Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
Derek was sitting in his cubicle, listening to the day’s recording from Markson.
CJ and Maddock were next to him, taking notes as they plowed their way through hours of corporate double-talk.
Markson had told them that after the lunch break on Tuesday, Chatterton had asked him how the arrangements were going for the upcoming meeting in New Zealand.
Maddock had wanted to skip right to that segment, but Derek had insisted they listen to everything.
Now he was damn sorry he had.
Every time he turned around, he could hear Reese’s voice, attending to various needs around the room. She appeared to have become quite popular in the course of her day and a half on the job. All the execs called her Reese and teased her jovially.
It made Derek insane with jealousy.
“Can you have copies run of this report, Reese?” he heard Chatterton say on the tape.
“Sure, Ashton. But it will have to wait until after lunch. I’m starving.”
Derek hung his head. Aside from the fact that she was the only assistant he’d ever heard call Chatterton by his first name, Reese was also telling the head of the company to wait for his request.
Maddock snorted. “Your girlfriend is about the worst assistant I’ve ever seen, Knight.”
They heard three or four men chime in, offering to take Reese to lunch.
CJ said, “Something tells me they don’t mind.”
That’s what pissed him off the most.
“You know, Knight, you’ve got to tell Nordstrom.” Maddock dropped his usual clowning demeanor.
Those were the words Derek had been dreading hearing.
He knew Maddock was right, but he didn’t know how in the hell he was going to explain this to his boss.
“I know, man, I know. But what do I say?”
“How about…my girlfriend got a job at Delco without my knowledge?” CJ asked. “You can’t control what another person does. And some people are just selfish.”
Reese hadn’t done this to be selfish, Derek knew that.
She had done it for the story, to take charge of her life, to feel a sense of control.
He knew her whole life men had been calling the shots for her and she wanted to be successful on her own, without interference.
And here he’d tried to go and take that away from her.
His head hurt.
He wanted Reese to be successful. He wanted her to trust him to deliver her the story. He wanted this case to be successfully concluded and the only concern on his mind to be which room in his apartment he would take Reese in that night.
Of course, if the case were over, Reese would be gone.
Christ.
“But I can’t claim that Reese didn’t know we were investigating Delco, because she does.
She saw a file with their name on it.” That was the very narrow condensed version of what had actually happened.
He was skirting the truth there a little, but he wasn’t about to reveal the entire breadth of his mistake if he didn’t have to yet.
And to make it all the more embarrassing, Nordstrom had caught him making out with Reese in the elevator. If Nordstrom even had a hint of the fact that Reese was a reporter, he was going to assume Reese was manipulating him and remove Derek from the case.
“Can you trust her?” Maddock asked. “Does she know enough to jeopardize this case?”
“I trust her. She wouldn’t jeopardize the case.” Not on purpose, anyway.
Maddock gave him a hard stare. “Is that your head talking or your dick?”
“Come on, Wyatt. You know me better than that.” He looked around the office nervously. There were only a few random agents hanging around, but he did not want anyone hearing this.
“I’ve known you for two years, Knight, and I’ve never known you to even really date. Now you’ve got this woman in your life, she’s young, pretty. Better men than you have fallen for that.”
“What are you saying? That’s she setting me up? Sleeping with me to gain access?” Derek didn’t know what made him angrier—the fact that Maddock had suggested it, or that part of him deep down wondered if there might be a grain of truth to it.
No. He didn’t believe that. Reese wasn’t that diabolical. She was impulsive and she most definitely was attracted to him.
“No, it’s having sex to gain something. People do it all the time. I’m just saying be careful.”
Reese absolutely wouldn’t do that. He was sure of it.
But then again, she was ambitious. She wanted out of that rag newspaper, had even quit her job now. He knew she enjoyed sex with him. No one could fake it that well. Of course, she had said herself that you could never really tell with a woman. There was no way to prove it.
His blood went cold. And even if she did enjoy it, that didn’t mean she wasn’t enjoying it at the same time she was using him.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. More like a kicked-in-the-gut thought.
“What do you think?” He turned to CJ.
She looked him straight in the eye. “I agree with Maddock. I think you need to be careful. And you need to tell Nordstrom.”
Maddock let out a whistle. “First time you’ve ever agreed with me on anything, White.”
“That’s because you’re usually wrong.”
Maddock grimaced.
Then as Derek brooded, they all heard Chatterton’s voice, which had continued running throughout their discussion about Reese.
“So is the meeting all set for New Zealand for October the sixth?”
“Yes, sir, it is.” It was Markson, sounding calm and natural.
Derek was pleased with his casual, things-as-usual tone of voice.
“Are Stanfield and Ricould both going to be there?”
“Yes, sir, and the agenda is set to discuss which companies will be renewing which patents.”
Damn, that was good. Markson was leading the conversation, steering Chatterton into actual admittance of patent fixing.
“Good, good. We’re all set to play hardball with these guys, then. We’ll show them that it’s in all our favors to work together and agree to divide the market like we have been for the last three years. But we still want the most profit since we’re the largest company.”
“Of course.”
Chatterton laughed. “I like the way you say that. Of course. That sums it all up. We’re going to make a lot of money this year, Markson.”
Then another executive interrupted and the conversation turned.
