Magdalene (7 page)

Well. That was easy.

My minions would put the plan in motion and
what would have normally taken me eight hours today and another six
weeks in a flurry of emails and phone calls had taken me all of
three hours with no bloodshed.

I gave Hollander a little smile as I began
to pack up my displays and my laptop, careful not to look too long
lest he believe me to be interested in him personally, which would
not be an incorrect assumption.

Morgan and Giselle amused themselves with an
obviously familiar game of swapping increasingly clever insults
across the table.

Knox sat quietly, playing with Justice’s
curls and reading over her shoulder while she worked with great
concentration. Then he pointed at the screen and said, “You might
want to reword point four. Wilson hates that trick.” She looked at
him incredulously. “I’ve done it before. He’s never said anything
to me about it.” Knox held up his hands. “Just sayin’.”

Sebastian had his phone plastered to his ear
and Eilis leaned against him to hear the other side of the
conversation. “What do you mean, they don’t miss us? ...
No
,
we’re not going to stay another three or four nights. Elliott’s
sick and— ... He was running a fever when we left, remember? ...
Oh, he was, too. Mom, are you
trying
to kill my kids?” Eilis
plucked the phone out of his hand. “Dianne,” she said into it,
“I’ll keep Mr. Mom away as long as I can... No, thank
you
.”
Sebastian growled at her when she terminated the call and calmly
handed his phone back to him.

Bryce leaned into Giselle and whispered
something in her ear, interrupting her and Ashworth’s game. She
stared down at the table while she listened. She flushed and her
hand curled into a fist. “Yes,” she whispered hotly when he
finished, staring into his face with a mixture of adoration and
lust. “I would
love
to.” No, that was not a man who could be
lured away from his wife. Ah, well.

I felt unfamiliar stirrings of
sentimentality. Who were these people that watching and listening
to them could make me want to sigh as if they were a Hallmark
Christmas special come to life?

Then there was Hollander, standing with his
back to me, staring out a bank of windows that looked toward the
business end of his mill, his hands in his pockets, his suit coat
gathered over his wrists. It was a stance I’d seen thousands of men
take thousands of times, but there was just something about
him...

He turned then and caught me staring at him,
though I hoped it was simply a stare of speculation and didn’t
betray my now driving need to know what it would be like to fuck a
squeaky-clean Mormon bishop. He returned my look without blinking.
His lids lowered. His mouth twitched.

Ah, he and I understood each other perfectly
then.

“Dinner?” he said underneath the familial
conversation and laughter behind me.

“Delighted. Seven?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

I turned with a smile, then left to arrange
for a hotel room and find a killer outfit.

* * * * *

Roxanne

I dressed carefully, Jack’s instructions
ringing in my head.

Still, I wanted to see if Mitch could be
distracted, rattled. I wore a white blouse with a low cowl that
showed a touch of cleavage—what I could muster up with a push-up
bra, that was. A simple red skirt that went to my knees wasn’t sexy
by itself, but combined with red suede peep-toe heels, it should
do. Understated, but very, very clear in intent.

I know how to finesse men. It had taken some
trial and error to learn this as Nigel trained me to be the
sophisticated whore I’d set out to become. He had taught me how to
lead the conversation exactly where I wanted it to go and never,
ever allow it to get off track. I could anticipate any man’s
conversational rabbit trails and steer accordingly, without letting
him know that I had an ounce of brains.

Mitch Hollander could not be steered, and I
realized that the minute he handed me into his navy-and-silver
Bugatti. Moreover, he knew exactly what I was about and with a
droll expression, dared me to continue to try. That fascinated me
as much as it puzzled me.

We sat in a French restaurant in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, and comfortably conversed about absolutely nothing,
as we had since he’d picked me up. (How he knew where I was
staying, I had no idea, but I was getting the distinct impression
he could flex his power without seeming to stir so much as a
finger.)

Tonight at least, Hollander was a master at
negotiating meaningless conversation with utmost aplomb, as if he
did so on a regular basis. He spoke, gestured, and held himself
with some strange mixture of confidence, strength, and humility I
had never encountered in a man before.

