Stacy followed me to my office, while some of the women gave her the side eye.
By the table of my main secretary stood a woman. She looked familiar. She turned around to face me with a sly smirk on her face.
Huh, that face. Yes, I had fucked her before. She glared at Stacy behind me, and my gut growled. I didn’t like that look she was shooting us.
“May I help you?” I asked.
My secretary jumped up. “I’m sorry Mr. Grant, I tried to tell her to leave.”
I raised my hand. “Don’t worry about it. Is there a problem?”
The woman folded her arms. I didn’t remember her name, but I faintly remembered her body. Average, not impressive like Stacy’s.
“It depends on you, Mr. Carter.” She shifted her eyes down to Stacy again and I inched in front of her. “May we speak in private?”
Women, they thought they were in for the long haul; if they weren’t given a chance to destroy you with their fake sense of romance, they’d come do it later with a vengeance. That’s why I never got serious with any of them. Not worth it.
“Stacy, just a minute. This won’t take long.”
I motioned to my secretary to take Stacy to our waiting room so she wasn’t left standing around.
Opening my door, I allowed the woman in first. She strode inside with a bobble of the head and a smart ass smirk. What the hell was she up to?
“I’m sorry, I forgot your name.” That came out as both an honest statement and one with a poisonous bite. She wasn’t here with any good news.
“Tara,” she said, leaving off her last name.
“Tara who?” I wasn’t going to be on friendly terms with her, that much was for sure. The tension between us was as thick as fog.
“Tara. You don’t remember me, Grant?”
“No, not really. Well, faintly.” I took a seat behind my black lacquer wooden table. It had cost me a handsome sum but it had been worth every penny. When I sat behind it, I was king— no— a God. A god all the women wanted a piece of but could never keep.
“What is your business here, Ms. Tara?” I asked, turning on my computer to see what I needed to do today. My ten thirty meeting was on my heels. Since she wasn’t going to tell me her last name and I wasn’t even all that interested in knowing it, I’d just call her Ms. Tara until she took the hint and got out of here.
Ms. Tara handed me some papers. There was a red square around the most important part.
What it read was insanely impossible.
I cocked an eyebrow and laughed.
“Do you really expect me to believe that any of this is real?”
I leaned back in my chair. What the hell was this crazy chic up to?
“It is. You have one year to have an heir, or else everything.” Tara leaned over onto my table, which I resented because they were probably too dirty for my spotless piece of furniture. “And I mean everything, will be taken from you. Every cent, every piece of business and land, and even the clothes on your back will be taken.”
The venom behind her words circled over my head. Her anger didn’t bother me, but the fact that there appeared to be truth to what she was saying did. Exactly how much truth, I’d have to check and see.
“I will have my lawyer look at this. You better hope this is the truth…”
“Or what? You’ll make me disappear?” she asked, smiling.
“No, but I can make sure your career is over. I’m Grant Carter, not some man that can be fucked over.”
She folded her arms and laughed again with a haughtiness so thick it was disgusting. Tara turned and headed to the door, her walk heavy with a switch. “Remember Carter, no one is untouchable. You’re no god. You’re only human.”
She left my office and closed the door behind her. An awkward silence followed behind. I snatched up the phone and had my lawyer on the other end in seconds.
“I knew you’d be calling here soon,” Rob Greene, my lawyer, grunted into the phone.
“What do you mean? Did a Ms…. Tara?... visit you?” I eyed the door, realizing like a fool that I’d forgotten to get her last name.
I knew that Stacy was waiting for me. It irritated me to have to deal with whatever the fuck this was about instead trying to pounce on Stacy like I wanted to do.
“No, but another lawyer did. It was Redmon, your grandfather’s lawyer. Seems like you need an heir in order to keep what you’ve got.”
I slammed my fist on the desk. Vulnerability wasn’t even in my vocabulary.
“Fuck that! How the hell was I not informed about this years ago?” I thundered into the phone.
Rob knew my inferno of fury wasn’t aimed at him. But fuck, how did this slip through the cracks?
Something of this caliber should’ve been mentioned when I first received my inheritance. Now, twenty years later, it decided to rear its head and slap me in the face? Hell no.
“I’m sorry. But I was able to read the hidden part of the inheritance. It was written to be this way. It says that if you didn’t conceive an heir by the age of forty one, then you’d forfeit all your possessions,” Rob explained.
