Chapter 4
Four
Alex
The door to DeLuca’s office is closed. He’s inside with Rita, of all people. The first time they’ve had a one-to-one in… ever.
I wait in a chair outside, idly flicking through a copy of Forbes. He wants to see me, and it rankles that I’m being kept waiting by my own Chief of Staff.
The door opens at last, but it’s not Rita that steps out, but DeLuca. Rita follows him, looking a lot paler than when she went in.
“Ah, Alexander.” DeLuca walks over to shake my hand as I get up to greet him. “Vincent and Antonio were impressed by you yesterday.”
“Thanks. Good to hear.”
“You can have your Chief of Staff back. You’ll need her for Greenstone.
” He gives Rita the barest glance, ignoring the deliberate display of her blouse’s top two undone buttons.
“There’s a meeting I’d like you to attend on Monday night, and a social event in two weeks.
You’ll be bringing Victoria, of course.” It’s not a question.
“Sounds great.” And that’s not a confirmation.
He nods deliberately, like he caught my evasion, briefly grips my shoulder, then walks off down the hallway.
I let out a subtle breath.
That was all he wanted to see me for?
Rita arches a precisely groomed eyebrow in inquiry, but says nothing. Most of her color has returned.
I lead her back to my office, sit down behind my desk, and eye the drinks cabinet in the corner despite it being early afternoon. It’s rare I even drink, but I feel a hankering for a whisky. Is the pressure getting to me? That’s inexcusable. I settle my gaze on Rita instead.
“What did DeLuca want?”
“To remind me who I work for.”
“You work for me,” I say, like there’s any doubt. “Not the company, not DeLuca. Me.”
“That’s what I told him.”
I watch her for a moment, wondering what DeLuca said to her, and whether she was ballsy enough to give him the reply she just gave me. “What progress has been made on Greenstone?”
She begins to fill me in, but I’m only half listening. It’s been two days since Vicky left—no, three. Two days since I went home. She’s still not answering her phone, and I’ve sent half a dozen messages. It’s making me look desperate, and that won’t do at all.
I don’t even know where she’s gone. She has no family—her parents are dead, a brother in Miami, but I can’t see her going there.
She hasn’t spent money on her credit card, which means she’s living out of her own account.
I know what’s in it: barely anything. She can’t be paying rent; she must be staying with a friend.
But which one?
An excellent question, especially as I can’t think of the names of any of them, let alone where they live or work. That realization comes as something of a surprise.
I’ve known Vicky nine months, and though I met some of her friends in the first few weeks, when we were courting, nothing since then.
It was a whirlwind romance. Love on her side, lust on mine.
She had—has—a strength to her I’ve always found alluring.
Beautiful, too. Not with the voluptuous curves that Rita’s blouse can’t contain, but fine-boned and self-possessed, slim and delicate, features precise enough to look almost studied.
I’ve always found that far more appealing.
Not to mention an ass you could bounce a quarter off.
The sex was disappointing, if I’m honest. A little bland, a little vanilla. My Vicky doesn’t lack for passion, except in the bedroom, which I mostly put down to a lack of experience. Two previous lovers, and I gather neither one rocked her world. I suppose I could’ve done more there, but… work.
My reflections have distracted me entirely from what Rita’s been saying, and I become conscious she’s stopped talking, watching me with her head tilted and an amused expression.
“Something on your mind?” she asks, when I make eye contact.
“Just thinking.”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?”
That’s unusually forward from her. I let my gaze go cold, recalling the early parts of what she said, before Vicky took up too much of my thoughts.
“Seven billion in annual revenue,” I rattle off.
“Distressed entry. We get it around six, break it at eight, two billion on the spread. We take twenty percent carry on the upside.” And my share of that would be a cool thirty million.
“Fourth-generation family business with extreme family cohesion but liquidity tension. The cousins want cash; the chairman wants legacy. Do we know where their money’s coming from? ”
“Not yet—”
“Find out. As a parallel task, get some rating agencies engaged and find some defensible governance concerns to feed them. A negative outlook could force recapitalization talks within months.”
