Senior Advisor to the Boss: Billionaire Obsession Dark Romance (Managing the Bosses Series Book 9) (14 page)

"I don't know," Jamie said. "Maybe he isn't involved but he knows who is. Maybe he's somehow tied to them."

It wasn't a thought that had occurred to her before, but it was a possibility, wasn't it? She wished that she had been able to make Nicholas say more. Alex was silent and thoughtful as he pushed the highchairs a little closer to the table and sat down between the twins.

"You know, Emelie came to my office today," he said as he fed the first bite to Benton. Jamie had asked Murray to put the sauce on the side so that they could feed the twins the same thing they were eating. "She told me that she thinks she knows who's sabotaging the business."

Jamie paused with her fork halfway to her food. "She did? Who did she say that she thought it was?"

"She thinks that it’s Zander," Alex said.

"What? Really?" Jamie set her fork down entirely, leaning forward a little. "She thinks that Zander’s the one who's doing it?"

Alex nodded and fed Lilli a bite. Jamie reached for one, too, and offered it to Benton.

"She thinks that the reason Zander's number came up so soon is that he was trying to mislead us by having the suspicion cast on himself at a time when it would be easier to convince us that he wasn't really guilty." He shook his head like he couldn't believe what he was saying either. "And she pointed out that if we had suspected him at the same time we suspected her, we would have looked deeper before we cleared him."

“Do you think that’s true?” Jamie asked, giving Benton another bite of enchilada.

“I think that it’s not completely impossible to believe,” Alex said. “And I also think that it’s strange that a hacker would go for Zander first, then lower-level employees, then come back up to her. But he’s never used either of our numbers, which would be the ones to use if he really wanted to attack the company. Unless he didn’t know the logins. Because no one who isn’t either of us knows them.”

“But Zander can access the lower-level employees’ accounts,” Jamie said slowly.

Alex nodded. “Exactly. So as much as I don’t want to believe it’s Zander, I’m worried that she might be right. Either way, we’re at least going to have to investigate it.” He took a bite of his food. “She told me that she heard him whistling the day that our stock fell.”

Jamie froze. She’d completely forgotten about that. At the time it had seemed strange, but she’d had so much else on her mind that she hadn’t really put it in the top priority list. “I heard it, too,” she said, turning to look directly at Alex. “Him whistling. Like he was happy. I remember thinking that I thought it was so strange that he’d be that cheerful after what happened. But he was whistling.”

Alex rubbed his fingers against his forehead. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. We’re going to talk to Zander, then.”

Jamie’s stomach clenched into worried knots. If the man that Alex had trusted most in his company was the one trying to destroy it, it was going to hurt her husband more than anything else had. She didn’t want to see that happen. But she wanted it to be over, too, as much as Alex did. And if it was Zander, and they did catch him, it would finally, finally be done with. She reached across the table and took his hand.

“No matter what happens,” she said, “you have me. Don’t forget that.”

She wasn’t going to let him go in there alone, either. When he confronted Zander, Jamie was going to be with him.

So much for having the day off.

Except her heart raced at the thought of being able to stop this madness. The possibility of finding the link. She almost hoped it was Zander. Just so this would all be over.

She shook her head at the thought. She hoped more it wouldn’t be him. He was Alex’s senior advisor. The one he trusted the most.

Either way, this wasn’t going to end pretty.

It had been nearly a week since Mark had broken up with Erica. She had come and picked up her things that night after, walking past him into the rooms they had shared without a word. He'd offered to help, and she'd turned him down, so he'd gone out to the terrace and waited for her to finish herself so that he didn't have to stand there and watch her walk out of his life again.

Dale Richardson, at least, had moved on. Probably off to try another of the courses that was going to be included on the Pro Golf Tour. Him, Mark was glad to see the back of. He couldn't imagine that having to walk by Erica flirting with him every day would be something that he'd enjoy, all things considered.

There were some new pros on the course instead of Richardson and his friend. Women who had probably come to check out the club when they heard about the tour. One of them, slim and blonde, seemed to have her eye on Mark, speaking to him every chance that she got, brushing her hands against his arm or bumping against him when she walked past.

Mark had planned to just ignore her. But as she kept up the advances, he thought that maybe he should see where her interest took them. Erica had been all over Richardson, after all. Why should he hold himself back from having a little fun with one of the gorgeous women who obviously wanted him to pay attention to her? He didn't have a girlfriend to forbid it any more.

For once, things were running smoothly during the day. The kitchen didn't have any emergencies, and there was nothing that required his immediate attention. He would have loved to have a day like that with Erica, but when they were dating those days had been few and very far between. Mark left the clubhouse to run itself for a while, and went down to the course under the guise of seeing how the players were enjoying their experience. The little group of women pros who had dropped in were on hole seven, and Mark stood back to watch them tackle it, admiring their form.

