Beyond Bliss (7 page)

She fought the urge to fan herself. In the two weeks since she’d seen him, she’d tried to convince herself that she’d imagined the chemistry. That the alcohol had played a part, and he couldn’t have possibly been that handsome, that intensely male. They couldn’t possibly have had sex that was so off the charts, she’d been blown into another orbit. She couldn’t possibly have thrown a vibrator at his head.

But reality came crashing down.

If possible, her memories hadn’t done him justice. He wore a dark gray suit that matched exactly how his eyes turned right before he climaxed. His light blue tie against a pristine white shirt did nothing to diminish the intensity emanating from his large frame. Even, white teeth flashed at her in a wolfish grin, and she quickly jerked her hand away.

Needing space, needing to pretend that he wasn’t there, she turned away from him and back to Carter.

              She made every effort to keep her voice neutral. “I can’t support this client. I’m sorry Carter.”

His face was quickly becoming mottled, red, but he kept his voice controlled. “Lucas, would you please excuse us? Sophie, please step outside with me for a moment.”

Numbly, she followed Carter out of the conference room. She thought he meant to keep it quick, ream her outside of the conference room, and then dismiss her. Maybe fire her.

But she wasn’t that lucky.

He kept moving, and she followed him, surprised when he stopped short a few feet away at his office. She moved in after him, and he shut the door before moving to sit behind his desk.

“Sit.” The order was curt, terse—everything she expected from him.

So she was shocked when he sighed heavily before his face fell into his hands.

“Sophie, we’re in trouble.”

She said nothing, and he continued on. “We’re in some deep shit. Some deep, financial shit.”  He lifted his hands out of his head and stared directly at her. “This isn’t public knowledge, and I’m going to ask that you keep this quiet. You can’t even tell Liz. You have to promise me.” He looked at her for assurance.

She nodded.

“Bernard has been embezzling from us for close to a year.”

The Chief Financial Officer?

“Bernard Hastings?”

“Well, that’s the only Bernard we have on a staff of a hundred,” he snapped impatiently. He huffed out a breath shortly thereafter. “Look, I’m sorry. But this cocksucker has been fudging the financials to support his gambling habit. No one noticed until he went on vacation last month, and Kelly took over for him for a few weeks. She couldn’t reconcile anything though. Eventually, she came to me, and when we got into the accounts, there was barely anything. It’s a miracle that we managed to make the payroll. The only reason we did is because that cock-sucking motherfucker of a bitch took out a line of credit on the firm’s behalf. We have maybe four months to stay afloat before we go under. You have to take this,” he said bleakly.

It wasn’t even ten a.m. and the day was already a shit show. Bernard had been with the firm since the beginning. He and Carter had been college buddies. The quiet, unassuming man had taken his divorce hard, but she’d had no idea—apparently no one had—that it was this bad.

And Carter—Carter, who had recruited both her and Liz straight out of law school.  Carter, who for all his grumpy ways, was an uncle-father-older brother-cousin rolled up into one. 

Carter, who had helped her family climb out of debt after her father had died.

Carter, who’d punched Zach after her wedding that never happened. 

Something between a crazy laugh and a sob rose up in her throat. She swallowed the gargantuan lump though and braved on. “What about Liz? Why can’t she do it?”

Monetary woes forgotten, he reverted back to his normal self and looked at her like she was stupid. “Don’t you think I tried that already? For some reason, he’s got a hard-on for you.”

Heat flooded her cheeks at his words, but Carter spoke crassly all the time. There was no way he knew what had happened.

He frowned at her right as the thought crossed her mind. “And what’s your problem? Why don’t you want to work with him?”

What a fucking disaster.

Her mind raced furiously as she tried to think of a good response, but she was miraculously saved. “Look, I know you’re down with all this green shit and kumbaya nonsense, but honestly, if the man tears down a forest or two to build some condos, who are we to judge? It’s not like people aren’t living in them.”

She bit her lip. If she refused to do this, it likely meant her colleagues, her mentor, her best friend, even herself—they were all out of jobs.

“Okay,” she reluctantly agreed, dread rising within her. “I’ll do it.”

Relief spread across Carson’s face. “Thank you,” he whispered gratefully.

And yet another first.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and nodded. In an instant, his usual expression returned.

“I don’t know what’s going on between you and Sinclair, but he doesn’t strike me as a bad man,” he said shrewdly. Before she could respond, he rose from his desk.

She sat still for a few moments, trying to absorb everything that was happening.

“Well, come on,” Carter barked from behind her. “Don’t have all day. Let’s go earn your keep.”

Chapter Seven

His eyes gleamed with dark satisfaction when she trailed behind Carter into the conference room. She suppressed the urge to shiver and quickly looked away. Carter seated himself across from Luke and motioned for her to sit next to him.

She clasped her hands on the dark cherry wood table and stared fixedly at them.

“Please excuse us for earlier, Lucas,” Carter rumbled next to her. “There was a slight misunderstanding. As I was saying, both Sophie and the firm are thrilled to further the relationship.”

A strangled sound escaped her throat.

“Miss Harlow seems…very
excited
.” He lingered over the last word, his deep voice draping over her like fine silk. “Shall we discuss the terms of our relationship?”

His words were heavy with meaning, tone suggestive. Her ire rose quickly, almost as quickly as the steady burn that now flamed between her thighs. She cursed her hormones, but opened her mouth to speak. He had her right where he wanted her, but that didn’t mean she had to make it easy on him. If he thought he was in for a repeat performance of a few weeks ago, he was sorely mistaken. She had no idea how he’d managed to track her down. She contemplated turning her fury on him once they were alone, and she was sure that he would orchestrate it so that they would be, but that would give him the impression that he affected her. Her mind worked quickly as she ran through her limited options. Apathy would work best, she decided.

