Just One Night, Part 1: The Stranger (3 page)

“For the sake of convenience, let’s just call it Maned Wolf.”

I nod. It’s the first nonloaded thing he’s said and I’m incredibly grateful for this small gift. “If you’re seriously considering taking Maned Wolf public, and the documents your staff e-mailed me suggest that you are, you need to grow your personal Internet security business. Everyone knows the government relies on you to keep its files safe. The average customer will want to feel like they’re buying in to that same level of protection.”

“Why try to reach so many when I can reach a few who will pay me so much more?”

“Because the greatest growth and most impressive profits fall to those who value volume over exclusivity. A single high-volume Starbucks will always be more profitable than Le Cirque.”

“I see.” I watch as his mouth forms the words with exaggerated slowness. I like his mouth. Some would say it’s a little too big for his face but it’s sensual. “So you’re not a fan of exclusivity,” he continues. “You like to mix it up.”

The innuendo is clear.

“Mr. Dade, are you familiar with the sexual harassment laws of California?”

“Kasie, are you telling me that you’re ready to go public with our little escapade in order to charge me?”

I don’t answer. My hand’s clenched around the handle of my briefcase.

“Have another sip of your drink . . . your ice is melting.”

“Did you ask me here because you want to hear my proposals?” I want the question to sound like a challenge, not a plea.

I’m not entirely successful with that.

“Yes,” he says firmly. “I’ve done some checking. You’re a rising star at your firm. I’m paying for your expertise, that’s all.”

I drink more of the scotch and wait for it to give me the artifice of courage. “You don’t need me.”

“No, I don’t. But I do want you.”

Another sip of scotch—it burns my throat and sharpens my edge. “My proposals.” I carefully prop up my briefcase on the edge of the table and then manage to take out a folder filled with material without dropping anything on the floor. “Shall we go over them now? Or should we reschedule?”

I watch as his body shifts, changing its posture from one of provocation to one of welcome. He gestures to my file. “Please.”

Even that simple word is a reminder.

And yet I manage to keep my focus. I tell him stories of growth, unfathomable prosperity, the kind even a company like Maned Wolf has yet to achieve. But they could. My team could get them there.
I
could get them there. Given the chance, I can find those little flaws that can quietly hold a giant back from achieving an ultimate conquest. Sometimes those imperfections can be cut out, removed entirely. Sometimes they just need to be covered up with a little foundation.

Mr. Dade listens. He’s an active listener. He doesn’t have to say a word. I can see he understands; sense when he approves, when he’s impressed, and when he’s not. I feed off this, changing my pitch ever so slightly with the changes of his expressions. I know when to give him more details about one thing, when to brush over another. We’re in sync.

It’s business. It shouldn’t be sexy.

And yet . . .

Eventually he steeples his long fingers. He’s the businessman, the pianist, the devil. “Of course you’re speaking in generalities,” he says. “In order to get specifics and introduce any idea that’s implementable, you’re going to have to look at our company a little more closely. Talk to the directors of the different divisions. You’re going to have to get inside the walls of my world.”

“But I’m going to do so much more than that,” I quip. “I’m going to break those walls down. It’s the only way you can reach your potential.”

He laughs. I’m feeling relaxed now. I’m enjoying myself.

More than I should be.

He places a credit card on the table; it’s the only hint our attentive server needs. It’s all I need, too. I get to my feet but he stops me with a small gesture of his hand.

And again I find myself held by his gaze.

The waiter charges the card, returns it; Mr. Dade writes in a ridiculously large tip before escorting me out. “Where did you park?”

I jerk my chin in the direction of my car.

He starts walking with me. He doesn’t ask if it’s okay.

“I hate your suit.”

“Good thing you don’t have to wear it,” I say. There’s my car, parked parallel on the street, ready to spirit me to safety.

“Neither do you.”

I stop in front of my car. My keys are in my purse. I need to get them out, right now. Why can’t I move?

I feel his hands even though they’re not touching my skin. They’re on my lapel. He’s unbuttoning my jacket, removing it from my shoulders, pulling it off of me, right here in the middle of a busy sidewalk. I can’t let people see him doing this to me. I can’t let him do it period.

Sometimes I’m shocked by how weak the word
can’t
can be.

“This is my suit,” I whisper.

“It’s a habit.”

I look up at him, making a silent request for clarification.

“Like the habit of a nun,” he says. “Clothes designed to hide every curve, every alluring detail, a respectable choice for a woman who has chosen a life of chastity. But . . .”

