I knew I had to say something – just standing there with my jaw on the floor and my heart in my mouth wasn’t the best impression to be leaving anybody with – and from the corner of my eye, I could see Sue looking at me a little more than confused.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
With London’s skyline as his frame – his body encased in a sleek dark tailored suit with a pale blue shirt that matched his eyes perfectly – feet crossed at the ankles as he smirked over at me, he looked almost like a king.
Power emanated from his features – lips twisted into a sardonic smile and his eyes never once left mine – that ice blue boring right into me.
“Good morning, Mr. Gates,” I replied breathlessly, deciding not to go with the oh fuck why is this happening to me line that was running through my head like an autocue.
He cocked his head to the side, amusement dancing in his eyes, which only served to rile me further, to be honest. I don’t know what it is about this man that has every response becoming so much more defined and prominent in his presence – physically and emotionally, I was battling him – I always am.
“Sue here has been telling me what an asset you’ll be,” he murmured, “For the company.”
I didn’t miss the hitch in that sentence – the innuendo he was cloaking from his Head of PR.
“I most certainly hope so,” I knew he could hear the faint twinge of nervousness in my voice – as well as the sarcastic bite in response to his double meaning – and my eyes flicker over to Sue for a little ... support or something, I think.
I needed her to speak out – take control of the situation – leaving my role in this conversation as no more than a puppet – nodding blindly along with every word she said. But, of course, nobody takes the control away from Mr. Cayden Gates – hadn’t I realised that by this point?
“Sue,” he started briskly – turning his entire attention to the other woman, “Ask Tiffany to clear my morning schedule – I’d like to properly discuss the company Mission Statements and specific proposals with Miss Garrett.”
My eyes darted back to his calculating face nervously. This couldn’t be a good sign.
Why the hell did this have to be happening to me at all?
Fucking Ryan!
My mind wandered briefly to his odd reaction in the cafe this morning – could this be what he’d meant? Had he known Cayden was to be my boss? He could have fucking warned me rather than just spouting out random nonsense!
Sue looked over to me with a confused but genuinely encouraging smile – no doubt wondering why Mr. Gates himself would be initiating me into the company. With a quick, and efficient nod, she was gone.
And I was once alone with Cayden Gates.
The world’s sexiest jigsaw.
“Take a seat, Runaway,” he muttered, with a chuckle, taking off his jacket as he stood, and hanging it neatly in one of the cupboards built into the walls – I spotted a few other shirts in there – and blankets – maybe seducing the payroll wasn’t an entirely new idea to him.
Maybe CJ Industries was just a decadent harem for him to dally in while other people ran his multimillion pound corporation for him.
Although I really didn’t see how this business could have evolved into what it was without some hard work somewhere along the line. I’d read up on my new company countless times – CJ Industries started in the late 2000’s. Originally a single nightclub called Scruples in the centre of London – previously owned by Frankie Fish in the late ‘90’s, it hadn’t had a fabulous reputation – dubbed as the local hangout for Outlaws and Thieves on The Take. The rumour mill went wild in the Autumn of 1999, after Frankie Fish ended up apparently losing everything in a bad Roulette gamble that went horribly wrong, just weeks before his brutal death at the alleged hands of Jonny Hayes in one of the seedier bars on the East Side of London. Once Scruples was taken over by a mysterious new management, there was complete overhaul – and development. One club became four, and then a Casino, a Gentleman’s Club, Restaurants – eventually, the mysterious new ownership was revealed to be CJ Industries – the new leading corporation in entertainment and leisure activities in the country. Named for its founder – Cayden James.
What I wondered is why not one single scrap of research that I’d put myself through for the past fortnight had mentioned his full name - well, after the most pertinent questions, obviously. Like why does God hate me? How bad must I have been in a former life for this to be happening to me?
I blame my Mother, personally. The selfish bitch never thought to have me christened. Now look at me.
Thinking quickly, I had to decide how to handle this in the best way – the dynamics were all shifting beneath my feet like I was in one of those Funhouse walks – where all of the pieces move at different angles and you’re having to hop from one to the other like a deranged rabbit.
I never did like that fucking game!
But I had nowhere to go with him – he was so unreadable that I was struggling to gage a mood and work out my best line of defence.
I’d seen so many emotions race through his eyes since I’d walked through the door – anger, amusement, irony – but, in all honesty, I couldn’t pin point any single one to work out how to handle myself.
He’d disarmed me, completely, and judging by that arrogant pose as he sat back down opposite me – lacing his fingers at the nape of his neck, and carelessly crossing one ankle over the other as he reclined in the seat – yeah, he knew right then and there that I was basically a mouse at the cheese, with a metal guillotine hanging over my head.
“This is a happy coincidence,” he drawled out mockingly, before a burst of pent up energy had him kicking forwards to pin his sharp elbows on the desk and stare at me appraisingly – taking his time – dragging out the torture as he twirled a Parker pen around and around in his fingers, “Doubtless, probably not so much for you.”
