Page 9 of Nefarious
After a quick phone call, she grabbed her belongings and left her office. The interns all stopped working, fingers frozen on keyboards. Nobody appeared to be sleeping or playing on their phones, yet. They always started out so eager.
“Listen up. You’ve all worked hard today, and I’m proud of your enthusiasm. I’d like to reward you with dinner and drinks at Romano’s a few blocks away. Just mention my name to the server, and the tab will be taken care of.”
The kids’ pudding faces almost warmed her heart. She glanced over at Selena, whose eyes flitted toward Anthony.Good.
“So finish up what you’re working on, then you’re free to go. Don’t overdo it. You still have to be here bright and early tomorrow. And we’ll be doing bond math.” Several kids groaned. “Yeah, it wasn’t my favorite when I was your age, but it won’t be so bad. Maybe I’ll order pizza and we’ll have a working lunch.”
With that, she swung out of the trading floor, climbed in her Honda Civic, and drove to the nail salon. She laid two twenties on the counter and said, “The private room, please.”
Sophie,
Oh my gosh, I have so much to tell you.
Val came out a minute ago and told us to go have dinner on her. She’s as nice and approachable as everyone says. I had a meeting with her earlier. She seemed genuinely interested in making sure I’m settled here. And then she put me on a team with the cutest boy in the group.
Don’t worry. I’m not here to get a boyfriend. We’ve been working hard all day, learning our way around the software. But it can’t hurt to have something nice to look at. I kind of got the feeling he was checking me out too. Maybe tonight when we go out, I’ll get a chance to talk to him.
Oh, and Dane stopped by our desks on his way out tonight and sat down right next to the cute guy, Anthony, for like TEN minutes. I leaned in to eavesdrop and see if I could glean any information, and he smells unbelievably good. He emits a kind of power even when he’s just standing there. For a second, he looked right at me, and his gaze is so intense that for a heartbeat, I was pinned in place. His eyes are hard and soft at the same time if that’s possible. Such a vivid blue. I’ll see if I can find any pics on the Internet that do him justice.
I’m sorry the dorm is so lonely. I miss you too, I have to tell you I’m loving the awesome apartment I have here, even though I have to room with a couple of the other girls. Good thing it’s close by because with what they’re paying us, I can’t afford gas. I’d be okay if Dad hadn’t decided I needed some “real world experience” and stopped sending me an allowance. Tonight’s dinner will be a luxury. Then it’s back to microwave food.
Cheers,
Selena
Dane pulled his Aston Martin into a parking space as far away from other cars as possible. Yes, the car cost more than a fair-sized house around here, but he didn’t own a house. And other than his top-of-the-line wardrobe, five-star restaurant habit, and extravagant vacations at private resorts in exotic locales, he lived the life of a penniless miser. He had no wife running through his bank account, no kid to send to college. The car paid for itself in other ways. He’d never had to lay out a dime to get a woman to go home with him.
That wasn’t why he’d bought the car. He’d bought it because he could. The value of that car represented a fraction of his net worth. His stock holdings at R&M alone had been substantial, and the severance package had made the news.
Plus he’d invested well of course. He wasn’t one of the brightest minds in finance for nothing.
All that alone would have made him grotesquely wealthy. He didn’t need to continue to work at all, but he grew bored without a toy, so he kept the position he held now at an ungodly salary.
Still he thought about retiring to Key West nearly every single day—but then he’d remember Val. He owed her so much. He wouldn’t leave her behind until he’d paid her back. For everything. After all she’d made all this possible. His fortune. His freedom. His black heart.
Although he’d never been formally charged with malfeasance, the board at R&M had threatened him with a lawsuit if he refused to walk away from his own company. If he hadn’t bent to their coercion, Geraldo would have kept on digging, and eventually he might have found the evidence of unscrupulous behavior they were lacking.
But that wasn’t why he’d left without a fight. After Noelle, Val, and Geraldo had each made a fool of him within a mercilessly short period of time, he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with the authors of his humiliation.
Dane never knew for sure whether Geraldo’s crusade resulted from a vengeance of passion, payback for the night Dane had stolen with Val, or if he’d merely taken an opportunity to seize the reins of power. Intellectually, Dane respected the move, even if he’d been the victim. Val wanted to stoke his sense of righteous indignation to convert him to her plans to screw with Geraldo, but he didn’t see the point in it. Dane had all the money he could ever need, and he had Val. He had no use for his old company, and Geraldo was no longer in any position to fuck with him.
The only actor in this drama he hadn’t forgiven was Noelle. She’d stood there at that New Year’s Eve party, in front of dozens of witnesses—his employees, co-workers, friends—and told him, “I could never love someone like you.” He told himself it didn’t matter, that he hadn’t cared for her anyway. His crush had been nothing more than fascination. Like Val had said, he’d been charmed by the challenge. That’s not what he’d told her that night, but in the blink of an eye his infatuation had turned to hatred. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He wouldn’t fall for his own fiction.
True, Val had loved him and then devastated him. He ought to hold a grudge against her as well, and he did. He intended to even that score if she’d ever drop her defenses. But at least she’d tried to fix her error. Whether out of guilt or loyalty to Dane, she’d worked her magic to sweeten his exit. It was thanks to her the board had agreed to buy his shares and provide the golden parachute. It was her influence along with his father’s name that had opened the doors for his job at Fleetwood.
At the time, Dane assumed Val wanted to expedite his ejection so Geraldo could replace him, so he and Val could become a power couple, running his company, laughing at Dane. He was ready to destroy them both, but then Val had surprised everyone when she resigned and followed Dane to the middle of nowhere. She’d chosen him over Geraldo, and now Dane was the one laughing.
With Val by his side, Dane had elected to lay low in the Midwest, but he knew nobody trusted him anymore. He was watched at all times, and his access to the system was restricted. He felt like a fucking figurehead, hired to attract people to breathe in his air, but he wasn’t anything special. Not anymore. Other than Val, only Rosamund treated him like a human.
And so he owed her his gratitude, his loyalty, his friendship. But not his love. And some day he’d make her pay in kind for the night she’d left him feeling like a fool.
He occasionally considered starting another company, but owning a company had led to its own kind of drudgery. Even though he often missed the sense of purpose it gave him to extinguish the fires of a serious production issue, he now enjoyed the leisure to quietly fuck with anyone he liked.
Which was the only reason he was seriously considering telling Val to sign him up for her summer project.
He slid out of the Brioni suit jacket and laid it carefully over the passenger seat, obscuring his laptop bag. He slipped off the Salvatore Ferragamo dress shoes and laced up his Bottega Veneta leather gym shoes. He grabbed his bag and crossed the parking lot.
Once in the locker room, he took equal care hanging his slacks and dress shirt in the locker before changing into his T-shirt and shorts. He tucked a one-hundred-dollar bill into his pocket and headed to the weight room.
