Ignite Me (The Annihilate Me Series) Page 13

  “Good morning, Ms. Blackwell,” I said.

  She looked up at me with a start.

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. Yes. Good morning, Madison.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “How about a love interest for my daughter Daniella?” she said. “Somebody who’s not only rock solid on every level of life, but who can tame the demonic beast that lurks within her.”

  “I’m sorry . . . ?”

  “You don’t want to hear about this.”

  “I’m happy to listen.”

  And for a moment, I could see Blackwell considering whether she should allow me into her personal life. Whether my opinion mattered. Whether I was worth that risk.

  “Fine, but you’ll only regret it,” she said.

  Seriously? She’s going to open up to me? This might be a turning point.

  “My eldest daughter Daniella is nothing short of a drama queen, which I’m sure will come as no shock to you since she did, after all, come from my womb. She’s at a point in her life when she wants to have a serious relationship with someone. I’m at my wit’s end with her, so much so that last night, I even considered setting her up with Brock. He’s a bit older than she is, but not by too much. And while they’ve known each other for years, a significant amount of time has passed since they last saw each other. But still, I always come back to Brock’s sordid past, and that’s the end of it for me. She deserves better than that.”

  She seemed to catch herself when she said that and then narrowed her eyes at me. “Which must rest well with you.”

  “Ms. Blackwell, I’m here to work,” I said, keeping my voice measured despite how sick I was of her throwing Brock under the bus. “And I also need to prove myself to you. Despite what you might think, I am not pursuing Brock.” Which is the truth, because Brock is the one who is pursuing me. “And besides,” I said. “I met a very nice young man at the gym yesterday after work. I hope to run into him again. And if I do, who knows where things might go? I don’t, but I’m open to the idea.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” she said. “What does he do?”

  “We didn’t go into specifics, but I sensed that he’s up-and-coming in the business world. He seemed to be determined to me. And from our conversation alone, it’s clear that he’s well educated.”

  “How well educated?”

  If only you knew that everything I’m saying to you is true, and that I’m actually talking about Brock, you’d slaughter me.

  “He said he has his M.B.A.”

  “Did you ask where he got it from?”

  “We’d only just met. I didn’t want to pry.”

  “Well, then it’s already clear—he received it from a state university. Otherwise, he would have crowed about where he went to school, as I hope you did. Still, depending on which state university he went to, it could actually be fine. There is Penn State, after all. Berkeley. Purdue. So all is not lost yet. Go on.”

  “I sensed in him someone who also wanted to succeed, just as I do. I liked that about him. And he was witty. And handsome. And he didn’t come on too strong, which was the biggest plus in my book.” I shook my head at her. “Anyway, I honestly don’t expect much to come of it, but it was nice to meet someone who didn’t try to put the moves on me right away, because that’s how it is for us women right now, Ms. Blackwell. Even for Daniella. Most men these days want to get personal way too quickly. But that’s just not me.”

  “If that’s even true, which I certainly hope it is, Madison, then I applaud you for your restraint,” she said. “My two daughters aren’t much younger than you, and the horror stories I’ve heard from them are trying, to say the least. They are facing an entirely different world from the one I knew when I first came to Manhattan as a young woman fresh out of college.”

  “And they’re right. It’s terrible out there. Trying to meet a decent person is next to impossible, which is why I gave up looking for a relationship when I started working for my M.B.A. at Harvard. My grades were more important to me than any man. But that was two years ago; I’m now at Wenn, I’m enjoying my job, and I have to say that it would be nice if someone special came along. I’m ready for that. Yesterday’s experience suggested that there are options out there. It also confirmed that not all men are creeps.”

  “Well, good for you,” she said. “But if you do find yourself a gentleman, I expect you to keep any feelings you develop for him outside of Wenn. Understood?”

  That might be impossible.

  “Understood.”

  “It’s nearly seven,” she said. “And after that conversation with my daughter? I already need to crack down on a few cubes of ice. Would you mind?”