Rita makes a note. “This won’t be a quick project.”
“Of course not.” I think of the conversation I had with the new shadow-board associate DeLuca had introduced me to yesterday.
Vincent Barone is part of Armitage and Calder, and he might be able to apply some regulatory tightening or litigation friction.
For a two-billion-dollar payout, it was worth sharing some of the gains.
“I have a few ideas that might accelerate it.”
I stand up, walking around the desk to the door.
Rita’s gaze follows me, brow furrowed. “Where are you going?”
“To the gym.”
“The gym?” She checks her watch, even though she knows exactly what time it is. “It’s the middle of the afternoon!”
“Yes?”
“That’s not like you.”
“A run will help me think.”
“Uh… right.”
The company gym is well-furnished, and I use it so often I keep a change of clothes in the lockers.
At this time of day it’s quiet, and that’s what I need.
I set the treadmill to an incline on a medium speed, and lose myself in the rhythm.
My mind isn’t on Greenstone—for the first time, I don’t really care.
It’s still early days on that, and it will resolve itself in due course. No, my focus is on my absentee fiancée.
Vicky is the perfect trophy wife. Intelligent enough to hold her own. Driven, too, and I was only too happy to encourage her stepping out alone, leaving her underpaid corporate position. I just hadn’t expected her to leave me three months later.
But then, she can’t have been planning that either. Not when it’s my seed money propping her up. And I know she still loves me. She’s not capable of loving any other way except wholly, body and soul.
How has this happened? Was it all on a whim? A petty tantrum because I missed her birthday? If so, she’ll probably come crawling back before the date of DeLuca’s social event. Maybe there’s no need to worry.
But it’s been two days. No, three. That’s already far too long. Maybe there’s every reason to worry.
I hit the stop button on the treadmill, wrap a towel around my shoulders, and retrieve my phone from the nearby shelf. Dial Rita’s number.
“Yes, Alex?”
“I need you to go through my credit card statements for November. There should be a resort and spa on there.”
“Whenever did you go to a resort?”
“Not me. Vicky. Get the bill from them, and get me the names of who else went.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Rita. I’ll be up in half an hour.” I kill the call and head for the showers.
If she won’t come to me, I’ll find her.
Carol Jenkins is the most likely target. She works at Dalton Reed Consulting, where Vicky was before she went out on her own, and it’s here in New York.
I put my finger on her name. “Get an address for her.”
“Yes, sir.” Rita only calls me ‘sir’ when I use a certain tone and she feels a need to be diplomatic. So the next question isn’t a surprise. “May I ask why we’re investigating a… nobody?”
“I just want her address. Nothing else.” Yet.
I start packing up my things while Rita watches me with a delicate frown.
“Alex…”
“Mmm?”
“Forgive me for saying so, but of late, you’re acting… strangely.”
“I don’t see a problem. We just closed the Summit Ridge deal and it’ll take days before the team gets going on Greenstone. I’m even considering taking some time off.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown another head. “Time off?”
“You have everything in hand here.” I close my laptop and shove it into my bag.
Rita leans back in her chair, deliberately uncrossing and recrossing her long legs, stocking-clad beneath today’s short skirt. “Is everything all right between you and that private investigator of yours?”
I give her my full attention. “Why do you ask?”
She airily waves a hand. “You missed her birthday, you froze when Mr. DeLuca mentioned her—”
“I didn’t freeze.” Damn it. I answered too fast.
Rita’s lips curl smugly at the corners. “That girl doesn’t appreciate you.”
I pause in the act of buckling my bag, considering that. Rita may have a point. “She is my fiancée.”
“Which means what, exactly? You can break it off just like any other relationship, only in this one, you get the ring back.”
Box already ticked. “The company prefers married men. More… stability.”
Why the hell did I tell her that? This career business is messing with my head. DeLuca is messing with my head.
