An Executive Decision (26 page)

She was finishing up when Ellis rang and summoned her to his office. She grabbed up her BlackBerry and a note pad, wondering what it was that they hadn’t already discussed.

As she entered his office, he gave her a distracted nod from behind his laptop. ‘Lock the door, please.’

She did as he asked, feeling a frisson of excitement low in her belly, but when she started to sit down in front of his desk he looked up and shook his head. ‘No, not there. Come here, and you won’t need those.’ He nodded to her BlackBerry and the pad. She sat them on the chair and came around the edge of his desk. Standing beside him looking down at him felt awkward until he took off his glasses and smiled up at her. ‘You know, I’ve been trying to set up a meeting with Blankenship over at Defoe for almost a year, and he can see me this afternoon. I’ve got to go. I’d hoped to be there for the Trouvères kick-off meeting, but I won’t be back in time. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry. The Trouvères meeting will practically run itself. We all did our homework in New York, you know. I’ll fill you in when you get back.’

‘Thanks, Dee. I’d hoped it wouldn’t be so hectic, but then it always is, isn’t it?’ He palmed his laptop shut and pushed it to one side. Then he took her hand and pulled her toward him, rolling his chair back until she stood between his legs with her upper thighs pressed tight against his desk. ‘Maybe this weekend you can come out to my place for dinner, and then we’ll have some time.’

‘I’d like that, Ellis.’ She curled her fingers around his.

‘Good.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss to her knuckles, but his eyes were locked on hers. ‘In the meantime, I’ve been admiring that skirt you’ve got on. It’s my favourite shade of blue.’ He scooted closer until she was trapped between the spread of his legs and the desk. He made no attempt to hide the hard-on beneath his trousers; in fact, it was pretty obvious he wanted her to see it. Then he ran his hands up the outside of her thighs, stroking the fabric, easing it up with each caress. ‘It’s soft too. I thought it might be. I’ve been wondering what one wears beneath a skirt just that shade of blue.’

‘Shall I show you?’ She placed the flat of her hand low against her belly, then curled her fingers, scrunching the fabric until the tops of her stockings, caught up in the crème lace of the garter belt, peeked from beneath the skirt. With her hand splayed low across her mons, she scrunched until he sighed his approval at the sight.

‘Leopard print,’ he breathed. ‘Yes, I think that’s a perfect match.’ He looked up at her, his eyes bright with humour and something more. ‘I seem to recall you saying once that you liked animals.’ Before she could respond, he pushed in close with his chair, forcing her to sit back on his desk with a little gasp of surprise. ‘I don’t know about leopards,’ he said, shoving her skirt up further until her bottom rested fully on the cool, smooth oak of his desk, ‘but I bet your McAlister and O’Kelly mark their territory by rubbing their faces against what belongs to them.’ He rubbed his cheek against the inside of her knee in a very feline gesture that ended with the press of his lips and a soft flick of his tongue. ‘They probably mark your sofa.’ He moved up the inside of her thigh and repeated the gesture, this time with a little nip of his front teeth. ‘And maybe your bed too.’ He did the same to the other thigh, lingering to rub his cheek and the soft ruff of his hair before he nipped her just above where her stocking was attached to the garter belt. The heat of his breath brushed the crotch of her panties and she squirmed with the sheer tactile pleasure of it. ‘And no doubt your leg.’ He cupped her bottom and brought her mons against his cheek, nuzzling and sniffing and nipping until the blissed-out sounds coming from her throat weren’t unlike those she’d heard McAlister and O’Kelly make. ‘Right now, I feel the need to mark my territory, Dee, one animal to another.’

She couldn’t hold back the little whimper of pleasure as he kissed and nipped down to the apex of her, where she could feel her clit pushing tight and tetchy against the leopard print. There, he inhaled deeply and began to press and lick and circle with his tongue until she would have bucked and wriggled off the desk if he hadn’t held her firmly.

