Chapter 5
Ihad planned to work late last night.
But after fucking assaulting my new paralegal, I ended up going home and spending a little too much time in the shower picturing the things I could have done to her. The entire time strategizing a way to convince her to be more than just my paralegal.
Men had affairs with their secretaries all the time. Surely a paralegal would benefit from a similar arrangement. Except unlike most secretaries, she would know how to press charges.
The idea of facing off against her in a courtroom made my cock throb.
Her work was impeccable. That was why I wanted her at my desk. I wondered how much of a worthy opponent she would be as a lawyer. I leaned against the cold tile of my shower and stroked my cock, picturing her in a tight little pencil skirt sitting as opposing counsel in a mock trial.
If she did well, I could reward her for her hard work.
If not, I could bend her over my desk and show her what happened to bad girls who didn’t perform in court. They were made to perform in other ways.
I would make her work hard for a reward but delight in her punishment.
I had to clear my head before going into the office. It had occurred to me to hire another woman who would want to take the job of servicing me in my office or even in my home, but the idea left me cold.
Instead, I sent a message to Marksen and Luc to meet me for breakfast at the club. Let their talks of marital woe distract me long enough to get my head back into my work.
I sat at our usual table. Leaning back in my chair in the much quieter room, I stared out the windows overlooking the Hudson and watched the world start to wake up. New York was supposed to be the city that never slept, and that may be true. It was never completely quiet, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have its own circadian rhythm.
This morning was cold, and the world was moving sluggishly. The leaves had all turned for autumn, and most had fallen, preparing for winter. The wind was bitter, and those who were awake were either heading to bed or just getting up.
The large wooden doors on the other side of the room opened, the movement catching my attention. Marksen and Luc walked in together, wearing similar suits and already discussing something.
“Did you two get ready together this morning? What do the kids call that nowadays? Enemies-to-lovers? How does my sister feel about your extramarital affair?”
Luc’s smile dropped, and his brow lowered in an unamused expression. “I have no extramarital affairs. I can barely keep up with your sister. Would you like to know what she?—”
“No, please, God, stop,” I said and motioned for them to sit.
Marksen snickered as he took his seat and signaled for the server to bring more coffee. “It’s okay, Harrison. We can always talk about Olivia and what she likes to?—”
“Stop right there,” Luc interrupted, glaring daggers at Marksen before turning back to me. “So I hear your mother has plans for you to?—”
“Nope. Not going there.” I raised my cup to my lips, refusing to let the subject go anywhere near my mother and her plans before taking a sip of coffee. I let the dark roast roll over my tongue, enjoying the richness with its touch of acidity.
“Yes, let’s not discuss Mary Quinn Astrid. The amount of time I have already spent thinking about that conniving, manipulative bitch would last a lifetime,” Marksen grumbled, sitting back and then looking at me with wide eyes. “Sorry. It’s easy to forget she’s your mother.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t offended. Nothing he said about my mother was wrong. She was a conniving, manipulative bitch. She was also an adulteress, an abuser, a snob, a narcissist, and pretty much one of the worst people in this or any other city.
The more I dug into what she was doing, the longer the list of her nefarious deeds and vices became. At this point, a small part of me half expected to find the deed for an office built into the side of a volcano or some other comic book supervillain’s lair.
She did seem the type to have pet sharks with lasers harnessed to their heads, but only if some amazing, well-known architect designed the tank. And if it was assembled by a workforce that exploited children, all the better. Of course, Balenciaga would have to make the harness, with Prada doing a collab on the laser.
“So seriously, why did you two arrive together, and what were you talking about?”
“Coincidence,” Marksen said. “That and our buildings are rather close to each other. And the wives are working together on a gala at the art school. Olivia is excited to cover it and is talking about setting up investor meetings. She even wants Amelia to help add a modern art section to her website. She hasn’t talked about anything else in days.”
“Nothing else? Shouldn’t she be focused on your wedding?”
“You would think, but she is leaving most of that up to the wedding planner.”
“What do you mean? I thought women got a little crazy about those plans.”
“So did I,” Luc inserted. “Amelia, once she got full control, planned every detail from the ceremony to breakfast. Nothing happened that she hadn’t planned except, of course, for your mother manipulating Marksen into kidnapping Olivia.”
Marksen winked as he raised his own coffee cup in a mock toast to himself. “Yeah, I don’t think Amelia planned for that.” He sipped his coffee, apparently not taking the bait.
