The Dangerous Seduction Page 2

  She sighs and makes a move to get to her feet, signaling that the meeting’s over. “Well, like I said, I’m going to be sad to see you go.”

  “Thanks, thanks, me too.”

  She holds out her hand over the table. He scrambles to his feet and takes it, feeling her warm, dry fingers curl around his own. She smiles at him, and it’s almost genuine, save for the piercing look in her eyes as their gazes meet. He nods at her and smiles his best smile, the one that Daisy says brings out the dimples in his cheeks, not that any effort at charm has ever had much effect on Elaine.

  She tugs her hand away and moves to gather up her files and phone. At the door she pauses and turns to look at him over one shoulder. “Ryan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Just… be careful. Joseph Van Aardt will expect a lot from you. And I’m not saying that you can’t handle it, but still.” She hesitates, and he’s surprised to see something like concern on her face. It’s not an expression that he’s used to seeing on her. She’s a tough old broad, not someone who gets close to people. She keeps everything strictly professional, always. “You’re a good boy at heart, Ryan. Just remember that you have friends here. We could always use people like you on the team.”

  “Okay, thanks,” he says, unsure what to make of it and slightly annoyed by her thinly veiled insinuation that he’s going to inevitably crash and burn. “I really appreciate that, Elaine.”

  She gives him one final thin smile before she leaves the room.

  THE WELCOME wagon on his first day at Chase Mackey Van Aardt consists of the impressively dressed and impressively named Estelle Levereux. She’s super-model tall and glamorous, with beautiful dark skin and equally beautiful hair twisted up into a high ponytail that cascades halfway down her back. She looks like a younger, less scary version of Naomi Campbell, and she greets him with a warm smile and imposing efficiency as she glides around the office pointing out places of interest. She introduces herself as Joseph Van Aardt’s assistant and she looks and acts exactly as Ryan would’ve expected Joseph Van Aardt’s assistant to look and act.

  The tour is brief: bathrooms, powder rooms, kitchen, coffee and vending machines, copy room, meeting rooms, videoconference and telepresence rooms, ending in a large, open-plan area surrounded by several small identical offices and one much larger office in the far corner. Around him, employees are working at their desks, phones humming and keyboards clattering. A harassed assistant is clearing a jam in the nearest printer, swearing under her breath as she kicks the feeder tray closed. Several people look up from their computer screens and eye him disinterestedly before returning to their work.

  “So, this is us. Every member of Joseph’s team is based on this side of the building,” Estelle says. “Associates in the offices.” She gestures at the row of identical small offices lining one side of the room. “Joseph’s office is in the corner, and that’s my station, right outside.” She points across the room to the far corner office. It’s about the size of eight of the other offices put together, though Ryan guesses that when your name’s in the lobby and in the press as regularly as Joseph Van Aardt’s, you can have an office as big as you damn well please.

  “If you have any questions just shout, though I don’t promise I’ll have time to answer them,” she says with another disarming smile. “Oh, and finally—” She takes a couple of paces forward, coming to a halt outside one of the small offices, which has a nameplate that reads: RYAN PAULLSON “—this is you.”

  “Wow, you even spelled it right,” he says. “Not many people remember the extra L.”

  “Of course. I know how that goes; you should see what people do to my name.” She steps inside the office to point out the laptop computer and work station. There’s already a thick pile of files and another separate pile of forms on the desk. “I see someone’s already given you work to start you off. We’re never short of work here,” she says with a sympathetic smile. There’s a note pinned to the first file. “Oh, that’s Paul’s writing. He’s one of our senior associates. I’m sure he’ll be along at some point this morning to talk you through what he wants you to do. The way we work here is that junior associates, like you, will usually work for one of our seniors, who will then report directly to Joseph.”

  “Oh, will I not get to work with Mr. Van Aardt directly, then?” he asks, unable to stop the disappointment from entering into his voice.

  She gives him an assessing look before saying, “Call him Joseph. He’s not big on formality.”