He pauses and brings his hand to the back of my neck. I shiver as his fingers slide up, then down, then up again to the base of my skull, into my hair. “. . . We both know, you’re no nun.”

“I’m dating someone. We’re going to get married.”

“Really?” The corners of his mouth twitch. “Well, habits come in all different forms, don’t they? Some women hide their true selves under multiple layers. Sometimes those layers are made of fabric, some are made of misguided relationships.”

“You don’t know anything about my relationship. You don’t know me.”

“Perhaps not. But I know what you look like when you’re completely stripped of all those layers.”

My skirt hangs straight to my knees; my shirt reveals nothing. And yet I feel naked, standing here on the sidewalk, being quietly inspected by this man whose vision is aided by one intimate night I had recklessly given him.

People are watching. I don’t have to look at the many pedestrians passing by to know it. I feel their gaze the way I felt it in Vegas.

But there is one important distinction: in Vegas audacity has a home. Displaying myself in that tight dress in front of a room full of stares: it fit with the expectations of the city. It’s all detailed in the brochures. Vegas has a fantasy-based economy. It’s just how it is.

But here, standing in front of a Santa Monica office building, miles away from the street performers who line the Promenade, Mr. Dade’s attention is out of place.

People are looking at us. They can see the sparks, feel the tension. They want to know what’s going to happen next.

I want to know what’s going to happen next.

But I can’t give in to that. I suck in a sharp breath, roll my shoulders back, try not to feel their stares, his stare.

“You’ve put me in a difficult position, Mr. Dade.” Is that my voice, filled with convincing but false confidence and composure? Is that me staring into his eyes, as if daring him to push me? “My boss thinks I slept with you to get this account. You’ve compromised my professional reputation.”

He tilts his head to one side as his eyes continue to slide up and down my body the way his fingers moved over my neck only a moment ago. “I don’t throw business to every woman I sleep with. Only the ones with Harvard business degrees.”

“Ah,” I say. “Well then I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t go to Yale.”

I gently pull away from him, turn, and get in my car. His warm laughter follows me as I make my exit.

I’m miles away before I realize he still has my blazer.

CHAPTER 4

I
T’S
F
RIDAY NIGHT
.
I cook dinner for Dave at my place on Friday nights. Always. It’s a little ritual that erases some of the irksome uncertainty from our lives.

Now he sits at my dining room table eating rosemary chicken and steamed asparagus. A glass of white wine sits untouched by his plate.

“I’ve worked out a budget for the ring,” he says.

“A budget?”

“I was thinking we should spend around twelve thousand,” he suggests. “Twelve thousand buys quality, not flash. We want to keep it real, right?”

I turn my gaze to the glass door leading to my backyard. Dave is always suggesting we
keep things real,
but he doesn’t seem to actually know what the term means or how to properly apply it.

Do I? When Mr. Dade slid that ice cube up my thigh, when he kissed me in a place where Dave would never kiss me, when he teased me with the flick of his tongue . . . was that real? It had felt more real than anything. And at the same time it hadn’t felt real at all.

I look back at the table. It’s made of a dark-stained wood that’s been polished to an inch of its life. It’s solid, dependable, useful. It’s real. Just like Dave.

Mr. Dade is the first man who has ever made me come while I was standing up. He’s the first man who’s ever seen me naked while he remained fully clothed. Even now I can see him, circling me, assessing, planning, wanting. . . .

I squirmed in my seat.

“Are you all right?” It’s Dave’s voice. The voice of caution and reason. The voice I should be listening to. “You seem . . . agitated tonight.”

The word prickles my skin. “I have a new account . . . the biggest I’ve ever worked on. I suppose it . . . has me on edge.”

“God knows, I relate to that. I’m buried these days, too. You know how it is.”

I do. Dave’s a tax attorney. Like me, he likes things he can count on, and you can always count on the overprivileged to cheat on their taxes. That’s where Dave comes in. The rich give him the money they refuse to share with the IRS, and Dave makes their worries disappear.

As I watch him finish his meal, I realize that I want to be something he can count on. And I want him to make my worries vanish like the invisible money he hides away in tax shelters.

He eats his last bite and I stand up and walk behind him. My hands go to his shoulders and I begin to knead away the tension. “Stay the night, Dave.”

“Hmm, I was planning on it.” He lifts the glass of wine to his mouth while I lift my fingers and run them through his blond hair. Moving in front of him I straddle his lap.

“I want you, Dave.”

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks with a wary smile. The wineglass goes back on the table.