“You know, if you want, I can still bring him up on charges for it,” I offered with a smirk.
It was a bluff. Olivia was an adult, and she would have to press charges or at least tell someone what really happened, and that would make marrying her abductor a little awkward.
“Fuck you both.” Marksen crossed his arms, and Luc and I both started laughing.
Laughter had become an unfamiliar feeling. The last several years had been about building my career and attempting to get a handle on my mother’s meddling.
How had I gotten to the point where I was actually taking her advice to do damage control? No doubt her schemes were going to destroy the little peace I had left in my life.
I was grateful the three of us had started hanging out at the club again. It used to be a tradition, then we all went our separate ways, to build our empires. It wasn’t until a broken engagement, some blackmail, and a kidnapping that we were able to connect again.
Nothing like a few felonies to bring old friends together.
Luc cleared his throat, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I do need to give you both a heads-up since we are all technically related now.”
“Is it about some hereditary defect that we will have to deal with?” Marksen asked. “Are our nieces and nephews going to be malformed?”
“A family history of mental illness we need to watch for?” I chimed in.
“A curse from a distant relative that will have you dead on your next birthday?” Marksen added.
“Your father lose your entire fortune in a drunken poker game, and you are broke as fuck?” I quipped, adding to the fun and provoking laughter from Marksen and myself as a pretty blonde server approached our table to take our orders.
I had noticed her before. She was a lovely girl, but now I thought she looked dull compared to my new paralegal. Her hair was not as bright a gold, her eyes a dull blue that had nothing on a pair of vivid, jade-green eyes that haunted my dreams last night. Even her skin seemed lackluster, lacking the silky warmth of my girl’s beautiful porcelain complexion.
My girl?
Fuck, that’s a dangerous way to start thinking about a subservient staff member.
I shifted in my seat.
Subservient. Submissive.
Her on her knees sucking my cock.
Fuck. Did it again.
“Bite your tongue,” Luc said, laughing. “I’d have the old man taken out and shot before I ever agreed to sign over a single share.”
We placed our orders for breakfast and more coffee and sat around just catching up and talking about what was and wasn’t happening and what it meant that Olivia wasn’t planning the wedding herself. Once Luc and I had Marksen so paranoid he was texting Olivia every few minutes to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind, I refocused on Luc.
“What was it that you wanted to tell us?” I asked.
“I have officially, and very much against my father’s wishes, severed my family’s ties with the Irish mob,” he said, laying his hands flat on the white linen tablecloth.
“Okay, congratulations?” Marksen said after a pause. “But I’m confused.”
“About what?” Luc asked.
I sat back, listened, and watched, wanting to get the full story before jumping in.
“The words that are coming out of your mouth are good. It’s good news, but your face looks like you have an incurable disease that you just passed to each of us the second we sat at this table.” Marksen’s words were a bit overstated and dramatic, but he wasn’t wrong. I truly hated how infrequently he was wrong.
“Legally speaking, we are all family, or at least we will be if Olivia doesn’t run away screaming before the wedding. My father’s former associates are not going to be pleased with being pushed out of such a lucrative business. I am worried they may try to strike out at my family to get to me.”
“Is Amelia safe?” I asked at the same time Marksen asked if Olivia would be a target.
“I don’t know,” he answered with a shrug of one shoulder as he rubbed his forehead. “I already have extra security on Amelia as well as a few hidden GPS tags that she knows about and one that she doesn’t, just in case she is abducted. The same goes for Olivia and Charlotte. Every precaution is being taken, but that is for my wife and my sisters. I wanted to give you two a heads-up as well. Just in case they were stupid enough to make a move on either of you.”
“Which family is this?” I asked.
“The O’Murphys,” Luc answered before taking a sip of coffee.
I lowered my gaze. Both Luc and Marksen were keen boardroom negotiators. They knew how to read people and I didn’t want to give anything way. Certainly not the fact that I already was developing a highly confidential case against the O’Murphys. A case I could not tell either of them about, regardless of any potential threat to our family.
“They are dangerous, and I’m concerned they have grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle with the work my father sent their way. Losing that could make them unpredictable.”
“Seems like you know exactly what they want to do. I wouldn’t call that unpredictable.” I sat back and wondered how much I should tell Luc.
“Well, the threats they made against me and everyone I love were pretty clear,” Luc said.
