Hijacked
Lucy
I was once again in the elevator with Dante, headed up. He’d bulldozed right over his last meeting, a pharmaceutical company out of Marlboro, Connecticut. They made a pill that stopped heart attacks, but had priced the drug so high that no insurance company would approve it, so the company was near bankruptcy.
I didn’t like companies that did that, and I knew Dante didn’t either.
When he took over the company, he would slash at their prices even more than he had the contract he’d just laid waste to.
We were headed up to his personal office on the fiftieth floor.
His penthouse bachelor pad was, well… I’d never seen the inside of his penthouse.
No one had.
Except those women lucky enough to have been wined and dined, and then… pleasured by him…
All.
Night.
Long.
And maybe his bodyguards: Taz and Lance Holstrom; twin former German spies/turned private security. They also had Olympic gold medals in the biathlon: an event that mixed cross country skiing with rifle shooting.
Dante hadn’t said anything after the last meeting. I could tell he was thinking about something, though.
He was tonguing the inside of one of his left molars.
Sure giveaway.
Don’t look at me like that.
It’s not creepy or anything that I know when my boss is thinking.
The elevator chimed and he stood there for a moment, still feeling the inside of his molar with his tongue.
Oh, to be that molar…
“You verified the reservation?”
As if I needed to. The second I called Bello they would’ve packed up the kitchen and taken it anywhere Dante wanted. It wasn’t that he was that powerful… which he was. It was that when he went there, he enjoyed himself, and they made sure that his experience, and that of those dining with him, were out of this world.
“They’re expecting you in forty-five minutes.”
There, business was concluded for the day.
There would be no more talk of the company.
Only what was slated for tonight.
My workday was almost over.
You’d think that that would make me happy.
But for some reason it didn’t.
I lived for when he’d text or call me late at night, needing my assistance with something.
He took off his tie, rolled it up and tucked it into his pocket. He pulled off his Burberry suit jacket and laid it over a chair, and then started unbuttoning his shirt.
My heart thrummed in my chest.
You would think after watching him take his shirt off six hundred and thirty-two times—I said not to look at me like that!—that I would be immune…
Immune to the way that Italian silk dress shirt clung to his lightly tanned skin as if it would rather die than be parted from him, to the way that shirt would then finally slide off over his shoulders, revealing the beauty of his naked torso, and the rippling muscles moving and bunching under that skin.
“Lucy?” he said, looking right at me.
Shiiit…
He’d been talking to me while I was ogling him.
I stopped time—in my head… I don’t have magic or mutant powers—and rewound the tape of my mind.
There!
“Did you arrange for what I asked for earlier?”
I nodded. “I called Mrs. Roark and she said she’d make sure everything was in place before she turned in for the night.”
Which was about eight o’clock for the seventy-year-old housekeeper.
She had a staff of twelve to keep the penthouse spotless and in perfect condition. But she was the only staff that lived there.
Mrs. Roark had been with Dante since he was a child.
They were close.
So close you could never get him to talk about it.
Which meant she meant more to him than I would ever know.
I only knew her by her voice, since she almost never left the penthouse.
The penthouse I have never been in...
And never would…
Sigh…
Dante’s brows furrowed as he stared at me. “Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in that head of yours.”
And I would die if you ever knew.
I pulled on my brightest smile, trying to look excited and ready for anything.
But my feet hurt, I’d barely gotten five hundred words pounded out on my lunch—my usual three thousand eluding me—and…
And…
I’m in love with my boss.
I closed my eyes as that thought echoed through me like a death knell.
Somehow I always had that same thought, once a day, every day.
And usually right when he took his shirt off.
God… I’m pathetic.
I strained to keep my smile in place.
Dante turned, tossed that silk shirt on the chair with his suit jacket, and then sauntered off to his private bathroom.
Well, it was more of a suite, with a walk in, clear glass encased shower that was bigger than my apartment, that had more water fixtures than any fountain in Rome—
Rome…
Another place I would never go.
I had an ever growing list of places I wanted to travel to before I died.
London, Paris, Rome… Las Vegas.
I had a passport and all my shots.
But I’d gone absolutely nowhere.
Though he had business concerns all over the world, Dante never traveled.
Business came to him.
But I knew—since I had to come up with a contingency plan—that if he did have to leave town, one of my assistants would be sent in my stead.
