Chapter Eight
Brick
The meeting threatened to run late, and I stood, buttoning my jacket. The speaker immediately quieted and stared at me. “Sir?” he asked timidly.
“Continue, if you must, but I have another appointment that I can't miss.” Without another word, I gathered the notes and exited the boardroom. I was already hesitant about pushing the meeting back, but I sure as hell wasn't going to miss dinner with Daisy.
The look of terror on her face as she’d clutched at the sheet this morning still bothered me. I'd been furious when she'd tried to block the door, but seeing her throat bare had set me off. I couldn't remember the last time anger had pumped through me like that. She was supposed to be submissive, and here she was, already rebelling and she hadn't been under my room for more than twenty-four hours.
She'd been scared. Truly scared, and all I'd done was raise my voice.
Then there was that snippet of attitude in her voice. I wasn't sure what to make of that, and didn't like it one bit.
I wasn't sure what I’d find at home tonight. Hopefully, the damn woman had followed my instructions to the letter. If she hadn't, I was going to show her what would happen if she tried to take advantage of my hospitality.
“In a hurry?” Julia asked dryly as I gathered my things. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that kid that I hired to do the filing.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said calmly, closing my briefcase.
“Really? Because he's bragging that he's going to be working directly with you in a few years, and when asked for specifics, he just says that he's not allowed to talk about. That he signed an NDA. Why would you have him sign an NDA?”
Anger swept through me, so visceral, that I could have destroyed that boy if he’d been in front of me right then. “I need you to have a word with him. Remind him of what could happen if he continues to run his mouth.”
“That didn't answer my question.” She followed behind me as I walked towards the door. “Brick!”
Pausing, I turned around and smirked. “You were the one who said that the press was scrutinizing me. You asked me to keep my affairs quiet. That's exactly what I'm doing. And if you don't want them to get out, you'll remind that kid to keep his head down and shut the hell up or our agreement will be over. I can get what I want without him.”
“What did you do?” she whispered as her face paled.
“Nothing that you need to worry about. Have a good night, Julia.”
I didn't bother locking up behind me. Julia wouldn't dare go through my things. Instead, I took the executive elevator straight down to my car on the first floor. Flipping through my notes from the day, I made some adjustments to email first thing in the morning and tried not to be distracted by the juicy morsel waiting for me at home.
As the driver pulled up to the building, I was surprised to see a familiar face waiting for me by the private entrance. “Mr. Langston,” Suzie said sourly.
I almost laughed. Suzie had been my neighbor when I was in college. She didn't call the police on me when one of my parties got a little too loud or went a little too long, and she used to float me some cash when she saw the eviction warning on my door. I always paid her back, and never forgot her kindness, even if it was buried fairly deep behind that rough exterior. She'd been a goddess in the kitchen, so when I could afford it, I hired her to be my personal chef.
She only called me Mr. Langston when she was pissed at me. Which, to be fair, was pretty often.
“Suzie. Is there something wrong my dinner?”
“Your dinner is perfection,” she snapped. “Your dinner company is something completely different.”
I immediately stilled. “Why? What did she do?”
“Nothing. That's the problem. She's letting a bunch of men walk all over her.” Suzie glared at me as she shook her head. “You've done a lot of things that I don't approve of, but this? This is the lowest.”
“I'm giving her a roof over her head.”
“And what is she expected to do in return?” When I didn't answered right away, she just sighed. “I don't know what you want out of life, Brick, or what you want in a woman, but if you break that girl's spirit, you are going to hate yourself for the rest of your life.”
Raising my eyebrow, I scoffed. “I don't break women's spirits, Suzie. I'm very clear about what I want from women ahead of time, and if they expect more from me, then that's their doing, and not mine. I can't be held accountable.”
“You're an ass, Brick.”
“Never claimed to be otherwise. Did you deviate from the menu?”
“Yes. I'll cook what I want to cook, you know that,” Suzie snapped. “Now you'll have to give me the dietary restrictions of your new lady friend. Don't want her to eat something she might be allergic to and die,” she grumbled as she walked away. “Although that might be more merciful.”
The last line was muttered so softly that I almost didn't hear it. Still, she brought up a good point. I had no idea if Daisy had any food allergies.
I'd have to discuss that with her over dinner as long as she was dressed and had done everything that I asked of her.
When I entered the penthouse, the wonderful aroma of roasted chicken filled the air. The faint light from the candles danced from the dining room, and Daisy was clad in the red velvet dress.
She was also barefoot and climbing on top of the counter. Silently, I watched her grunt and move the dress around her knees as she gripped the counter for support. Finally, she reached up and pulled down the glass decanter.
“I do own a step stool,” I said dryly.
With a surprised cry, she twisted around, flinging the decanter. Lucky for me, her aim was terrible, and the crystal shattered harmlessly on the wall five feet away from me. Her cheeks paled, and she practically fell off the counter. “Oh, crap. I'm so sorry. I'm a little jumpy, and you surprised me. I'll clean it up. Was that expensive? I'll pay you back for it.”
“It was only about two grand,” I said with a shrug and took off my jacket.
Her eyes widened. “Two grand? Are there diamonds encrusted in it?”
“No.”
Chewing on her lower lip, she ran out of the kitchen and returned with a broom and dustpan. “I know that you're paying ten grand for me, so I guess, um, could you subtract the two grand out, if that's okay. I don't really have that kind of money to pay you back.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Ralph told you how much I was paying?”
“Not the exact amount. Just how much he was willing to give me. I think he's planning on keeping some sort of contract fee.”
