Accounting for Lust (22 page)

“Cool your jets, will you. I had to make sure you felt enough for Jake not to hurt him.”

Cassie glared at Lea who sipped at her coffee, a mock-innocent look on her face. It didn’t suit Lea any more than it would have suited Cassie and against her will, Cassie smiled. She couldn’t fault Lea for looking out for her brother and she would probably have done the same.

“You took a big risk in inviting confrontation like that.” Cassie put her handbag on the table and relaxed in the chair.

“Nope, I knew you would come through.” She shrugged. “And if you didn’t, I proved my point.”

Cassie only shook her head. Lea was still an enigma to her. Their conversation turned general after that and later that evening Lea
loaded
an action movie into the DVD player. Cassie’s interest wandered after a couple of minutes.

Jake hadn’t called or left any messages. Lea was great company, but she missed Jake. She missed his smile and his sense of humour. She missed the way his presence filled her apartment so that it became difficult to breathe at times.
You better get used to it girl,
her inner voice chastised,
it had always been only temporary.

When the movie finished, Cassie retired to her bedroom and after twisting and turning for what felt like hours, she finally fell asleep. And dreamt of Jake making love to her.
His hands gliding over her body, his palms grazing her breasts, his fingers delving into her vagina and taking her to the brink of orgasm before he eased his cock inside her.
She awoke with lust moistening her pussy and her nipples aching. Damn it, she wasn’t sixteen and no amount of hormona
l lust was going to control her
. The resolution eased her consc
ience
, but did nothing to alleviate the
throbbing need
between her legs.

Once at the office,
Lea left her at the bottom of the elevator and Cassie pressed the button for the top floor. The doors opened to an empty corridor and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Few members of staff ventured into the office at six in the morning and the place had an abandoned feel.
Although she trusted Jake and Matt to do their job, she
tensed
as she entered her office. In front of the window
,
a cleaning cart stood diagonal
to
her desk. The cleaner rubbed a cloth over the bottom of the glass and straightened.

Relief flooded through Cassie as she stared into the
friendly
ebony face of the man. A smile nearly split his face in two as he greeted her.
She returned his friendly greeting without hesitation and slipped behind her desk.
In a short while
, the minutes of the meetings of the previous day captured her concentration. Engrossed in sorting out the details of the prospective contracts, Cassie briefly glanced up as the door clicked shut.

The bottom dropped out of Cassie’s stomach. She didn’t need to consult the picture in her handbag to
identify the man behind the cleaning cart.
Marvin Sparks
remained motionless with his hand on the handle of the door and Cassie cringed at the
hatred
spewing from his eyes
.
Her heart thumped in her chest and she covered her one hand with the other to mask the tremble in them. How was she supposed to act as if she didn’t know who he was when all she wanted to do was scream at the top of her lungs and run from the office
?

“Can I help you?
Someone already cleaned the office.
” She prayed the rapid beating of her heart remained audible to her own ears alone.

Marvin pushed the cleaning cart under the handle of the door and Cassie swallowed convulsively. The blood drained from her face and
she searched the office
for a means to escape
. There were none
. By the time Marvin turned to face her
,
she had already calculated her chance of survival should she throw herself out the window.

“I’m not here to clean your office. It’s you I want.”

Cassie feigned indignation. “Get out. Collect your wages from the personnel office and don’t bother
returning
.”
She fixed him with her coldest stare while anticipating her heart beating itself right out of her chest. Blood roared in her ears and
saliva in her mouth turned to ash
. Where w
ere
Jake
?
How could
he
leave her alone to face this maniac
?

“Darlin, that’s not going to work on me.” He pulled something from his overall pocket and Cassie stared transfixed at the serrated half-moon shaped blade attached to a sturdy ivory handle. He wiped the blade against the leg of his trouser and turned it in his hand, as if admiring the craftsmanship.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“Tut-tut, not so fast. You owe me the same favours you so willingly handed to that pumped up security guard.” Marvin
beckoned
with his tongue and revulsion
crawled
along Cassie’s spine. He took a couple of steps closer to her and Cassie resisted the urge to jump up and put more distance between them.

Don’t show him he intimidates you.

Yeah right, he didn’t intimidate her
,
he scared
her senseless
.
She straightened her spine and prayed her voice held enough ice to mask the fear rambling through her body.

“Don’t waste my time. What do you want?”

Marvin sauntered closer and Cassie shr
u
nk in her chair at the menace radiating from his eyes. He waved the knife
in front of her face
. “You and your old man
slept under cushy blankets in your mansions while I had to content with rifling through garbage cans on cold winter nights.”

Cassie shook her head. “I’m sorry your circumstances were bad, but what does it have to do with me . . . or my father?”

Marvin slammed the knife
on the table and Cassie jumped
. He pressed his face almost against hers and she strained to hear his hiss. “He refused to acknowledge me as his son.”

Cassie bolted from the chair and
hurried to the other side of the desk.
“He couldn’t be your father
,
”
she whispered.

