Claim (A Dangerous Man, #3) (3 page)

I stare coldly at her, “I’d rather just buy your shares Carole. Everything else you’re offering means nothing to me.”

Her eyes narrow. “Thinks about what I’ve said, Toby Felt is offering me a lot, and he doesn’t have the disadvantage of having dumped me before.”

Toby Felt.

She’s watching my face for my reaction. When I don’t give her any, she shrugs again. “He has a huge vision of adding Preston Corp to his conglomerate. It’s like India to his Alexander.”

I don’t remind her that Alexander died trying to take India. “You’re not going to sell him your shares, Carole.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re going to sell them to me.”

“Well David,” She gives me a sidelong glance, “You know exactly how to make me do that.” She gets up. “I have to leave now.” She says sweetly. “Thanks for lunch.”

I watch her leave, my mind on overdrive, I will find a thousand ways to get what I want, but there’s no way in hell I’ll succumb to anyone’s blackmail.

~§~§~§~§~

I have to find a way to deal with Carole. I should have known she wouldn’t make it easy, but who could have anticipated such an unreasonable demand, even from Carole?

And Toby Felt, I need to find out everything possible about him, the companies he’s acquired in the past and his strategies for his acquisitions. Then I’ll prepare a new strategy for retaining control of my company.

I could make it easy, I think, as I dismiss the meeting I’ve called in my office. I could make it easy on myself, save company time and resources, and get the results I want in one easy step.

In the hidden drawer under my desk, there’s a flash drive, and it contains one video file.

While Carole’s fitness instructor and sometime lover Enrique had been in my office trying to convince me to pay him an inordinately large amount of money so he wouldn’t release his video of Carole on the internet. I made a few calls. In minutes, there was a team was at his apartment retrieving every trace of the file from his computer, and tracing every device to which he had ever copied it. Luckily, they’d found everything and brought them to me.

Then I told Enrique that if he brought me every copy he had, I would consider paying him. When he called me an hour later, swearing and cursing, I knew for sure that we had found every copy. I had them all destroyed, except for the copy in the flash drive, the one he’d given me himself. I kept it as proof.

Then I let him know that if he ever tried to blackmail me again, he would die in jail.

That’s how much I detest blackmail.

Which is unfortunate, considering that at this moment, blackmail can get me what I want, very easily.

I toss the drive back into the drawer and leave the desk. I walk along the length of the glass walls, staring outside, while my mind works furiously.

There’s no way I’m going to lose my company to Toby Felt’s need to massage his ego. No damn way.

Carole’s terms, of course, are out of the question. I need to get control of the situation on my own terms.

I glance at my watch. It’s almost four o clock. I’ve already asked Linda to find the phone number for the gift shop in Ashford. Efficient as always, she has it printed on a sheet of paper on my desk.

With everything I have on my mind, the sensible thing would be to call Sophie, and tell her how sorry I am that I can’t take her to dinner.

And I would do that, if I didn’t have this strange compulsion to see her blush again.

S
TEVE DRIVES ME OVER TO MY apartment, where I take a shower and change my clothes. I drive myself to Ashford, taking the BMW convertible. I’m not keen to have Steve trailing along on a date.

The image of Sophie’s face stays in my mind as I drive. The logical part of my brain keeps asking why the urge to see her again is so incredibly strong. I frown, tapping my fingers on the wheel. I have too much to worry about to be driving out of the city just to have dinner with a girl, and yet, in half an hour, at almost exactly five o clock, I’m pulling into the front of the gift shop.

I step out of the car, looking into the shop through the glass. The lights are on, but it looks empty. At first, I get a sick feeling that she has gone, but then I see her enter the shop through a door at the back, and overwhelming relief floods through me.

What is happening to me?

I like my relationships uncomplicated. I don’t do romance, I don’t do commitment, and women have learned not to expect those things from me.

What I do is sex. No. Strings. Attached.

A concept which, I’m sure, is alien to the eighteen-year-old girl inside the shop looking at me. This is bound to end in complications. This is something I don’t need.

Yet I can’t stay away.

