Senior Advisor to the Boss: Billionaire Obsession Dark Romance (Managing the Bosses Series Book 9) (5 page)

“What kind of party are you wanting to have?” Alex asked. He started toward the living room and Jamie followed.

“Just something small,” she said. “With my dad and the rest of the family. I don’t think it needs to be any bigger than that.”

“No,” Alex agreed, setting Benton down on the blanket that Jamie had spread on the floor with some of the twins’ toys on it. He went to look through the DVD selection for something they could watch while they played with the twins. “I think that would be perfect. Just the family and some really good cake that they can throw all over the place.”

He was rewarded with a laugh, and smiled as he slid the DVD into the player, settling into the rhythm of a lazy Saturday with his family. The rest of the world could wait.

“I need you to come look at something.”

Jamie pushed back from the computer and hit the button that would let her answer the intercom from Alex’s office. “Be right there.” She stood, shaking the stiffness from her hands and arms, and walked into his office through the door between it and the one she currently occupied.

Alex was sitting at his desk, frowning down at a file laid out in front of him.

“What is it?” Jamie asked, crossing the room to lean down over him.

“I don’t know that we can trust it, but I found a new lead on that problem we’ve been having.”

That problem
. Jamie’s stomach sank. Whatever it was that Alex had found, it wasn’t going to be good. “Who does the trail lead to this time?”

The numbers marching across the paper didn’t mean anything to Jamie without a key to check them against, but Alex had obviously already checked them.

“It's...” He paused, like he wasn't sure that he wanted to go on. “Emelie.”

Jamie took a step back. “Emelie? Alex, you know that most of these have been false leads. What makes you think that this one is any different?”

“It ties into some of the false leads that we picked up on. It might have ties to more; I just haven't found them yet. But from what I can tell, at least a few of the earlier episodes originated on Emelie's computer, and she was in the departments where some of the other problems originated.”

“So you think she's the mastermind behind it?”

Alex shrugged. “Honestly, I don't know. Everything that we've found so far has been fake. I'm going to have to look into it further.” He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't know if it's better to confront Emelie about it, or to try to prove the connections first. If it does turn out to be another trick, I don't want to upset her without any reason.”

Jamie wrapped her hands around his shoulders, trying to knead some of the stiffness from them, and he leaned back into her touch. “That feels good, Jamie.”

It was more than he should have had to deal with. After Nicholas. After everything else. Stephen. All the things that had gone wrong for them. Something should be going right. It wasn't fair to either of them. But it was the hand that life appeared to have dealt them.

“I can't imagine that it's Emelie.”

Alex tipped his head back so that he could look at her. “What makes you so sure? Isn't she just as likely as anyone else? Last time it was Gina, and she was with me from the start. I thought I'd be able to trust her completely. Women can't seem to resist Nicholas' charm.”

“Except Emelie is exactly the kind of woman who can resist Nicholas' charm. She isn't going to want to crawl into bed with him.”

She felt Alex pause, considering that information. “That's true. I guess she's less likely to be working for him than some people. But she's high enough that she would have the right clearances to get into the parts of the system that would let her manipulate the money and the data that way. I've already talked to all the other people with that kind of access, and I grilled Zander when his name came up originally.”

So it was possible, as much as Jamie didn't want to imagine it. She'd been jealous of the other woman when she'd first come to Reid Enterprises, but over the months that they'd been collaborating together she had learned to like Emelie much more than she would have expected that she would at first, and now she found her an almost invaluable helper. Work was so much easier when she wasn’t the only PA at Reid Enterprises, especially when she was acting as one of Alex’s advisors on top of her other duties.

“I think you should talk to her,” Jamie said when she’d pulled herself from her thoughts. “Be straightforward about it.”

“That’s probably the best approach,” Alex agreed. “I’m not really looking forward to it, though.”

Jamie wasn’t looking forward to it any more than he was. She wanted the whole thing to be over and dealt with. But she could tell that Alex just didn’t want to have to tell another employee that he suspected them of embezzling and changing records.

“So wait a bit,” she said. “You don’t have to go in there right away, guns blazing.” She leaned down closer over him, letting him feel the press of her breasts against his back, and breathed the next words into his ear. “Stay here with me and I’ll see if I can’t find a way to make you feel a little less stressed.”