“Mr. Reid,” the blonde woman said when she turned and saw him after her swing. “How are you?”

“Just fine, Miss Ames. I thought I would come down and see how you like the changes to the course so far.”

“Oh, it's amazing,” Miss Ames said. “We're loving it. Can't wait to give it a whirl on the tour, although I hear that you're going to be renovating more?”

“We are,” Mark said. “We want to make sure that we provide the best course that we can.”

“Well, it's wonderful now, but if you feel like you can improve it, I say go for it.” She smiled at him, and he looked into eyes that were an unfamiliar green. “I always enjoy a little bit of a new challenge when I play a course on tour.”

“We'll make sure that you're plenty challenged,” Mark answered, smiling back at her. The other women had started to move forward, and he tipped his head toward them, indicating to Miss Ames that they were leaving. “Do you need to go with them?”

She shook her head. “Honestly, they're giving me a little bit of space, Mr. Reid. They know that I have some interest in you.”

Mark laughed. “You're not shy about it either.”

“No,” she agreed. “I'm not at all shy. It's one of the things that I pride myself on.” She took a step closer, and then another, until he could almost feel her skin against his own. “Being aware of what I want and willing to do what it takes to get it.”

“I think, if you're going to seduce me, you should probably call me Mark.”

“In that case, call me Ginny. Everyone does.” She ran a hand down the length of his upper arm from shoulder to elbow, tracing the muscles with her fingertips. “And maybe show me a place where we can have a little fun.”

“You don't take your time about it, do you?” Mark teased.

Part of him wanted to just give her what she wanted. She was beautiful, almost as beautiful as Erica. And that was the problem. Every time that he decided he was going to take what Ginny was offering, he thought of the woman that he had recently lost, and he didn't know if he wanted her, or what she was offering, after all.

“Life’s too short for taking time,” Ginny said.

She pressed her palm to his cheek, turning his head, and then she was kissing him. Mark hesitated only an instant before he let himself sink into it. It was nice to have a warm body up against his own after a week without, and the last time that he’d been with Erica it had been almost as much anger as desire that sparked between them. Here, with Ginny, there was no anger. It felt good, and she was beautiful, and Mark was getting hard.

Erica wasn’t going to come back to him; he might as well enjoy himself with someone else. A little no-strings-attached sex might be just what he needed.

“Okay,” he said when they broke apart. “Why not?”

The smile Ginny gave him was absolutely wicked.

“Just tell me where to go, big boy, and I’m there.”

They could go up to his place, but if Mark was trying to cheer himself up, having sex in the bed where memories of Erica still lingered might not be the best plan.

“This way,” Mark said, linking his fingers through hers and drawing her toward the edge of the course.

He led her the long way around, avoiding the driving range where Erica would be working, and up to the clubhouse.

The meeting room he chose was hardly used. It was a little small for large meetings, and most one-on-ones took place in individual offices. But it would work for their purposes just fine.

He shut the door behind them, turning the lock, and almost before he had time to turn around, Ginny was wrapping herself around him and reaching for the buttons of his shirt.

Mark caught her hands in his own, stopping her progress almost before it had started, and she pouted up at him. “You don't have to take it quite so fast,” he told her, taking a step forward that backed her toward the table in the middle of the room. “We can go slow.”

“Or we could not go slow,” Ginny suggested, leaning up and stealing a kiss that left them both breathless. The backs of her thighs hit the edge of the table and she sank back until she was sitting on the sleek wood, looking up at him.

“Fast?” Mark teased. “I don't know about that.”

He slid his hands up her legs from her knees to the curves of her backside, and then back down again, taking his time. She squirmed. Her hands moved back to his shirt, and this time he let her unbutton it and shove it from his shoulders, pulling it free of his wrists and dropping it on the floor. He reached for her shirt in return, and she lifted her arms up as he pulled it over her head.

She was wearing black lace underneath, dark against her skin, and with a shock Mark realized just how much she looked like Erica. He hadn't given any thought to it before. Had been trying to think about anything but that. But standing here looking at her blonde hair falling over her shoulders and the black lace against her skin, he couldn't help but notice the similarities. No wonder he'd picked her up so easily.

It wasn't really fair to Ginny to use her as a substitute for Erica. Mark knew it. But when he tried to take a step back she grabbed him by the waistband of his pants and pulled him back to her, legs wrapping around his to hold him there.

“Where do you think you're going?” she purred.

The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to back away. Mark didn't do the gentlemanly thing. He leaned in and kissed her, long and slow and deep. They were both gasping when it ended, and he was hard again in his slacks. “Nowhere,” he said.

They kissed again, and he reached around her back to unfasten her bra, sliding it down her shoulders and reaching up to take the weight of her breasts in his hands. Heavier than Erica's, more of a handful. Mark tried to push that thought from his head. He wasn't going to spend the whole time with Ginny thinking about another woman.

