Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Thomas Kestrel had become a millionaire by the time he was eighteen years old, a billionaire by thirty. He was said to be one of the smartest, savviest, streetwise self-made businessmen to hit the country in a century.
And here I am, lost in my own office building.
He scowled as he tried taking another turn.
In his defense, he’d finally completed his transfer to the new headquarters a day ago, and he’d only been in this remodeled building a handful of times before.
He’d been too busy tying up loose ends in the old headquarters in North Carolina, including its demolition.
Besides, the labyrinthine design of the new headquarters, while deliberate and mystic and supposedly full of protective chi or some such, was also a real pain in the ass to figure out.
He was considering using his phone’s GPS when he heard the strange noises. There was a ribbon of light spooling out from the bottom of a closed doorway.
His heart started pounding.
Who the hell is here at this time of night?
He approached cautiously. Fiendish Headquarters was built specifically to be an impregnable fortress, in more ways than one, but he knew better than to let his guard down.
There was a crooning sound, a melodic hum. Singing, he realized.
He stopped short.
His eyes widened.
Someone, apparently, was warbling the benefits of a large backside. Whoever was skulking around at one in the morning was a Sir Mix-a-Lot fan.
He still opened the door cautiously, peering inside.
The woman he saw was thin, maybe five-six, wearing an ugly gray-green blouse and a shapeless khaki skirt.
That alone told him she didn’t work for Fiendish, at least not permanently.
His employees generally wore Fiendish Fashion clothing, which they got at a huge discount…
and he’d know if they sold anything that damned ugly.
The woman had shoulder-length black hair with a red streak, pulled up into a stubby, haphazard ponytail, with straggling curls escaping.
She was also “shaking her money maker,” every now and then shutting a file cabinet drawer with one jaunty hip shimmy.
“….baby got baaaaaaaacccck!,” she shrieked, finally catching sight of him.
He couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing, and she frowned in response.
She had square framed glasses that were slipping down on her cute nose. She looked like an absent-minded librarian or a vaguely frumpy co-ed. She brandished a stapler like a weapon, waving it at him.
“Sorry, sorry. Just heard somebody singing, thought I’d investigate.” He held out his hand. “Hi. I’m Thomas.”
“Hi. I’m mortified.” Putting down the stapler, she shook his hand, blushing. Then she moved like a whirlwind, popping folders back into place, scribbling on a pad of paper. Within seconds, it seemed, everything was neat as a pin.
“Big project, huh?”
She wrinkled her nose, grabbing the paper. “Just getting the personnel files a bit more… user-friendly.”
“Ginny ask you to do that?” He smirked. He’d given that task to Ginny as busy-work sometime last year and wasn’t surprised to find it had disappeared into a black hole.
The girl smirked back. She had a great smirk. “Sort of. She asked me to make a phone list, but this will be a little more comprehensive.”
“Done for the night?”
She shut down the computer. “Yes, thank God. I just need to leave a note for Ginny.”
“Considering the lateness of the hour, I’d better escort you to her office.” He knew where the elevators were from Ginny’s office… at least, he thought he did.
“Good idea.” She shot him a self-deprecating grin. “I mean, there’s no telling what kind of weirdoes you might run into at this time of night, right?”
He chuckled. “So, what’s your real name?”
“Kate. Kate O’Hara.” Her smile was warm, sweet. “I’m a temp.”
“How are you liking it so far?” he asked, as they fell into step together, strolling casually down the hallway.
“What, working here, at Fiendish?” He watched as she kneaded the back of her neck with one hand. “It sucks like a Dyson. But hey, it’s a job, right?”
He stopped, staring at her for a minute. “You do have a way with words, don’t you?”
“Oh, my God.” She shook her head, rubbing her eyes behind her glasses with her fingers. “I’m sorry. My internal censor clocks out at midnight. Actually, I think it took the day off.”
“Don’t be sorry. I like it when people are honest with me.” She probably didn’t realize he was the founder and CEO. That was sort of refreshing. “What sucks about it?”
“Other than being stuck here at one o’clock in the morning organizing the most ridiculous handwritten paperwork?” she replied. “I guess I never thought I’d be working at a place like this, you know?”
His feeling of amusement waned. “What do you mean, ‘a place like this?’”
“Big corporate.” She wrinkled her nose again.
He struggled not to feel offended, or at least not to let it show. “Fiendish Enterprises is a multi-billion-dollar corporation, true, but it’s really a dozen different smaller companies. Fiendish Fashion. Fiendish Fun. Fiendish Escapes. Fiendish Films…”
She shrugged, obviously unimpressed.
Okay. Now he was definitely offended. “So, you’re telling me you have no interest in fashion, or traveling, or entertainment?”
Kate shot him a quicksilver grin, momentarily stunning him. “Look at me. Do I look like I’m all into haute couture?”
He took in her ugly outfit again, although this time, he took a bit more notice of the woman underneath.
She was about five-two, leaning more toward willowy without being stick-thin.
There were some curves there, he noticed, buried under the business casual, but it was as if she’d deliberately chosen clothes to hide what she had.