He worked his way lower, lapping and nibbling and kissing through the fabric, tugging at the swell of her labia, no doubt now fully displayed through the combined wet of his saliva and her arousal. He pressed his tongue up from her perineum along the full length of her slit until he found her hole, gripping hungrily. He thrust his tongue into her, pressing the leopard print crotch up into the yield and clench, yield and clench. Then he settled to suckle her still clothed clit, as though he were a nursing infant. And she flooded herself in the pleasure of it, causing him to gasp and suckle all the harder. The room smelled of her damp heat and the scent of Ellison Thorne aroused, the animal in rut, woodland damp and desert heat slicked with his sweat, and his insatiable need. It was the best smell ever; she breathed it into herself in great, heaving gulps, lifting her feet, still in their dove-grey stilettos, onto the arms of his chair and bearing down to press closer to him.

She heard the zip of his fly and the rustle of his trousers. Then he shoved aside the ruined strip of leopard print and pulled her onto the deliciously familiar length of him with a grunt. He held her there, impaled, while he ran a hand over his glistening face. ‘Look, Dee, you marked me too.’ Then, holding her gaze, he unbuttoned the top several buttons of his shirt and wiped her juices down his sternum.

‘You can’t go to Blankenship smelling like my cunt,’ she said, both embarrassed and moved at the same time.

‘I’ll take a shower before I go, Dee, but I’ll still go wearing your mark. I’ve worn your mark since the day I saw you. That can’t be washed away.’ Then he pulled her to him, guided her to wrap her legs around him, and began to thrust, filling her in ways that were tight and frightening and stunning, that had nothing whatsoever to do with his penis inside her. 

Chapter Thirty-seven

‘What do you want?’

Dee assumed Sandra must have stepped away from her desk because the secretary knew Tally Barnes was not welcome anywhere near Dee’s office. But here she was, closing the door behind her, marching in as though she owned the place. Clutched between her mauve lacquered fingernails, she held a battered manila envelope. She maintained the pretence of politeness.

‘How was New York? I understand it was mostly wrap-up stuff, wasn’t it?’

‘Mostly wrap-up, yes. Now, what are you here for? Have you come to offer more invaluable ideas on the alliance?’ Dee looked down at her watch. ‘Because now’s a little late. The meeting’s about to begin.’

‘Don’t worry. This won’t take long, Dee. I just have something I thought you might like to see before the big kick-off meeting.’ Tally sat down in the chair in front of Dee’s desk without being invited, and slid the envelope across to her. ‘I’ve been puzzling over this secret weapon, this ESC, ever since Beverly’s death. Have you heard of it? Of course you have.’

Though summer was in full bloom outside, the room suddenly felt cold as Dee flipped slowly through the stack of emails, which now wavered in and out of focus in front of her eyes. ‘Where did you get these?’

Tally’s mouth curved upward in a smirk. ‘Well, right here, of course.’ She crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair, making herself comfortable. ‘I mean, I did have access to Beverly’s files when I volunteered to help Ellis out with Scribal. With everything being in such chaos after the big woman’s death, it just seemed easier for me to work here – at least I thought so.’

‘And Ellis approved?’

‘Oh come on, Dee. Ellis was worthless those first few days, surely you know that. I could have practically taken over
his
office and he wouldn’t have noticed.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘But suddenly here you are in the office that should have been mine, and here’s me racking my brain trying to figure out why Ellis would hire a headhunter, a woman with no real experience, for such an important position. Well –’ she offered Dee a confidential smile. ‘Now I know.’

Ignoring the warning prickle up her spine, Dee bluffed. ‘Now you know what?’

The sneer on Tally Barnes’s face made her perfectly painted mouth, with its halo of dark lip liner, look like an angry gash. She leaned forward in the chair as though she were about to impart a secret. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I certainly would have taken the man up on the offer if he’d asked me. I mean, he’s Ellison Thorne, who wouldn’t?’

‘All I see is some cryptic messages between Beverly and Ellis. No doubt there are plenty of things in those files only the two of them would understand, Tally. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a meeting to prepare for.’

‘Oh, you have to see this one before you go. This one’s my personal favourite.’ She shoved a tattered piece of paper at Dee.

Ellis,

Just an addendum to the conversation we had earlier about Dee Henning. Before I head off to Brazil …

The text wavered before Dee’s eyes.

