Trickiest Job Read online

  My eyes drift closed, and I wage an all-out war with myself. What good can come from going through the door? Over the years, I managed to channel my anger and indignation into resolve to survive.

  Warmth starts at my back, shadows my arms as Romeo hovers over me, and I realize he’s wrapped his body around mine.

  He’s barely touching me, but I feel his strength and power. His confidence feels big enough to envelop me, like a coat I can borrow.

  I tilt my head back. He’s so tall.

  In my whole life, I’ve never looked at a man from this angle. Maybe when I was a kid, but I don’t remember.

  Even if it happened, it surely wasn’t as intimate as this.

  “Do you want me to open it?” he asks softly, and there’s such tenderness in him. This is the man who pins me down and fucks me and holds my ass open for other men? This is the guy who makes me suck the fat head of his oversized cock while Hawthorne spanks me?

  But it is. He is. There’s so much more to Romeo than I ever imagined.

  My fingers tighten on the handle, and I push the door open.

  It smells like pine, like fresh air. I’m disappointed because I guess on some level I was hoping to catch a whiff of one of Mom’s floral perfumes—the more flowery the better, she claimed. It’s a silly expectation given that the smell faded away years ago.

  But I guess in my mind, my childhood is condensed into just a few memories, and most of them are from before. Before the day my parents walked out of the house and never came back.

  The relocated photos aren’t on the walls. There are a few boxes piled up under the writing desk—a desk that I think was never used for anything other than holding dirty clothes until someone took them away for washing.

  I put one of the boxes atop the desk and remove the lid.

  It’s not the missing framed photos.

  I’m looking at stacks and stacks of snapshots. With a little gasp, I grab a greedy handful. My fingers can barely stretch around the fat, slippery stack.

  They’re from when Layla and I were small. A vacation at one of the Great Lakes, though I never knew which one, and I can’t tell from the scenery.

  As I flip through, I’m struck by how young my parents were, maybe around Romeo’s age. I shoot a glance his way and see him standing by the door. He doesn’t want to intrude.

  “Do you wanna see a picture of me as a kid?” I ask, because I’m giddy at the discovery.

  I’m sure he’s not interested, but he’s polite, so he comes over. “You really do look like your mother,” he says. “If not for the clothes and the hair, that could be you.”

  There’s no point in arguing, in pointing out that she was much prettier than her photos suggest.

  I spend a few minutes looking through another stack, then allow myself to choose five to take away. I expand that number to ten when I dig a bit deeper and find some photos from the summer before my parents died. I’m not stealing them; there’s a plastic box of memory sticks, and my sister can print as many copies as she wants.

  It’s tempting to take the memory sticks and leave her the photos, but deep down, I feel she has the greater claim on them because she’s been here the last seven years.

  “Can you hold these for me?” I ask Romeo. “My purse is in the limo.”

  “Gladly.” He steps forward and takes them, slides them into an inside pocket of his suit jacket. If ever there was a man I would entrust with my most valuable, delicate possessions, it’s Romeo.

  We walk out, and I close the door behind me. The sound it makes feels final.

  Chapter 8

  We sit in the kitchen and sip coffee, and Miss Susan talks about some of the things I’ve missed over the years. Cousins married, household employees retired, neighbors divorced. Layla learning to drive.

  “Your grandfather isn’t a natural teacher,” Miss Susan says. She’s careful not to be too critical of him. That much hasn’t changed. “And he refused to pay for lessons, so Jeremiah taught her.”

  “Jeremiah? How is he?”

  “He retired a year ago,” she says, and that makes me sad. Jeremiah owned the landscaping company that tended to the flowers and lawns. He would often bring captured grasshoppers and caterpillars for Layla and me to look at.

  “Your grandfather claims you’re homeless and living on the streets,” she volunteers during a lull.

  Startled, I set down the cup. I don’t slam it, but it doesn’t exactly alight delicately on the saucer, either. “Did you… Do you believe him?” I ask.