  “Oh, right, yes, Joseph. Of course.”

  She turns back to the pile of forms on his desk, leafing through them with the help of her seriously long nails. “Let me see, yes, these are HR forms, please fill them all in. Someone from HR will be by to talk to you also sometime this morning. And these are your log-on details for you to get onto the network.” She pulls out one sheet of paper and hands it to him. “Memorize them.”

  “Thanks,” he says, taking the paper from her.

  “Okay, I think you’re all set. You’ll have to excuse me now but Mondays are always crazy and you wouldn’t believe my to-do list this morning.” She spins on her three-inch heels, then pauses, turning around to give him an appraising look. “Listen, you seem like a nice person, Ryan, so I’ll give you some advice for free. Joseph has high expectations of all his team and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. The way we work here, well, let’s say that it doesn’t suit everybody. If you figure out it’s not for you, then you should leave sooner rather than later. No one will think badly of you for it.”

  “Oh, right. Well, thanks for the advice,” he says.

  She nods and with one final flash of brilliant-white teeth, she turns and glides back across the room to the enormous corner office like she’s on a runway.

  He glances at the name on the door again, allowing himself a brief smile. He’s not planning on going anywhere. Other people might figure out they can’t take the pressure of working for Joseph Van Aardt, but he’s planning on sticking around long enough to get himself an office just as big as the one in the corner.

  He sinks down into his desk chair and pulls the stack of files toward him, eyes running over the scribbled Post-it on top. At least he knows where he is with work.

  The senior team goes into a meeting at 10:00 a.m. in the conference room. Halfway through the meeting, Ryan walks past with a cup of coffee and hears the sound of raised voices. He doesn’t investigate further, but an hour later he sees a tall dark-haired guy leave the office with a shell-shocked expression on his face and a box of what looks to be personal items in his arms.

  Paul comes by a couple of hours later and is pleasantly surprised to find Ryan already well into the work he left him.

  “This is great,” Paul says, reading through the synopsis he’s been preparing. “Definitely gives Emily a run for the money.”

  “Who?” Ryan asks.

  Paul waves a hand at the nameplate on the door. “Emily. She had this office before you. Intelligent girl but with an unfortunate case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Joseph canned her about a week ago. I have to admit I was sad to see her go; she was a workhorse.”

  “Oh,” he says, not sure what he’s supposed to say to that.

  Paul chuckles. He’s an older guy, late forties, early fifties. He’s well put together and has a sharp, angular face that gives him the look of a New England professor.

  “Keep doing stuff like this”—he waves the printoff in the air—“and nobody will even remember Emily’s name.”

  “Okay.” Ryan hesitates. “Um, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but do people come and go a lot here? Estelle said something and there was this guy earlier—”

  “Gerry,” Paul interrupts. “He was, until this morning, Joseph’s PR guy, but he fucked up pretty bad. Did you see that interview with McNeil in the Post yesterday? That’s exactly the sort of publicity we could do without. Makes the clients start wondering how hard we’re working for our fees. And even worse for Gerry, it makes them pick
up the phone and start demanding explanations. One thing Joseph really doesn’t like is explaining himself to clients. Gerry should’ve been all over that, or at least he should’ve given us a heads-up. As you can imagine, Joseph wasn’t pleased with poor old Gerry.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Ryan says.

  Paul gives him a shrewd look. “You’ve probably heard this before, but Joseph doesn’t give second chances very often. And he always knows what’s going on here. If you do fuck up then come clean, ’cause if he finds out you’re ass-covering then that’s worse than fucking up in the first place.” He taps his knuckles against the open door. “Thanks for this again. I’ll send over my paralegal in an hour or so with another box of files. If you could take a look through them when you’ve got time, that would be an enormous help.”

  Ryan nods weakly, glancing down at the huge pile of papers already covering every inch of desk space. “Yeah, sure,” he starts to say, but Paul is already walking out the door.