Marvin’s face contorted into a mask of rage.
With a strangled cry
,
he scaled the desk and grabbed Cassie by the hair. Tears sprung to her eyes as he pulled her head backwards. Her breath stalled in her throat as he pressed the cold steel of the blade against her exposed neck.

“That’s what he said and then he laughed at me. I swore I would get him for that one day. You don’t humiliate a s
ixteen
year old boy and remain unpunished.”

Cassie forced air into her lungs and swallowed convulsively. “Listen to me . . .”

His grip on her hair tightened and absently Cassie wondered how much more strain her vertebra could take before her neck snapped right off. “Listen to me,” she repeated. “He couldn’t be your father because he was sterile. Both my brother and
I
were adopted as babies. My father couldn’t have children.”

“Liar.” The scream reverberated
off the walls
and he increased the pressure of the knife on her neck. “ He left
my mother
to fend for herself when he found out she was pregnant. He used her and
discarded her
like garbage.” Cassie watched fascinated as a sliver of drool
dripped from
his chin, trying to ignore the trickle of
blood running
towards the valley between her breasts.
 

“She lied to you.
I can prove it. Just let me go and I’ll show you.”

The pressure on her neck eased and
Cassie
sucked air into her deprived lungs. She turned her head and her heart stopped. She watched, immobilized with terror, as Marvin lifted the knife above his head. In slowmotion the blade barrelled towards her chest.

“My mother never lies,” he screamed as
a
shot rang out from the bathroom. Surprise flowered in his eyes just before a freight train ran into Cassie and flattened her on the floor.
Struggling for breath, Cassie
shoved
at the body covering hers, but it only lifted a fraction to allow her chest to expand in take in some air.
M
ayhem r
eigned
as Marvin kept screaming obscenities at Matt and Lea. The rest of the security team entered and secured Marvin before leading him from the office.

Jake lifted off her and helped her to her feet. Her body shook in reaction to the sudden turn of events and to her horror
,
a tear ran down her cheek
.

“It’s okay, Sweetheart. It’s over, you’re safe.” Jake hugged her close and
pressed a kiss to the top of her head. The single tear turned into a river and Cassie buried her face in his chest. What must the others think of her? She, the CEO of a hard-core manufacturing company, turned to mush at the first sign of a little danger.

She straightened her spine and swallowed the sobs raking her body. If she gave in now, Marvin would win. Cassie lifted her head and stared up at Jake. His eyes followed the movements of the
police and the
rest of the team through the room and the stern set of his jaw revealed his irritation at the process taking so long.

“I’m fine now, thank you.” She
stepped away
from Jake and turned to survey the room herself.
I
t was hard to believe a couple of minutes ago, only
she
and Marvin occupied the office. Now, half a dozen people milled
in the room
, each seemingly busy with collecting and securing evidence. She paled as a
police
man unpack
ed
Marvin’s cleaning trolley. Besides a variety of knifes, he packed scalpels, tongs and even a firearm inside. He
came
prepared for war.
And with the intent to hurt her. Not just kill her, mak
e
her suffer. The blood drained from her face again and for a moment
,
she thought she was going to be sick.

The policeman must have felt her stare because he turned and shrugged an apology to her. Cassie nodded, slipped out from under Jake’s arm and walked to her desk. Once seated behind it, some control returned to her day. Despite the early hour, her muscles ached and fatigue threatened to overwhelm her. The familiarity of the feeling struck her and she sighed softly. Like before, she will use her work to bury these memories. Marvin Sparks will not win.

In a strange way she sympathised with him. His mother lied to him, betrayed his trust and lead him onto a path of self-destruction. Once upon a time she might have known Graham Adams and judging by the photo’s on the flash drives, she might even have had sex with him. Maybe she even believed he was the father of her child. But her actions destroyed her son. Just like Cassie’s father
with his indiscretions
,
almost cost her her life.

“We need to get a statement, ma’am.”

Cassie nodded. The sooner
she sorted this mess out
, the sooner she could return to her normal
routine
. She spent the rest of the day overseeing the starting of the production plant, giving numerous statements to the police and finalising the details on the contracts entered into during the past two days.

By six in the evening, she had an overdose of caffeine and her stomach growled. Jake had left with the police and she hadn’t seen him since
.
Not that she expected to for a couple of days at least. They’d solved the case and she didn’t need protection anymore.
He
had no reason to
stay
.

It wasn’t that she felt abandoned, she kept telling herself. She merely wanted to know how far the case progressed. As she walked past Megan’s office, a shadow detached
its
elf from the corridor wall and Cassie’s heart jumped in her throat.
Jake.

“Hi
,
Sweetheart.” Jake hugged her to him. “
I
t’s over now.”

Cassie nodded and rested her head agai
nst his chest for a few moments. His steady heartbeat thundered in her ear as she hugged him fiercely before letting him go and stepping out of his embrace.

“What happened to Marvin?”

Jake matched his stride to hers until they reached the elevator. “He’s being detained, but he’s mad as hell. Matt brought his mother in and she admitted that she was a cleaner a long time ago in the company and when some low-life with no prospects got her pregnant, she resigned. When Marvin confronted her about his father, she made up the lies to protect herself.”