Dirty Rich(14)

Because I want more than sex, more than orgasming all over his hand  while he bends me over his desk. It kills me to admit that the moment I  saw Jax I started to picture him as my someday person. The person that  I'll have someday, when my career is stable, when my savings are on  track, when I can finally let go a little bit.

He's never going to be that man.

I thought I could play on his level. I said yes to his proposal on an  impulse, in the heat of the moment, and now I see how shortsighted it  was.         

     



 

One meeting. A single meeting, and I'm torn in two.

Part of me wants to run back down the hall and throw myself into his  arms, kiss his neck, nip his collarbone with my teeth, lower myself onto  his cock and take him for a ride.

Most of me is sick with the risk I've just taken.

And it is all my risk. What happens for Jax if he's caught with me in  his office? Nothing. He's a billionaire, with homes and cars and enough  money to hush the whole thing up, if he wanted. His image wouldn't be  tarnished at all. But me? I've been working myself to the bone every  single goddamn day for a year-more than a year, if you count the time I  spent as an editorial assistant at Basiqué right out of college-to get  where I am today.

I clapped my hands over my mouth without realizing it, and people in the hallway are starting to take notice.

Kirk sidesteps me with a gaggle of assistants and does a double-take at my face, which must be a sickly shade of white.

"Cate?" he says, reaching out for my arm. "Are you feeling all right?"

Instantly I pull my hands away from my mouth and smile at him. Over the  past year, I've become a master of deception. If I'm tired or irritated,  I don't let it show. I'm certainly not going to let this slip to Kirk,  not in the middle of the hallway, probably not ever. "Thanks, Kirk," I  say, brushing his arm away as kindly as I can. "I just had an idea come  at me from a new angle. Does that ever happen to you?"

He considers me, his eyes filled with concern, and his jaw works like  he's trying to think of the right thing to say. "Of course it does," he  agrees, and then, with his assistants shifting uneasily around him, he  says, "Take it easy, all right?"

"Will do!" I call brightly after his retreating back.

Enough of this.

It's time to get my shit together. I can't afford to slip up like this.





That night, I stay at Basiqué until ten o'clock. It's dark when I call down to Mark to bring around the car.

Every time my attention wandered away from my computer screen, it led me  straight to images of my dad's face when he told my sister and me that  his job as a schoolteacher was finished. We'd both been surprised. He  loved teaching. His favorite joke was that he'd work until he was 80,  and then he'd volunteer in the school library.

Sitting in his recliner across the living room from us, his face had  crumpled, and he'd wiped tears away from the corners of his eyes. "After  thirty years, they decided I wasn't working hard enough."

His words still ring in my ears.

Which is why I can't believe I agreed to such depraved hanky-panky with  the billionaire who is ultimately my boss without a second thought.  There are other ways to relax.

Yes. More sessions with Carl are in order. The only way out of this is  to put in more effort on every front. If I do that, I won't have the  time or energy to think of Jax, much less meet him for illicit office  sex for the next four weeks.

I pull out my phone and send my trainer a text begging him for four days  a week instead of three-Fridays off. His reply comes in quickly.

You're joking! :)

No, completely serious. Are you available?

You sure you can handle that many sessions a week? You seem spread pretty thin already.

His choice of words makes me bite my lip, color rushing to my cheeks.  Spread out for Jax, more like it. How I must have looked in that  position … it's embarrassing. And I will never, ever admit how wet it made  me, how much I already want more.

I can't. I won't. It's not an option.

God. I am terrible.

I can handle it. Are you telling me you can't?

It feels good to slip into easy banter with Carl.

His next reply:

See you tomorrow morning. Be ready!





Chapter 19

Jax





Five o'clock on Tuesday comes and goes, the minutes dragging by.

There is no knock on my door.

I pull out a portfolio and flip it open to some contracts I need to sign.

It's worthless. Inside of a minute, my eyes are sliding off the words on the page and back to the door.

Where the hell is she?