I looked away – up at the expensive light fixtures above his head – out of the window at the Metropolitan movements of London – so new and exciting – so alien to what I could feel rising up inside me right then.
I didn’t think I’d be able to do this – to work with this man – this intoxicating man – that seemed to steal all my inhibitions in a snap of his fingers. I could feel tears of frustration starting to rise in my throat at his arrogant tone, and I was struggling to beat them away quietly – not really understanding how I could have fucked up the career of my dreams – my one shot – before I even walked through the door of this expensive building at nine o’ clock this morning.
He’d never believe that the Jodie Garrett that he met Saturday night, and the one sat in front of him now – we were barely the same person. I’d been living a life that wasn’t mine – taken a temptation that wasn’t meant for me – and I’d ran with it.
I hadn’t wanted to wake up next to him, because I didn’t want to see the dismissal in his eyes. That heat he’d flared up inside me – the passion in his eyes – even cold as they were – when they looked at me. What was so wrong in wanting to savour that?
“So, will you be explaining the Houdini act? Or do I need to put two and two together since I saw Blondie kiss you a fond farewell this morning over sugared treats?”
I couldn’t bring myself to regret what had happened – I think that was the worst thing – somehow, despite it all, I wouldn’t trade those memories – where I felt somehow vibrantly alive beneath him. I’m not a fool, I doubt he had those same feelings of connection and unity that I did – for him, I was one in a long line that happened to bruise his ego on her way out of it is all.
But then and there, I was completely adrift.
Because it’s all well and good to tell yourself that your souls became entwined in the depths of twilight – that you were working on dark, forbidden impulses that brought you joy and ecstasy and all the rest of that fairy tale, romance novel bullshit, but the reality was that I’d had amazing sex with a man I didn’t know. And meeting him in the real world was like stripping naked for a stranger.
All over again.
“I really don’t see that my personal life will have any reflection on the work that I can do here, Mr. Gates,” I started nervously, wringing my hands together in my lap. I decided the professional approach was my safest option, because short of turning into a sobbing, tear-stained wreckage and laying out on the desk as though this was my therapist’s office and spilling my entire sexual history, I couldn’t think of any other way to go with my response.
This situation was entirely new to me.
Pure steel flashed in his eyes – his fists clenching around the fancy fountain pen he’d been toying with.
“You can say that to me now?” his teeth were clenching around his words – his jaw hard and square as the lean muscle around it twitched.
My breathing hitched at the intensity of his voice.
“I ...”
“Before you say another word,” he groaned out quietly – fist still clenched on the desk, as he ran the palm of his hand through his unruly hair and beat his head against the back of the chair, “Stop with the masks – just for a minute – it’s like talking to Mary fucking Poppins.”
“Mary Poppins?” my lips twitched in response as I tried to pull back from the giggle that was threatening to erupt – I’ve never heard that particular description of myself before, and I think my therapist would probably have some observations about his perspective of the popular Disney character if I’m honest...
“Yes,” he grated out, before the tension left his body almost immediately in a throaty chuckle as he rolled his head against the high back of the chair and looked over at me with a gleam in his eyes, “Of course, you’re much fitter than Julie Andrews, but you get what I’m saying ...”
I sensed this lapse in the game, I didn’t know the rules, granted, didn’t have a clue about strategy or manoeuvres, but I had to roll with what I’d been given so far. I had to take this as my first challenge – had to show him a piece of me – not professional me, or prudish me, or even wild and carefree me – I just had to make him understand for half a second what I was about.
“Look,” I sighed out tiredly, rubbing my fingers underneath my eyes careful not to ruin my minimal make-up, “I really need this job. I can see how this could potentially be awkward for both of us, but I can promise I’m not about to cause you any issue or disturbance – I just want to be everything that I’ve promised myself I can be – this position means the earth to me. I can’t let any personal influences disturb it any more than you can.”
I tried to deliver the words with a calm and professional demeanour – not to let any whiny, defeated inflections into my words. He didn’t strike me as a man that had any time for that.
“You promise not to disturb me,” he laughed without any humour, rubbing the palm of his hand over the faint shadow of stubble at his jaw, muttering quietly, “Fuck, woman, you already have.”
His words tailed at the end – I wasn’t sure what they were supposed to mean, or whether I was meant to hear them all, for that matter, they were so quietly, hoarsely spoken.
“I make you no promises to that end,” he said, seemingly having come to some sort of decision after a few moments of silent introspection, looking over at me with a narrowed, calculating gaze, “Whether it’s ethically, morally, or socially acceptable, I’m finding myself drawn to you in a way I never have to any woman before you. I don’t tend to sit back and let things stumble away from my grasp, and I don’t intend to start with you. But for now, Miss Garrett, then I suppose we should get you settled into your new role. In the company.”