  THE NEXT few days are some of the busiest Ryan has ever experienced in his life, and he’s no stranger to being busy. Every time he finishes something, another heap of files appears on his desk or an innocuous e-mail from Paul appears in his in-box with the words: Ryan, could you just… and it’s another half day gone.

  Still, he’s gotten through the week, and he decides to join a group of his coworkers at the bar two blocks down to celebrate still being upright by Friday evening. They toast him and give him drinks and congratulate him on getting through the first week.

  “You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t make it that far,” Paul says, and Ryan can see by his expression that the guy really isn’t joking. “But I got a good feeling about you, Ryan.” He raises his glass and clinks it against Ryan’s own. “Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be dandy.”

  “Thanks,” Ryan says. Paul smirks, elbows him in the side, and moves away, tossing down his whisky and then demanding another.

  Ryan leaves as soon as is politely possible. It’s been a long week and he wants to see Daisy again. She’s cooking something in the kitchen when he gets back, and she greets him with a beaming smile, saying, “Didn’t think I’d see you back so early! How was it?”

  He groans and slides forward to tug her into an embrace. She laughs and stops chopping garlic, dropping her knife onto the counter. He buries his face in her thick, dark hair and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

  “Man, I am beat,” he says. “I want to sleep the entire weekend. Can I do that?”

  She laughs again and pats his hands where they’re entwined around her middle. “Just stay awake for a little while, hon, I’m making enchiladas.”

  He groans again and kisses her cheek. “It’s a deal.”

  They eat with their dinners on their laps. Afterward, he crowds her back into the sofa and kisses the taste of garlic and burnt cheese from her mouth. She slides her hand over his tented crotch and flicks open his fly, her long, slim fingers caressing up and down his rapidly stiffening cock.

  He fucks her there in the living room with their dirty plates piled up on the coffee table and the TV on in the background. It’s familiar and sweet and it feels like coming home—it is coming home. Afterward, he falls asleep with his head in her lap and her fingers carding through his hair.

  THE FOLLOWING Tuesday evening, Estelle summons him to Joseph’s office. He puts on his jacket and checks his reflection in the darkened window of his office. He smoothes down his hair—it’s borne the brunt of his long, hard day and is looking particularly unruly and fly-away right now—and fiddles with his cufflinks as he walks across the office to Estelle’s workstation. She’s on the phone and raises one imperious finger to him, indicating for him to wait as she finishes up.

  She puts the phone down and says, “Go on in. He’s waiting for you.”

  He nods, giving her a halfhearted smile, and enters Van Aardt’s private office. It’s big, but not as fancy as he was expecting, not that he’s sure exactly what he was expecting. Maybe some art on the walls that he might recognize, maybe some first editions or fancy-ass furniture, just something that says, “I’m rich and powerful and impressive.” There’s nothing like that here. This office is boringly normal. There’s a dark-brown leather couch and matching armchair, with a coffee table in one corner; a fancy coffee machine sitting next to the table that looks well used; and the aroma of coffee lingering in the air. There’s a conference table in the middle of the room and a video screen built into one of the walls for conferencing. The desk is in the corner and it’s huge, holding both a laptop and desktop computer, every inch of space covered in files, Post-its, law journals, and newspapers. There are no personal photographs on display.

  “Ryan, take a seat,” Joseph says, waving at the chair opposite his desk. Ryan sits down and waits for Joseph to speak again. Joseph reclines in his chair and watches him for what feels like a long time. “I’m being interviewed on The Liza Show tomorrow afternoon. It’s a last-minute thing, trying to clear up all of this mess.” He picks up the newspaper on the desk in front of him and tosses it to Ryan. It’s open on the interview with Jack McNeil, and McNeil’s photograph grins genially up at Ryan in black and white. “I need to have something big to hit them with, and I want you to find it for me.”

