Fair Game (28 page)

ANYONE else, Kyle would have called both parties into his office and told them to work it out. Now. Josie, however, wasn’t just anybody to him, and he couldn’t run the risk of alienating her further. As it was, he’d said enough to send her running. She’d refused his advice, preferring to talk it out with the
experts
. Obviously he wasn’t one. He knew something she couldn’t refuse. His next challenge.

At five on the dot, he called her cell.

She picked up. “I haven’t left the office yet. This is still work time.”

“Then call me back when you have.”

She was a feisty handful. He waited two hours before she returned his call. “I am off the clock, you are not my boss now, so I don’t want to talk about anything to do with work.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, either.”

“Fine.” Irritation sizzled through her voice.

“You’re in the city Friday night, right?”

She hesitated. “Yes.” He could almost hear her brain working overtime trying to figure out what he had planned.

“There’s a place up there.”

“What kind of place?”

“Let’s call it a sex club.” He’d never been, he’d only heard about it. But he wanted to try it. With her.

“No way.”

“Oh yes. We will be attending on Friday night. Late. I’ve heard the action at the club doesn’t really start jumping until midnight.”

“I’ve got training in the morning.”

“I’ll have you back by morning.”

The bleat of a car horn filled the silence on her end. She was parked now, minus the drone of the moving vehicle.

She’d fed him to Kisa on a silver platter. Now the tables would turn. “You will do everything I say.”

This time she was quick to answer. “I’m not fucking some skanky guy you pick out just so you can get your kicks.”

It was the furthest thing from his mind. She was his. “I won’t make you fuck a skanky guy.”

Another long silence, then finally. “Are you going to fuck some skanky girl?”

“I won’t fuck any skanky women.”
Go on. Ask me. Beg me not to fuck anyone at all.

She didn’t beg. “I reserve the right to say that something is going too far.”

“Other than fucking a skank, which I’ve already agreed I won’t make you do,” he murmured, “what’s going too far?”

Click, click, click went the wheels in her head. “I won’t know for sure until you try to make me do it.”

“That’s leaving the field wide open.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Aren’t you forgetting it’s my challenge?”

She sighed heavily. “I don’t want to be compelled to do something distasteful.”

“It was distasteful for me to be rejected by your Little Miss Snowflake. My ego has been mortally wounded.”

“You”—she laughed with an edge—“are full of crap. You enjoyed every minute of that entire evening.”

He enjoyed making Josie hot and bothered. “You win. I will not choose any skanks for either of us to have to get nasty with. You get first right of refusal.”

He could hear her humming under her breath. “All right, fine, whatever,” she said. “You can call me and tell me what time to meet you and where.”

“I’ll pick you up at your hotel.”

She huffed. “Fine.”

“And when we get there,” he said, “there will be no huffing. You will enjoy what I make you do. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” She punctuated that with another huff and hung up.

Kyle had to laugh. She was a firecracker. She thought he’d make her perform with a stranger. Or watch him perform with some hottie. It was obvious she didn’t like either option.

Good. Before long, he’d get her to admit their relationship was more than just sex.

 

 

JOSIE had lain awake all night, and on the drive over to the Coyote Ridge plant, her mind was awhirl. She was damn lucky she didn’t have an accident because she sure as hell wasn’t paying attention to the road.

All right. She’d set him up with Little Miss Snowflake, but the wench hadn’t come across with the goods. Now he was dying to prove he could find another woman to take him to heaven. Josie had fallen into her own trap. She now
hated
the idea of any woman touching him, let alone sucking him. She was even past the point of being okay with a kiss. It had to be her or no one.

More than anything, she’d wanted to stipulate they couldn’t touch or be touched by anyone else, but that would have revealed way too much. If he knew how she felt, he’d have all the power.

Hell, he already had all the power.

The sand plant was fine; the installation went off without a hitch. On the way back over the mountain highway, she was
still
running through all the different scenarios Kyle could pull on her. Of course, she should have been thinking her way out of her Ronson problems, but whatever.