  “No, I didn’t. It’s a sin what that man did to you girls.”

  “Girls?” The panic makes my voice sharp, and Miss Susan reaches over and strokes my cheek, just as she did when I was young.

  “It wasn’t easy for Layla to lose you,” she says. “But he doesn’t play his games with her. It all seemed to stop the night you disappeared.” She gives me a canny look.

  There’s a chime; someone is driving through the front gate.

  My heart jumps into my mouth, and I feel suddenly all wrong. Awkward. I’m not ready to see Layla.

  “I’ll bring her in,” Miss Susan says, and she leaves.

  I fold my hands in my lap, and I try to imagine what I’ll say. Of course I’ll hug her, but what if she doesn’t remember me?

  It’s a stupid worry, but I can’t help it.

  “You’ll do fine,” Romeo says, and I feel his strength wrapping around me.

  “Lindsay!” calls out Miss Susan, and there’s panic in her voice.

  I surge to my feet, and my pounding heart races even faster, the individual beats too close together to know where one ends and the next begins.

  There’s only one thing that could put that fearful tone into Miss Susan’s voice, and it isn’t Layla.

  She rushes in. “Your limo is still out front,” she says. “Mr. Yorker won’t be able to miss it.”

  Romeo stands and buttons his suit jacket. “We’ll take care of that,” he says. “Is there somewhere Lindsay can stay while we deal with Mr. Yorker?”

  “But I don’t want to see him,” I say. I’m completely panicked.

  “You won’t have to,” Hawthorne assures me. “We’ll say we’re here because we’re interested in doing business with him.”

  “At his home? That will never fly,” I whisper.

  Miss Susan touches my arm. “It could. If you know anything about real estate…” She looks pleadingly at the three men.

  “That won’t be a problem,” Romeo says, and Miss Susan sends me into the rear living room.

  “I’ll come get you when the coast is clear, and you can make a run for the car,” she says anxiously, a little breathlessly. “I’d better go fill in your friends so they know what to say.”

  At that moment I realize that the stakes are high for her, too. At her age, so close to retiring, it wouldn’t be easy to find another job without a letter of recommendation.

  If my grandfather finds out that she let me in but didn’t alert him, that she hid me…

  “I understand,” I say, but she’s already hurrying away.

  ~ ~ ~

  It’s like being in a soundproof room. Even with the double doors slightly open, I can’t hear a damned thing.

  I’m dying to sneak out. I don’t want to be seen by my grandfather, but I realize I’d like to see him, to look pure evil in the eye. As a child, I didn’t fully appreciate what he was, but now I know.

  Perhaps he’ll be mundane, a withered old man, though I very much doubt that.

  He’s the sort of person who will be healthy and cruel up until the moment he dies, which could easily be another thirty-five years.

  The light in the hallway flickers on, and I melt away from the door.

  “From what I heard, they grade on a curve, but it’s not just our class. It’s all the intro classes, and since we’ve got a sucky professor, we’re doubly screwed.” The female voice is light, laughing.

  It’s a voice I’ve never heard before—at least not
like this.

  She was twelve, just a kid, the last time I actually spoke to her, and even though her voice has matured, I recognize the way she talks. She also sounds a bit like me, a bit like our mom. She sounds like David, too. Just little traces, but they mix together perfectly.

  I cup my hand over my mouth, and I feel tears on my fingertips, on my wrist. I want to go out there, to talk to her.

  And I could. My grandfather can’t hurt me so long as the three men are nearby. Seeing me would surely renew Grandfather’s resolve to have someone track me down, get me back under his thumb… but I’m sure I would be safe tonight at least.

  But… Miss Susan. She would pay the price.

  I can’t do that to her.

  So instead I strain to catch every word Layla is saying. She’s obviously on the phone, now talking about a guy, and I feel a sad smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

  If things had turned out differently, I would have been the one giving her advice about relationships.

  Not that I have anything useful to share. Don’t trust anyone. Men only care about sex, so keep emotion out of it. Use whatever you can to get ahead, and take no prisoners.

