24. Addison
24
ADDISON
T his was not what I wanted to happen when I asked Warren if we could go somewhere.
My eyes glanced at him. He was typing on his phone with one hand, a coffee in the other. The dark circles under his eyes seemed to have lightened since the charity, and his skin looked refreshed.
At least someone is able to rest.
I, on the other hand, had been obsessively looking at the Google searches to try and find the courage to click on one of the articles, but I hadn’t done it yet.
All it did was leave me sleep-deprived and anxious.
The plane we were flying on was small, with just enough seats for eight passengers and a flight attendant, who was sitting somewhere out of view after Warren had all but snapped at her to go away.
The roar of the jet fell to the background.
“You bought me for two million dollars ,” I reminded him as I gripped the computer currently placed on my lap. “And you want to use me to… go through your emails? ”
I thought he was joking at first, but his stare told me otherwise.
His amber eyes looked up at me, an amused grin spreading across his face.
“I can use your body how I see fit,” he said. “Whether that’s riding my cock or being my assistant is up to me.”
I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to remind him that I hadn’t ridden anything just yet. Even when I threw myself at him, he still rejected me.
What is he waiting for?
If he waited too long, our time would come to an end, and I’d leave without having fucked him even once.
And that bothered me more than I could admit even to myself.
Kiss me, Addi.
His husky command had been playing over and over in my mind. Every time I saw him, I heard it. Every time his hand brushed across my waist.
I wanted it more than anything. Such a simple thing. Just a kiss. But I refused it because of just how intimate it would be.
But now that it had become sort of a forbidden fruit, it felt just that much more consequential.
And I said no.
He never mentioned it. He didn’t throw it in my face. He merely accepted it and moved on.
I should be grateful for it, but instead it had me rethinking everything.
Especially how much I want it. And that maybe he doesn’t. Not anymore.
With a pout, I opened up his laptop. The screen blinked, showing me an all-black wallpaper and the simple login screen. Just as I was about to enter the password, my hands paused over the keyboard.
Shit, I shouldn’t know his password.
I cleared my throat and looked up at him expectantly.
“Don’t act shy now,” he said, his lips twitching. “You weren’t shy when you were holding a knife to my neck.”
Shit. So he did see. There was no going back now.
“A letter opener,” I corrected under my breath and put in my dad’s death date. It was like a punch to the gut. Especially since I now knew who my dad actually was.
Silence fell over us. Warren seemed unaffected and continued to work on his phone while I navigated his computer.
“Why that date?” I asked, unable to keep the question in any longer. “Do you pride yourself on his suicide? Does it make you feel accomplished?”
He looked at me, his gaze turning cold.
“Don’t speak about things you know nothing about,” he hissed.
“He was my father. I think I know exactly what I’m talking about.”
He paused, looking at me, then lowered his phone and sat back. His gaze was calculating as it ran over me. Insinuating. I knew he was about to utter something that would probably make this situation a whole lot worse, and I wasn’t exactly ready to hear it.
Not with three hours of sleep. Not with a constant buzz of anxiety over my head.
“How was your chat with Maxwell?” he asked.
“You know how it was.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Damn him.
I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to talk about how he found me. How I fucking cried into his chest as I broke down. And how he let me without saying anything degrading or making fun of me.
“You were right, as always. Does that make you happy?”
“Being right doesn’t make me happy, Addi.”
“Doesn’t it?” I shot back at him, slamming his laptop shut. I met his gaze, unwilling to back down. “Isn’t that why you’re doing all this? Why you bought me in the first place? You want to ruin my life. Want to prove just how much I want you just so you can turn around and use it against me.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them.
He put his coffee down and leaned forward, getting in my space. His hand was on my chin, forcing me to look at his darkened gaze.
“I don’t take pride in watching you come apart. In watching everything your father did tear off pieces of your soul. If I had it my way, you’d forever live in the delusion that he was a good man.” His thumb brushed over my lips. “Believe me when I say the last thing I want is for you to be hurt.”
My lower lip trembled.
“But you were the one who hurt me from the beginning.”
His eyes fell to my lips before coming back to my eyes.
“Don’t be a brat,” he whispered and sat back down. “Get the work done.”
I grumbled a string of curses under my breath. I hated how easily he controlled me. How he made my heart race and stomach flutter with even the slightest touch, even in times when I should be pissed at him.
Asshole.
Want to prove just how much I want you.
I shouldn’t have said that.
I opened the computer again, navigating to his email. When I opened it, I gasped.
“Why do you have over four hundred unread emails?”
“I’m an important man, Addi,” he said without looking at me.
Important, my ass.
“Can you at least give me some context?" I asked as I started looking over his emails, starring the important-looking ones to go back to and skipping the ones that looked like they could wait.
“I’m investing in a company,” he said. “But there are rumors that the CEO abuses his staff—all of them, but especially the female ones. He’s also been rumored to inflate revenue?—”
“So you’re going there to look,” I finished for him. It all sounded very Warren-like and honestly a bit boring.
When I was younger, I might have dreamed of being as important as someone like him. Having the power to make CEOs bend to my will. Creating change by just mentioning a problem.
But it all seemed so… shallow after losing everything.
“To protect my investment.”
“Or tear them down for fun,” I said. “Like you do all the others.”
“Semantics.”
I rolled my eyes. He really is a heartless bastard. Something I needed to try harder to remember.
My eyes scanned the emails, pausing when I caught one particularly urgent.
“Call Jules when we land,” I said, looking up at him. “She said one of the board members of GreenCore Renewables was caught driving under the influence and is now in jail. I’m guessing a bit of damage control is needed.”
He was silent. Thank god. I turned back to the computer and continued to sort through it. Maybe when I wasn’t under scrutiny, I could search back a few years. See if there was anything suspicious in his emails about my dad’s death.
