer open, the one where he stashed rubbers and Zane’s favorite hand job assister. Clucking her tongue, she thunked the box of prophylactics and Albolene onto the clutter.
Zane categorically refused to blush over them.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “And how did you get in here?”
“She came up with me,” Missy answered from behind him. “She said she’d forgotten her ID and could I let her up.”
The guards knew Missy and that she was expected. No matter how harmless this white-haired old lady looked, they shouldn’t have let her sneak past them.
“You’re Trey’s aunt,” he said, hard and cold as she gaped at him. “Constance Sharp.”
“You’re a dirty man,” she returned querulously. “You and my nephew both.”
This did bring heat into his face, though he fought it down. “That’s enough,” he said, striding in and taking her by the arm.
She was seventy if she was a day. She couldn’t hope to resist his strength. She fought though, going so far as to cling to edge of Trey’s desk. “I need to be here,” she cried. “I have a right to speak to my own nephew!”
Zane wasn’t in the mood for this. As carefully as he could, he wrapped his arms around her middle and lifted her off her orthopedic shoes.
“Zane!” Missy said, shocked at him. “She’s a little old lady.”
“Get the elevator,” he ordered.
He must have sounded stern enough. Missy ran ahead to press the button.
“You’re dirty too,” Trey’s aunt said to her, devaluing whatever stock she’d earned with the model.
Thankfully, the elevator came quickly. Missy squished herself into a corner to accompany him to the ground floor. This was due to Trey’s aunt having decided her best strategy was to spend the journey kicking his shins like a two-year-old. She repeated her claim that Trey ought to talk to her, adding that her father was worth ten of them. Zane couldn’t tell if she had dementia or was just crazy. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he cared.