I was too important to the day to day running of Saint James Ltd. I needed to be here to keep things running.
That’s what Dante had said when he had me make up the contingency plan.
I have three assistants, by the way: Maggie, Sidney and Jenifer.
Great young women with good educations and perfect spelling and grammar.
I heard the water come on and knew Dante was naked.
I felt the giant butterflies start flapping their wings in my stomach.
I so wanted to see him naked.
I’d dreamt of it so many times.
Walking in there, watching him soap and lather himself…
And then walking into the shower with him where he’d…
And then I’d wake up.
Every.
Single.
Time.
I shook my head.
I would never do anything like that.
Ever.
I walked over and picked up his suit jacket—taking it to the hidden closet where all his clothes went when they needed to be sent to the cleaner—and hung it up. I walked back to the chair and picked up that soft, silky dress shirt.
It was a light sky blue, not as light as his angry eyes… but nothing like his eyes when he was happy.
It was still warm from where it had been against his skin.
My fingers worried the fabric. My mind started to whirl.
I could smell his shirt.
Jesus!
I turned and practically ran to the closet, trying to hang the shirt on a hanger before I went total perv and actually…
Actually smelled my boss’ shirt…
Like a freaking pervert, stalker, sicko!
Psycho…
I finally got the thing to hang.
I closed the door and leaned against it, panting.
“Okay… that was a low point,” I said to myself.
“That I doubt.”
I spun around and there was Dante, freshly showered, a chocolate silk shirt clinging to him, his pants…
No, don’t think about his pants.
“So what’s the ‘low point’?”
Ah…
Ah…
Ah…
Christ!
“I, ah…” In my head I was throwing papers off my desk, rifling through drawers, searching everywhere for the answer I needed. And then my iPhone pinged… well, the one in my head, in my imaginary office. It said that Grisham-Harris had lost over half its stock price this afternoon.
I hadn’t invested in it… but any low point in a storm.
“I invested some money in Grisham-Harris… and, well…”
He shook his head mournfully. “Yes, I heard. But I wouldn’t sell just yet. Give it time to rebound.” His brows knitted together again. “How much did you invest?”
“Just over a grand.” Which was a lie. I would never invest more than five hundred dollars in anything.
I live in the same little apartment I started out in two years ago. I have an iPhone, a newish laptop and my work iPad. My apartment has a queen sized bed, a comfy couch, and a coffee maker (a regular old Mr. Coffee). I’m as frugal as is legal—I don’t even own a car.
I mean, it’s New York City. It would cost an arm and a leg to park a car, and then there’d be all the wasted time trying to find parking and negotiating cross town traffic.
The subway took twenty minutes. And a MetroCard was only three dollars and eighty-eight cents a day.
What I make working for Saint James Ltd more than covers my expenses. I could afford a bigger apartment and a snazzy car. And my ebook royalties have grown impressively since I started publishing the romances I write on my lunch break.
A third gets held back for taxes, one third goes into my retirement fund, and the rest goes to my mom.
“Well,” Dante said, “That’s nothing to worry about.”
I took a deep breath. Lie told and bought.
I don’t like lying, but… well, when you’re in love with your boss, you have to make concessions.
My iPhone (my real phone) dinged. I looked at the screen and read the message.
“Taz and your car are ready.”
Dante shrugged on his jacket—a devastating chocolate brown Dolce and Gabbana number that was fitted tighter than his usual business attire. It hugged his body just a bit more…
So much more…
My phone pinged again in my hand.
I blinked at the screen.
I looked at Dante. “Charlotte Rampling is here, downstairs in the lobby.”
He tilted his head, thinking.
He hated surprises… well, at least in business.
It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t really know what he was like after hours.
Or what he liked…
That fact made my chest feel heavy.
“Interesting.” He moved toward the private elevator and turned to me. “Coming?”
“What?” Well, that came out a bit shrill.
“I need to talk to you about one more thing before I go.” He smiled and motioned to the place beside him on the elevator. “So, if it’s not too much trouble.”
I hustled into the elevator and the door slid shut.
Usually once he was in the elevator, he was gone. The night took him to who-knew-where, to do who-knew-what.
Sometimes whatever he’d do would make the front page of the scandal magazines… but only if he wanted it to.
He took a deep breath, tonguing his molar again. “My sister is in town.”