  Maybe she’s better off without me around.

  I hear her climbing the stairs, her footsteps and voice both fading, and I whisper, “Don’t go.” I wish I’d been able to see her at least, to verify with my own eyes that she’s doing well.

  The door opens and Miss Susan silently beckons me out.

  She points in the direction of the front door, which isn’t visible from back here, and I nod.

  I’m starting to walk away when she pulls me into a pine-scented hug. “You can’t imagine how much we missed you,” she whispers. “You could call, you know. Our secret.”

  Even though I nod, I suspect I won’t have the guts to call. It would be too painful, for both of us.

  Chapter 9

  I’m in the darkened limo for a good twenty minutes before my former bosses come out the front door.

  To my surprise, my grandfather steps out behind them.

  Even though I’m sitting on the far side, even though it’s dark outside and the windows are tinted, I feel myself shrinking into the padded seat. My bun unwinds and my hair cascades over my shoulders.

  He looks the same… too much so. Just under six feet tall, with the same bristly mustache and thick head of chestnut hair. He was always a vain man, and I see that hasn’t changed.

  I swallow even though my mouth is dry, and my throat burns as I gag on nothing. I dive for one of the bottles of water and it dribbles onto my lap as I take a desperate sip.

  By the time I look up again, the limo driver is about to open the door.

  My grandfather is staring hard at the car.

  I pull my legs and arms in close. It’s an instinct—my grandfather can’t possibly see me. If anything, he’s trying to gauge the net worth of the men who unexpectedly showed up at his house.

  The men get into the limo, and it smoothly pulls away. Even though I’d like to turn, to watch my childhood home until it’s out of sight, I don’t want to remember it with my grandfather standing there, blocking the entrance.

  “So,” I say, and it comes out weak. “That was close.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hawthorne says. His mouth is an angry slash. “Apparently he came back early because of the bad weather. I’m truly, deeply sorry, Lindsay.”

  Hawthorne is apologizing? It almost shocks me out of my grief. “It’s not your fault,” I say. “Anyway, you guys… I appreciate…”

  Slade suddenly pulls me into his arms, and I’m surprised, but I’m grateful.

  “We’re going to take him down,” Slade says.

  Shaking my head, I say, “No. My sister…”

  “Your sister will be fine,” Hawthorne says. “She’s an adult, you know.”

  I turn my head so I can scrutinize him. “Did you see her?”

  He nods. “Briefly.”

  “And? How is she?”

  “She seems happy. Full of life.”

  My heart aches. I wonder if she grew into the stunning woman everyone thought she would. She was always the pretty one, naturally lovely.

  Slade’s arms tighten around me. “We’re going to help fix this.”

  I don’t bother telling him that he can’t fix it.

  “Talk to us, Lindsay,” Romeo says as Slade releases me.

  I cross my legs and comb my fingers through my hair. “Even if tomorrow I wake up and find out that my grandfather keeled over during the night, it won’t get me back the time I lost.”

  A swirling dark whirlpool of negativity is pulling me down. Seeing the house, my parents’ room, all that… It reminds me of the bright future I left behind. Hearing my sister’s voice, knowing that she’s an adult… I’ll never get those years back, no matter what happens next.

  Luckily, the men sense my foul humor and don’t continue prying.

  Fifteen minutes later, Romeo taps a knuckle on the tinted window. “This looks good,” he says.

  “Agreed.” Slade instructs the limo driver to pull over.

  We’re near a little park. It’s got an artificial pond with a fountain, a few picnic tables, a few barbecue pits. At regular intervals, lamps throw warm, reassuring light across the sidewalks. I don’t think I’ve been here before.

  “Good for what?” I ask.

  “To talk,” Hawthorne says. The four of us get out.

  It’s not easy to walk across the grass in my heels. I wonder how we must look, the four of us dressed for a high-powered client dinner, not a picnic.