… if you were ever going to implement the ESC, she’d be the one to do it with – that is if you’ve got the balls.

Dee struggled to breathe deeply, struggled to overcome the fluttering in her ears that felt like the wings of a flock of very large birds.

Dee’s exactly what you need on all counts. I know you think she lacks experience … Hire her, Ellis. Implement the ESC … If anyone could do it, you could.

Beverly

Dee fought hard to stay focused, to stay calm. It surely met nothing. After all, Beverly had joked with both her and Ellis about the Sex Clause.

Tally spoke up. ‘You’d think I’d have figured it out, as close as you two seem to be, and then when he didn’t fire you after missing that teleconference like you did … But I missed it entirely until a couple of days ago when I had the pleasure of meeting Ellis’s ex fiancée and his brother downstairs in the bar. They were both waiting to see Ellis.’ She chuckled suggestively. ‘For different reasons, I have no doubt. She’s lovely, by the way, his ex. I’m sure he was very happy to see her. Anyway, they confirmed what extra services you provide for Ellis and suddenly it was all clear to me why you got the job that should have been mine.’

There it was at last; the source of the betrayal. Dee felt it like a knife to the heart. With Tally’s little revelation, everything Dee had worked for in the past few months, everything she had believed about Ellison Thorne and the business he had created, slipped away. It wasn’t so much that Tally knew about the Sex Clause, rather the source of Tally’s information that was the true betrayal, and after the promises Ellis had made her.

Tally continued, ‘Oh, I do understand. Ellis is a busy man, and you are, shall we say, extremely convenient. I mean, that was the point, wasn’t it?’

Dee carefully placed the accusing memos back in their envelope, amazed that her hands were still so steady.

‘Pity, really. All this time you’ve been busting your ass when all that was really required of you was to spread your legs. Surely someone else would have picked up the slack. However, I think Human Resources will find all of this very interesting indeed.’ Tally stood and reached for the envelope, but Dee stuffed it in the top drawer of her desk and locked it.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tally gloated. ‘Keep them. I have copies.’ She turned to go.

‘Oh, by the way, Tally.’ Dee grabbed her briefcase and bag. ‘You’ll be running the kick-off meeting today, which should be no problem since the whole Trouvères/Scribal alliance was your idea anyway.’

Tally spun to face her, and the colour drained from face. ‘What are you talking about? Where are you going?’

Dee didn’t answer. ‘As for the office you seem so fond of, it’s all yours. Knock yourself out.’ She left, shutting the door behind her with Tally still inside. 

In the hall, Sandra was waiting for her. ‘Is that Tally Barnes in there? Dee, I’m sorry. I only stepped away to take some files to Lynn. Dee? What’s going on?’

‘I quit, Sandra. I quit.’ She handed the secretary the key to the top drawer of her desk. ‘Give this to Ellis when he gets back.’

Sandra fell into step next to her, struggling to keep up as she headed toward the bank of elevators. ‘But what about the meeting?’

‘Not my problem any more. I’m sure Tally can handle it.’

‘What shall I tell Ellis?’

‘You can tell him …’ The sense of betrayal made her feel like her chest would explode. ‘I don’t care what you tell him, Sandra, just give him the damned key.’

‘Dee?’

‘Thanks for all your help. It’s been a pleasure working with you.’ She left the secretary standing in the hallway in front of the elevators. 

Chapter Thirty-eight

When Sandra called with news of Dee’s departure, Ellis was heading back from Defoe, congratulating himself on the short but productive meeting and looking forward to telling Dee about it. He’d made up his mind not to wait, but to invite her home this evening. It was supposed to be a clear night. They could do a little stargazing and enjoy a quiet dinner together. But Sandra’s news had shattered his daydream. Desperate to make things right, he had broken the speed limit and more than a few traffic rules getting to Dee’s place. He had asked Sandra to check what Dee had left in her desk drawer that had caused her to quit the job she so clearly enjoyed and was so good at. When she told him about the emails and Tally Barnes’s presence at the time of Dee’s departure, he tromped harder on the gas, thinking of nothing but making things right with Dee.