Rita nods sagely. “I know what you need. Why don’t we both take some time off this afternoon. Take an early dinner. Have a bottle of wine.”
She doesn’t let that invitation run to its natural conclusion, but it hangs in the air.
I regard her for the time it takes to draw a breath and let it out. “Did you deliberately omit Vicky’s birthday from my calendar?”
“Yes.” There’s not a flicker of hesitation, no attempt to deny her sabotage. She throws the word at me like it’s a challenge.
And I admire her for that.
For all her blatantness, Rita is indispensable to me, and she knows it. She knows I won’t fire her, she knows replacing her would be a monumental pain in the ass.
But this is more than our working relationship.
“Why?”
“You’re high-functioning despite an IQ in excess of 140.
You can remember your own fiancée’s birthday…
if you choose.” She lets one hand fall casually to the buttons of her blouse, toying with the top one.
The top fastened one, anyway. The third one.
“I was curious how much she meant to you. I have my answer.”
“Don’t ever mess with my personal life again.”
Rita laughs. I know it’s forced, but it sounds like it isn’t.
“Alex, I am your personal life. You spend more time with me than with anyone else on this planet. You know damn well you could bend me over your desk right now, and I’d grip the edge and brace myself. Instead, you go for that vapid girl.”
Vicky is neither vapid nor significantly younger than Rita. But her words create a visual that’s hard to ignore. “Vicky loves me,” I say, as much as a test as for any other reason.
This time, Rita’s amusement is genuine. “Who gives a fuck? How does love compare to what we do here?” She gestures, taking in my expansive corner office and the view over Manhattan.
“We make obscene amounts of money screwing people over, and we do it for a thrill that has no comparison. Add in some truly dirty sex, and there’s no better match for you than me; no better for me than you. ”
And as usual, Rita is right. Everything she’s describing is what I’ve spent ten years building toward—the money, the power, someone who operates at the same level and doesn’t flinch when I bend the rules. No sentiment, no complication. Pure alignment.
With one minor hiccup: she’s not Vicky.
I tilt my head, considering her. Rita watches me hungrily, probably thinking I’m considering her offer. What I’m really doing is working out what she’s lacking—or whatever it is Vicky has.
False fingernails, painted a dark burgundy.
Vicky’s are always short and natural. Heavy makeup, but in her defense, competently applied.
Vicky owns a hundred lipsticks, because I bought them for her, wears maybe two different shades, and rarely at that.
Rita’s dark-haired with olive skin, reflecting her subtle Latina heritage; Vicky’s a pale blond.
Rita’s curvier, favoring blouses a size too small, her breasts weaponized, and never more than now while her fingers toy with that button.
Vicky dresses elegantly or—to my constant irritation—in baggy hoodies.
Though she’s cute walking around the house in her thin pajama bottoms.
And none of this answers my own question.
It’s vulnerability. That’s what it is. That’s what’s utterly missing in the woman before me, and so damn appealing in her.
The way Vicky stands very still. Fiddles with her engagement ring. Bites at her lip. Holds her breath without realizing it. The baseline softness that lives inside her bearing.
That’s what calls to me, and Rita has none of it. It’s Vicky’s vulnerability that drives me crazy, that makes me want to possess her. Yes, Rita probably would be a great lay; her quality is the raw sensuality that Vicky wholly lacks.
The stark difference between them is now so obvious that I wonder why I hadn’t consciously registered it before. I mentally file that for later.
I pick up my bag, walk around my desk, passing Rita as she subtly slumps in rejection in her chair.
It’s not ideal; I still have to work with her. Besides, if Vicky never comes back, I might need a replacement to keep DeLuca happy.
I pause with my hand on the door. “Your offer has merit. See you on Monday.”
Rita straightens, a shade of her confidence returning, and I hold her gaze for just long enough.
Then I’m through the door, closing it behind me before I give away what I’m really thinking.
Vicky never coming back?
I’m going over there right now to ensure that doesn’t happen.