Compulsively, I swallowed anxiously – not really having any clue of what he was trying to say to me. Or his motivation for saying anything at all. But I took the respite from this tension that bathed the air around us – brief as he’d promised it to be – and tried to muster up the excitement I’d been battling all morning for my new job.
It was - that sensible, responsible part of myself was reminding me snottily – the reason I was here in the first place.
*************************************
It was just past six in the evening when I finally dropped onto my fancy new sofa – kicking off the blue heels and folding them over the crushed velvet cushions with a blissful moan.
My day had been fraught, intense, and invigorating – once Cayden had left me back in the hands of an obviously curious Sue, I’d relaxed into the energy and bustle of my new position – soaked up the entire atmosphere of corporate recreation, and all that it entailed. It was refreshing to finally sink my teeth into a job, rather than count the pennies as they racked up on my clocking card and mentally coaching myself through every day.
“I made us a korma for tea,” Ryan said smugly as he gave me a delicious chilled glass of Pinot with a kiss to my forehead, “That okay?”
“Amazing,” I replied, taking a delicate sip before putting the glass aside, and pulling the pins out of my chignon, “I’m unbelievably famished!”
“It won’t be a minute,” he smiled, sitting on the arm of the sofa near my feet, as his expression sobered and he blew out a frustrated sigh, “So ... Cayden Gates.”
I groaned, and ran my fingers over my aching scalp.
“You could have told me! I felt like an idiot!”
I closed my eyes in memory. After his somewhat confusing declarations up in his office though, I’d had the pleasure of seeing him at work. Suddenly, he’d slid right into that Armani cut – in more ways than one. Beneath all that primitive intensity, he was a ruthlessly brilliant emperor of industry – watching him take control of every corner of the building – watching him walk into every room with the authority of a man respected for his work - I’d actually shivered as yet another irresistibly fascinating dimension to his enigmatic character was revealed to me – trying to reconcile that almost primal, animalistic lover of Saturday night to this man was too arousing – too undeniably potent to resist.
“So ...” Ryan sounded confused, nervous even, “You know then?”
“Well, I couldn’t really not find out, could I, Ryan? It was only a matter of time ...” I gently ran my fingers over my scalp – moving the strands as they relaxed from their cage of hairspray and bobby pins.
“And you’re okay with it?” he was hesitant – I’m really not used to hearing these kinds of tones in Ryan’s voice, and I opened my eyes with a slight frown to look over at him in confusion.
“Well, it’s not ideal, but I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
It was his turn to look confused.
“Of course you have a choice, babe,” he muttered at me, “You don’t have to feel pushed into anything – he’s not blackmailing you or something is he?”
Blackmailing me? What the hell was he talking about?
“What? No, of course not! But we moved all the way out here for this job, I can’t just back out at the first hurdle – I have to at least try!”
He looked over at me with a frown for a second, before looking away thoughtfully, closing his eyes, and shaking his head as though to rid himself of some sort of haze.
“Your job? What are you talking about Jo?”
“He’s my boss,” I said slowly, watching his reaction, “I thought that was what you were trying to tell me this morning?”
His eyes widened in alarm as the misunderstanding cleared – for him at least.
“He’s your boss? Fuck, I didn’t know CJ Industries was Mob Rule. Shit, that’s big babe!”
“Mob Rule?” I really was confused now – he seemed to be talking about something completely different to me.
He took a deep breath, pulling my feet into his lap as he slid onto the cushions beneath them, and then releasing a heavy sigh.
“Cayden Gates is from one of the biggest families in London’s Gangland,” Ryan was saying slowly, palming the nape of his neck as he spoke, “Have you heard of Gateways?” I shook my head at him – having no clue what he was talking about, “Well, Richie and Jimmy Gates were basically two of the biggest criminals in London – they basically ran the underground scene for more than twenty years, and they were fucking brutal, Jod – some of the stories make you shudder. But then, sometime around 1994, they were both caught in the middle of one of the biggest imports of Ecstasy that the country has ever seen.”
Ryan was fiddling around with his iPhone, flicking through Google stuff, I assumed, but I was having enough trouble following exactly what he was saying – and what relevance the events of 1994 could possibly have on a one night stand, and the awkward situation of sitting opposite the man on Monday morning while he wears an Armani suit, and you’re wearing cotton panties.
“Right,” I said slowly, raising my voice at the end as though I was phrasing a question.
“Well, the reports say that the entire underground split when Richie grassed his brother – grazing twenty years off his sentence that did him no good whatsoever.”
“How do you mean?”
“Jimmy arranged his execution the very night he found out he’d been grassed. Richie was found with his entire insides ... outside. If you get me.”
I grimaced at the imagery.
“But ... I’m not following, Ry, what does this have to do with me?”
Ryan looks up at me intensely - the dim backlight from the screen casting faint shadows and angles over his tense features, before he turned the screen to face me – an image of Cayden – as aloof and controlled as ever – coming out of the High Courts, dated five years ago.
“Fuck all, I hope. But, he’s Jimmy Gates’s eldest son.”