The Pretend Boyfriend 2 (Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male Erotic Romance) (10 page)

“So why don’t you?” he challenges.

“Take Vanguard away from you?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t try me, Brian. I really will do it. You think that just because you delivered a third of the clients and have won a couple of Clio awards – ”

“I’ve won exactly twelve.”

“ – that you are indispensable. No one is indispensable to any company. Not even you. And when you become more of a liability than an asset to us, I can just hire some hotshot from New York to take over your place.”

Brian grips the receiver. He’s going to say something he will regret in the heat of the moment, and now is the time to count till ten or whatever it is that stress management advocates do.

One.

Two.

Three.

He’s burning here. He knows what his uncle says is true, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult.

“I have a meeting,” his uncle clips. “Try to stay out of trouble for the next twenty-four hours.”

The line on the other end goes off.

Brian replaces the receiver onto its cradle slowly. He closes his eyes and palms his face.

A knock on his door. Claudia knows he has put the phone down. She opens the door and peeks in when he doesn’t say ‘Enter’.

“The mayor’s office is on the line. They are spooked. They want to pull out of doing business with Vanguard.”

Brian sighs again.

The morning panic has just begun.

18

“And that’s all you have to go by?” says the private investigator. He is a tall, elegant man with grey eyes and a prominent nose.

Funny, Sam had expected a Philip Marlowe type, but this man looks like he has stepped out from the cover of a GQ magazine for the middle-aged. Still, from his credentials, he is apparently an ex-CIA agent.

“Yes.”

“How soon do you need the information?”

“As soon as possible.”

The court case would not be so soon, but Sam reckons Brian can do with the break. She is supposed to meet him for drinks anyway, but he called to say he would be late.

“The rats are leaving the ship, and the captain is about to be thrown to the sharks,” he says ruefully.

“Hang on in there. Things will get better.”

“They can’t get much worse, or I might as well tie a noose around my neck and spare them the cost of a public hanging.” He sounds so tired over the phone that a pang fleets into her chest. “You wouldn’t believe how many reporters have tried to get through Claudia today. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’m morphing into Kim Kardashian.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I can see them lining up on the streets outside my window. They’re waiting for me to come out. I’ll give them the slip by wearing a wig and fat suit.”

“There’s always the back door.”

“Nope. Last time I checked, they’re camped out there too.”

She has decided not to tell him about the PI. He would just stop her, or at least complicate matters.

“Need some company tonight?” she asks.

“I’d probably come home at midnight and tumble straight into bed. So unless you want a snoring sack for a bed partner, you’d probably get more sleep at home.”

He doesn’t snore and she loves watching him sleep because he looks so beautiful and peaceful. But of course she’s not going to tell him that.

Instead, she says, “OK, I’ll see you next time then. Any other updates?”

“Yeah. My blood test results came back. A copy is with the police.”

“What did they say?”

“No traces of any drugs. Blood alcohol within the limits, so I can’t even claim drunken manslaughter.”

“You didn’t kill anyone.”

“The way everyone is treating me . . . like I’m dog turd scraped off a shoe, you’d think I did.”

“So everything is normal.”

“Nothing is normal.”

“I mean your blood test.”

“My serum Creatinine is high, although everything else within my kidney profile is apparently normal, according to the hospital. So is my potassium, but that could be an artifact, so they say. It apparently comes from eating too many bananas.”

“Do you eat bananas?”

“I can think of a whole lot of things to do with bananas.”

She laughs. “But seriously . . . are your blood results really OK?”

“They couldn’t find anything wrong with me physically during my checkup.”

She tries to make her tone light, even though she’s worried as hell about him. “There’s nothing wrong with you physically.”

“Yeah, before you pass judgment, check back with me tomorrow night and we’ll see if I can get the little pecker up.”

“Last I remembered, it wasn’t that little.”

She can visualize him smiling over the other side. “If all else fails, there’s always Viagra.”

“You and Viagra in the same sentence? That’ll be the day.”

They ring off. He’s still not at his usual brash peak, she notes, but at least he is attempting humor. That’s a good sign. But the fact that his clients are leaving him in droves when he hasn’t even been convicted is a worrying development.

She slips her cellphone back into her purse and peruses the crowded rush hour sidewalk. Then her shoulders slump when she remembers her own predicament.

*

It’s Friday when Sam receives a call from the PI.

“Can you meet me over lunch?” he says.

She has an appointment with Henry Moody today. “Uh, I can’t over lunch. But after work? Say . . . around seven?”

“OK. Bring a check.”

There’s barely going to be anything left in her savings when she has finished paying him, but if she can land Moody and keep her job, then it would be so worth it. Besides, it’s Brian’s life at stake. Nothing can be worth more than that.

Outside her office, Kathy Angleston passes by in her impossibly high heels. She’s in all red today, and the look on her face is like that of a cat which has licked the cream off every other cat’s saucer.

She pokes her head in.

“Heard you got a Henry Moody appointment today,” she says slyly.

Sam seethes. “Who told you that?”

“A little birdie.”

“I suppose you’re going to say you have an appointment with him too.” Typical Kathy Angleston, Sam thinks.

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?” Kathy winks and sashays away.

Damn.

Now Kathy has her wondering what the hell she’s up to.

*

Three hours later, Sam comes out triumphantly from Moody Enterprises, clutching the precious contract from Henry Moody. She returns to Sapphire and marches into Rutgard’s office.