Alex actually smiled. She could tell by the wicked edge to the expression that he was thinking about their first time having sex in here, her riding him in his chair, and she could almost feel it. The way that he’d felt, so big inside her. She wanted him so much that it suddenly ached, and her body flushed with heat and desire.

“You sure that you want to extend that invitation, baby?”

Hell, yes, she was sure. Jamie nodded, hands sliding down Alex’s chest and the flat, hard plane of his abs so that she could slip her fingertips under the waistband of his jeans. “I want you, Alex.”

He was moving almost before she’d finished speaking, already standing, turning so that he could wrap his arms around her and pull her close with his hands on her hips. His mouth caught hers, and she opened under it, letting him in to taste her. To turn her knees to water with the slide of his tongue against hers.

Alex let go of her with one hand so that he could push the things on his desk to the side, then he lifted her up to sit on the edge of it and they were breathing each other's air. He let his hands slide upward, taking her shirt with them, and then they were on bare skin and Jamie was arching into the touch with a sigh and a whisper of his name.

It didn't stay gentle.

He made rapid work of the buttons that held her shirt closed, didn't bother pulling it any farther off. Just undid the clasp of her bra so that he could get her breasts in her hands. She let her spine curve toward him, and Alex caught one nipple between his teeth. Jamie stifled a gasp. The office wasn't soundproof.

“It's been too long since we did this,” Alex said as he drew back, and Jamie nodded in agreement, not trusting her voice.

Teeth caught her other nipple between them, and then Alex's hands were moving up her thighs, yanking her panties down and sliding her skirt up. Jamie spread her legs to let him between them, her hands clutching at the edge of the desk. It was hot to be doing it here, in his office. As hot as it had been the first time. And she needed him just as much.

He dropped to his knees suddenly, and Jamie only barely managed not to moan out loud as his hands pressed her open wider, bared her to his gaze. She was still wearing her heels, and he obviously approved, because his eyes were moving up her legs, lingering between them, and he groaned in the back of his throat, just loud enough for her to hear.

“You're so hot, Jamie.”

She whimpered an assent, and a plea, and he grinned at her for an instant before he decided to take pity on her neglected sex and press his lips to her clit. Jamie's hips hitched into the not-enough touch, and then his tongue was tasting her, slipping between her folds and stroking over her clit, and she had to lift one of her hands from the desk to press it over her mouth so that no one outside would hear her.

“I love it when I drive you wild,” Alex pulled back long enough to say. “Watching you try not to make any noise while you writhe on my desk like something out of a fucking fantasy. How are you so insanely sexy?”

Jamie didn't have an answer for him. She wasn't sure she could take her hand away from her mouth without making enough sound to bring half the building into the room to see if they were okay.

Alex didn't wait for an answer. He dipped his head under her skirt again, and went back to work, talented mouth moving over her sex. The hand still curled around the wood of the desk clenched until her knuckles went white.

“I want to feel you come, Jamie. Come on.”

He didn't need to ask twice. His tongue flicked over her clit again and again. Two of his fingers pressed inside her, stretching her open around them, and they knew exactly where to find the place that made her whole body quake with pleasure.

She came with a sob muffled against her palm, and her head tipped back until she was looking up at the ceiling, her vision only half-focused. Dimly through the golden haze of afterglow she felt Alex stand, and her legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him in closer.

“Need you, Alex. Need you. Want you inside me.”

There wasn't any teasing. He slid into her, fast and hard, and Jamie let herself sink back on her elbows. Another thrust, and she was rocking to meet him, using the hand on the desk for leverage. His hands were around her hips, dragging her against him every time his hips rocked forward. Her eyes slid shut.

“I love you,” she said as he moved inside her. “I love you, Alex.”

“And I love you, Jamie. Fuck.”

Alex leaned down, and then his mouth was on hers again, the whole length of his body pressed to her own, and Jamie lifted one arm to wrap around his shoulders, holding him close like that. He was still wearing his shirt, and the stiff fabric of it rubbed against her nipples, tightening them until every brush was a rush of sparks under her skin.

She curled the leg that held him tighter, and he rocked against her, his body pressing down against her clit, making her shudder and gasp.

“I'm—”

“Close, baby?” he growled, and Jamie moaned, not caring anymore who heard. “I want you to come with me. Feel you all around me.”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Alex, yes.”

Pleasure rocked through her and set her alight, and she could feel Alex following her over the edge, his body trembling over hers. Both of them gasped, but there was no more sound, just the beating of her heart in her ears, too loud and too fast.