  “I’ll be back with a glass in a moment.”

  * * *

  Since I’d promised Brock that coffee would be waiting for him when he arrived, I quickly put on a pot, grabbed a glass of ice for Blackwell, took it to her, and then went to my desk, relieved that she’d had nothing negative to say about the outfit I’d chosen to wear.

  “I’m afraid that today is going to be rather robust, Madison,” she said from her office. “Lots of little things to do, but lots of little things that also need to get done. Today, I’m taking you to Bergdorf with me. Jennifer and Alex are going to one of Peachy Van Prout’s big parties in a couple of days, and I need to go and scout out a new dress for her.”

  “I thought you were trying to get her some dress that was on the cover of Vogue?”

  “When I saw the dress in person, I knew that it wouldn’t work. So, since Jennifer is unavailable to me today, I thought that it would be good to take you along with me, if only so you can meet the staff at Bergdorf—and so that they can come to know you. Because going forward, they need to know that you are an extension of me. We’ll be leaving at nine.”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said.

  And then Brock stepped into the office.

  “Good morning,” he said as he walked past Blackwell and me.

  “Brock,” Blackwell said.

  “Good morning,” I said in return.

  Aware that Blackwell was watching me, I walked casually over to my computer, turned it on, and checked for any emails that Blackwell might have sent. But already my heart had begun to quicken in my chest as I did so, because as fleetingly as I’d looked at Brock, it was like feeling his lips on mine again—the memory of yesterday was that bright. He was wearing a fitted, light-gray pinstriped business suit that did little to hide the width of his shoulders and his narrow waist.

  God, help me, I thought.

  As other people started to arrive for work, I knew that Blackwell was likely checking her watch to see who was prompt and who wasn’t, which gave me a window of opportunity to look across the room at him. When I did, I saw that he was leaning back in his chair and waiting for me to acknowledge him. When our eyes met, he gave me a warm, impossibly sexy smile, put a finger to his lips, and then slowly mouthed the words “I want to kiss you. Break room? In five?”

  You’ll get caught if you do this, I thought.

  But if we could be quick and careful about it, I could have a brief, intimate moment alone with him before the day began.

  At this point, I knew the rhythms of the office well enough to feel that it would be reasonably safe if we were swift. So, with a knot of anticipation in my gut, I swung around in my chair, turned to Blackwell, saw that she was reading something on her computer screen, and stood. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” I said to her. “Would you like one?”

  “No, no—I’m fine with the ice. But thank you for asking.”

  “I also need to use the restroom, but I’ll be back in just a moment.”

  She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Did I really need to hear that, Madison. Please!”

  “Sorry,” I said. And then, with my body nothing short of a heated vessel of lust, I went into the break room, removed a white cup with the Wenn logo on it from one of the cupboards, and nervously made myself a
cup of coffee while I waited for Brock to join me.

  As I poured cream and two packets of sweetener into the cup, I heard people talking up and down the hallway. Some of it was small talk, most of it was business- related, but immediately I sensed that all of it sounded too nearby for either of us to take such a risk.

  I was about to pour my coffee, ditch this foolish plan of ours, and walk back to my desk when Brock stepped with meaning into the recessed room. He took me in his arms, he looked at me for a long, heated moment, held me against him, told me that I looked beautiful, and then kissed me with a passion that was somehow deeper than it had been when we’d kissed yesterday.

  “We’re going to get caught,” I whispered to him when I nervously broke away from his embrace. “I don’t know what’s come over me. She’ll have my ass if she finds out.”

  “I know what’s come over you,” he said in my ear. “It’s the same thing that’s come over me. I can’t go the entire day without at least having one moment alone with you, Madison. So stop talking, because we’re losing time.”