“There,” she says with a flourish, laying the contract on his table. “I should be getting a raise for this.”

He swivels on his chair to eye her. “For doing your job? I think not. I’ve already decided on the job anyway. Kathy Angleston is more suited for it than you are, and I’ve made up my mind to keep her.”

Sam is dumbstruck.

“Wh-what?” she splutters.

Rutgard takes the contract. “I’ll be keeping this, thank you very much.”

“But I got the contract, just like you said. I’m the first one to land a minimum commitment of a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Yes, but Kathy brought it other accounts to the cumulative sum of two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Bullshit! This is not about the other accounts. This is specifically about Moody! You can’t change the goalposts midway into the match. It isn’t fair!” A thought strikes Sam. “Oh God, what did Kathy give you? A blowjob right here in this office? You fucked her, didn’t you?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“God!” Sam is so mad right now that she has to use every ounce of her strength to keep herself from hurling at Rutgard to attempt aggravated assault.

“It’s just business.”

“Business has nothing to do with it!”

“You’ve got three days to clear your stuff out. It’s a retrenchment package, Samantha, not the end of the world.”

Sam storms out of Rutgard’s office. Her vision blurs. I’m not going to cry in front of that bastard, she promises herself. But oh, oh, oh, it’s so unfair. But whoever said life was fair? They certainly weren’t fair to Brian, and he’s a golden boy – handsome, unattainable, rich and successful. What more would the fates have in store for the likes of her, Average Jane?

A text message alights upon her phone with the sound of a falling drop of water. She looks at the display. It’s the PI, reminding her of their rendezvous.

Now how the hell is she going to pay for that and her apartment too?

19

The elevator doors slide open. Brian feels like a condemned man as he steps out onto the familiar corridor. Up here in the top floor of the skyscraper, there is barely a soul walking around. The walls are brocade, and bronzed Buddhas from Indonesia grace pedestals of varying heights.

His uncle is an antique collector. Personally, Brian can never stomach antiques.

Jefferson Morton’s office is behind two paneled oak doors. Hubert, his bespectacled British PA, sits behind a desk. He looks up as Brian approaches.

“Brian,” he says appreciatively. Hubert is gay and he always had an eye for pretty men. Having a gay PA is just one of Jefferson’s attempts to promote corporate diversity.

“Hubert.”

Brian is always polite to Hubert, though the man’s penetrating gaze disarms him. Hubert always undresses him mentally – running his eyes up and down Brian’s tall frame. Not that Brian is a homophobe. Far from it – but such frank sexual interest from another man is always a little disconcerting.

“Your uncle is expecting you.”

“That’s what the phone call is to prime him for.”

“Step right in.”

Brian pushes the doors open. His uncle’s office is designed to wow, to intimidate. Brian has never been easily intimidated. But today is different. Today is . . . well, today going to be humbling.

Jefferson Morton is a huge man. His size has not been diminished by his fight against cancer. Now fully cured, he is larger than before. His shock of black hair – dyed – belies his true age. As the eldest son and patriarch of the family, he is almost seventy. He has single-handedly launched the Morton family into prominence, bringing them all up from the lower middle class immigrants they once were to become one of the wealthiest families in Chicago. The fact that most of his siblings and the children of his siblings are disappointing does not prohibit him from helping them.

To an extent.

He does not seem to want to forget his considerable family, however. The office is decorated with photos. Brian’s gaze slides over a medium-sized photo on a shelf behind his uncle’s chair. His father and mother pose with him as a five-year-old child in a studio shot. They appear happy. But of course, that was before his father started drinking and gambling heavily.

Jefferson’s eyes are a vivid blue. “Sit down, Brian.”

Brian pulls a chair and sits.

“And what do I owe this unexpected visit?” his uncle says.

Brian slides a document over his uncle’s handsome oak table, as wide as any found in a boardroom.

He pulls in a deep breath.

“I’ve come to put in my resignation as President and CEO of Vanguard.”

His uncle’s gaze does not waver. “I was expecting it. You saved me the trouble of asking you to step down.”

Brian shrugs. “Our clients were threatening to leave. The publicity is proving too hot for them to handle. I had no choice. It was the right thing to do.”

Especially for a company he has helped build from scratch. He loves it too much to allow the hemorrhage. Especially one caused by him. So he has to amputate himself from the body before he can cause it irreparable harm.

Vanguard is still his. But he would no longer pilot it – steer its daily planning and cycle. He would no longer come to his own office every day and hold strategic brainstorming meetings. Advertising is his pulse and lifeblood, and now he has to step away from doing what he loves best.

It hurts.

It hurts so much that it is a physical ache in his chest. But he would never tell his uncle this, of course.

“Yes, it is the right thing to do. I’m glad you came to the same conclusion, Brian. I was afraid that your youth and pride prohibited you from thinking straight. You were always brilliant. But you’ve lacked the discipline required in true leadership. When I gave you the reins of Vanguard, I’ve always been certain that you would muck it up somehow with your constant carousing.”

“What I do outside of Vanguard is none of anyone’s business.”

“Unless the two worlds merge.”

Brian knows it’s true. He doesn’t say anything.

Now there’s that little thing about money. No one is going to hire him right away. At least, not unless this thing is cleared up. If it ever clears up. Otherwise, he is looking at a prison sentence. His money is almost entirely tied up in company stocks and in trust. Money he can’t touch easily.