Page 10 of Nefarious
He pushed himself on the upper body machines for a round, then slung the towel over his neck and scanned the equipment. On the leg press, a toned college-aged blonde easily pumped out her reps. When she caught his eye, she smiled, strategically looking away. Her blush almost looked genuine. The girl-next-door routine intrigued him, but he hadn’t come here to pick anyone up. Not tonight.
Just as he began to let down his guard, Morty Becker strode in. Casually. Dane sucked on his teeth. Had the internal auditor tailed him to the gym? Val could call him paranoid, but for the past several weeks, he knew someone had been watching his every move. Dane had taken precautions not to give anyone anything to go on. And Val could thank him for extending his care to her own reputation.
As soon as Morty lay on his back at the bench press, face directed at the ceiling, Dane took advantage of his blind spot. He crossed the room, leaned over the water fountain near the hallway, then turned and exited through the door into the alleyway.
The warm soapy water soothed Val’s tired feet, and some of the tension she didn’t know she’d been harboring seeped from her shoulders. She closed her eyes, focused on the peaceful music, and breathed in the smells of eucalyptus and mint. The sound of a door closing pulled her from the edge of sleep. Muted, high-pitched voices followed, and then Dane entered the small room.
He carefully removed his ridiculous sneakers and gingerly placed them on a shelf against the wall. Honestly, who paid several hundred dollars for European sneakers? There were better ways to spend money—less flashy, more effective. He sat in the leather chair and gently immersed his feet into the basin, sighing a groan of pleasure.
“Nice, isn’t it?” She nodded to the technician to leave them in privacy. One of the many things money could buy.
“I’ve got ten, maybe fifteen minutes.” He grinned. “I was right. I’ve got a tail.”
“I never said they weren’t out to get you. I just said you’re paranoid. Those two statements are not mutually exclusive. So who is it?”
“Morty Becker.”
“From internal audit? Why would he care what you do or who you see? You’re far too circumspect to have raised any suspicions about your activities.” Val frowned. “Not that you’ve done anything worth suspicion in a while. Speaking of which, how are things going with your girlfriend?”
When she’d floated Noelle’s name for consideration for the CEO position, she’d known she’d prick Dane’s vanity, and he’d have to react. She’d hoped the reality of this woman would put a final stake through Dane’s perfected memory of her, or that he wouldn’t find her as attractive as he once did. But there was always the possibility he’d want to assuage the anger that years had only ripened with time, that he’d have to rectify that slight to his ego.
Men are so weak.
And yet, she’d pushed for the board to hire Noelle because she could use her. Noelle had left R&M without so much as a promise of another job. According to insider gossip, Geraldo had done something that the precious Noelle Constance couldn’t tolerate. Val intended to find out what. Had Geraldo’s hands begun wandering once Val was no longer there to buffer his predatory tendencies? Or had Noelle discovered she was working for a criminal? Why hadn’t Noelle reported anything?
She’d suffer through the theater of Dane’s thwarted libido if it meant getting closer to Noelle. She could profit from his vanity. And there would be some entertainment watching him continually relive the night Noelle rebuffed him so brutally.
Val’s ego could handle it. After all, she’d often suspected Noelle had been a subconscious substitute for Val since they did share some physical resemblance. But the joke was on Dane for trying to thaw the ice queen. Surely, he’d figure out faster this time that Noelle was an impostor, a mere facsimile of the woman he wanted. And Val was sitting right here.
Dane scratched his chin. His facial hair grew faster than any man she knew. She often told him he had a five a.m. shadow. “It’s going. Or it will be.”
She exhaled a short laugh. “So, nothing. Are you going to give up on this embarrassing waste of time and focus on something of real substance?”
He narrowed his eyes and paused for a moment. “It will be easier when I can get her alone. I thought I’d make inroads this afternoon when she invited me to her office, but then that turned out to be an all-hands thing. Everyone was there.”
Val ground her teeth. “What do you mean, ‘all-hands?’”
“All-hands. Well, maybe ‘all-heads’ would be more accurate. Margo, Andre, Ernst . . .”
“She invited all the department heads to a meeting?” Val took her feet out of the basin and stood to reach for her purse. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the corporate emails. There was nothing she’d missed. She sat back down. “Why wasn’t I invited? Is that skinny bitch trying to squeeze me out? And what are you laughing at?”
Dane raised his hands in protest. “Whoa. I’m not laughing. Maybe she just forgot.”
“Forgot?” Noelle would forget about Val to her peril. Val settled back into the leather chair and placed one foot at a time in the hot water. “So what did you say you needed to move along on your little seduction?”
Val could kill two birds with one stone by helping Dane quench his lust, the faster to cauterize his heart and leave Noelle’s bleeding. Val could slide into the role of trusted confidante to whom Noelle would spill all her secrets.
Dane had laid his head back, eyes closed—the very image of relaxation. The curl of his lip on one side of his mouth gave away his amusement. “I need to draw her out. I need time with her to get under her skin. She’s started building a wall. I need to get beyond it.”
Val tapped the armrest for a moment, considering his problem. “I think I can arrange that.” Yes, she had an idea what to do. She nodded and leaned toward Dane. “Now aboutmyproject . . .”
Dane sat up and looked at his watch. “Sorry, I need to get back. Morty will be looking for me.” He stood and shook off his wet feet. “Maybe next time, I’ll have time to get my nails painted.”
“Maybe next time, we can meet in a less clandestine location.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “My place? In an hour?”
She was tempted. Dane was a beautiful man who maintained his body like he maintained everything else. And his stamina matched that of his over-compensating sports car. It had been years since she’d run her hands across his chest and breathed in the intoxicating smell of him. But he was on a mission with another woman on his mind. “If you’ll consider forgetting this whole ridiculous charade with Noelle.”