She met his steady gaze head-on. “Mr. Sinclair,
we
are appreciative of the opportunity you’ve presented
us
with. My understanding is that the primary focus of your business is in the real-estate space, which isn’t exactly in my repertoire. What will I be working on exactly?” She kept her tone brisk and business-like.

He leaned back in his chair, his pose deceptively casual. “You’re right. I’m in the real-estate business, but I’m really in the business of acquisition. If I see something I want, I go after it, invest in it, make it mine. I’m very good at getting what I want,” he murmured, his slate gray eyes burning into hers.

She shifted uncomfortably.

“But sometimes, there is the occasional challenge. You’ll serve as my primary legal counsel, helping me evaluate my business interests and conducting legal due diligence where necessary. I know you have vast experience in mergers and acquisitions. You’re going to help me get what I want.” His words were spoken challengingly, almost as if he dared her to object. Every other phrase was a loaded, double entendre.

Asshole.

“I’d like to manage your expectations from the onset. I’m sure there are going to be occasions where you won’t be able to acquire what you want.”

There.

His eyes deepened, and he opened firm lips that were seared into her memory to speak. “Miss Harlow, I am incredibly positive that you will more than exceed my expectations given your track record.” His voice was laced with amusement, but every word he uttered sent her hormones scrambling farther apart.

Heat suffused her face. They might as well have been alone in the room. If Carter hadn’t known something had transpired between them, he sure as hell did now. She knew exactly which track record he was referring to. She opened her mouth to respond, but Carter saved her by speaking first.

“Lucas, no need for formalities. I’m sure Sophie won’t mind if you call her by her first name,” he offered blithely. “Right before you arrived, I was informing her that she would be working with you exclusively, but I hadn’t yet gotten around to some of the logistics of that. Maybe we should go over that now.”

Her gaze bounced to Carter, who sat with a bland expression on his face.

“What logistics?” Her panic meter went from medium to high as she waited for someone to tell her what the hell was going on. Something about the silence that descended in the room told her she wasn’t going to like what was coming.

“Well, Lucas and I both feel it would be best if you were working in his offices, with him. It’s just a matter of location, that’s all. Of course, you’ll still have your office here,” he assured her quickly, as mutiny spread over her face.

“What’s the point?” she snapped furiously. If everyone else weren’t depending on her, she’d have quit on the spot.

They had her by the proverbial balls.

“There’s a big deal I need you to work on, so it only makes sense that we’re joined at the hip for the next few months. I guarantee it will be worth your while.” His eyes sparked with a darkly sensual promise.

That was it. Her panties were now officially drenched, but she was steaming mad. “Unbelievable,” she muttered angrily under her breath.

“Yes! Unbelievably great fortune,” Carter boomed heartily next to her, ignoring the narrow glare she sent in his direction.

“I have a number of specifics to discuss with you about the deal. I’d like to get started as soon as possible, but I have meetings throughout the day, and I’m sure you have transition work to wrap up. We’ll have dinner tonight, so I can de-brief you.”

Her fury reached a tipping point, and she pushed her chair back and stood up. He regarded her from his seat, raising a brow at her in question.

She looked down at him haughtily. “Excuse me, Mr. Sinclair, but with all due respect, I may be working for you, but you do not own my personal time. Given the abruptness and unexpected nature of these changes, you’ll have to forgive me because I can’t accommodate you,” she sneered at him before spinning on her heel and storming towards the door.

“She’s not usually this feisty. Just caught her by surprise, that’s all. Sweet as pie, normally, that one,” Carter apologized.

Carter was so dead.

“I don’t doubt it,” she heard Lucas say softly right before she exited the room. Minutes later, she slammed her office door.

Hard.

It wasn’t until she started pulling files out of her drawers that she realized her hands were shaking. Heart racing, she let the files slip to the floor. Paper scattered everywhere as she contemplated her circumstances. She had no idea if she was shaking from anger or arousal.

And that scared the hell out of her.

A firm knock sounded on the door.

She ignored it.

The knocking persisted and got louder right before it swung wide open. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach.

It wasn’t disappointment she felt when Liz breezed in.

It wasn’t.

She stomped over and thrust a thick stack of files at Liz. “It’s the last of Raj Corp. This is your fault, by the way.” She whirled around and started parsing out more files into different stacks on her desk.

“Are we going to go back to that?” Liz asked dryly. Silence met her question, so she kept on. “So our mysterious new client, Lucas Sinclair, is
your
Lucas?”

“He’s not
my
Lucas,” she grit out.

Liz wiggled her brows above sparkling blue eyes. “Met him over by the elevator bank as Carter was walking him out.” She let a low wolf whistle. “Girl
friend
. I nearly pulled the ring off my finger and hid it. If Mark looked like
that
, we’d be penniless and homeless because we’d be too busy getting busy instead of working. Can’t believe you walked away from
that..
.”

Traitors. Traitors surrounded her. Absolutely no one was in her corner.

“Did you know they planned to have me working out of the pervert’s office? I’m supposed to leave
my
office and
my
clients, so I can walk into the lion’s lair!”

“Wait, what?”

Apparently this was news to her gossip hungry friend. She repeated herself and Liz scowled. “I can’t believe they’re taking you away from me,” she wailed.