There were quite a few about the auction, though nothing juicy like the girls who were invited. Curiosity was getting the better of me, and I found myself reading a few.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars on the venue alone. Crazy. I couldn’t imagine the amount of money it took to upkeep.
“There are a few about Black Silk Auction and budget approvals. I starred them and put them in a folder titled Read Me .”
“Good.”
When I looked back up at him, his eyes were burrowing into mine. I couldn’t make out what the expression on his face meant, but it had a shiver running down my spine.
It felt like danger.
Violet’s words came hurling violently back to the front of my mind.
He just looks like he wants to eat you, that’s all. Devour you whole and spit you out or something like that.
Did she witness the same look I just did?
“You should have just left me at home.”
He raised a brow at me. “And miss out on three days of my purchase?”
My skin flushed.
“That’s sixty-six thousand dollars a day, Addi.”
“Okay,” I said with a sigh.
“Two hundred thousand total.”
“I get it.”
“Not to mention I’d have no one to keep my cock warm?—”
I slammed the computer shut. “Okay! I get it. Jesus fucking Christ.”
When I looked at Warren again, there was a playful smile pulling at his lips.
He was kidding.
Warren fucking King was… flirting with me? Teasing me?
I had to look away because for the first time, the urge to kiss him was almost too much to handle.
* * *
“This is my assistant, Addison,” Warren introduced me as a young man in a suit and slicked-back blond hair met us in the lobby of one of the biggest buildings in downtown Chicago.
The young CEO looked at Warren with a large smile that showed all his pearly white teeth, but my eyes fell to his hands and wrist bearing a new shiny watch and a gaudy class ring.
“Nice to meet you, Addi,” he said, his hand reaching out to shake mine. I stayed behind Warren and made no move to shake the guy’s hand. Warren visibly tensed at the nickname.
“ Addison ,” he corrected him curtly. His blue eyes widened, but he quickly pulled himself together.
“The pleasure is mine. I’m Nick,” he said and motioned for Warren and me to follow him, taking the hint to ignore me. “SecureLink has been buzzing since news of your arrival. I can‘t wait to show you around.”
For an internet security company, the offices were pretty modern with splashes of color on the walls and motivational quotes and murals. Something I expected in a young tech company as opposed to this. It was hard to believe they were as bad as Warren said.
He took us up in the elevator, his voice never once quieting. To my surprise, Warren just listened; he never even stopped to interrupt him when he got names wrong or spat out untrue nonsense about Warren’s other investments.
He had no doubt been trying to impress him but fell flat.
I couldn’t help but cringe and force myself as far into the corner of the elevator as possible.
Warren tilted his head to the side, his eyes catching mine. A small, teasing smile pulled at his lips.
Fuck. My face heated, but luckily, he looked away too fast to notice.
When the elevator doors opened, he showed us to the main floor where most of the workers were. The receptionist smiled at us warmly, coffee in her hands. Warren didn’t bother to stop for her, but I returned her smile and grabbed both our coffees.
“Thank you so much,” I whispered and then scurried back after Warren. I shot her another smile before turning around, but she merely stood there, watching us leave, hers never leaving her face.
I turned to look at Warren. His face was cold, calculating. He might seem bored or even angry to others, but I knew the look well. It was his thinking face. The one that told me just how serious he was taking this.
There was an air about him when he was in work mode. Everything else was pushed away, and he was solely focused on the company in front of him.
From experience, I knew he was cataloging everything, looking for cracks. But as we kept waking, it was obvious that this company had its shit together.
It was an open-space office. Many of the employees had multiple monitors and had their heads down, working. The ones who weren’t were huddled together at one of the common areas for snacks and drinks.
They paused when we passed through, sending us a smile.
Is there really something wrong with this place? I mean, they seem awfully happy. Almost too happy.
I highly doubted it. And seeing it in person only reminded me how much Warren liked to destroy people’s lives for the fun of it.
He might have been right about my dad, but something told me there was much more that he wasn’t telling me. After all the years stewing over how he could fuck someone’s life up, I wasn’t fully ready to believe he was the good guy.
Should I warn someone? I looked at the employees. What would happen to them if Warren decided he wanted to tear this down?
Some would be fine; the CEO would take the brunt of Warren’s wrath… But what if he decided the whole company should be thrown out? That it was unfixable?
They’d be thrown out on the street, just like I’d been. Forced to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
I tried to push the thoughts away, but it was almost impossible. The guilt was constant. I was the only one that had an inkling of what was going to happen.
They didn’t know Warren like I did.
My heart sank even further when I saw a woman with a picture of her two young children on her desk. What would happen to them? Would Warren be so heartless as to throw her out too?
Without a doubt… is what my mind told me, but my chest was tight with unease. Because that’s the type of monster Warren is… right?
Nick showed us to a conference room and motioned for us to come in, but Warren stopped me and pointed to the open desk to the side.
“You haven’t finished the emails,” he reminded me before grabbing his coffee from my hand. “Do that first.”
I tried to keep the distaste from my face and nodded.
Keeping me out of everything even remotely exciting, huh?
As annoying as it all was, I wanted desperately to see how Warren was going to do this. He was a professional. This was something he did every other month; at times, he was in the news nonstop for this very thing.
I guess he thought it wasn’t necessary for me to be there.
Inside, I pouted at how unfair it was.
“Just tell Francis, my assistant, if you need anything,” Nick said with a smile. “Monitors. Keyboards. Headphones. We have everything to make you comfortable.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll manage,” I said. “I’m used to Mr. King’s requirements ,” I added without looking at Warren and sat down.
I felt his smirk nonetheless.
Asshole.