I watch her as she runs a hand over her hair, smoothing her ponytail. I wish she would let it hang free. I can imagine the soft waves framing her face and falling to her shoulders. I can imagine a lot of things, and none of them are halfway decent.

She comes towards the front of the shop, locking it up behind her as she steps onto the sidewalk.

“Hi.” She says, her soft voice washes over me, reminding me why I’ve abandoned everything I have to do, to come here, to her. 

“Hello Sophie.” She’s blushing. I don’t know why, but I find her flaming cheeks enthralling. “Ready?” I ask.

She nods.

I turn towards the car, placing one hand on her back to guide her. My fingers are itching to touch her, and just that slight contact causes a distinct heaviness in my groin.

I want her so badly I need a cold shower just thinking about it, and right now, the cold shower seems like the best idea. The alternative is just asking for trouble, and trouble is exactly what I don’t need.

“So where do you want to go?” I ask, as I slide into the driver’s seat.

She frowns. “Where would you like to go?” She replies.

I pause. I have no idea where anything is in this town. I suppose I should have thought of where to take her, since I made the invitation. I chuckle inwardly as I consider driving to the city, but I doubt she would want that.

She ought to be able to recommend a place though. “You know the town,” I ask. “Don’t you?”

She shakes her head, silent. I don’t know many eighteen year olds, but I doubt there are many left who aren’t savvy about everything around them. But then, she’s unlike any eighteen year old I have ever seen. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met.

“You didn’t grow up here?” I ask.

“I’ve been away at boarding school,” She turns her face away, towards the window, “and anyway, I’ve never been very outgoing.”

She has a small frown on her face. I find myself hoping that I haven’t made her feel somehow inadequate. I’m about to tell her not to worry, that I’m sure I’ll find something, when she turns back to me and tells me about some seafood place.

I start the car and enter the name of the restaurant into the GPS.

“Can we stop by my place?” Her voice is tentative.

I turn to look at her. “Of course.” I say, noting that she looks worried. It’s only dinner. I don’t care if we get burgers and eat in the car. I just want to satisfy this crazy desire to be around her, to indulge the weird excitement that being with her gives me.

I drive, following her directions to a brick walk-up not too far from the shop. “I won’t be long,” She tells me, climbing out of the car in a rush. I run through scenarios in my mind. Perhaps she has a pet to feed, or maybe she’s decided that I’m a serial killer and is now running screaming for the safety of her home.

After a few minutes, she reappears, and I go around to open the door for her, admiring her figure as she walks towards me in a pretty blue dress. She must have been worried about not being properly dressed. As much as I like the dress, I wish she hadn’t bothered, I wouldn’t have minded if she had been wearing a grass skirt.

“Nice dress.” I say, joining her inside the car.

“Thank you.” Her perfect lips curve into a small smile.

I start the engine. “You didn’t have to change on my account though,” I add, “You already looked great.”

There is a long pause. “I wanted to.” She says finally.

I shrug and start to drive, wondering at her sweetness compared to the brittle sharpness of many of the women I know. But then, if the saying about birds of a feather is true, then perhaps I’m brittle and sharp as well.

Outside, the sun is setting, casting a gold glow into the car, which lights Sophie’s face and hair. She looks like a girl in a renaissance painting, beautiful and sensual, yet innocent.

“Were you at a conference at Ashcroft Hills?” Her voice cuts into my thoughts.

“Yes.” I reply, remembering self-important, midlevel software company executives and boring conversation.

“I hope it went well.”

I shrug. I suppose it did, in a way. “I went to make a decision about a new software application that could be the next big thing, or a complete waste of time.”

“What did you decide?”

I turn to look at her, wondering that she is interested. She is looking up at me, her eyes soft and wide. “I bought it.” I tell her.

She watches me in silence. I have no idea what she’s thinking. I have a feeling that she can see inside me. I don’t want her to. Somehow, I fear I won’t stand up to the scrutiny.

“Tell me about yourself.” I say. “I already know you’re not outgoing,” I smile to let her know that I’m teasing, “So tell me more.”

She turns to look at her hands on her lap, a small frown on her face. “You won’t be interested.”