I lean forward and let my teeth graze his earlobe. “It’s what I want to get into me that’s important.”

He doesn’t respond. His hands go hesitantly to the small of my back.

This could be good. This could be real.

“You don’t need to be gentle with me tonight,” I whisper. Again my hand goes to his hair but this time I gather it in my fist and pull his head back so he’s staring into my eyes. “I want you to tear off my clothes. I want you to hold me down while you press inside.”

“Wait, you want . . .” His words fade off; I can feel his hands trembling against me.

“Mmm, I want a lot, ferocity, passion, animalism. . . . Overpower me. Tonight I want to be wicked.” My voice is teasing and sweet. “Dave, will you
fuck
me tonight?”

In an instant he’s pushed me off of his lap; I have to reach for the table to steady myself as he leaps away from me.

“What’s going on?” He appears disoriented and lost. “This isn’t you. You never talk like this.”

The sweetness is gone. His bewilderment is pushing him toward anger.

He’s looking at me with . . . disgust. “You don’t even swear!”

Shrinking back, I can feel the shame spiraling up my spine and taking hold of my heart. “I was . . . I just thought . . .”

I wither under the hostility of his stare. The power I felt only a second ago is gone. “I guess I’m just overtired,” I finish, lamely.

He hesitates. He knows that being tired doesn’t explain anything at all but I can see he likes the simplicity of the excuse. He wants to accept it. “You’re overwhelmed at work,” he says carefully, testing his own ability to defy logic. “That’s always exhausting. I know how it is.”

“Yes,” I say, although my voice is so quiet, it’s unclear if he can hear me.

“I think we should call it an early night after all.” He takes his jacket, pulls it on. His words are coming a little faster now as he implements his escape. “Sleep is what you need. I’ll be back at . . . shall we say eleven tomorrow morning? I have a list of jewelry stores we should start with.”

I nod. I can’t speak. Not without crying. Dave wants to get away from the demon that briefly possessed me. He assumes it will slither away after I slip under the covers, alone in my bed.

He crosses to me again, and gives me a brief, gentlemanly kiss on the lips. It’s the kiss of forgiveness.

My shame curls up my throat, choking me.

As he opens the door to leave, he turns back with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll want to go to several of these stores before we make a decision. Weigh our options and all that.”

Again, I nod.

“So don’t forget to wear sensible shoes. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

He blows me a kiss just before the door closes behind him.

Gently, I pick up his wineglass. I take a moment to appreciate the way the overhead lights make the pale liquid sparkle before I bring it to my lips. The taste is floral, sweet, pure. Angelic.

I let these notes play on my tongue before hurling the glass across the room.

I walk forward and step down on the mess I’ve made, enjoying the sound of shattered glass crunching beneath my sensible shoes.

*     *     *

I
T’S LATE NOW.
I’ve taken a shower, tried to rinse away the embarrassment and anger with a cheap shampoo. I went too far, that’s all. Like the corporations I work with, I am multifaceted, complicated. And like the corporations, there are some departments of my soul that just need to be shut down.

But I do have my strengths. I’m good at my job. I can recognize untapped potential, see strength where others see nothing, and I can find ways to optimize those strengths until all anyone else sees is power.

I sit down at my computer, my hair wet and hanging over the white cotton of a short Donna Karan robe. The terrycloth lining soaks up the moisture from my body and adds a softness that the night has lacked so far.

I send Mr. Dade an e-mail: “I need to meet with the director of your mobile phone security software division. Can we set up a meeting for Monday?”

It’s an obvious area for growth. Already there’s been buzz about some of the products they’ve introduced. It addresses a need, feeds into a society’s fears . . . there is always so much profit in fear. Insurance companies, Hollywood thrillers, cars with more airbags than cup-holders—they all bank on it.

My Mac chimes as a message pops up: an invitation from Mr. Dade for video conferencing.

My fingers hover over the keyboard, then move to the belt of my robe, pulling it a little tighter. I could ignore this. It’s eleven o’clock on a Friday night.

I should have waited until I was dressed to send that e-mail.

I could dress now, put on a suit, pin up my hair, but who wears a suit while at home at eleven on a Friday night? He’ll know I made an effort for him, not an effort to please but an effort nonetheless. He’ll know the affect he’s had on me, and that simply is not an acceptable option.

For some reason, rejecting the invitation doesn’t feel like an option, either. And part of me knows that my thinking, my compulsion to press Accept, is no good. But I don’t listen to that part of me. Not tonight. It’s speaking with too soft a voice for me to feel the weight of its wisdom.