He nipped at the curve of her breast, and slid his mouth over it until he could take her nipple between his teeth, biting down gently to feel her writhe against him. One of her hands tangled in his hair and held him in place. Mark licked it, feeling it tighten, and then he kissed his way over the valley between her breasts and gave the other nipple the same treatment.

“More,” Ginny breathed.

Mark dragged kisses and bites down the length of her torso to her flat stomach, nipping at the little dip of her belly button, and he wrapped his hands around her hips to hold them in place as he kissed his way back up again. She cursed at him, and he laughed.

“What's wrong, babe?”

“What do you think?” she shot back, trying to push him down toward where she wanted him. Mark resisted just enough to make her work for it, then he went, mouthing down over her belly until he was stopped by the waistband of her skirt, and then he pulled that down. Her legs were long, and smooth, and he ran his hands over them again on his way back up from pushing the skirt to the floor, feeling the soft skin beneath his palms.

She let her legs fall open, and he could see how wet she was even through the panties she wore. His cock pushed against the front of his pants, aching for release. He reached down with one hand, unfastening his slacks even as he traced the tip of his nose up the inside of her thigh until she tangled a hand in his hair and pulled his head forward so that his mouth pressed against the thin lace keeping him from touching her directly.

“Want something?” Mark asked, knowing she would feel the heat of his breath with the words.

“I swear, Mark, if you don't lick me—”

Ginny didn't get the chance to say what she would do, because Mark had run his tongue the length of her, over the damp lace, and the words had faltered into a moan. Her hips rocked up for more, and he yanked her underwear down to get his mouth on slick, bare skin.

“Gorgeous,” he said. And she was. Beautiful. And already so wet for him. But she wasn't Erica. She wasn't the woman that he wanted most. Mark shook his head as though to clear it of the thought. He had better things to be thinking about.

Like Ginny, who was making the most delicious little whimpering noises above him, her fingers curled around the edge of the table and her toes curling against his shoulders. He wanted to see her body stretched out on the tabletop, but he contented himself with the knowledge that the view would come later, and set about making her moan his name, flicking his tongue over her clit.

Despite himself, Mark couldn't help comparing her to the woman that he'd lost.

Ginny was rougher than Erica, her hand pulling in his hair and her hips bucking up without any concern for whether she might hit him in the nose or not. She took what she wanted without apology or much care for anyone else, he guessed, and while there was a place for that—and it was kind of hot in the current moment—he wasn't sure that he'd enjoy having someone like that around long-term.

Which was why this wouldn't be long-term, he reminded himself. It was meant to be a quick one-off. A little stress-relief.

He slid a finger inside her, and then two. She groaned, spine arching and fingers tightening. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders, and he was sure that she was close. He picked up the speed, flicking his tongue hard and fast over her clit and fucking her with his fingers. He made sure to rock them over the spot inside her that made her clench and whimper.

“C-Coming,” she gasped. “Mark—”

Her body tightened, muscles going taut and trembling, and she was coming. Mark licked her through it, then leaned back, grinning at the quick, panting breaths mixed with the occasional little moan. Obviously he hadn't done a half-bad job.

The hand that had been tight in his hair was relaxed, fingers lazily curled, and he caught it in his own as he stood, laying it back against the tabletop.

“You want more, babe?”

“Fuck, yes.” Ginny lifted herself up on her elbows so that she could look down the length of her body at him. “I want you to fuck me. Right now.”

He didn't need to be asked twice.

It was an easy slide, her body slick and relaxed after her orgasm. Ginny bit her lip as he pushed in, probably to muffle the sounds that wanted to escape. He groaned. Fuck, she felt good.

Her legs lifted and wrapped around his hips, and Mark rocked into her. His hands slid up her waist to her breasts again, and he rubbed his thumbs over the hard little peaks, then leaned down and kissed her. All the time, he moved inside her, need sparking hotter.

“Mark,” she moaned.

“Yes?” Mark asked, as though pleasure wasn't rushing through him. As though he didn't have any reason to be out of breath.

“Fuck,” she hissed. “You shouldn't be this hot. Touch me. Please.”

Mark looked down at the wanton roll of her hips, and then he reached between them and stroked his fingertips over her clit. One of Ginny's hands flew up to her mouth to muffle her cry. He stroked her again, fingers moving with the same rhythm that his hips did.

She was going to come again. Mark caught her nipples between thumb and forefinger and rubbed them until he knew they would be sensitive the next morning. A memory of him that could linger a little longer. His fingers pressed down hard against her clit.

Ginny cried out, and came. The sound of it was muffled, but not enough that Mark couldn't hear her. The sound and the sight of her coming undone pushed him over the edge and then he was coming, too, pleasure rocketing through him.