  And with that, I was in his arms again, his tongue met mine, and as he moved closer to me, he pressed his body fully against me, because I knew that he wanted me to feel the length of his excitement against my thigh. It was enough to make me nearly delirious with desire. What would having sex with him be like? I didn’t even want to imagine that now, because if I did, I’d be riding in on a hot train from messville by the time time I returned to my desk.

  “I’m crazy about you,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep last night because of you. Do you even know what I’m feeling?”

  I’m feeling a whole lot of you against me right now, Brock. And it’s pulsing.

  “I do,” I whispered. “I’m also feeling it. I can’t explain it, but I also can’t deny it.”

  And that was the truth.

  With a sense of urgency, he took my face in his hands, and he looked at me in such a way that suggested he wanted to memorize my face so that it would remain with him for the rest of the day—if not for a lifetime. Then he gave me a searing kiss before his hands dipped down to my breasts and cupped them gently in a way that was impossibly sensuous. After a moment, his hands fell away, but not before he’d rubbed his thumbs against my nipples before he crushed me again with a smoldering kiss that nearly destroyed me.

  Before anyone could catch us, he stepped away from me, grabbed a mug from the cupboard, and poured himself a cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.

  “It’s Friday night,” he asked in a voice that only I could hear. “And the weekend is upon us. Are you free after work?”

  “How can you recover from that so quickly?” I said.

  “My crotch is facing the counter for a reason, Madison.”

  I had to smile at that.

  “So are you free?”

  “I am.”

  “What about this weekend?”

  “I haven’t even thought about this weekend.”

  “Then I need you to think about it now because I want you to spend it with me.”

  “You’re in a persuasive mood.”

  “I just told you that I’m crazy about you. So let’s spend some time together this weekend. You know—away from here.”

  “All right,” I said. “In fact, I’d like that.”

  “I’m turning around now,” he said in a low voice.

  “I’m not looking down at your pants, Brock.”

  He turned around and leaned against the counter with a smirk on his face. “You know you want to.”

  I didn’t only find him charming and funny, but also wildly sexy. I just shook my head at him, and while my eyes wanted to drift south, I didn’t allow them to. I wasn’t going to give him that, because he’d just lord it over me.

  “I think you’ll get eye strain,” he said. “Because that’s a hell of a lot of willpower you’re showing off right now.”

  “You have no idea the kind of willpower I possess.”

  “Actually, I think I found that out over coffee the other day.”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway,” he said. “About tonight. Gordon’s again?”

  “I’ll be there. But I’m not sure when. She could keep me here until seven if she wants to. Or even later.”

  “Then I’ll just stick around until she decides to let you go. I am writing a report, after all.”

  And with that, he gave me the hardest, most piercing kiss yet.

  “I meant what I said to you yesterday,” he said when we broke away. “I thought about it all night long. Despite everything, we’re going to fall in love,” he said. “I know it sounds crazy—but it’s going to happen. You’ll see.”

  When he left with his coffee in hand and started to walk down the hall to his office, I just stood there alone, my head whirling in the clouds.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Bergdorf, please, my dear, sweet, darling Cutter,” Blackwell said as we left Wenn Enterprises and started to walk across the sunny sidewalk toward a huge, hulking man in a beautifully tailored black business suit. He was impossibly attractive, with dark hair, bright blue eyes, and a body that looked as if it had never missed a day at the gym—likely going back to the day when he was in the womb.

  “Hello, Ms. Blackwell,” the man said.

  “Really, Cutter? Ms. Blackwell? Aren’t we beyond that at this point?” She gave him a kiss on each cheek. “You know that you are to call me Barbara. Or even ‘Mother’ if you’d like, because that’s how deeply I feel about you.”

  She placed the palm of her hand against the side his sculpted cheek, and I had to admit that it was nice seeing this other, softer side of her. I’d spent the past week at Wenn, and while she’d been nothing short of brutal to me, the people I met who knew her intimately seemed to adore her for some reason, which suggested to me that this woman was more far more complex than I imagined.

  Would I ever become one of those people? The jury was so far out on that, I didn’t even want to think about it.

