RICHARD (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (41 page)

“I’m warning you. Run. Run away right now.
Just… get the fuck out of here and don’t look back. Preston Harvey will destroy
you, just like he destroyed me. You don’t really matter to him. No one does.”

The moment I’d been dreading finally arrived.
My shoulders touched the hard wood of the door behind me, and I cringed,
holding onto my clutch tightly as the woman stopped and looked me up and down.
She made a face of utter disgust, as if she couldn’t bear the sight of what she
saw.

“What’s
wrong
with you?” she asked. “Why aren’t you leaving? Do you want to get hurt—is that
it?” She brought her face inches from mine. “Because if that’s what you want,
I’m happy to oblige…”

“
Jane!
”
Preston bellowed so loud that for a moment, I wasn’t sure what he’d said had
been a word at all. It sounded more like a clap of thunder shaking the walls,
threatening to knock down every picture and piece of décor surrounding me. “Get
away from her. Now!”

The woman—Jane, I presumed—didn’t look like
she was going to follow the order. But then she finally did take a step back
and I let out a breath, my whole body trembling in the face of her cold rage.

Preston strode toward us. He was coming so
fast and so hard that for a second I thought he was going to plow straight into
Jane and knock her off her crystal-embellished
Louboutins
.
But she stood her ground even as he threw open the door behind her, putting
himself between the two of us and allowing me to scamper behind his back.

“Get out,” he snarled with such ferocity it
sent chills down my spine. “Do not
ever
come back, and do not
ever
think that
you can speak to my sister like that.”

Jane snorted. “You’ve got to be fucking
kidding me,” she said, but Preston didn’t entertain it. He took her by the arm,
firmly but not roughly, and dragged her outside over the threshold, leaving her
on the stoop.

“The next time you show up here, or anywhere
else that belongs to me, I’m calling security,” he said. “You’re fucking crazy,
Jane. That’s what got you fired, not
her.
”

“Fine,” she sneered. “That’s just great,
Preston. Because you know what? I’m calling the cops!” She rubbed her arm where
he’d touched her, wincing like he’d pulled it out of place, though it was clear
he hadn’t. “This is assault!”

“Leave,” he said before slamming the door
right in her face and locking it from the inside. I heard her pound on it a few
times before she finally gave up, letting out one last scream as the staccato
beat of her heels descended the steps toward Mr. Fletcher’s car.

I looked up at Preston as he turned. The
veins in his neck were bulging, as were his muscles. I could see the immense
bulge of his biceps, especially under the short sleeves of the t-shirt he was
wearing. It draped nicely around his waist, but even so, with his heavy
breathing a teasing glimpse of his abs were visible. He was the picture of raw
power, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

Slowly, his gaze shifted to meet mine. He
asked, “Are you all right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I looked toward
the doors again. “I just feel bad for Mr. Fletcher…”

Preston laughed softly. It wasn’t a happy
sound, but he did seem at least darkly amused. “Yeah. Me too.”

I watched as he left the front door, making
his way toward one of the rooms I hadn’t explored yet. I followed him, watching
as he sat down on a very expensive-looking sofa and put his face in his hands,
snarling into them. It was a deep, primal sound.

“I take it you wanted me to get breakfast
because of that,” I said softly, standing awkwardly in the archway. He nodded
without looking up at me. “Was that the woman you were talking about in the
car—the one who doesn’t respect your boundaries?”

“Or yours, apparently,” he muttered, running
both hands through his hair as he leaned back against the cushions with a sigh.
He shook his head. “I’m just glad it’s over, but it’s eight-fifteen and I
already need a drink.”

I smiled uneasily. “Do you have a bar? I make
a mean Bloody Mary.”

“Not here,” he told me. “This is a place of
business, after all. It’s not like in the Sixties, when we did that kind of
thing…” Preston hadn’t been alive in the Sixties, and yet he somehow seemed
wistful. He waved his hand after a moment. “Coffee would do, if you wouldn’t
mind.”

