Scandal in Seattle (Great Exploitations #2)(10)
Author: Nicole Williams

“Good. That means I don’t have to play gentle.” Grabbing my br**sts with both hands, he moved inside of me. That was my cue to go somewhere else. I knew Ian wouldn’t take long, a minute or two max, but I didn’t want to be present for those one or two minutes. A one-minute memory of Ian Hendrik rutting against me was enough to cause some serious psychological damage.

Right before I went to my “happy place,” I lifted my hand to the side and raised my middle finger. Stupid Contacts. My job would be twice as easy if not for the incompetent people I dealt with along the way.

Thankfully, my mind didn’t escape to Henry. Thankfully, that time, it wasn’t his body I felt moving against mine. Thankfully, it wasn’t the memory of the things he’d do and say when we’d made love that flashed into my head. I knew to be thankful for those things, but it was difficult to feel genuinely thankful for some reason.

I guessed it was a reason I didn’t want to dive too deeply into.

When Ian shuddered in what I guessed was closer to the minute mark, I almost shoved him off of me. As far as my part went, the Errand was done. I’d closed it successfully, and he was one Target I couldn’t wait to put as much space between us as possible. Ian Hendrik was one of the reasons God should never have created man in the whole creation-of-the-earth thing. Talk about a bad idea.

“So? How was it?” Ian smiled stupidly, breathing like he’d just run a marathon. “Pretty damn fantastic, right?”

I’d already adjusted my dress and was back into the heel I’d taken off. “You really are quite the man, Ian.”

His expression went smug. “Did I rock your world or what?”

I don’t know what it was, maybe because he was still standing buck nak*d in the middle of a race track with a stupid grin on his face, or maybe it was because he thought sixty seconds of pumping was enough to rock a girl’s world, but I almost laughed. Laughter came so close to slipping out, but I bit it back just in time.

“Not as much as I’ve rocked yours, Ian.” Flashing him a wink, I slid into the Acura, fired it up, and sped past Ian Hendrik with his pants still around his ankles.

The Sweet

THANKS TO IAN Hendrik, the one-minute-to-blast-off lover, I arrived at SEA-TAC with plenty of time to spare. I parked the Acura, said goodbye to it, and was about to pat the hood when I thought the better of it. That hood had seen plenty of action; no need for any more. I didn’t know who or how our cars for each Errand were delivered and returned, but it wasn’t my concern. G took care of it, and as long as she kept sending sweet, fast cars my way, I wouldn’t complain.

Once I’d texted the V for victory to both G and Mrs. Hendrik, I disposed of the phones as I’d been taught, grabbed a quick victory shot of cheap tequila in the airport bar, and boarded the ten o’clock to San Francisco. My first class seat felt especially deserved after who I’d put up with on that Errand, and the plane hadn’t left the tarmac before I was asleep.

Henry had worked his way back into my dreams again, and even in my dream state, I knew that was a bad thing.

It was a few weeks after our “official” meeting, and we’d become known as the lab partners to beat. Before I’d partnered up with him, I wouldn’t have believed he had any weaknesses when it came to programming, but Henry’s weaknesses were my strengths and his strengths were my weaknesses. We were the IT dream team.

But that didn’t stop everyone from saying behind our backs—and a few to my face—that the only reason we were at the top of the class was because Henry was pulling all the weight. Of course, there were also the rumors that came along with just about any kind of male and female partnership. Depending on the day, I was either screwing Henry as payment for being my partner, or I was a lesbian who’d slept my way through California. I hated automatically being viewed as a man-screwer on my way to the top, or a female one. Holy epiphany, I sure couldn’t be a straight, hardworking woman who planned to be successful in my career.

And look at me now. Screwing men as a career. Irony, if you’re listening, eat shit and die.

Enough with the ironies; back to the dream. I was working as a computer lab assistant in a work study program since I hadn’t come from a family who’d paid for my entire college education before I was out of diapers. Just like any other day, I was taking my fair share of harassment from the future country club flies. Some days it was nothing more than a vulgar sketch dropped in my lap, and some days it wasn’t so tame. Like that day.

Baron VonStraub—yes, there were actually pricks who named their kids that—was one of the worst offenders. He’d search me out to make my life even more miserable than it was. My guess was that his karma from a former life had given him a misshaped, minuscule dick. Plus he had to go through life with the name Baron. Mostly, he was just a Grade A dickhole.

His comments that day had included something along the lines of informing me if I was still undecided about the kind of “equipment” I liked, he’d be happy to give me the full run-down of his equipment. He said he’d meet me in the women’s bathroom in five because he’d heard I’d spent as much time on my knees in there as I had in class.

Several times that year, I’d come close to punching Baron in the throat. That time, I came the closest. The longer he laughed, even elbowing a couple of his buddies who were laughing just as hard, the more my fists balled at my sides.