“That’s it! Damn, that was great. That’s exactly what we’ve been looking for. It should be enough to take to Justice to prove we need to go to New Zealand for this meeting. This could be the big one.”
Maddock shook his head, grinning. “Geez, these guys are so bold, aren’t they?”
“It makes me nervous,” CJ said.
“It just makes our job easier,” Derek assured her.
“I just can’t believe that the price of a prescription drug is determined by half a dozen guys sitting around a room saying who gets to make what and how much they get to charge. It’s unreal. It’s wrong.”
It sure in the hell was. “That’s why we’re sending Chatterton and the rest to prison.”
This was why Derek loved his job. Putting the bad guys away.
The only interesting thing to happen in two days and Reese had missed it. She didn’t even know what it was, since Knight wouldn’t tell her, but she knew it was something because he was excited when he called her, his voice rushed, his energy high.
She either didn’t know what she was supposed to be listening for at Delco, or she was going to have to stop going to the bathroom so she wouldn’t miss a word.
But the day hadn’t been a total waste. She had met Knight’s sister, Claire, that morning when Claire had returned to his apartment after spending the night with a friend.
Reese had been impressed with the order and cleanliness of Knight’s apartment when he had brought her there after dinner the night before, and she was really impressed with his sister.
After Knight had gone off to fight crime for peace, justice, and the American way, she and Claire had gone shopping.
Claire had immediately understood her dilemma of trying to live on three outfits and had offered to show her where to grab a bargain.
Reese had called Chatterton and told him her tale of fashion woe, that she had left all her clothes in Jersey, etcetera, etcetera.
He couldn’t have cared less and happily agreed to let her arrive an hour late to work.
It had given her enough time to grab a couple of essentials, including a really cute bright blue bra and panties set.
On her lunch break, she had checked out of the Crowne Plaza, bringing her suitcase with her back to Delco, and then had returned her rental car.
She had caught a cab to Knight’s apartment after work. Claire had given her a spare key.
Now she was waiting for Knight to get home.
He knew she was in his apartment, but he didn’t know that she had checked out of her hotel.
That didn’t seem like a phone conversation, letting him know that she needed to stay with him until the weekend when she and Claire were moving into a three-month sublet together.
Better to surprise him in person.
She called her brother Ryan, who was only two years older than her.
“ ’Lo?”
“Ry, it’s me.”
“Hey, Reese-y piece-y, what’s up?”
“Not much. I’m in Chicago, I quit my job, I’m investigating a major story of financial fraud, and I’m having really great sex with an FBI agent. How you doing?”
“Well, I can’t top you. I’m stuck in New York since the season’s over and I haven’t had sex in like nine days.”
Ryan played minor league baseball and could charm the underwear off a preacher’s wife. He was her favorite brother. “Geez, that’s like a record for you. Listen, you know how you wanted to share my apartment so you didn’t have to have a roommate?”
“And you said no way in hell were you listening to me watching porn every night? Yeah, I remember. ”
“Well, I’m not coming back to New York for a while, so I need you to move in and pay half the rent.”
“Okay.”
That’s why she and Ryan got along so well. He was the ultimate go-with-the-flow guy. Usually that flow was in whatever direction women were heading.
“Rick has my keys.”
“Why does Rick have your keys and not me?”
“Because Rick won’t A—lose them or B—bring strange women into my apartment when I’m out of town.”
“Oh, okay, cool. See ya.”
“Bye, Ry.”
With nothing left to do but wait, Reese hid her suitcase in Knight’s bedroom next to all of Claire’s boxes and bags, hoping it would blend.
Knight’s apartment was small, but less guy than she would have expected. In the bedroom was a walnut bed, covered by a rich wheat colored duvet. There were a few pictures of his parents and Claire on his dresser and one of him with his ex-wife on their wedding day.
What amazed her was not how ugly Dawn’s dress was, though it honestly was, but the red-hot stab of jealousy that ripped through her with tornado-force winds. Knight was smiling. He looked happy. He looked at Dawn with love shining in his eyes.
And she was jealous.
Why the hell was that still there? She slapped the picture she had been gripping painfully back down on the dresser, disturbing the thin layer of dust that lay there.
Annoyed with herself, she went into the living room, stomping a little in her knee-high boots for good measure. With the carpeted floors, it wasn’t all that satisfying, but she’d take what she could get.
It had been an indulgence, deciding to blow off the high heels and get boots to wear to Delco instead.
With a knee length black skirt and gray sweater, it was business-y enough to get away with it, and with all the laps she did across that boardroom floor, even with the heels the boots were still more comfortable than pumps.
Now she unzipped the boots in annoyance and tossed them on the floor. And if the boots were off, then why the hell did she need tights on? She rolled them down and balled them up, wondering what would happen if she put them in the garbage disposal.
The green-eyed monster had never bitten her this bad before and it was stupid. Plain old what’s-up-with-that stupid. Dawn was his ex-wife. She was remarried. She was pregnant. She looked sexually uptight and was in no way a natural blonde.
Knight was not Reese’s boyfriend. It didn’t matter who he had loved once upon a time. It didn’t even matter who he loved now.
It. Was. Casual.
Only a certain four-chambered valve in her body was not agreeing with that.