He was accustomed to women who flaunted their assets and used fashion as a weapon. If anything, Kate seemed to use fashion as a duck blind.
She’s honest, though.
“As for the rest—I’ve traveled some, sure, but I crash on people’s couches or stay in hostels.
Fiendish Escapes focuses on the whole five-star treatment, doesn’t it?
Like, a billion thread count Egyptian cotton and Wagyu beef and, like, telepathic maids who cater to your every whim?
” When he nodded, she shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s not cool.
If that’s what blows your hair back, great.
It’s just not my thing. I don’t need all that. ”
“Yes, but Fiendish isn’t about need,” he pointed out. “It’s about desire.”
She paused for a second, and her green eyes went wide, her cheeks flushing just a little.
He wasn’t sure why he was pressing her so hard, other than sanctimonious pleasure-deniers tended to get his boxers in a bunch. But there was something about challenging her, watching her expression go surly, that was actually entertaining.
It occurred to him that for a man who had made his livelihood making expensive, extreme, and exclusive options for entertainment, he enjoyed precious little of it.
“So what about fun?” he prompted. “Got something against that, as well?”
“Sure, I like fun. What’s not to like?” Kate agreed absently, looking up and down the corridor, obviously more intent on finding Ginny’s office than on what she was saying. “But from what I’ve seen, this place might create fun, but working here isn’t fun.”
Now it was his turn to grimace. “It isn’t?”
“No. It’s working your ass off to convince other people to drop a wad of cash on stuff that they don’t need, so they can momentarily pretend their lives don’t suck as they bust ass to afford the stuff you’re selling… Here we are. Ginny’s office.”
He crossed his arms as she tried to put a note down on the desk, only to find no clear space. Finally, she sighed and put the note on Ginny’s chair.
“Then what you’re saying,” he reiterated, as they headed toward the elevators, “is that my life’s work is basically expensive, self-indulgent, ultimately hollow crap.”
She was silent for a second. Then she sighed, and to his surprise, she stared at him.
Her jade green eyes were large, but the slight heaviness of the epicanthic folds and the upward tilt of the outer rim suggested maybe an Asian or Native American ancestry.
He found himself getting lost in her serious gaze, preventing him from studying the rest of her face.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “That’s unfair. I’ve had a suck day, and not a lot of great experiences with big corporate, but I’m firmly against snap judgments. I apologize for that.”
Her apology, and self-awareness, threw him off.
“Besides, you obviously love it here,” she said, in a low, serious voice, continuing to walk. “I used to feel passionate about the place I worked, before it went under. I guess…I just miss the way things used to be.”
He knew that feeling, more keenly than he wanted to admit.
“Besides, one of these days I really should learn when to shut up.”
He laughed at her abashed tone. “You’re sort of a neat person, Kate O’Hara. And a very inventive singer.”
“And you’re probably the coolest billionaire I’ve ever met, Thomas Kestrel,” she said, with a little chuckle. “Of course, you may be the only billionaire I’ve ever met, so that kind of narrows the field.”
“You knew who I was?” The elevator arrived, and he followed her in, torn between feeling amused at her audacity and a little disappointed. Was she just playing up the smartass act, trying to get his attention?
“Your picture’s in the lobby,” she pointed out. “We’re not talking Sherlock Holmes here.”
“So, knowing all that, you still panned my corporation?” he said. “To my face?”
“Apparently.” She was blushing again, roses against the light tan of her skin.
Suddenly, he got the strong feeling that she wasn’t acting. He got the impression that she was not only being herself—she probably was clinically incapable of being anything else.
“Besides, I don’t mean to make it sound like this is, you know, that bad. It could’ve been worse.”
He studied her, paused for a beat. “Could’ve been Tesla, huh?”
“Don’t even joke.” She shuddered. “Anyway, it’s later than I thought. I missed the last train. Guess I’d better call a rideshare.”
He could smell her perfume, if it was perfume.
Maybe it was some kind of soap. It smelled sort of flowery, but not in an overpowering way.
Like… lemon, he thought, and the white clover he used to stretch out in, back home in North Carolina.
He took a deep breath, and noticed he was standing a little closer to her than necessary.
He didn’t move.
Pulling out his phone, he tapped a text to his limo company. “Listen, I’ll have one of our company cars drop you off, okay? It’s too late to grab a ride with a stranger.”
“That’s really nice of you.” She smiled at him, then surprised him further by giving him a gentle punch on the arm. “You’re a good guy, no matter what the papers say. You know that?”
He felt a surge of warmth, started to take one step closer. Then stopped himself, abruptly.
What the hell am I doing?
It was one o’clock in the morning, and he was joking with a cute temp. Noticing her perfume. Smiling at her.
Don’t you remember why you’re here?
He closed his eyes.
Thinking of the real reason he’d moved to Oakland.
Thinking for a moment of the true and deadly serious purpose of this Fiendish headquarters.
And it’s just the beginning.
“No, Kate,” he said in a low voice, taking a deliberate step away from her. “I’m really not a good guy.”