I set my clutch down on one of the armchairs
near him. “Where’s the kitchen?” I asked.

“Just through here,” he answered, pointing at
a door at the far side of the room. He relaxed while I went through it and
entered one of the most glorious kitchens I’d ever seen.

Though it was keeping in style with the
Italian countryside theme Preston had going on, it was a gourmet ensemble if
I’d ever seen one. The stove looked state-of-the-art and the cabinets, though
made of dark wood, all had transparent doors that let one see their contents
without having to open them first. The fridge was massive, a French door model
with a separate, pull-out freezer down below. Everything was gleaming steel
against wood, except for the copper pot rack hanging above a kitchen island
with a marble countertop.

I found the coffee machine easily enough. As
expected, Preston had an expensive brew tucked away near the filters. The smell
alone did more to wake me up than my own cup back at my apartment had, and I
brewed enough for two before returning to the sitting room and offering a mug
to my stepbrother.

“Look,
Maddy
, I
know this probably looks bad,” he started, clearly still caught up on my
arrival. “You weren’t supposed to see any of that. She wasn’t even supposed to
be here.”

“Relax. It’s none of my business, and I’m not
one to judge,” I replied, thinking back to a little short term office fling I’d
had with one of the mail runners in my earlier days at
ExecuSpace
.
“I’m just glad to have this opportunity…”

He smiled. “Well, it looks like your first
official duty as my new personal assistant was to get me post-breakup coffee.
How’s it
feel
?”

I laughed. “Patronizing,” I said, sitting
down on the same armchair I’d set my clutch onto. Its deep, cocoa-colored
leather upholstery was firm, yet soft enough to be comfortable, and the tufted
back gave me more support than I’d thought it would. “Still, it’s good to have
a job. I do have a question, though.”

Preston took a sip of his coffee. He winced,
as if he’d never learned not to let a hot beverage cool. “What’s that?”

I blew on the surface of my own mug, my lips
moving before the wiser half of my brain could stop me.

“Do you fuck all of your
secretaries?”

Preston stared at me with an almost shocked
look on his face, choking on his drink.

I felt my face flush and my stomach plummet,
then fill with the
wingbeats
of a thousand
butterflies as Preston laughed nervously and turned away.

Why the hell did I say that?

Maddy’s
first day as my new assistant
became a lot more boring after Jane had finally stopped storming around the
front lawn. Most of it was spent having her fill out all the appropriate
paperwork and letting her look over Jane’s notes, most of which I’d managed to
salvage after she’d torn through her desk like a demon in an effort to destroy
as much company property as she could. Though I’d been dreading that moment for
months, now that it had passed, I felt relieved.
Maddy
had been right. It was good to let go, especially before Jane was in a position
to do anything worse.

“Are you concerned about what she said?” she
asked me at lunch. I’d taken her to a bistro on the lake behind my property.
“About the ‘assault,’ I mean?”

I shrugged. “Not really. Jane has anger
issues, that’s true, but I doubt she’d go so far as to actually file a police
report against me. And even if she did, she’s got no proof. I didn’t grab her
that hard. And besides,” I added with a grin, “I have witnesses.”

“
A
witness, anyway,”
Maddy
said. “But that’s probably
good enough.”

Although I put on an appearance of
confidence, I certainly hoped we were right, the last thing I needed was that
kind of publicity… Regardless of what was going to happen with Jane, by the end
of the first day
Maddy
was already pretty comfortably
settled in. Things almost felt… Normal.

Except that I couldn’t get
Maddy’s
words out of my head…

Do you fuck all of your secretaries?

Sure, it had been a joke. All in good fun…
But it had my wheels moving in ways they shouldn’t have been moving.

I did my best to ignore it.

When weeks went by without hearing anything
from Jane, both of us breathed a collective sigh of relief. I immediately
forbade any more talk of her, fearful that invoking her name might make the
demon return. I’d have to write up a rule somewhere that disallowed anyone from
going into a bathroom with the lights off and saying “Jane Turner” three times
in front of a mirror, but as it so happened, my attention was far more focused
on
Maddy
.

