I smiled uneasily. “Do you have a bar? I make a mean Bloody Mary.”
“Not here,” he told me. “This is a place of business, after all. It’s not like in the Sixties, when we did that kind of thing…” Preston hadn’t been alive in the Sixties, and yet he somehow seemed wistful. He waved his hand after a moment. “Coffee would do, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I set my clutch down on one of the armchairs near him. “Where’s the kitchen?” I asked.
“Just through here,” he answered, pointing at a door at the far side of the room. He relaxed while I went through it and entered one of the most glorious kitchens I’d ever seen.
Though it was keeping in style with the Italian countryside theme Preston had going on, it was a gourmet ensemble if I’d ever seen one. The stove looked state-of-the-art and the cabinets, though made of dark wood, all had transparent doors that let one see their contents without having to open them first. The fridge was massive, a French door model with a separate, pull-out freezer down below. Everything was gleaming steel against wood, except for the copper pot rack hanging above a kitchen island with a marble countertop.
I found the coffee machine easily enough. As expected, Preston had an expensive brew tucked away near the filters. The smell alone did more to wake me up than my own cup back at my apartment had, and I brewed enough for two before returning to the sitting room and offering a mug to my stepbrother.
“Look, Maddy, I know this probably looks bad,” he started, clearly still caught up on my arrival. “You weren’t supposed to see any of that. She wasn’t even supposed to be here.”
“Relax. It’s none of my business, and I’m not one to judge,” I replied, thinking back to a little short term office fling I’d had with one of the mail runners in my earlier days at ExecuSpace. “I’m just glad to have this opportunity…”
He smiled. “Well, it looks like your first official duty as my new personal assistant was to get me post-breakup coffee. How’s it feel?”
I laughed. “Patronizing,” I said, sitting down on the same armchair I’d set my clutch onto. Its deep, cocoa-colored leather upholstery was firm, yet soft enough to be comfortable, and the tufted back gave me more support than I’d thought it would. “Still, it’s good to have a job. I do have a question, though.”
Preston took a sip of his coffee. He winced, as if he’d never learned not to let a hot beverage cool. “What’s that?”
I blew on the surface of my own mug, my lips moving before the wiser half of my brain could stop me.
“Do you fuck all of your secretaries?”
Preston stared at me with an almost shocked look on his face, choking on his drink.
I felt my face flush and my stomach plummet, then fill with the wingbeats of a thousand butterflies as Preston laughed nervously and turned away.
Why the hell did I say that?
Maddy’s first day as my new assistant became a lot more boring after Jane had finally stopped storming around the front lawn. Most of it was spent having her fill out all the appropriate paperwork and letting her look over Jane’s notes, most of which I’d managed to salvage after she’d torn through her desk like a demon in an effort to destroy as much company property as she could. Though I’d been dreading that moment for months, now that it had passed, I felt relieved. Maddy had been right. It was good to let go, especially before Jane was in a position to do anything worse.
“Are you concerned about what she said?” she asked me at lunch. I’d taken her to a bistro on the lake behind my property. “About the ‘assault,’ I mean?”
I shrugged. “Not really. Jane has anger issues, that’s true, but I doubt she’d go so far as to actually file a police report against me. And even if she did, she’s got no proof. I didn’t grab her that hard. And besides,” I added with a grin, “I have witnesses.”
“A witness, anyway,” Maddy said. “But that’s probably good enough.”
Although I put on an appearance of confidence, I certainly hoped we were right, the last thing I needed was that kind of publicity… Regardless of what was going to happen with Jane, by the end of the first day Maddy was already pretty comfortably settled in. Things almost felt… Normal.
Except that I couldn’t get Maddy’s words out of my head…
Do you fuck all of your secretaries?
Sure, it had been a joke. All in good fun… But it had my wheels moving in ways they shouldn’t have been moving.
I did my best to ignore it.
When weeks went by without hearing anything from Jane, both of us breathed a collective sigh of relief. I immediately forbade any more talk of her, fearful that invoking her name might make the demon return. I’d have to write up a rule somewhere that disallowed anyone from going into a bathroom with the lights off and saying “Jane Turner” three times in front of a mirror, but as it so happened, my attention was far more focused on Maddy.
I’d had every confidence in her that she’d turn out to be the perfect new personal assistant, and I’d been right. I’d just had no idea how right I would be. She was amazingly good at her job, meticulous and detail-oriented, always taking the initiative to organize and get things done. She’d memorized my particular way of doing things in practically no time at all, and by the end of our first month together, I couldn’t believe the stark contrast between her and Jane.
“I think I’m ready to pronounce you a permanent hire,” I teased her one day as she made me coffee. She’d finally figured out the French press, which was far more preferable than the automatic swill I got out of the machine.
She had smiled and looked at me through her lashes in that smug, know-it-all way I’d come to love. “Oh, please. I’ve been permanent since day one. At this stage, I don’t think you could live without me.”
“Too true,” I’d told her. But neither of us realized how much I’d meant it until a week later when she overheard me on the phone. At the time, I had no idea how that seemingly innocuous moment would change everything between us forever.
****
“Yes, I realize that’s prime real estate. Yes, I know what’s there now, and I’m sure it can be done. I know my father wants this to go forward, but I’m just asking you, man to man… Do you really want to do this? What your asking crosses an ethical line. It may be, in fact, a bit… Extrajudicial.”
I stood on my bedroom balcony overlooking the distant lake. I could see the water gently rippling as a lazy breeze swept over it, just barely disturbing the otherwise placid surface. It was late and the sun was setting, but Mr. Verger wasn’t letting me off the phone without a fight. I watched the sky turn from orange to red, then a hazy purple as my high-strung client stammered on the other end of the line.
I sighed, hoping my Bluetooth earpiece didn’t pick it up. I had explained this at least a dozen times, but Harold wasn’t getting it. I understood why he’d gotten my father involved in this, I just didn’t want to be part of it. With the company in my hands during the windup to my father’s wedding, he’d dropped this entire sordid affair on my lap.
On the surface, it was simple. Harvey Enterprises has connections, able to bend the will of state and federal agencies that look i
nto things like code violations. They condemn buildings all the time. In fact, nothing makes them happier than to slap a big yellow notice on a door that says ‘CONDEMNED’ on it. It’s like getting their dick sucked for them. They’d be more than happy to shut down the homeless shelter if the company threw money their way, and that’s exactly what Mr. Verger wanted me to do.
Mr. Verger had big plans for that space. He’d quietly bought up buildings on either side of the shelter, and once he owned the final piece of the puzzle, there’d be nothing stopping him from razing the entire block and putting up some gaudy condo tower in its place. Gentrification at work.