“Wait, are you saying you love us? I think I’m going to cry.” Marksen put his hand to his heart as if the sentiment had touched him.
I rolled my eyes while Luc let out an annoyed groan. “I love my sisters and my wife, and they are protected. They love you too, so I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“What were their threats exactly?” I asked.
“You know, the usual. You need us, if you stop paying us, we will kill everyone you have ever loved, and anyone they ever loved and blah blah blah. I wouldn’t be concerned, except the way my father’s face paled when I told him what I did makes me think there is more to them than just your common, everyday thugs.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The O’Murphy clan was into some heavy crime, not just running errands for his father. My office was building a case for the kidnapping and trafficking of young women into and out of the States. They were running an old-school human trafficking scam, going to impoverished areas in Eastern Europe and promising the beautiful women there a new life—a life with purpose, the promise of a job, and the American dream.
Then they would steal their passports, tell them the horrors of what happened in the custody of the American immigration system. Once those women were truly terrified of American police officers or anyone in a uniform, the mob got them addicted to meth or whatever else they could get their grubby little hands on and turn them out as prostitutes.
Not the high-end prostitutes that worked the high rises of Wall Street, judges’ chambers, or even politicians’ second homes, but the poor souls who were used and abused over and over until they died, their bodies disposed of in the Hudson.
It was heartbreaking every single time we recovered their remains from the river. It had taken almost two years to put this case together, and we were getting close. So close, I was going to advise Luc to sever the ties before he was dragged down with them. Telling him would have been extremely illegal. I could have been disbarred and thrown out of my office, but there was no way I would have allowed this filth to taint Amelia’s world.
It was better now that Luc had cut the ties on his own. Amelia would remain protected, and I wouldn’t have to break my oath of office.
“Do you want anything legal done, restraining orders or anything like that? It won’t stop them from getting close, but if they do, we can lock them up for it,” I offered like the good brother-in-law I was.
“No, thank you. For now, I just want the added security, and I have it handled. But I will let you know if that changes,” Luc said.
“I’m letting my own security know to be more vigilant.” Marksen typed on his phone. “I know you say you have it handled, but I also want my security and yours to communicate. I don’t want there to be any gaps in their protection coverage, and I don’t want them chasing each other, leaving Olivia unprotected.”
“Anyone you need to protect?” Luc asked. “Rose has been spending time with Amelia, so both of your sisters are covered.”
“If Rose and Amelia are safe, then I am content. The only other woman I would need to have protected would be my mother. But I don’t think informing her of any of this would be wise.”
“Dear God, no,” Luc said, slumping back in his chair in a way that told me he was as exasperated with Mary Quinn Astrid’s antics as I was. Marksen just gripped his mug tighter and clenched his jaw. He was still mad at the way she’d manipulated him.
Though I understood his frustration, it was still his fault for letting her goad him into kidnapping and blackmail. I meant, really, Olivia only needed a few hours with his bank statements to trace everything back to my mother.
It was good that he managed to convince such a brilliant woman to love him, or his life would be much harder than necessary.
“I agree,” I said, turning my focus back to Luc. “Let’s not give her anything to meddle in. My father has security on her at all times anyway. Besides, who is going to retaliate by kidnapping someone’s mother-in-law? That sounds more like a favor, even if it wasn’t Mary Quinn Astrid.”
Luc and Marksen both laughed at my joke.
It may have had a ring of truth to it, but mostly, I just wanted her out of the way. I had already agreed to another one of her schemes. That should be enough to keep her occupied and away from my case.
Marksen and Luc changed the subject, but I just wasn’t able to stay as tuned in as I should have been.
My mind raced with questions, mostly about Edwina, or Eddie as I’d learned she liked to be called.
What kind of woman went by the name Eddie?
Was her golden hair a natural blonde?
Would she have let me take her in that bathroom if I hadn’t insinuated that she was a prostitute? What kinds of sounds did she make when she was being fucked?
When I got to my office, would she be there ready to work, or had she asked to be taken off my desk?
Not that it would work. I would simply refuse the transfer.
She was mine and I had already decided I was keeping her.
I preferred to think my decision was strictly professional and that I’d made it to obtain the benefit of her keen legal mind.
But that was bullshit.
She intrigued me and despite the danger to my reputation, I wasn’t ready to release my professional claim on her.
Not, at the very least, until I’d claimed her in an extremely unprofessional way.