I’d had every confidence in her that she’d
turn out to be the perfect new personal assistant, and I’d been right. I’d just
had no idea how right I would be. She was amazingly good at her job, meticulous
and detail-oriented, always taking the initiative to organize and get things
done. She’d memorized my particular way of doing things in practically no time
at all, and by the end of our first month together, I couldn’t believe the
stark contrast between her and Jane.

“I think I’m ready to pronounce you a
permanent hire,” I teased her one day as she made me coffee. She’d finally
figured out the French press, which was far more preferable than the automatic
swill I got out of the machine.

She had smiled and looked at me through her
lashes in that smug, know-it-all way I’d come to love. “Oh, please. I’ve been
permanent since day one. At this stage, I don’t think you could live without
me.”

“Too true,” I’d told her. But neither of us
realized how much I’d meant it until a week later when she overheard me on the
phone. At the time, I had no idea how that seemingly innocuous moment would
change everything between us forever.

****

“Yes, I realize that’s prime real estate.
Yes, I know what’s there now, and I’m sure it can be done. I know my father
wants this to go forward, but I’m just asking you, man to man… Do you
really
want to do this? What your asking
crosses an ethical line. It may be, in fact, a bit… Extrajudicial.”

I stood on my bedroom balcony overlooking the
distant lake. I could see the water gently rippling as a lazy breeze swept over
it, just barely disturbing the otherwise placid surface. It was late and the
sun was setting, but Mr. Verger wasn’t letting me off the phone without a
fight. I watched the sky turn from orange to red, then a hazy purple as my
high-strung client stammered on the other end of the line.

I sighed, hoping my Bluetooth earpiece didn’t
pick it up. I had explained this at least a dozen times, but Harold wasn’t
getting it. I understood why he’d gotten my father involved in this, I just
didn’t want to be part of it. With the company in my hands during the windup to
my father’s wedding, he’d dropped this entire sordid affair on my lap.

On the surface, it was simple. Harvey
Enterprises has connections, able to bend the will of state and federal
agencies that look into things like code violations. They condemn buildings all
the time. In fact, nothing makes them happier than to slap a big yellow notice
on a door that says ‘CONDEMNED’ on it. It’s like getting their dick sucked for
them. They’d be more than happy to shut down the homeless shelter if the
company threw money their way, and that’s exactly what Mr. Verger wanted me to
do.

Mr. Verger had big plans for that space. He’d
quietly bought up buildings on either side of the shelter, and once he owned
the final piece of the puzzle, there’d be nothing stopping him from razing the
entire block and putting up some gaudy condo tower in its place. Gentrification
at work.

Sure, we would lose a rec center and the only
homeless shelter within a
twenty mile
radius in the
process, but Harold Verger had deep pockets—the kind that could not only pay
off the code enforcement officials, but could go a long way in supporting
Harvey Enterprises in all manner of future endeavors.

That was the rub. From what my father had
told me, Mr. Verger had a very good shot at becoming a US Senator very soon.
Money could buy you many things, but if you wanted real influence, you needed
to know the right people. My father would very much like to know a senator.
He’d very much like to have done favors for one, so that that senator might be
amenable to returning those favors in his more prestigious future. And what my
father wanted, my father got, even if that meant tearing down a perfectly good
building to get it.

Only he wasn’t going to do it. He was going
to make me do it. I wasn’t completely heartless, though. I’d first seen the job
as a moral quandary. Homeless people already had it rough. Why make it rougher
by eliminating one of the few safe spaces that they had?

I kept telling myself there were always more
safe spaces, and there was plenty of land in the city. The non-profit organization
keeping both the rec center and the shelter open could always open some new
ones. It might take a year or two, but it would get done.

“Young man, I was a lawyer for
twenty six
years. Don’t lecture me on the law. I was under
the impression you would take care of this without any questions being asked,”
Mr. Verger said. “Your father made certain assurances.”