  Ryan’s stomach flips over. How the hell is he supposed to find something? He hasn’t even worked on the McNeil case so far. Of course he knows about it; he researched it before he even interviewed for the job. He read up on the outcome of the government case, read the arguments McNeil’s attorneys were putting forward and the counter-arguments made by his ex-employees. He’s studied the case as much as he can, and even without being directly involved, he’s been able to keep track of things in the office. It’s the biggest case they’ve got on at the moment; it’s hard not to be aware of what’s going on.

  Joseph is regarding him expectantly, waiting for him to answer, so he nods. “Okay, yeah. But I haven’t been working on the McNeil case so far; does this mean that I’ll be moved onto it now?”

  “I want you to do this in addition to whatever Paul’s got you doing,” Joseph says. “I’ve seen the work you’ve been producing for Paul. I know you’re capable of this. Now don’t let me down.”

  It’s a dismissal and Ryan gets to his feet, trying to work out just when he’s going to have time to sleep and eat if he’s supposed to be doing this special project for Joseph Van Aardt as well as all the crap he’s still got to finish for Paul.

  “Ryan.” Joseph leans over the desk and picks up the newspaper with McNeil’s photograph on it and holds it out to Ryan. “Take this with you. I’m sick of looking at it.” The corner of his mouth twists into a grim smile and he nods as Ryan takes the newspaper from him. “Bring me whatever you’ve got by ten tomorrow.”

  IN THE end, Ryan works through the night. He’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to be doing; after all, the brief had been… well, brief. Joseph wants something big, something he can use to fight back against McNeil’s recent media onslaught, therefore complex legal arguments and legal technicalities are not going to cut it. That sort of stuff would be okay for their court documents, but your average Liza Show viewer needs to know in plain terms who they’re supposed to be rooting for.

  McNeil hadn’t been easy on his ex-employees in the Post interview. He’d painted them as ungrateful and selfish, deluded by slick, fast-talking, Manhattan lawyers like Joseph Van Aardt, who’d never done an honest day’s work in his life. McNeil insisted that he’d already been vindicated by winning the government case and was now just being victimized by the left-wing press. He provided jobs for honest, hardworking people. Of course he made enemies and of course he understood how his ex-employees might bear a grudge against him after losing their jobs when he was forced to shut down that branch of his company. But that was what happened in business, it was the reality of capitalism.

  If the plaintiffs win this new lawsuit and if McNeil is forced to give them the millions of d
ollars in damages they’re screaming for, then that could spell the end for the entire McNeil Industries Group. The factories in Texas, New York State, and Virginia could go under, and all those honest, hardworking people would lose their jobs.

  Ryan sighs painfully as he reads through the interview. They have to counter these arguments, convince people that Joseph isn’t just another smooth, fast-talking lawyer out for his own percentage, but someone who’s fighting for the rights of the little guy.

  Admittedly, quite a few of their fifty-two clients used to be senior execs at McNeil Industries before it imploded, but there are also secretaries and account assistants and receptionists involved in the suit, and they’ve all lost everything: not just their jobs but also their 401(k)s. Many heeded McNeil’s plea to invest more in the company, believing his fancy promises of McNeil Industries flourishing with the extra cash and bigger market share that would inevitably follow. Of course, a month later the share price plummeted and those same people saw their future security wash away. Their children aren’t going to college; they can’t afford to retire any time soon. And McNeil is the one to blame.

  He hits pay dirt on a local Dallas website that covers the comings and goings of high-society Texans. He grins, muttering “Yahtzee!” under his breath when its front page yields a huge photograph of Mrs. Colleen McNeil, wife of Jack McNeil, coming out of a high-end designer store in downtown Dallas laden with bags and parcels from other high-end fashion stores. The article accompanying the picture helpfully points out her Alexander McQueen dress, Burberry boots, Chanel sunglasses, and Gucci handbag. He gleefully adds the link to the e-mail to Joseph and presses send.

  It’s just after 5:00 a.m. by the time he’s finally done, and he heads downstairs to the basement to use the showers attached to the building’s gym.