No arrogance, no swagger.

His cohorts, Taight and Hilliard, Kenard and
Ashworth, had arrogant alpha-male swagger down to a science. Though
I couldn’t tell who was
the
alpha in that barrel of
testosterone, I understood and appreciated men like that. The
women, as powerful as their men, had their own swagger. As do
I.

Hollander I did not understand. He knew that
and used it like a weapon.

I had my first shock when the wine steward
came around and Hollander did not wave him away. “I’m not versed,”
he murmured in a voice as rich and warm as a stream of the darkest
Belgian chocolate, “so I’ll have water, but feel free to serve the
lady.”

Just to be perverse, I chose the most
expensive wine on the menu. Mitch relaxed back in his chair, his
elbows on the arms and his fingers steepled under his chin, and
simply watched the sommelier and I. At long last it was done and I
sat back in my seat to watch him watch me, and I raised my wine
glass in a small, somewhat mocking, salute.

His eyelids lowered almost imperceptibly and
the corner of his mouth curled up.

For a man of God, I decided, he might know a
whole lot more about how to seduce women than I’d given him credit
for. The thought disturbed me.

I decided to quit the bullshit and be
completely transparent. He would see it as a tactic, and it was,
but at this point, I had no other tricks up my sleeve. I waited
until after we had ordered our entrees.

“What,” I asked slowly, never taking my eyes
off him, “does a Mormon bishop do, precisely?”

He smiled slowly as his eyelids lowered, and
I crossed my right leg over my left knee. He didn’t miss that and
his eyebrow rose. I nearly laughed because this man was so out of
the realm of my experience.

“A Mormon bishop,” he replied with some
care, “is a low-level executive, ah, a project manager, I guess, of
a ward—a congregation. He has two counselors who help and a cadre
of management types and assistants to delegate responsibilities to.
My nearest female counterpart in that hierarchy is the president of
the women’s auxiliary. Relief Society. She reports to me directly,
but has the same structure.”

“Who’s the CEO?”

“The president of the Church, also known as
the prophet.”

“I suppose any large organization like that
would have to have a fairly rigid structure.”

“Yes.”

“How much time do you put into it?”

He thought a moment. “Twenty-five, thirty
hours a week maybe.” I nearly dropped my glass. “I only have one
child at home now, and he has his own timetable so it’s easy to
lose myself in it. Most bishops have wives and children at home and
they sacrifice just as much as the bishop does.”

Oh, hell, I wasn’t even going to bother with
etiquette. “And you don’t get paid.”

He shook his head. “No. We don’t have paid
clergy.”

“And you’re the low man on the totem
pole?”

“Yes.”

“Like a Catholic parish, right? So you have
a diocese?”

“A stake. The stake president is my, ah,
boss.” He broke out into a grin and I had to smile. The Hollander
of Hollander Steelworks was the
low
man and had a boss.

“How do you get that job?”

“If you’re smart,” he said wryly,
“
not
voluntarily.”

I laughed.

“You get called. The stake president asks
you if you’d be willing to accept the calling. You accept. Or
don’t. By the time you get to that stage, you probably have a
reputation for accepting other jobs and doing them as well as you
can.”

“Is this a lifetime position?”

“No, but there are days it feels like it.”
He relaxed back into his chair. Stared at his plate. Played with
his utensils. Suddenly, I felt like I was witnessing a man in the
throes of an unpleasant epiphany. “A bishop is usually called for
five, seven years at the outset,” he said slowly, still not looking
at me, still lost in whatever had jerked his attention from our
flirtation. “Usually only once. It’s a very stressful job.” He
paused. “Sometimes, you serve out your term and then move up the
ladder. Mostly you just go back to being a regular member of the
ward.”

Ambition! There was his chink. “Ah, you want
to move up?”

He looked up at me then. “No. This is my
second term.”

Was that
fatigue
I saw? I didn’t
know; he covered it too quickly.

“How many years do you have in this
one?”

“A little over seven.”

I blinked. “That means you’ve been at
this...?”

“Thirteen years, with about a year between
terms, give or take.”