I press Accept.

Mr. Dade appears on my screen like an apparition I summoned from some dark imaginings. He’s composed as he watches me from the comfort of his home. In the background I can see his bed. The duvet is a light, glowing orange that reminds me of flames.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” he says. “Do you always work this late on Friday nights?”

“It was just an e-mail,” I say, trying to keep my expression cool, lofty, compensating for the intimacy of the white robe. “I wasn’t expecting to conference. It was your invitation that was out of place.”

“Ah, but it was a working e-mail. I assume you’ll bill me for the time it took you to write it, and probably for the extra minutes it took you to think of it, and even to turn your computer on, probably. You choose your own schedule, Kasie. You chose this as a working hour, and right now you’re working for me. It’s my expectation that during the hours that you work for me, you make yourself fully available . . . to me.”

The words excite me but I press my lips into a hard line that I hope will help me draw the line in the sand that is necessary here. “I’m always available to talk about work, Mr. Dade.”

“You can call me Robert.”

“If we were friends, I would call you Robert.”

“And we’re not friends?”

He leans back and for the first time, I can see the graceful curves of the chair he sits in. An antique, perhaps from the eighteenth century. It’s a chair that speaks of domination and royalty, but mostly it speaks of money.

I understand money. I can handle it, manipulate it. I can handle this man in his ridiculously expensive chair.

“No,” I say firmly. “We’re not friends.”

“Lovers then? What do you call your lovers, Kasie? Do you address them by their last names? Their first? Or do you turn to words that are a bit more descriptive in nature?”

“We’re not lovers.”

“Oh, you’re wrong there. I’ve felt you beneath me, I’ve held those beautiful breasts, I’ve been inside
your
walls. I know where to touch you to make you lose control.”

“It was just one night.” I try to keep the chill in my tone but I can see that my line in the sand is now threatened by the tide. “An anomaly. I am not your lover now.”

“Ah, but then why do you respond to me as if you are?”

The words penetrate. They toy with my nerves and strain my willpower. I look away from the screen. This is stupid. It’s not in my plans. I’ve cleaned up the shards of glass from the dining room floor. Nothing else has to be broken.

“I want to meet with your directors, your engineers,” I say, still keeping my eyes away from the computer. I need to steady my voice, my breathing. “I want to talk to them about your capabilities.”

“Do you remember when you touched me here?”

I turn to look at the screen and with a graceful, almost languid ease he pulls off the black T-shirt he’s wearing. He’s perfect, beautiful, powerful; he runs his fingers over scratch marks on the skin that covers his heart.

Had I done that? I remember dragging my fingernails over his back but . . . oh yes, it was when he had pulled me from the wall and lowered me to the floor. He had gently pinched my nipples as I had pressed my hips against his, no control, just lust, desire, and that feeling . . . the feeling of him touching me, the feeling of him opening me up, thrusting inside of me until there were no words at all.

“Do you remember where I touched
you,
Kasie?”

I’m blushing now and, knowing that he can see that only makes me blush more. I reach for the lapel of my robe. I don’t open it, just run my fingers over it, carefully hanging on to the last remnants of restraint I have.

“Open your robe, Kasie.”

“I can’t do that, Mr. Dade. I need you to stay focused. I have to talk to you about business . . . security . . . public perception . . . there are strategies that we can implement.”

His mouth curves into a small smile and I lose my thinly held train of thought as I remember what those lips felt like as they traveled up my inner thigh.

“Oh, I’m very focused. And trust me when I tell you that I am implementing a strategy.”

“I’m not your project, Mr. Dade.”

“No, you’re my lover, Kasie. And I’m telling you to show me where I touched you.”

This is the time to take my hands away from my robe. This is the time to turn off the computer. This is the time to hold everything together—white wine, not whiskey; quiet dinners at home, not wild nights in Vegas; no more shards of glass.

“Open your robe, Kasie.”

I pull on the edges of my lapel, my robe opens just a little wider, and he can see the inner outline of my breasts.

“A little wider, Miss Fitzgerald.” He says the last words teasingly. He’s mocking me, daring me. It’s childish and should be
so
easy to resist.

I pull the robe open a little wider still. I look into his eyes and again I feel his power . . . but this time I feel it entering me. I can breath it; it fills me, touches me, like a caress.

With steady hands I pull the robe all the way back. It hangs loosely from my shoulders. I hold his gaze, all trepidation suddenly gone. I roll my shoulders back, my fingers slip down to my nipples that reach out to him, hard and ready.