Her cell phone rang, and she knew it was Kyle. She already had her Bluetooth in.

“Josie Tybrook here.”

“Hey, Josie, how goes it?”

So much for her internal radar. She didn’t recognize the voice. Thin, soft, a little gravelly, she could barely hear it over the road noise. “I’m sorry. I’m having trouble hearing you. Who is this?”

“Ernie,” he said louder, though his voice still sounded weak. “Your old boss?” he added, as if she’d forgotten she knew someone named Ernie.

“Ernie, how are you?” Good God. She hadn’t even called to check on him.

“I’m okay. But I’ve been hearing stuff about you.”

Her stomach did a somersault. “Like what?”

“Nothing bad, don’t worry. Only that people are giving you a hard time.”

Someone told Ernie about
her
crap? “Who’d you talk to?”

“Never you mind. But I feel badly I left you without any words of caution, not even a rundown of any personality issues.”

He was sick. He had
that
to worry about, not her or the job. “Ernie, you don’t owe me anything.”

“I should have done more prep work with you.”

“Ernie, please. You need to concentrate on getting well”—God, how trite that sounded—“and people from work shouldn’t be bothering you.”

“Listen, kid, I want you to stop by the house on your way back to the office.”

So, he’d talked to someone who knew she was out for part of today. Duh. Everyone at work knew. “I really can’t do that.”

“I want to talk to you. It’ll make me feel better.”

She wondered if he was playing the guilt card on purpose. Not that it mattered. She’d do whatever Ernie wanted. “All right.” She glanced at the dashboard clock. His house wasn’t far out of the way. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Good. Glo just made my favorite, a red velvet cake. You ever had red velvet cake?”

“No, Ernie.” Why did the thought of his wife Gloria whipping up his favorite cake make her want to cry?

“Then you’re in for a treat.”

After ending the call, she phoned Lydia to let her know she’d be later than anticipated.

Gloria answered the door when she arrived. Gray sifting through her brown hair, a little on the plump side, she had the facial wrinkles of a woman who laughed a lot. Or at least she used to. Josie remembered her as always having a smile, but now there were lines of strain across her forehead, grooves of sadness slashing down by the sides of her mouth.

“Josie, come on in.” Her cheeks were still pink from the heat of the kitchen. “Ernie’s in the family room. I’m cutting the cake. Do you want coffee or tea?”

“Coffee, if you’ve already got it made. But tea’s fine otherwise.” She wasn’t fond of tea, but she wouldn’t put Gloria to any trouble.

“It’s already perking.”

The scent began to drift into the entryway as Gloria led her to the back of the house.

Ernie lay on the brown-and-yellow plaid sofa in the family room, pillows stuffed behind his back, a blanket pulled over his lap despite the summer warmth. He looked smaller, his chest shrunken, yet his face was puffy, the lines filled out. He looked like one of those funny caricature sketches with his head too big for his body. A TV tray by his side bore the remote, a couple of paperback thrillers, his coffee mug, an empty water tumbler, a can of Ensure, and a profusion of pill bottles.

Josie swallowed hard, then leaned down to give him a hug, his bones fragile in her embrace. “Hey, you.”

She couldn’t say he was getting better. It was obvious Ernie was never getting better.

Oh God, oh God. She wanted to close her eyes and not see.

“Have a seat.” He held out a hand, indicating the easy chair next to the sofa.

“Thanks.” She sat, crossing her legs. “Now, you have to stop worrying about work or me or any of that, Ernie.”

“I’m not worried, but I figured it’s been a month, and you’d probably need to talk.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “
People
have been calling you to say things are falling apart.” She waved her index finger at him. “If I figure out who it is, they are in big trouble. Nobody should be laying this stuff on you.”

Ernie just smiled. It looked odd on his overly round face, as if the skin was stretched too tightly.

