He taps the card he just wrote on and says, “These are all the details you need to know.”
He leads me outside by the elbow and doesn’t let go until we’re in front a nightclub whose metal gate is down and is tagged with graffiti. He pulls out his wallet and hands me three crisp 100 bills.
I shove it back. “I can’t take it,” I say miserably. “I bought way more stuff just to punish you.”
He folds the one hundred dollar bills in half and then half again. I look longingly at them and then force my eyes up to his striking green ones. I kind of hate that he’s so good looking. I wish whoever was in charge of looks gave them out according to how they were inside. So many good-looking people walking around who are absolute monsters. My stepbrother is exhibit A and this guy is Exhibit B. Or vice versa. Either way, they are both prime examples of how karma never ever works. What goes around never comes around. The next person who says “karma” near me will get a throat punch.
“That’s a fierce look. I hope you aren’t directing it toward me.” He’s still holding the folded bills between us.
"What were you doing here anyway?"
"I have a couple of businesses I was checking on."
"Is that what we’re calling them now?"
"There’s another word for ‘business’ that’s been approved by the people at Oxford Dictionary? I thought the only new words allowed were ‘wassup’ and ‘hashtag,’ neither of which are euphemisms for business.”
I start laughing. Those words coming out of that elegant mouth seem hilariously profane. He smiles at me and then places a finger on my forehead. It’s like he’s pressed a mute button because my laughter dies off immediately and saliva starts pooling in my mouth. He drags his finger down between my eyes and over the ridge of my nose. Time’s suspended now and I can’t move.
“If I ask you to have a meal with me, are you going to say no?”
I nod my head. “Will you give me the job?”
“You don’t want it.” His hand drops away.
“I do.” I pause and clarify, “Or at least I want the money.”
“Money’s easy.”
“Only because you have it.” I walk back toward my bike and climb on. Ian is right behind me. With one hand on the top tube of my frame, he keeps me from riding away.
“I haven’t always,” he admits. “Is that what your reservations are? You like a certain type of Joe?”
I give him a once over. Today he does look more like a blue collar city worker than a white collar one, but there’s still something about him that exudes wealth. His hair is so precisely cut and his plain cotton T-shirt fits as perfectly as if it was custom sewn for him. “I can find any number of people to take me out to dinner” —though not really because I haven’t had an offer in months— “but I’m desperate for a job.”
“Are you?”
“Would I be working for Malcolm if I wasn’t?”
“Good point.” His finger rubs along the tube and the side of his hand nearly brushes the inside of my thigh. I nearly fall over and have to grab him for balance. He grips my upper arm and steadies me. The heat of his palm burns through the lightweight fabric in a nanosecond. When I get home, there will probably be an imprint there. That might be wishful thinking. I force myself back on topic. “And what’s your excuse? Why are you working with Malcolm?”
“Malcolm has certain connections that I thought would be useful.”
“But it hasn’t worked out.”
“Not as well as I would have liked.”
“Are you sure I can’t help you?”
His fingers close around the frame and tip me toward him until I have no choice but to brace my hand against the hard wall of his chest. His hand leaves my arm and comes around me like a shackle.
“Let me be perfectly frank with you, Victoria. There are lots of things that I’d like you to do for me. Some of them involve you on your knees. Others require you bent over a table. All of them require me to be between your legs. But I don’t pay for that.”
“No, I wouldn’t think you would,” I say faintly. No one has ever spoken to me in such a graphic and frank manner and I don’t know how to respond—at least not verbally. My body is reacting by getting hot and tight.
He nods then in confirmation that I’ve heard him. “I don’t dip my pen in the company ink. Nothing good comes of that. So let me ask you again. Are you certain you wouldn’t rather let me take you out to dinner and then home, where I would make you come so hard that you wouldn’t be able to remember your own name let alone that you have money troubles?”
I’m finding it difficult to breathe normally and it’s hard to remember exactly why I’m resisting him so hard. His hand has moved from my waist to my hip and his fingers are curling around my ass and pulling me close as possible despite the bike frame between us. I can even feel his erection against my hip. “The money troubles will still be there, regardless of my memory,” I manage to choke out.
His eyes narrow because he doesn’t like my rejections. “You should know that when small prey runs away, it only whets the appetite of a predator. Someday, Victoria Corielli, I’m going to get you to say yes.”
He pushes the bike frame upright and my body reluctantly follows.
“I’ll be in touch,” he says and then turns and walks away. I stare after him like a dumbass for at least five minutes.
Chapter 6
WHEN I GET HOME THAT night, there’s a package waiting for me in the super’s apartment. It was too big for the mailbox slots in the first floor lobby.
“If you can afford this, then I don’t think you’ll need that extension on your late rent payment. It’s ten days past due,” the super says as he points to the box on the table behind him. It’s big and white and has a gold B embossed on the top of it. It looks expensive and exactly like the box that Ian had told the sales associate to deliver.
I stare at the box as if it contains deadly, hazardous materials because it does. If I open that box something is going to happen that could wreck me. Slowly I back away. “Yeah, sorry about the late rent.” I pull out a small wad of cash from the payment Malcolm had given me the other day and hand it off to the super. “Two months there.”
He grunts and counts it out slowly, not moving from the doorway. The box is calling to me, luring me in or at least holding me in place as if Ian is here with his warm finger pressed against my forehead.