Chapter Four
God damn it!
Eric fought the urge to slam the door of his office as he entered and headed straight for the liquor cabinet to pour himself a tall shot of whiskey, which he downed in one swift gulp.
His secretary. His freaking secretary, for crying out loud! It was like someone out there was playing a prank on him, and he was not amused.
He had spent the entire morning thinking about her, unable to focus much of his attention on anything but the memory of her, of her scent, and it’d been driving him crazy. And now it turned out he’d be working with her day in and day out for the next two months, having her in his immediate vicinity, at his beck and call at all times.
No. And not just no – hell, no. He couldn’t let that happen – he was much too high-strung to be able to have her so near and not make a move, and if he had thought earlier that this would be a complication, now he knew it for a fact. If he gave in to the baser instincts that she stoked in the heart of him, it could harm not only him but the company as well, and he’d be damned if he ever let something like that happen.
A reluctant Alpha he may have been, but the job he did at the company was sacred to him. He was so young when he first entered the firm, just out of Harvard Business School with his shiny new diploma in Communications and Marketing, brimming with ideas he couldn’t wait to pour into the stale environment that McKenna Enterprises had become. His father had fought him at every step, but Eric hadn’t given in for a second, and slowly but surely he had proved that he knew exactly what he was doing. Three years later, the company was out of the rut, the Financial Times put him on their Top 10 Most Promising Young Managers list and the already obscenely enormous fortune they earned on a yearly basis increased by nearly 20%. He loved his job and loved McKenna Enterprises, and he’d never do anything to jeopardize either.
Which is why this hunger for Bianca Jamison was killing him. He knew he had to fight it, but damn, it was hard. He was hard, even now, even though the only touch they had shared was a handshake.
And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time, either, for him or for the company. That morning, just as he had entered his office, Jason had come to him with the worst news possible.
“There’s $35 million missing from our accounts,” Jason said, as soon as he had sat down, “And Hector’s the one who stole it.”
Eric couldn’t believe it – wouldn’t believe it. McKenna Enterprises was their family legacy and the idea of either himself or one of his brothers doing anything to harm it was inconceivable to him.
But he also knew that Jason would never have made such an accusation if he wasn’t completely sure of it. He may have seemed flaky, but his mind was sharp and his proficiency undeniable. If he said he’d noticed flukes in the financial records and that all fingers pointed to Hector embezzling money for McKenna Enterprises, then it had to be true. And Hector certainly had the skills to do it.
Except Eric had a hard time imagining Hector – who, despite his unattractive personality, was also loyal, noble and honorable to the point of self-harm – doing anything that could be classified as a betrayal.
McKenna Enterprises wasn’t just his family’s legacy. All of the original investors and current shareholders were Pack members, as were roughly a third of the employees and every single member of the Board of Directors. McKenna Enterprises ensured that the Pack prospered, and Hector cared about the wellbeing of the Pack too much to jeopardize it in any way.
No matter how much he hated it, though, Eric knew that it was his duty to investigate the accusation before making any decisions, so he went to Hector with it.
“If I wanted to be Alpha,” his brother had said coldly, once Eric was done, his shoulders coiled tight and his eyes burning with fury, “I would’ve taken Father’s place when he passed away, as was my right.” And he was correct. The Law gave the late Alpha’s first-born son the right to his father’s position, providing that he could assert his undisputed dominance by defeating every other candidate willing to challenge him for the job. But when Richard McKenna passed away and the Pack came to Hector, he had flat-out refused to accept it, forcing the position of Alpha on Eric as the next in line – a position he didn’t even have to defend, because not a single Challenger had appeared, then or ever.
“Why do you think I came to you with this directly?” Eric asked. From the moment he had entered Hector’s office, he had made sure that his body language spoke of peace. “I don’t believe for a second you’d steal from the company,” he explained. “But I also fully believe that Jason found the traces that he did. Which means someone out there is trying to manipulate us into tearing out each other’s throats... and we need to find out who it is. Fast.”
Hector had nodded, agreeing. He was still visibly angry, but no longer with Eric, which the young Alpha thought a blessing. The Pack had no mightier fighter than his older brother, and if he wanted to take Eric to the Pits, he would come out a winner.
After some deliberation, the two had agreed it would be best if they had Jason pull out all the suspicious files and gave them to a neutral party to handle the investigation. “We should outsource it to Athena Consulting,” Hector had suggested, and Eric had agreed. A long-standing associate, their discretion had been proven many times over, and they would be perfect for the task.
That settled, Eric had called Jason and told him what they’d decided and what he needed to prepare. Then he’d set off back for his office with Hector in tow... only to be faced with the siren of a woman who had appeared out of nowhere and completely scrambled his circuits.
Sighing, frustrated, Eric poured himself another drink and, sitting down at his desk, plugged the thumb drive his brother had given him into his computer before he set out to compose an email and send the files to Athena Consulting. Then he resumed his everyday work, secure in the knowledge that the job was delegated into the right hands.
Occasionally, either Janet or Bianca would come in with some news or a paper that needed his signature. He barely noticed Janet’s interruptions, but Bianca’s made it hard for him to keep his mind on the task at hand, to the point that he suggested she didn’t need to remain in the office once five o’clock had come around. But she wouldn’t listen. “With all due respect, Mr. McKenna, it’s my first day on the job,” she told him, polite but firm. “And my job requires that I stay in the office for at least as long as you do.” Admirable work ethic, he thought to himself, but in this case a hindrance and a complication more than anything else.