  “I’m still so happy to have you back at Wenn,” she said to Cutter. “I can’t even tell you. For too long, it just wasn’t right without you here.”

  “Happy to be here myself,” he said.

  She gestured toward me almost as if I were a second thought. “This is Madison Wells, my new personal assistant.”

  “Good morning, Ms. Wells.”

  “Please, call me Madison.”

  “And I’m Cutter. Welcome to Wenn, Madison.”

  “Don’t welcome her so fast,” Blackwell said. “I’m still in decision mode. She’s only been here a week, and I’ve decided on nothing quite yet. Who knows?” she said. “By the end of next week, poor Madison here might be flipping flapjacks at Flo’s Flip-and-Flop.”

  “That can’t be a real restaurant . . . ,” Cutter said.

  “It likely is somewhere in the South, but what do I know? It was all about the alliteration, my dear. That’s all I was going for.”

  And the fear mongering, I thought.

  “So,” Cutter said. “Bergdorf’s?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Then let’s go. I know you don’t like to waste time.”

  “I loathe it. Just ask Madison.”

  Cutter raised his eyebrows at me. He was standing beside a chocolate-brown Rolls Royce, and when he opened the rear door for us, I saw that the interior had only two seats in the back, each of which was lined with sumptuous-looking dark-brown leather, with twin RRs embroidered on each headrest in gold stitching. Blackwell motioned for me to step in first—likely so I would have to be the one to haul my ass over the dividing console—and then she joined me in the seat next to me.

  “This is amazing,” I said to her.

  “What is?”

  “This car.”

  “You’re amazed by a car?”

  “I’ve never been in anything like this.”

  “Why would you have?” she said. “You’re from Wisconsin.”

  I took that one for the te
am while she placed her bright red Hermès diamond crocodile Birkin at her feet, something I knew from reading Vogue that went for a cool hundred grand. Coming from a fairly poor family, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to adapt to this kind of luxury. Who in the hell spent six figures on a bag? It seemed like such an unnecessary waste of money to me. And who in the world considered it nothing to ride in the back of a chauffeured Rolls Royce? Was she serious?

  But what is money to any of these people? I thought. On one level, it’s nothing. But on another, more profound level? It’s power. She knows perfectly well that she’s riding in a brand-new Rolls Royce. She also knows what she’s carrying on her arm. And when it comes to the Chanel suits she wears day after day? Oh, she knows the power that they wield.

  “Well,” Blackwell said as she settled into her seat and Cutter shut her door. “Now that I’m comfortable, I do have to say that the car is rather something. This is my first time in it. I hear that it’s a Rolls Royce Ghost—or Goblin. Probably Ghost, because Goblin likely wouldn’t market well. But it’s something like that. Alex purchased it for me a few days ago in a way to recognize my small part in reinstating him as CEO and chairman of the board at Wenn after a horrific period in our lives that you likely know nothing about.”

  In fact, I knew exactly what she was talking about, though since I felt it was best to keep that door closed—she’d just accuse me of prying otherwise—I kept it to myself.

  She patted her bob. “And just so you know, Madison, one of the perks of being my personal assistant is that sometimes you’ll get to ride in a car such as this, which just happens to have cost five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Five hundred thousand dollars?” I said as Cutter got into the driver’s seat.

  “That’s right. But that’s nothing when it comes to what Wenn can afford. Believe me. Still, I do appreciate Alex’s gift. The more I look around, the more I like the car. The seats are especially comfortable. It is something, I suppose.”

  Something? And you only suppose? Lady, I’ve read up on you. I know that you came from a middle-class family and that you fought your way to the top, so at the very least, you should be out of your mind right now. If I hadn’t done my research on you, I would have believed that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, because only a fraction of the population gets to ride in something as ridiculous as this—or carry a bag like the one you’re carrying with you now. When did you lose touch with reality? When did you start taking any of this for granted?