Alex relaxed against her, the tension finally sliding out of his body.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get any work done the rest of the day, picturing you laid out across my desk like this, you minx.”

Jamie laughed. “I know the feeling.”

“We’ve never made love in your office,” Alex retorted. He paused. The smile that spread across his face was absolutely dangerous, and Jamie found herself wondering if she’d just started something that she wasn’t going to be able to stop. “We could fix that.”

She definitely didn’t want to stop it. Maybe delay it for a while, since they were technically running a business, although she would have really liked to drag him down for round two. Or was it round three? Whatever round it was, she wanted more. But that would have to wait until they got home. Or at least until they could legitimately take a break.

“It’s a date,” she said, and Alex kissed her.

This kiss was slow and tender. He lingered over her mouth, biting gently at her lower lip to see if he could make her squirm. He could always make her squirm. Jamie held him close and kissed him back with equal want.

Finally, he drew back and straightened up, looking down at her still sprawled on his desk with an expression that said he would have very gladly foregone work to make that fantasy set in her office a reality, but he knew as well as she did that they had other things they had to get done. Jamie sat up and started pulling her clothing back together.

“Watching you put your clothes back on is a tragedy,” Alex observed as she buttoned her shirt up.

“You’ll get to watch me take them off again tonight,” Jamie answered.

“Is that a promise?”

“Promise,” she said, stretching up on her toes to kiss him one last time. “Feeling better?” she asked as she pulled back.

“You always know just what to do,” Alex said, and there was laughter in his voice, even if it was a little tired.

“Good,” Jaime said, and she went to get back to work.

Mark stood looking out over the golf course, cataloging potential improvements that needed to be made before PGA officials stopped at Little Lake. It was a good course. It just needed a little something extra. Something that would make it completely unique, and would keep people coming back.

They would need to regrade some of the slopes. Make them a little bit steeper. He wondered if they should consider expanding the sand trap, or if that would just make the players angry. Probably not if the players were pros, but it wasn’t only pros who were going to be playing at the club, and they’d definitely made him angry before he’d had some help from Erica. Of course, everyone who came to the club technically had access to lessons from Erica for the right price, and maybe it would keep people interested in learning a bit more if they couldn’t make it past the sand trap.

Or maybe that was too corporate a way to think. He did, after all, actually care about golf and the people who came to play at his place. He didn’t want to be just another guy making money off other people.

He’d ask Erica about it.

The vineyard was going to have to be ready by the time the tour came through. He’d started it the slow way, wanting to make sure that nothing went wrong with it, but maybe there was a way to accelerate the process. He’d have to get some landscapers in here so that he could have the grounds redone. They weren’t bad now, but they could use some sprucing up, and the woodland paths might need a little more development.

It occurred to him abruptly that it wasn’t only the PGA FedEx Tour he had to worry about. Once the news hit, they’d be getting a flood of new customers, and those customers were going to expect to see Little Lake Country Club at the peak of its potential. He was going to have to make sure the renovations took place quickly, and preferably without disturbing too much of the business.

He started back up the slope to the clubhouse.

“Mr. Reid.”

The manager was coming out, moving quickly, and Mark picked up his own pace, not sure what the issue was but sure that there was some kind of issue. The manager had handled things pretty well since he’d started, so if he was coming to Mark there must be something actually going on.

“What’s going on?” Mark asked as soon as he was close enough.

“I know this really isn’t something that you would usually do, but the kitchen had a piece of equipment malfunction, and I called the company, but they’re going to be several hours coming in with a new one—apparently it’s a busy day for them.”

“And no one else has the time to go pick something up?”

“I would do it myself but I’m trying to deal with a problem down in the basement. We’ve got a washer malfunction.”

Mark sighed. “Say no more. I’ll go get the machine and run it back here. It’s not something that I’m going to need a team of men to lift is it?”

“No. It’s just the mixer.”

He wasn’t sure how they’d managed to break an industrial mixer, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. “Well, it’ll save us the price of the delivery at least.”

Sending a quick text out to Erica so that she would know where he was, Mark headed for his car, sliding into the seat and starting it with a purr of the engine.

On top of all of the renovations, they were going to have to add space to their back rooms, because if they were going to be serving an influx of new customers, as well as the PGA, they were going to need more space for storage. And a kitchen that wasn’t constantly suffering some crisis or another, although the rate of them had died down at least since the club first opened. That was something to be thankful for.