In the background ice clinked around. I heard him swallow down something to drink, and knowing him, he was drinking whiskey.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded.
“Because I didn’t know,” he said, his tone masking impatience. “Obviously, I would have told you had I known. This was in the file I was just now able to get from Benton, and that was only under threat of serving him with a disciplinary complaint and malpractice lawsuit if he didn’t pony up the documents.”
Of course.
Carl Benton was the lawyer my grandfather had hired for me. But it had become clear to me that he had not been doing me any favors. My grandfather had always preferred one of my cousins, for reasons unbeknownst to me, since I was the hard working one who had helped grow the company.
Grandpa seemed to know this fact— as did everyone else in the family— so it became clear to me that he liked to give me lip service about passing off everything to me, when really that might not be the case. I’d fired Benton and asked Rob, who handled a lot of my business affairs, if he would look over my personal affairs as well. Apparently, I had done that just in time— if it wasn’t already too late.
Rob cleared his throat and then he sighed over the phone. “We can’t fight this in court. Judge won’t even hear it. Might even piss him off if we tried.”
My grip solidified around the phone, threatening to break it.
“Fine. I’ll handle this. Thank you for clarifying and confirming this, Rob. You’re reliable as always. Enjoy your day.”
Before he could return the same verbal gratitude, I slapped down the phone and sighed. I hadn’t wanted to let Rob know exactly how much this upset me. Lacing my fingers together, I picked up the phone again and told my secretary to send in Stacy.
The door soon cracked open and she peeked inside.
“Come inside, Ms. Endow.” I had to remind myself to address her by her last name, so as not to scare her off so quickly.
Hard to crack didn’t mean uncrackable. It meant that once I did, the rewards were going to be fruitful; the best pussy ever.
Looking at her shape again as she approached my desk made my cock harden with excitement.
Her.
She could carry my baby. But after that little stunt my cock pulled in the elevator, it was going to be hard to convince her.
But hard didn’t mean anything. I was Grant Carter. I could move mountains; hell, I owned some.
“Ms. Endow. I have a few errands for you to run.”
Internally, I cursed myself for not pinning her down on the table and telling her that I wanted to plant my seed in her womb.
But patience did yield the best fruits. The hot irritation burning in my crotch damned me to hell, but it’d be wrapped in her warm wet folds soon enough.
“What type? I’m afraid I don’t even know how to navigate this building properly yet. But, just tell me what you need and I’ll do it, Sir.”
I liked the sound of that.
I pinched my eyebrows together, remembering that I had to insert her name into the system so I could give her an employee card.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have my secretary help you with some things while I get your employee card ready. I need to be off to a private meeting, and after that you’ll help me with a few things regarding it.”
Stacy stood proud with her back straight, ready for work. She was rare indeed…
That was when it rolled off of my tongue.
“Ms. Endow. I have something important to ask you.”
I leaned onto my table with my elbows. Fuck this. I hated waiting. And I didn’t have a lot of time. I was a man of decisiveness and action, and this situation, although strange, was no exception. In fact, if anything, it was the most urgent. I could lose everything.
“That woman who left my office gave me some rather odd news. And if you agree to help me. I’ll pay you very well. Five hundred thousand dollars well.”
Her eyes widened and she took a step back. The scent of lilies radiated from her; it must have been her perfume as they weren’t even in season. I could already feel my hands around her wrists, holding them down…
“What is it?” she asked, fear laced in her voice.
“I need a baby.”
“Huh?”
Poor thing. Confused. “I need you to let me impregnate you.”
“What?!” She took a few more steps back, readying herself to bolt out of my office at any moment. I had to tread on my words carefully.
“I need to satisfy one more thing to keep my life the way it is right now by producing an heir. Give me one, and I’ll make sure you’ll never have to work a day in your life again. I’m not asking for a relationship—”
Stacy threw her hands on her hips. “Good, I’m not in the market for one,” she asserted. “What made you feel comfortable asking me? I only came here to work a regular job.”
“Five hundred thousand dollars…” I repeated, drilling it into her head.
Her mouth gapped open a little. She was thinking about it.
“No. I’m not on sale. And I quit.”
She turned on her heels and marched towards the door.
I bit my lip as I watched her ass swish side to side.
Fuck me. “No” wasn’t going to be an answer I’d accept.