My mouth fell open.
I knew he had a sister, and that she was… eccentric, to say the least. But he had never talked about her.
Ever.
“Do you need me to make a reservation for her? The Four Seasons?”
“Tessa’s been here for a while,” he said with irritation. “She’s been at my family’s home in Westchester for over a month.”
I knew the home—multi-wing mansion—had been closed up for years.
“Do you want me to tell Mrs. Roark?”
“No!” he snapped, and then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lucy, but no. She’d run right out there, and I don’t know what she’ll find.”
“Okay.” I’d never seen him this agitated. I so wanted to make it all better for him. “Then what would you like me to do?”
Dante took a deep breath and sighed.
I wanted to reach out and touch him, to pat his shoulder, to lean my head against him.
To swing him around, latch my hands on either side of his handsome face and lay the kiss of a lifetime on him.
“I need you to hire a small staff: housekeepers, a cook, a driver. And call Malcom Whitmore. He was the closest thing to a friend she had when she was in school. He’s a neurologist at Lenox Hill Hospital. See if he would go out and see her. He knows his way to the house. Hell, he probably still has a key.”
He looked at me, his eyes sad and shiny. I so wanted to make him smile, to take away the pain he was feeling. But an instant later that look was gone, and the usual, formidable and in complete control Dante Saint James stood before me.
“Speed is of the essence. Leaving my sister alone is always a regrettable choice.”
I frowned, thinking.
“How has she been staying there without security notifying you?” I knew he had permanent twenty-four hour security in place for every property he owned.
“My sister is beautiful and manipulative. She seduced the night watchman. Only when the first shift came in early on day and found the guard house empty did we find out she was there… and that she’d been fucking the imbecile.” He stopped and cracked his neck. “He’s been replaced, and they are trying to monitor my sister’s comings and goings, but I want to have people inside, taking care of her, making sure she’s eating, that she’s not doing things that could hurt her.”
That look flashed in his eyes again. I hated that look.
I nodded. “I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow.” My mind started firing on all cylinders. “I’ll call Rachel from Staff First tonight and have her send me some applicants to interview tomorrow morning.”
His lips tugged into the smallest of smiles.
Those were his genuine smiles. Not the ones given at photo shoots or press meetings.
But they weren’t the smiles he gave the women in his personal life.
I would never know that smile.
“Thank you, Lucy.”
The elevator dinged and the door opened.
And there stood Charlotte Rampling.
Photos didn’t do her justice.
She was tall, had an hour-glass shape, and I swear she glowed.
Dressed to the nines, she had on a daring black cocktail dress that came up to her mid thigh, and had a plunging neckline, accentuating her prodigious, gravity defying breasts.
Black Prada stiletto fuck-me pumps adorned her shapely feet, making her ankles slender and her calves… well, her damn legs were practically perfect.
Makeup: perfect.
Hair: long and blonde and perfect.
Nails: Medium length and painted a subtle burgundy.
Just when the words, I freaking hate her! popped into my head, I got a whiff of her perfume.
It was a mesmerizing citrus blend with a hint of jasmine.
She even smelled perfect!
I fucking hate her!
Dante walked out of the elevator, reached out and took her hand, drawing it slowly to his soft, luscious lips.
“Ms. Rampling.”
She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.
Dante chuckled. “This is going to be fun.”
Just then Charlotte Rampling looked right at me, and then tilted her head.
For some reason I got the feeling she was examining me.
Like a clinical psychologist studying a rat in a maze—
Or a rat in an aquarium filling with water.
I shook my head. Where had that thought even come from?
I took a deep breath, forced all emotion from my mind and slid my business/congenial smile on my face.
Her large dark blue eyes lingered on me, and then she swiveled them to Dante.
“And who’s that lovely creature behind you?”
Lovely creature?
Dante didn’t even turn, he just said: “That’s my personal assistant, Lucy Hopewell. I could not run Saint James Limited without her.”
I felt my chest expand and my spine straighten.
Sure, he hadn’t turned to acknowledge me, but he considered me indispensible, and…
Well, he hadn’t needed to see who the “lovely creature” had been.
He just knew.
So he agreed?
He thought I was a lovely creature too?
I caught myself staring at Dante, imagining in my head how it would sound if he said, You are a lovely creature, Lucy Hopewell…
And then found myself being stared at by Charlotte Rampling.