“So...” I said carefully. “This isn’t
supposed to be your life’s work. Not like a Catholic priest.”

“Correct.”

“And you don’t want to advance.”

Whatever emotional well he’d dropped into,
he suddenly came out of with a smile. “The pay is lousy.”

I had to laugh then. “So why don’t you just
turn in your resignation?”

He waved a hand. “Oh, it’s not that simple.
Someone has to be found to replace me and if I’m released—if I quit
or get fired—I could always be asked to fill some other equally
stressful position.”

“Can’t you just say no?”

“I could,” he said slowly, as if he’d never
thought of it before, but I knew better. “Yes, I could, but I
wouldn’t. I would do whatever I was asked to do.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s part of what the faithful
do; they serve. They sacrifice. They give their time and their
talent and their money to keep everything running.”

“Your church is rich; why don’t they pay
you?”

“Sacrifice. Emotional investment. Obedience.
Love. I don’t know. Pick a reason, any reason.”

I couldn’t pick a reason. I didn’t have
reasons like that. I didn’t know people who thought in such terms
as sacrifice and love and emotional investment.
Obedience
.
Good God.

“So. Ms. St. James—”

“Cassie, please.”

“That doesn’t suit you.”

Interesting. No one had ever been so bold as
to say so, if they’d even thought about it at all. “I don’t much
care for it myself, no,” I finally admitted.

“Cassandra.”

I smoothly pulled my right leg farther up my
left. “Did I detect a bit of a French accent when you ordered?”

“Yes.”

“You speak French?”

“Yes.”

Damn. I wanted to undress him already and
our entrees hadn’t even arrived. I couldn’t remember the last time
I had been so aroused by so little so fast. It made no sense. I
knew men who spoke French and Japanese and Greek and some all
three. One man, one relatively ordinary-looking man who spent the
equivalent of a three-quarter-time job working for his church for
free in the name of faith, love, obedience, and sacrifice—

Inconceivable.

“Tell me, Cassandra,” he murmured, that
heavy-lidded look doing more to me than I wanted it to. He had me
pinned like a butterfly. “What did you do before grad school and
Blackwood Securities?”

The fact that he asked meant he really
didn’t know, that Sebastian hadn’t seen fit to tell him (which was
interesting in its own right), and the answer was the only thing
that would free me from the hold he had on me.

“I was a prostitute.”

Not a twitch of a facial muscle to betray
his thoughts. “I’m assuming we’re not here on that basis.”

“No. I retired from that years ago.”

“And you got into it how?”

“I was bored.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Oh, God, no. I couldn’t talk about this.
What had I been thinking? “Do you hear confessions from your
parishioners?” I asked abruptly, needing to get off this track,
sorry I’d gotten on it. “Is that part of your job, like a
priest?”

“Yes.”

“So I don’t want to confess.”

“Were you confessing?”

“No.”

“Forgive me. It’s not an industry I have
much knowledge of and I was curious.”

No, dammit! He had me in curlicues. He still
didn’t look shocked nor did he seem as if he wanted to cut the
evening short.

Our food came and I caught myself breathing
a prayer of thanks to a god I wasn’t sure existed. Our conversation
veered to safer territory: His board of directors, to whom he
referred as his family.

“Sebastian Taight,” he said after I asked
him how he’d come into that circle of players, “was a companion I
had on my mission.”

The image of two young men in black suits
with black name tags, pushing bicycles, carrying backpacks flashed
across my mind. My dinner companion had been one, once upon a time?
So bizarre. More bizarre: King Midas having been one.

“You were a missionary?”

He nodded. “In Paris.”

“With Sebastian Taight.” I simply couldn’t
process that.

His mouth quirked. “I know how it sounds,
but yes. The same Sebastian Taight. He...” He paused a moment, as
if he were thinking. “The mission was very difficult for both of
us. Sebastian made it bearable. He had ideas and plans.
Philosophies. He shared them with me and he was so passionate about
them... I learned more from him in the four months he was my
companion than I’d learned in the nineteen years before that. If it
hadn’t been for him, it would never have occurred to me to do what
I did with my life.”