By 5:15, I'm done. Done.

Closing my portfolio with a snap that echoes in the space where Cate is  supposed to be, I stand up from behind my desk and pace over to the  windows, looking out at the city below. Breathe in. Breathe out.         

     



 

Control.

Remaining in control is how I built my fortune from the ground up, no  thanks to my worthless father. And I don't mean the fact that I will  never get an inheritance from him-I couldn't care less about his money.  He was a piss-poor example of what it meant to be a man who fulfilled  his fucking responsibilities the way he should have.

If Cate wanted to back out-and she gave me no sign of wanting to do that  yesterday, after I made her come all over my hand, bent over the desk  like a high-fashion sex slave-it's not like she doesn't know where to  find me. She has two phone numbers she can reach me at.

I keep an office in this building just to be near her, for fuck's sake.

And she has hers.

That's the first place I need to look.

At first it means nothing to me that there's no one in the hallway. It  is 5:00, and business hours are, by most conventions, over.

Everything makes sense when I reach the double glass doors.

The doors are locked up tight, and all the lights inside Sarzó's office suite are off.

They're both gone, and I'm guessing it's not because Sarzó took the evening off and sent Cate home.

If she's not here, I have no reason to be. The meeting is one thing. I  also have no intention of hunting down the remaining staff members in  the office and grilling them on how their work went today. What a  colossal waste of my time, which is infinitely more valuable than any of  them can possibly imagine.

On the way back to my office I dial down to Peter to have him pull the  car around, and by the time I've disconnected the call, I've also  abandoned the idea of going back for the portfolio. That shit can wait  until later.

I'm waiting for the elevator doors to close when someone shoves an arm  carrying an overstuffed briefcase between the doors, forcing them open.

"I'm sorry," says the guy, stepping in as soon as there's enough space  between the doors. He tucks the briefcase under his arm and moves to the  opposite corner as the doors slide shut.

As we begin to descend, I look at him from the corner of my eye. He  can't stand still, tapping his foot against the ground, and he has a  look in his eyes that reminds me of Cate, to a lesser degree.

He's under pressure from Sarzó. It's just not quite as intense.

This guy is no one to me. He's not a business partner. He's not even a  potential business partner, and I don't tend to spend my energy on  getting to know people when it won't benefit me. It might make me a  complete prick but when you're as wealthy as I am, you don't reach out.  People just fucking take advantage of you.

I don't know what the hell comes over me. But I turn to him and extend my hand for him to shake it. "Jax Hunter."

It's a ridiculous breach of elevator etiquette. Elevators are like  goddamn urinals. You don't see anyone in them, and they don't see you.  You just stand in your opposite corners and politely ignore one another.

He cuts his eyes toward me and his eyes widen in confusion, but then he  takes my hand and gives it a solid shake. "Kirk Hawthorne. Editorial."  His forehead remains wrinkled. Clearly, he has no idea who I am. Sarzó  has either kept my acquisition of the company under lock and key or  Kirk's job doesn't change much no matter who's underwriting  Williams-Martin.

"Jax Hunter," I repeat, wondering if he'll realize who the hell he's talking to. "I bought out Williams-Martin."

Now his head whips around toward me. "You're the one who bailed out the parent company?"

"That's me."

The elevator stops on the ground floor and the doors slide open. Kirk is  still searching for something to say to me, and for a single instant I  wonder if my life might be easier if I was a little more approachable.

No way. Don't make me laugh.

"Well, I'm-" He fumbles for the right words, his gaze sliding toward the  lobby doors. I can imagine just how anxious he is to get out of here.  "I'm glad you did. A lot of jobs depend on it. Nice to meet you, Mr.  Hunter." With a nod, he turns toward the exit and takes several steps  away.         

     



 

"You too, Kirk." He's reaching for the door handle when I call him back. "Hey, Kirk?"

"Yes?" he says, turning to face me. I have to admire him for this one thing: he doesn't seem very fazed about meeting me.