I am interested. I want to know her, and not just in the biblical sense. I want to know the feelings behind her expression, the thoughts behind her blushes. I’m confused by my own desires.

“On the contrary, I am very intrigued.” I give her an encouraging grin, “I would very much like to know what you do with your time.”

“I read,” she says, and I’m not surprised. She seems like someone who reads a lot. “Sometimes I draw.” She adds.

An artist. “What do you draw?”

“Stuff.” She seems embarrassed again.

I chuckle softly. “And what do you read? Can I ask, or is it also ‘stuff’?”

“No... I read everything.” Her eyes light up as she continues, “History, classics, popular fiction.” She stops and shrugs, and I get the impression that she could talk about books for a long time.

I smile. “I thought young people never read anymore.”

She gives me a look. It’s thoughtful and curious at the same time. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t.

“What are you thinking, Sophie?”

She looks away, as if she just realized that she was staring. “I was just wondering how old you are.” She admits.

I laugh. I would never confess it to anyone, but at that moment, I feel self-conscious about my age. I’m a full-grown man, pursuing someone who is only a little more than a child.

“Oh, I’m legal,” I say, laughing at myself. “I’m twenty seven.”

She is silent, but she doesn’t run out of the car screaming for help, which is a good thing for me. For her own good, maybe she should, maybe she should run away from me.

At the restaurant, we get a table that looks into a park, it’s a little secluded, which is fine by me. I order wine for us and look through the menu. After we’ve made our orders, I turn back to her.

“So you’re not outgoing, you read, and you draw.” At this point, that’s all I know about her, “that can’t be all.”

“My mother died giving birth to me,” The words are sudden and unexpected. I frown, looking at her face for a clue as to how she feels telling me that.

“That must have been hard for you.” I reply. I know a little of how it feels to lose a parent, or both.

“I suppose it was.” She looks lost for a moment while I wait for her to go on. “I grew up with my Aunt Josephine,” She continues, “but she died a few months ago.” Her lips form a sad smile. “Aunt Josephine told me that my father was some professor my mother had a ‘sordid’ affair with during the only semester she spent at college.” She looks up at my face, a small frown on hers. “Unfortunately that’s the only thing I know about him.”

As she speaks, she seems to get more and more vulnerable, at least in my eyes. I barely know her and yet I want to protect her. I watch her large eyes cloud, and I feel a wave of annoyance towards the aunt. “Your aunt doesn’t sound very nice.” I observe.

Her face tells me all I need to know. “Aunt Josephine was ... different.” She says.

I nod. “So you went to boarding school?”

“Yes, when I was twelve.” She smiles softly and shakes her head. “I didn’t make a lot of friends, but we had a wonderful library.”

“Of course.” I chuckle. Books.

“That’s all there is to me.” She says, the small smile still on her lips. “I graduated, Aunt Josephine died, and I started working at the gift shop.”

That doesn’t tell me why she isn’t going to college, like she should be. “So why no college?” I ask.

She frowns. “Maybe it’s not for me.” She says, “I’m moving to Bellevue to find a job.”

The confidence in her tone can only be from the wine. She must be scared to consider doing something as drastic as moving away from the town where she grew up, without even the security of a job waiting for her, but she seems to be handling it well. “Why Bellevue?” I ask.

She looks deep in thought, and then she shrugs and doesn’t say anything. I don’t pursue it. I consider asking her to come to Seattle instead. I would get her a job, make sure she’s all right. I watch as she licks her lips distractedly, and I know there’s no way I would be able to keep my hands off her.

No, I should just leave her alone.

I notice a guy come into the restaurant with a brunette in tow. He doesn’t take two steps before his eyes lock on Sophie. She has her back to him, so she can’t see him. His expression turns to one of surprise, and he says something to his companion. As I watch, they begin to come towards us.

He looks young, closer to her age than me. A boyfriend maybe. Feeling unaccountably jealous, I wait as he approaches our table.

“Sophie?” The guy says when he is close enough for her to hear. Sophie frowns, her eyes still on me, then she turns around to see who it is. I watch her face, her reactions, wanting to see any sign that he means something to her.