Thoughts of the potential renovations kept Mark occupied all the way to the closest store where he could buy an industrial kitchen mixer. He sighed as he slid from the car and crossed the parking lot toward it. At least it wasn't busy.

He stepped inside, and made his way through the clusters of displayed merchandise to the area where the kitchen mixers were. His manager had given him a precise make and model for the one they needed, and he pulled out his phone to check for it, picking the one off the shelf that matched.

The man behind the counter was in a jovial mood as he rang up Mark's purchase and handed him the box and the receipt. Mark was a little less happy. The box was heavy. He thanked the man anyway and moved toward the door, in a hurry to get back to the country club before anything else happened that needed his attention.

He was focused on getting to the car and getting back when a flash of light off the glass of a storefront window caught his attention. A jewelry store. Mark paused.

Buying something for Erica might be nice. A little thank you for the call to the Pro Golf Tour. He took the box the rest of the way out to the car and slid it into the back seat, then walked back toward the jewelry shop.

It was a nice little place, not one of those awful chain jewelry stores that he'd always felt terrible shopping in, and the pieces were laid out on dark velvet, sparkling in the light.

Mark had meant to buy a necklace. Maybe a bracelet. The engagement rings caught his eye, and he found himself drawn toward them, wandering closer until he was looking down into the case.

“We have a lovely selection of rings,” a voice said, and he looked up to find a young woman in an immaculate navy blue dress watching him with a smile. “Are you thinking about proposing?”

He hadn't been. But he could. He'd known that he loved Erica for weeks now, and the thing with the Pro Golf Tour had only confirmed how perfect she was. She was the kind of woman Mark wanted to hold onto, and as he thought that he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Yes. I am.”

The woman's smile brightened by kilowatts. “Fantastic! Well, I would love to help you look for a ring. What sort of piece are you thinking of?”

“Honestly?” Mark said, smiling a little ruefully. “I’ve no idea. It's kind of a spur of the moment decision.”

“Tell me a little bit about what she's like, then,” the salesgirl, whose name tag read Kayla, said.

“She's gorgeous,” Mark said, and then realized that probably wasn't what Kayla was looking for. “Sorry. I mean. She's blonde. And she's a pro golfer. So she likes to be outdoors, but at the same time she's always dressed really sharply. Keeping up appearances for the clients, you know. And I know that she really likes gold, but I don't know a lot more than that.”

“Those are good places to start.” Kayla gestured to a tray of rings. “These are some of our nicest gold pieces. How large a diamond? And do you know what cut?”

Mark didn't know that either, but he looked over the case she had pointed out and his eyes found a sleek gold ring with a diamond cut in a shape that was almost half a globe, held in by curls of gold. Enough to be noticed without being in your face or looking like it was trying to get attention. Lines of tiny blue stones ran down the band on either side.

“That one,” he said.

Kayla drew it out of the case and set it on the glass where he could lift it up and look at it. It made him think of Erica, all graceful lines, and the stone that almost looked like someone had set a miniscule golf ball made of diamond in the center of the band.

“I have to say that you have good taste,” Kayla said, and Mark was sure that meant the ring was hideously expensive, but he didn't care. With the money that would be coming in, he had enough to spend on an engagement ring.

“Do you know her ring size?”

That brought Mark to a screeching halt. He hadn't talked to her about it; he'd never gotten that close to deciding to propose. But he would have to know it to know if the ring would fit on her finger. Damn.

“No,” he admitted. “I don't know it.”

“That's okay. You can always come back in and have it resized once you do, if you want to buy it right now.”

Mark did want to buy it right there, before he could think of a reason to change his mind. Or before someone else saw it and thought it was perfect. He didn't want to walk back into the store and find out that the ring had already been sold. “I do want it. Today. And I can come back in and have it resized?”

“Absolutely. Whenever you want.” She was already heading toward the register at the far end of the counter. “Although I do also have to warn you that the ring is nonrefundable.”

“That’s not a problem.”

The ring was, as Mark had expected, expensive. Very expensive. But not so far out of his budget that he couldn't justify it, and he took the bag she handed across the counter with a smile. “Thank you so much for your help, Kayla.”

“It was my pleasure, sir. Have a great day and I wish you the best of luck with your proposal.”

Still smiling, Mark headed back out to the car. His day had just gotten a whole lot better.