He went straight to her house, but no one was home. Dear God, he only hoped she hadn’t caught the first plane out to who knew where. But there hadn’t been enough time, he reassured himself. She was probably driving off some anger. He did that. He hoped she did too. In the meantime he headed back to Pneuma Inc. to find out as much as he could about what had happened.

His first stop was Dee’s office. In spite of the jungle, the room felt desolate. Her desk was bare except for the Christmas cactus and a few neatly stacked files. The faint scent of her still lingered in the room like a subliminal footprint, stirring memory and inflicting pain with the knowledge of her absence. There was no note, no hint as to where she might have gone. He resisted the urge to search her desk. Sandra had already found the damnable emails, and it was still Dee’s desk. However, Sandra hadn’t relocked the middle drawer and something was wedged in it, preventing it from closing. When he tried to unstick it, he pulled it completely out, scattering the contents across the floor. He swallowed back a curse and his throat tightened at the sight of the zip-lock plastic bag in which Beverly had kept the articles on him and Pneuma Inc. she had collected for her scrap book. The clear plastic of the bag bulged with clippings and photos. As he lifted them to put them back in the drawer, he saw that the top one was dated just this morning. There was an interview with him in
Le Monde
. It had been a phone interview he’d done with Dee sitting by his side just before he went off to Valderia. She had been there to translate for him, though it hadn’t been necessary since the reporter spoke perfect English. The photo was one of him shaking hands with Yvette Rousseau, smiling like the king of the universe, and that’s how he’d felt. Only a few hours before, he’d been in the limo making love to Dee. The ache low in his chest was deep and serrated. Nearly half the clippings in the bag had been added since Dee had begun working at Pneuma Inc. He’d had no idea. He laid them carefully back in the drawer, promising himself he’d buy her a scrap book to put them in when everything was settled. And it would be settled. He was not about to let her go that easily.

Sandra met him in his office with the emails and the transcribed notes from the Trouvères/Scribal alliance meeting. He handed them back to her. ‘Not now, Sandra, not until we can get to the bottom of what happened here.’

She refused them. ‘I think you really need to see these, Ellis. The meeting was a disaster. Tally Barnes led it, and she clearly had no clue what was going on or what she was doing.’

Ellis took the transcript from her, scanning the notes. ‘This is what happened?’

‘Yes, sir, it is. My shorthand is flawless, if I do say so myself. That’s exactly what was said. Quite enlightening, isn’t it? Looks like Dee gave her just enough rope to hang herself. You should see the way she’s slinking around this afternoon. I think she might be updating her resume.’

Another glance at the transcript knotted his insides. ‘I don’t think she’ll need a resume to flip burgers.’ Over the top of his glasses, he held the secretary’s gaze. ‘And when I’m finished, that’ll be the only kind of work she’ll be able to get. Did Dee mention anything about where she might go?’

‘Only that she was going home. Wasn’t she there?’

‘No. She wasn’t.’

‘She was very upset.’

‘With good reason.’ He took off his glasses, and the words on the transcript slipped out of focus. ‘You don’t think she’d go to Paris, do you? The Rousseaus would snatch her away in a heartbeat if they could.’

‘You can’t let that happen, Ellis. You can’t lose her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to you.’ The secretary’s face reddened and she fidgeted in her seat. He’d seldom seen her agitated, and never without a damn good reason. ‘I mean … That is to say, Ms Henning is the best thing that ever happened to Pneuma Inc.’

He put his glasses back on and pushed the transcript aside. ‘Sandra? How long have you known?’

For a second, she studied him in stiff silence, then the hard line of her jaw softened and she relaxed back into the chair. ‘That you love her? From the beginning, Ellis.’

Her words were a searing revelation of the obvious that he’d somehow managed to miss. It was ironic that someone so good at reading other people’s feelings had to have a secretary translate his own. How could he have missed it? The signs had been there all along. ‘I was that transparent?’

‘Of course not.’ She reached out to touch his hand, thought better of it, and straightened the pens and pencils in the holder on the corner of his desk instead. ‘It’s just that you’ve been so happy. I’ve known you for a long time now, Ellis, longer than anyone else here, and this is the first time in all these years I’ve ever seen you really happy.’