“Here we are. Cake and coffee.” Gliding in from the kitchen, Gloria handed Josie a plate off the tray balanced on her palm, then deposited a steaming mug on the coffee table. Removing the dirty glass, Ensure can, and the used mug from Ernie’s TV tray, she gave him a fresh coffee cup and a plate of red cake with gooey white icing. There was no third plate for her, and she went immediately back to the kitchen, the clink of glass in the sink and running water filtering back into the family room.

The plate trembled in his hand as Ernie forked a mouthful of red velvet and savored, his eyes closed. “Yum. Yum.” Two separate sentences, the same emphatic word.

It tasted like sludge, but Josie realized that was only her mood.

“Good, huh?”

“Yum,” she punctuated.

He moved like an old man, slowly, a little wobbly. She almost wanted to hold the plate for him.

“So, tell me all, baby girl.”

He’d never used pet names on her before, yet despite the oddness, it was comforting and eased the tension that had been riding her chest. “You sure you wanna hear everything?”

“Everything.” He slid another forkful into his mouth and closed his eyes as if he were already in heaven. His smile beamed. “Lay it on me.”

She did. About Ronson sabotaging her in the staff meeting, Chuck and the ass pinching, Lydia’s baby, the screwups, the indecision, the new girl. Everything except the part about fucking her new boss.

“Baby girl, you think you’ve got an insurmountable mess on your hands.”

She nodded, and funnily enough, after getting all that off her chest, the cake tasted better. Delicious, in fact; moist, smooth, with orgasmic cream cheese frosting.

“Well, you don’t,” Ernie said

“What do I have, then?”

“Life.”

“It was never like this when you were there.”

“It was exactly like this.” He waited, letting her absorb.

She remembered the box of tissues in his desk drawer, right where Lydia knew it was. How many times had Lydia gone into his office, closed the door, and asked for the box? Josie hadn’t paid attention.

“You wanna know Ronson’s problem?”

“Yes, please.” She nodded eagerly as if she were talking to the oracle at Delphi.

“His wife. They’ve got three little ones, and she’s constantly riding him that he doesn’t make enough money, that he’s away too much, that he leaves her to take care of all the really important stuff.”

Ronson’s wife sounded like a bitch. Josie had never met her. “So he wanted the manager job for the extra money and less travel in order to make his wife happy?”

“To make his wife start seeing him as a man worthy of her.” Wow. That was harsh. “He actually told you that?”

“That’s my diplomatic version of it.” He shook his head, eyes sad. “Sometimes a man’s gotta get stuff off his chest.”

She still had a hard time imagining Ronson admitting that aloud, though she could empathize with how helpless it would make him feel. “Why didn’t you give him the job then?”

“Because my first loyalty is to the company, and Andrew is not a leader.” He eyed her steadily.

“And I am?”

“You’ve got good potential.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” She didn’t need constant strokes, but once in a while, it would be nice to hear.

“I was a shitty boss.” He set his empty cake plate aside.

“No, you weren’t.”

He smiled, shaking his head slightly. “You’re a terrible liar, baby girl.”

She really liked his name for her. Anyone else, she’d have hated it, even Kyle. He could call her baby, but that was it. “So what do I do about Ronson? He can’t have my job, I’m not giving him a raise, and he’s still going to have to travel.”

“You’re going to think like a woman.”

She made a face. “Huh?”

“When he starts acting like an asshole, you’re going to remember exactly why he’s doing it. Because his wife is giving him hell at home.”

She set aside her plate. “And then what?”

“Then you’re going to say something like, ‘Thanks for fixing that problem with the training overlap, Andrew. Thanks for noting that about the boom length. Good job.’ ”

Ernie’s imitation of her made her laugh. “That’s not going to work.”

“Sure it is. Don’t take offense, don’t take blame, offer praise instead. It will defuse him. He wants you to react badly so he can feel justified in taking his anger out on you. If you don’t let it get to you, however, he’ll look like a putz for escalating.”

She thought about exactly what went on. Ronson had been baiting her, but the nasty stuff didn’t start until she got her back up. Right? It might have been yesterday, but just like seven witnesses gave seven different versions, she couldn’t recall exactly how it went down. Ernie could be right. “It’s sort of like training a dog.”