I could feel my temples throbbing. Though I
hadn’t thought about her in weeks, I would almost have preferred a conversation
with Jane to one with this guy.

“All right, Mr. Verger. I’ll get the ball
rolling on Monday. We’ll have that homeless shelter knocked flat in three weeks
or less. The recreation center might take a bit longer, but I’ll personally
expedite the process. You have a nice weekend, all right?”

“You too, Mr. Harvey. Oh, and tell your
father I say hello, will you? I’ve got a hankering to play some golf next week.
Let him know I said so.”

I forced a smile into my tone.
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

I could barely contain my excitement when Mr.
Verger finally hung up. I couldn’t imagine that man as a senator, with the kind
of power to make decisions that could affect all of America. He was
incompetent, fidgety, uncertain, and a complete worry-wart. Then again, I
couldn’t think of a senator who wasn’t completely ill-suited for the job in one
way or another. I guessed there was always room for one more.

I turned around, taking my Bluetooth earpiece
out and nearly running straight into
Maddy
. It
wouldn’t have been the first time we collided, and I grinned at her as I shook
my head.

“
Maddy
,
we’ve got to stop meeting like this…”

“How could you?” she asked me, her voice
barely above a whisper. She looked utterly horrified, and it took me a few
seconds to realize she’d overheard the conversation I’d been having on the
phone.

“Oh. You mean the shelter?”

She stared at me. “Of course I mean the
shelter. And the recreation center! And oh God, what else is there?” Then she
waved her hand and shut her eyes. “No. Don’t tell me.
Really.
If there’s more, I don’t want to know…”

“Oh, come on,” I said, moving past her and
into my bedroom. “It’s urban renewal, nothing more. The condo development is
going to bring in a lot more money for the city than a homeless shelter ever
did, and it will reduce crime and vagrancy. Ten years from now, you won’t even
recognize the city center. This is a win,
Maddy
. We
should celebrate.”

I turned back to see if she was coming, but
she hadn’t moved. I sighed, leaning against the wall. “Come on. I’ll take you
anywhere you’d like. Do you like seafood? There’s this place over by the
marina. It’s a bit of a drive, but the lobster is worth it.”

“I can’t even comprehend this right now,” she
said, taking a seat on the edge of my bed. She shook her head at me, eyes pinched.
“Urban renewal? Extrajudicial? You’re talking about a criminal conspiracy. Are
you fucking serious right now? I know that part of the city. You’re going to
help someone build a fancy pants condo development and knock down a
homeless shelter
and a rec center
for disadvantaged kids?!
Have you lost
your mind, Preston? Never mind that—have you lost your
soul?
”

I watched the red-orange hues of the dying
sun light up her face. They complemented her anger perfectly. She looked like a
painting, the portrait of a woman on the edge of rage. It was stunning.

“Look,” I told her, “this is business. Mr.
Verger has connections and my father still has the final say. You know how it
is. It’s still about getting the biggest piece of the pie, no matter what you
have to do. I don’t like it, but I’m not running the show here. Not yet. I have
to do what I’m told just like everyone else. I mean, come on,
Maddy
. You should know this better than anyone. If I don’t
do this, my father will.”

“Yeah,” she said. Her face had tightened.
Anger had turned to disappointment. “I just didn’t think you would do something
like this. You seemed different. You told me you were going to save the world…”

I shook my head. “I’m not a
saint,
Maddy
.”

She shook hers too. “No, I know that. But this
is something I would have expected from your father. Not from you.”

Now
that
struck a chord. I could feel the snarl in my voice before I’d even answered.
“I’m nothing like my father. You know that.”

“Do I?” she asked me, looking up at me again.
Her green eyes searched mine the same way they had back at the restaurant the
day she’d lost her job. She was looking for an answer, but this time, she’d
already asked the question. “Do I have any idea who you are at all?”