I almost laughed at her nativity, but she suddenly cried out in pain and stumbled. Too late, I saw the blood spilling from the bottom of her foot. “I'm sorry,” she said quickly. “I'll clean that up too.”
“For Christ's sake, why aren't you wearing the heels that I set out for you?” I hissed, reaching down and picking her up. Plopping her back up on the counter, I wrapped her foot in a dishtowel to keep her from bleeding all over the place.
“I tried,” she whispered. “I don't usually wear heels and they were really tall. It was hard to walk in them. I was afraid of falling and breaking the shoes…or anything else.” She sighed, staring down at the shattered decanter.
“Or your ankle?” I muttered darkly. “Don't move.” I'd never met a woman who didn't love expensive shoes. The taller and sharper the heel, the better. Obviously Daisy was different.
I grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom and jogged back out to the kitchen. Daisy sat on the counter, foot hiked up on her thigh, as she examined the wound. The position gave me a clear view of the black panties that I'd asked her to wear, and God help me, I was hard as a rock. The sight of her creamy inner thighs nearly did me in.
“You're going to bleed on your dress,” I growled. I didn't give a damn about the dress, but hated the fact that a single glimpse had affected me so much.
“Sorry.” Her face was ashen. “I can do it,” she said, nodding towards the first aid kit.
“Not without bleeding all over yourself.” Rolling up my sleeves, I knelt down and examined the bottom of her foot. Wiping away the blood, I pulled out the rest of the glass out and swabbed in with alcohol. She gasped, but she didn't jerk away.
She had control over her pain threshold. I liked that.
Wrapping it up, I secured the bandage and let her foot drop. “It was just a small piece of glass. It should stop bleeding soon.
She immediately hopped down. “Okay. Give me just a second.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded, but she scampered away from me. Carefully sidestepping the glass, she disappeared. When Daisy returned a few minutes later, she was wearing a pair of ridiculous black fuzzy slippers.
“I know that you don't want me to wear my own things, but I can't wear those heels, and shouldn’t be barefoot until the bleeding stops. Now I can finish cleaning up the mess.”
Not realizing how absurd she looked, she carefully swept up the rest of the broken glass and wiped up the blood. “All better.” She straightened and gave me a beautiful smile. It reached all the way to her eyes, and I realized that it was the first genuine smile that she'd given me since getting here. “I…um, don't suppose that you have another decanter? Suzie was very specific about how long the wine should sit before serving it, although she was also very specific about how long dinner should be in the oven. And now, if I keep the food warm while the wine decants, the chicken won't be as good. On the other hand, if I take the food out it might get cold.”
“It's fine,” I said quickly before she could continue to babble. “I don't need the wine decanted. Let's just eat.”
I sat down and watched as she limped a little to the oven. For a moment, I thought she was going to pull the meal out with her bare hands, but she seemed to remember herself at the last minute and grabbed the potholders. The woman apparently turned into a complete mess when she was nervous.
She managed to serve the meal and sit down without breaking anything else. The fire from the candles reflected off the diamonds around her neck, and I couldn't help but smile. I owned her for the next month.
Daisy dug into her food like a woman starving, and I watched as she practically inhaled her dinner. “In a hurry for something?” I asked in a silky voice. “If it’s for my bed, I'd be happy to spread you out on the dinner table.”
Her eyes widened in panic, and I felt a small grain of irritation. Normally women were fighting to jump into my bed. She acted like she was terrified of the prospect. “No,” she replied hastily. “Sorry. I'll slow down. I'm used to eating during short breaks at work. It's was almost a guarantee that if you ate slow, they'd call you back onto your shift before you could finish.”
“You don't get a full half an hour for your break?”
“They said that technically, the slow times when we don't have any customers counted as part of our breaks, so they weren’t guaranteed to give us a full thirty minutes.”
Clenching my jaw, I reached for the wine glass. “You won't be required to do anything immediately, Daisy. You can slow down and enjoy yourself.”
As she straightened, she gave me a sheepish smile. “Right. Of course. Suzie made such a wonderful dinner. It definitely deserves to be savored.”
She definitely deserved to be savored.
“Suzie seems interesting,” Daisy continued. “How long has she been your chef?”
“A few years now,” I said with a shrug. “But I've known her for about twenty years.”
“Oh. So she knows you fairly well, huh?”
There was a tone of caution in her voice, and I narrowed my eyes and looked at her suspiciously. “Why do you ask me that?”
“Just trying to make conversation.”
I could tell that she was lying, and wanted to call her out on it, but she had already changed the subject. Daisy talked all through dinner. About how nice the penthouse and the clothes I’d gotten her were. About how sorry she was about the decanter. About her old job and coworkers. Even about some pet she had for twenty days as a kid until her father found out. She talked about anything and everything, her nerves showing with each word spoken too quickly.
I ate slowly and listened patiently. Daisy constantly looked at the clock and my plate as if she knew what would happen when it was empty. When I dropped my fork onto my dish, she jumped up like she'd been shot.
“I'll go see if there's anything for dessert,” she said hastily and tried to scurry past me.
Reaching out, I snagged her elbow. “There won't be anything for dessert,” I said in a low voice. “I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and I have a different idea of how I want to end my meal.”
“Another bottle of wine?” she asked hesitantly.
“Clean the dishes, Daisy, and then return to me.”
“Mr. Langston,” she pleaded. “Maybe I could have another night.”
“Don't argue. Just do as I say. Now, Daisy.” I tightened my grip just a little, and she immediately dropped her gaze. Mutely, she nodded and took my dirty plate.
Leaning back, I smiled. I'd been fantasizing about this moment all day, and now I was minutes away from getting a good hard look at what I'd paid for.