Baron VonStraub was about two seconds from being knocked out when in came Henry. The instant he saw me, he grinned and headed my way. Henry and Baron were good friends, but I swore he never noticed Baron two feet to the side when he approached. He didn’t even notice when Baron lifted his hand and said something genius to the effect of What’s up? or My man.

Henry didn’t stop until he was one step in front of me. I remember I’d tried to act busy, or like I wasn’t flustered having him so close and grinning at me that way, but I hadn’t been very convincing. Without so much as a hello, he told me he’d like to ask me out and asked me if I’d like him to ask me out. Looking back, what he’d said wasn’t nearly as confusing as it had seemed.

After a few moments of proverbial open-mouth shock, Baron said something to Henry about being desperate for a low-rent piece of ass. With his expression perfectly flat, Henry had replied with something about how teasing girls he liked became socially unacceptable after sixth grade. He’d capped it with Grow up and get lost until you do. Baron promptly did. The get lost part, at least.

Returning his attention to me, Henry had lifted a brow and waited. I stared at him for another minute, trying not to be fazed by his handsome face or the fact that Henry Callahan appealed to me in so many ways I’d almost become a believer in soul mates. And I was looking at him.

Finally, I was able to give him an answer.

It was no.

Henry walked away that day with his shoulders an inch lower, and him walking away that way broke a tiny piece of my heart. That’s what I used to remind myself why I needed to say no to the Henry Callahans of the world. We hadn’t even been involved yet, and my heart was already breaking. I averted one major heartbreak that day.

Henry didn’t stop asking though and, as we all know the tragic end to the story, I eventually said yes. Falling in love with Henry Callahan was the single most easy and natural thing I’d ever done. In true ying-yang fashion, falling out of love with him was the utter and total opposite.

AFTER WAKING UP from my latest Henry nightmare, I was done with sleeping on planes. I wasn’t sure if it was the planes, or having him thrust back into my life, or what, but I’d rather run on caffeine and no sleep than dream about Henry.

By the time I’d practically crawled off of the plane, stumbled around the parking garage until I found the Mustang, and made it back to the condo without wrapping the car around a street lamp, it was almost two in the morning. I fought sleep off for as long as I could, but I lost the battle thirty seconds later and fell asleep face down and fully clothed.

When the alarm on my phone blasted me awake a few short hours later, I was relieved I hadn’t dreamed about Henry again. That relief was short-lived when I realized I had to get up and ready to go see the real one. He was supposed to be back sometime that day, and given the urgency of beating some other girl to the philandering-punch, G wanted me outside his office door thirty seconds before the start of business.

G didn’t believe in leaving anything to chance. If Mrs. Callahan really had contacted other agencies like ours, G wouldn’t be satisfied until we’d shouldered, shoved, and squashed them out of the way. It was our Ten. That wasn’t an Errand to lose to a competitor.

After hopping out of the shower, I pulled a form-hugging pencil skirt and a wrap silk blouse from the closet. That Errand wasn’t all about cocktail dresses and cl**vage. At least not during business hours. Henry believed I was contracting for an IT company. He’d expect to see me in business professional during the day. In Eve language, business professional meant feminine clothing that showed off those feminine curves. Less skin, but not less sexy. It was a fine line, like so much in the business, but one I’d learned to walk.

When the rest of me was ready, I gave myself the standard once-over before heading out. Sultry, not slutty. Just what I’d been going for. Henry was one of the few men I’d ever come in contact with who actually liked a woman dressed in leave-something-to-the-imagination clothes. Most guys didn’t want to use their imaginations; they wanted to see, feel, and do the real thing. That’s what had sent their wives in search of us in the first place. But Henry . . . he was different.

I gave my head a swift shake as I slid into the Mustang. Let me rephrase: but Henry . . . he had been different.

It turned out he wasn’t so different after all.

Callahan Concepts was a short drive from the condo. Of course, G had selected the condo based on its proximity to Henry’s office and his house. Nothing was random. Nothing was a coincidence. Not in our business.

From what I’d read in Henry’s file, Callahan Concepts had started out in the one thousand square foot apartment he and I had lived in during college—started after I’d moved out. He’d expanded into renting an office in an old building, then into renting an entire floor of one of the newer buildings, and finally to a private mini-campus. Several new, gleaming buildings were staggered around a meticulously kept courtyard where dozens of employees were barefoot and plugging away on their laptops. A couple of espresso bars dotted the courtyard. Employees could just walk up and order what they wanted. Free of charge. A string of valets parked employee and guest cars. There was a Laundromat, a full-sized gym, a food court, a massage room . . . It was its own little world.

As I walked through the courtyard toward the main building, I couldn’t help but compare what Henry had done over those past five years to what I’d done with mine. He’d created an empire that employed hundreds of happy and well taken care of employees. He started a business from the ground up and turned it into that. He created. Me, on the other hand? I decimated. I took things and tore them apart. What I tore apart might have only been hanging on by a thread, but something about walking around the place that Henry had to show for his efforts made me think about what I had to show for mine.