She smiled like a cat about to eat the canary, and then turned her attentions back to Dante.
“I was supposed to pick you up,” he said.
“I know,” she said with a raspy, sultry tone. “But I thought it would be more fun to throw you off… so I’m hijacking our dinner-date-interview. I hope you don’t mind.” She practically purred that last part.
Dante smiled.
It was that smile I’d speculated at but had never seen before.
How he smiled at the women in his life.
And it made my heart burn with complete and utter jealousy.
I hate her, I hate her, I fucking hate Charlotte Rampling!
I took a deep breath and mentally shook my head.
I couldn’t believe how far my vocabulary had plummeted to base vulgarity.
The woman just brought it out in me.
“Sounds entertaining…” Dante said, “But we still have to take my car, and Taz is coming too.”
She tore her beautiful eyes from Dante and looked appraisingly at Taz.
Taz was six foot two, two hundred and ten pounds, with red hair shaved short on the sides and left long and slicked back on top. His eyes were green and his skin lightly tanned with a lovely peach undertone.
His brother Lance had his hair cut short all over. That was the only difference in their appearance.
Lance was straight. Taz was gay.
So there would be no three ways happening for Charlotte Rampling tonight.
Ha!
But she would still get to have Dante, now, wouldn’t she?
She gazed at Taz for a moment longer and then sighed. “What a pity. Such a lovely specimen, but he won’t be playing with us tonight, will he?”
What?
She knew just by looking at him?
No way!
Out of the two of them, Taz was the most dangerous, and hot headed of the brothers.
She reached out and touched Dante’s face with one perfectly manicured finger.
“But, from what I’ve heard, you’ll be more than enough man to satisfy me.”
I looked down at my own nails.
Cut short. Clear polish that was nicked and chipped already—and I’d just painted them last night.
The curse of a personal assistant/romance writer: ruining your nails on a keyboard.
“Shall we go?” Dante said, and then hooked his arm so his hand rested on Charlotte’s lower back, and guided her toward the front doors of Saint James Tower.
Dante’s black Bentley limo was pulled up and Edward, Dante’s personal driver, waited with the back driver’s side door open.
I stood there, watching as Dante smoothly angled down into the back seat, and then reached out and helped Charlotte as she slithered and slinked in behind him.
The door closed, Edward hopped into the driver’s seat, and away they went, disappearing into the night.
I closed my eyes, leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the front door and sighed.
I fucking hate Charlotte Rampling…
###
I wasn’t home more than five minutes when someone knocked on my door.
I was not in the mood for company.
Thoughts of what Charlotte Rampling might be doing with Dante were torturing me.
All I wanted to do was pop a paranormal romance into my DVD player, probably one with a glittering vampire, and try my best to not think about anything for at least two hours.
But whoever it was at the door wasn’t taking my dead silence for an answer.
“I can hear you breathing,” Jessica, my next door neighbor and one of my best friends, called through my door. “And Dion saw you coming in the building.”
Dion is Jessica’s roommate. She’s also a fellow indie romance author… and a complete peeping Tom—her field glasses, telescope and zoom-lens camera are always ready to spy on someone.
Suddenly something banged against my door like a SWAT battering ram.
“For fuck’s sake, Little Miss Tightly Wound!” Harper hollered at the top of her lungs. “Open the door before I set it on fire, and these two start roasting fucking marshmallows!” Harper lived down the hall, and if we weren’t all friends of Jessica’s, well… Harper probably would have murdered us in our sleep already.
Smiling and shaking my head in disbelief, I flung my door open and my unholy trinity of friends pushed their way into my apartment, wine and pizza and ice cream in hand.
“Oh, no…” Harper stage whispered to Jessica. “We’re too late. She’s been dead for days.”
Dion smacked Harper in the back of the head as she careened past her. “When did we invite Bitcherella?”
Jessica handed me the ice cream and looked down at the DVD I had in my hand. “We got here just in time.”
Harper swooped in and grabbed the vampire movie out of my hands. “Just say no… to undead stalkers.”
Dion pulled out a duo of DVD cases. I recognized Uma in her red and yellow jumpsuit. “Girls with swords!”
Before I knew it I was eating ice cream, sipping cheap wine, and watching the best girl on EVERYONE violence… ever.
This is why you really, truly need girlfriends.