She left him alone with the monumental task of finding Dee. He doubted she’d go to her mother in Salem. This wasn’t the kind of thing one shared with a parent, especially not one who was guaranteed to say “I told you so”. He prayed she wouldn’t go off to Paris. He was sure Daniels would be waiting there with open arms to comfort her, and that was a thought he couldn’t bear.

From the middle drawer of his desk, he pulled the copy of Dee’s resume, and looked down at the photo. The ache he felt became ravenous. He shoved the resume aside and grabbed the phone. Twice he dropped the receiver before managing to punch in Dee’s cell number, but there was still no answer.

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe around the growing tightness in his chest. How could he have been so stupid to think they could simply incorporate sex into their working relationship and keep it impersonal when it had already been personal long before he’d ever touched her?

He couldn’t function like this. Certainly there’d be no concentrating on business when the only thing on his mind was Dee. There had to be some way of finding her, some way of making things right. He left instructions for the secretaries to call if they heard from Dee. Just before he left the office, the phone rang. It was Wade Crittenden with more enlightening news, and it was followed almost at once by a call from Garrett with still more enlightening news.

On the ninth floor, Tally Barnes waited for the elevator, still kicking herself that she had forced the issue with Dee before the meeting. She never dreamed the woman would call her bluff. The meeting had been a complete disaster, with her looking like a total fool. And that damned little secretary just kept taking down every stinking word. How could she have possibly foreseen this? She tried to calm herself. It didn’t matter, not really. Jamison’s plan was foolproof and once word had been leaked to the press, she could have any job at Pneuma Inc. she wanted. He’d promised her, and she’d done her part. More than her part.

She was thinking of how best to approach Jamison with the news of what had happened when the elevator arrived. She stepped inside and pushed the button before she realised Ellis was standing next to her, flanked by two security guards. A sudden wave of nausea clawed at her insides and her hands felt clammy against the files she clutched to her chest. She tried to smile at him.

He reached over and hit the stop button on the elevator, and her heart jumped. It wasn’t anger she saw in his face, but a coldness she’d never seen before. And when he spoke, she felt the chill in her bones. ‘What are you still doing here?’

‘Ellis, I’m sorry about the meeting. I mean, I haven’t had a chance to get up to speed on what’s been …’ Her gut clenched and her efforts to speak became breathless. ‘I’m sorry about this afternoon.’ She glanced nervously at the two guards. ‘It was all a big mistake, I should have never –’

He ignored her. ‘I had a phone call from Wade a little while ago. Seems you’ve been using his computer.’

For a second, it felt like the elevator floor would fall away. For a second, she wished to God it would. ‘Ellis, I can explain.’

He took a step closer. ‘You don’t work here any more, Ms Barnes.’ He held her in an arctic glare. ‘What did you think would happen when Wade found out about your little game? And surely you should have known he would. Stealing documents from my executive assistant’s office using Beverly’s old password, that’s bad enough, but sharing them with Terrance Jamison? Did you really think you could get away with it?’

Her knees gave. She grabbed for the elevator railing.

He moved still closer and, for a horrifying second, she feared she might throw up on him, but she clenched her jaw and swallowed hard, trying to focus on his words over the buzzing in her ears. ‘These gentlemen will go with you while you clear out your office. They they’ll escort you out. Go with them and I won’t press charges. You don’t, Ms Barnes, and I promise you’ll be looking at serious jail time, and if you think for one second Jamison will come to your rescue under the circumstances, then you’re a very stupid woman. Understood?’

She nodded.

He pushed the start button again. When the elevator opened on to the sixth floor she nearly fell out, pushing her way blindly through the people waiting at the door.

Escorted by the two security guards, she stumbled back to her office, dug the phone Jamison had given her from her bag, and pulled up his number. He would make it all right. Surely he had a plan. Surely he could handle Ellis. Oh, he’d be angry at her, but he’d been angry since Ellis had trumped him in Valderia. She’d just have to buck up and take it, then he’d make everything all right. He still needed her. Surely he did. She waited. And waited. Then her insides froze. A mechanical voice on the other end informed her that the number she had reached was no longer in service.