“Of course you do.” I sighed. “Look,
Maddy
, you’re blowing this way out of proportion.
Non-profit groups get funding all the time. Charitable donations are
tax-deductible, for fuck’s sakes. Sure, we’re going to shut the shelter and the
rec center down, but once it’s gone they can build on some other parcel, maybe
something with a view out past the suburbs.”

“You actually think the homeless give two
shits about a view?” she snorted. “You can’t just shove them out of the city
and forget about them. You sound like a true one-
percenter
.”

“One percent? You’re the one who cried for
help. I didn’t hear you complaining when I wrote you that ten thousand dollar
check,” I argued. “Or when I hired you. Or when I paid you, for that matter.”

“Don’t you
dare
throw that money in my face,” she hissed, launching up from
the bed. “You gave me that money to help me out when I was nearly destitute.
And the rest you paid me for good, honest work. I haven’t been your kept woman,
Preston. I earned that money working for you!”

“Which is why you should do what I tell you
now and get in the goddamn car!” I was seething. I didn’t like this. I didn’t
like the way she was challenging me, like suddenly she knew more about business
than I did, like she had any idea what it was like to be me, Preston Harvey,
the son of a billionaire whose first and only love had ever been cold, hard
cash.

And yet I did like it. In fact, I loved it.
Maddy
never looked more beautiful than when she was
standing up for herself. She had a backbone stronger than most men I’d known in
my lifetime, and when she had a mind to, she put up one hell of a fight.

But I couldn’t stop the words from coming out
of my mouth now. There was too much momentum, too much frustration welling up
inside me, rattling my bones. “You work for me, which means my decisions are
your decisions. If I say ‘jump,’ you say, ‘how high?’ If I tell you that what
I’m doing is the right goddamn thing for my company, then you shut up and
accept that maybe the guy with the Harvard business degree knows what the fuck
he’s talking about. If those are things that you can’t handle that, then…”

“Then what, Preston?” she asked me. Jane had
always had a heat in her, a passion, and a deep, ugly anger too, but
Maddy
was different. Her flame was brighter, stronger than
any I’d ever seen before. It danced higher, more beautifully than Jane’s ever
had, and I was drawn to it like an unlucky moth gazing upon its flickering
shape, mesmerized by how wild and effulgent she was. “Then you’ll fire me?
You’ll send me back to my shitty apartment with some savings and hope I land on
my feet? Maybe if I’m lucky, you’ll throw in an excellent job reference too, as
long as I don’t make a scene like Jane did when I storm out.” Her lip curled in
a defiant sneer. “Is that what you do to everyone who dares to tell you like it
is, or just the women?”

I hated hearing that woman’s name
leave
her lips. It poisoned everything it touched, and the
last thing I wanted to imagine was anything tarnishing
Maddy’s
sweet, soft, supple lips.

I stared at them, unable to look away. They
were set into a firm line, one that meant she wasn’t going to back down. But I
needed her to. I needed her to stop, because with every word she spoke,
something hungry stirred inside of me.

“You love to flirt with poverty, don’t you?”
I shot back, my muscles tense and vibrating beneath my skin. She was like a
live wire sending currents through every part of my body, but I didn’t know of
what. Was it anger? Disdain? Or was it something I couldn’t quite explain,
something that seemed closer to lust than to fury?

“You had your own apartment,
Maddy
. Maybe you had to take a bus to work, but you had a
job and a roof over your head. You act like your struggle makes you better than
people like me, but you haven’t had to deal with half the shit that
really
poor people do. You get the
self-righteousness with none of the suffering, and that gets you off, make you
feel special so you can look down on an entire class of people. Grow up.”

She pursed her lips, and her eyes flared. “Is
that what happened to you, Preston? You grew up to become your father—a man who
would rather stuff more money in his pockets than think twice about the rest of
the world trying to just get by out there? You are literally talking about
destroying the only place the homeless in this city have to go! It’s
evil,
and if you don’t see it, then
maybe you should ask yourself how long you’ve been staring into the abyss of
wealth and business and politics, and whether or not it’s begun staring back
into you.”