  “Talk about what?” I ask. My attention is laser-focused on the ground as I assiduously scour the path for dog crap.

  We reach one of the picnic benches, and no one has answered my question. Of course I know I’m going to discover the answer soon, but I know what they’re up to. By controlling the pace of the questions, they’re establishing that they’re in charge.

  It’s one of the oldest negotiating tactics in the book, and I wouldn’t be worth my salt as a saleswoman if I let them get away with it.

  “Talk about what?” I repeat, louder.

  Hawthorne slides me a long glance. “About your future with our company,” he says, and I laugh because this is the last place to be talking business.

  “In case you forgot, I quit.”

  “We didn’t forget,” Romeo says. “If you’d read your contract, you’d know that you owe us two weeks’ notice before leaving the position. We talked, and we decided to count this week away as a vacation. If you wish to give notice, you’ll find the procedures in the handbook.”

  Handbook. I can’t help but sneak a glance at Hawthorne to see if he’s remembering the day he spanked me with the employee handbook, but he’s not smirking.

  In fact, he’s deadly serious, like this is the most important thing in the world.

  “We hope you won’t give notice,” Hawthorne says. “We’d like you to stay.”

  “But my grandfather—”

  “Your grandfather will be dealt with,” Slade says. He motions to the wooden table. “Please have a seat.”

  Rather than sit on the benches, I perch on top of the table itself; I’m showing that I’m being reasonable, but there’s no point in letting the men loom over me more than necessary.

  So long as this encounter doesn’t go beyond Sales 101, I’ll be fine.

  “Things aren’t the same,” I say. “My grandfather could have me picked up on the way in or out of work. He’ll track me to my apartment. It will only be a matter of time until he gets me. I appreciate your taking the effort to—”

  “We’re going to make sure it’s safe for you,” Romeo says.

  The wind blows, and I shiver. I can’t help folding my arms around myself, and I pretend I’m just cold, not uncomfortable.

  But that doesn’t explain why I’m leaning forward, why I want to pull my knees toward my chest.

  Slade takes off his jacket and drapes it around my shou
lders. His woodsy scent drifts over me, and I let the warmth of the garment heat my skin.

  “You told us a lot about you,” Romeo says in that irresistible, rumbling voice of his. “We appreciate that. We think there are some things you need to know about us.”

  I look up at him and wonder if he’s going to tell me the reason his sister needed to come stay with him, or why Hawthorne once said that Romeo had a rough year.

  “We’re dominant, as you know,” he says. His brown eyes are dark and mysterious, and I find myself trapped in his gaze.

  “I noticed,” I say, and it’s supposed to be funny but comes out very serious.

  “And you’re submissive,” he says.

  “I’m not.” I sit a little straighter.

  “In the bedroom, you are,” Hawthorne says. “Being submissive doesn’t mean being a doormat. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy in bed or that you have low self-esteem.”

  “Who said it did?” I ask, irked.

  Slade holds up a hand. “Let’s stay on topic,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re submissive or not. We’re dominant. That’s a fact. We have good chemistry with you—also a fact.”

  He pauses, giving me time to admit or deny it. My cheeks burn. I could tell them I’m not submissive, but then they’d want to know why I’ve been acting like it.

  It’s a good question, but I don’t have the answer.

  “As dominants, we see an opportunity here,” Romeo says. “You have significant trust issues, and I think—we think—that we have a way to help you with them.”

  “Maybe I don’t want help,” I say, though there isn’t as much bite to my words as I’d like.

  “Perhaps you don’t,” Hawthorne says. “But you need it. Let us give you the help you need.”

  That makes me go quiet. What he said reminds me of his text about the money. You won’t accept the help you need, so there’s the help you want. I have it memorized; it was the last contact I had from the men after I left.

  “What’s your proposal?” I ask.

  “You never had to earn trust,” Romeo says. “You don’t believe in it. To you, it’s magical, mythical. You think trust is for suckers, for the weak. You need to learn how to depend on someone other than yourself.”