Beyond that muted flare of panic, Jay was too drunk to fully pay her alarm heed. The danger, like the wine, was too seductive. She wanted Nicholas rattled, wanted to make him feel something close to the way she did. It was only fair, when he’d kept her off-balance for nearly nine years.
The ceiling began to spin and she leaned back, setting the phone beside her. The phantom scent of citrus filled with the back of her throat and she sighed, closing her eyes, relaxing for the first time all night as she surrendered at last to her intoxicated stupor.
“Nick . . .” she mumbled. “Daddy . . . please . . .”
By the time her message finally went to read and her ringtone began to chime, she was already passed out cold.
???????
The fucking wine had given him a headache.
Nicholas dumped the bottle out in the dirty sink while the bread toasted. Jay’s cat wailed from her room upstairs and he growled under his breath as he slathered butter over the bread and doused it in sprinkles before cramming it into his mouth. As he walked up the stairs to feed the fucking thing, he wondered if the butter he’d used was starting to go off.
The cat was waiting for him. As he nudged it out of the way with his foot, it rubbed against his leg ingratiatingly. He leaneddown and scratched it above its tail, the way he’d seen Jay do so many times. It purred, ears flexing as it peered up at him like it wanted something.
Nicholas had a pretty good idea what that something was.
“You know,” he told it. “I always wanted a dog.”
The cat blinked.
Leaving the creature to its meal, he went to his own room to change, buttoning himself into one of his work shirts and a tie he selected blindly from a drawer. After stepping into a pair of pressed pants, he fastened his Bulgari watch around his wrist and picked up his phone to check the time, realizing as soon as he did how fucking inane that was.
Because you see it as a status symbol, he could imagine Jay saying.Not a timepiece.
This town was all about appearances. It was why Michael was being paid out in installments instead of a lump sum. It was why he had a PI on his payroll to look into anyone who caused him grief. It was why Jay wouldn’t touch him where anyone could see.
She thought he saw her as a status symbol, too.
The morning dragged. It usually did but normally he got a modicum of satisfaction from telling old colleagues of his father “no.” He didn’t imagine they heardnovery often, and the frustration on their faces when they saw how they couldn’t change his mind, even if they begged, always gave him a bit of a high.
Not today, though. As they filed out in the fancy suits picked out by their mistresses and wives, trying to hide their disappointment in an attempt to save face, he felt absolutely nothing.
Annica shut her laptop and hovered until he motioned for her to precede him. She had done nothing wrong but he was still annoyed with her. The terse responses and general hesitation to do anything but what she had been explicitly asked didn’t help.
“She’s like a fucking automaton,” he’d told Jay once. They had been eating dinner, and the talk had shifted, naturally, to work. “She doesn’t do anything that isn’t already in her programming.”
Jay had gotten a funny look on her face and told him that wasn’t very nice.
Is that what you like?he wondered grimly.Nice?
Then why do you like it when I fuck you so hard that you cry?
He raised his coffee cup to his lips and then lowered it in disgust when he realized it was empty. Arthur might be fine with his employees talking back to him, but he wasn’t.
He was getting tired of Annica’s bad attitude.
As if she had radar built into her mousy head, a ping popped up on his screen.
Mr. Beaucroft? Can we talk?
Nicholas eyed the chat log. Maybe she was quitting. God, he hoped so.
Yes, I’ll reserve a room.
Glad for the distraction, he clicked over to reserve a room. It was a shame that he’d have to hire a new secretary. HR would be all over his ass to make sure he hadn’t done anything to this one—and wouldn’t that be fun? With such short notice, they wouldn’t have time to backfill the position right away. Jay would have to split the difference and pick up some of the slack.
He missed the disapproving glares she’d level his waywhenever he worked someone over a little too hard. Which he did, often—he had enjoyed showing off for her, and seeing her respond to the way he flexed his control. She may have looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth in those fitted skirts and pretty collared blouses, but she always had her legs crossed in their meetings.
