“I’LL FUCKING RUIN HER.” I rolled a pen between my fingers—Help’s pen—the one I’d snagged from her at McCoy’s.
She hadn’t noticed the pen was missing—she was too flustered to realize what was happening—and that was exactly how I liked her. The pen was chewed on at the top, and it was so fucking typical of Emilia. She used to leave chewed pencils on her desk every single day in calculus class.
I may have picked them up.
I may have saved them.
They may still be in a drawer somewhere in my old room.
Shit happens when you’re a horny teenage boy.
I rolled my executive chair back, pushing from my desk and swiveling toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan.
People said New York made them feel small.
But I thought New York made me feel pretty fucking big.
From my point of view, I sat on the twenty-third floor of a skyscraper, and I motherfucking owned the whole floor. Thirty-two people worked here, soon to be thirty-three when Miss LeBlanc joined us, and they all answered to me. Depended on me. Smiled at me in the hallway, even though I was an ill-mannered bastard. I mean, how could New York make me feel small when I grabbed it by the balls and made a last-minute reservation at Fourteen Madison Park for tonight?
Some folks were owned by New York, and some folks owned it. I was among the latter. And I didn’t even live in the fucking city usually.
“You will not ruin your stepmom,” Dean dismissed with a laugh. I was still facing the Manhattan view. He was on speaker. “You’ve been watching too much Pinky and The Brain. Only you don’t want to take over the world, you just want to shit on people’s lives.”
“She texted me last night that she’s landing in New York this afternoon and expects me to clear my schedule for her,” I fumed. “Who does she think she is?”
“Your stepmother?” Dean’s voice was light and amused.
It was four fifteen a.m. on the West Coast, the ass-crack between night and morning. Not that I gave a fuck. He wasn’t used to the time difference yet. Lived in New York for the last ten years of his life. And he was chill by nature, the little fuckwit.
“And to be fair, you were supposed to be back in California by now. What’s taking you so long?” he asked. “When the fuck are we switching back?”
I heard the woman who was in bed with him—in my Los Angeles bed, fucking gross—moaning in protest at his loud voice. I licked my lips and twisted Help’s pen in my hand. I still needed to tell him that I’d hired her, but decided to wait till next week. He had no idea she was living in New York all these years, and I wanted to keep it that way.
One disaster at a time. I had my stepmom to deal with today.
“Not anytime soon. Your staff’s been slacking off. I’m picking up the work you’ve left here.”
“Vicious,” he grated out through what sounded like clenched teeth.
Our six-year-old enterprise, Fiscal Heights Holdings, was so successful, we had four branches: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London. Normally, Dean was in New York and I was in Los Angeles. Sergio and his stupid lawsuit had brought me here. I was the one who used my mouth for more than sweet-talking and licking ass. If we needed someone to soften a client, we sent Trent. But if shit got nasty and the situation called for intimidation or legal ruthlessness, I was the one on call.
Meanwhile, Dean was taking the opportunity to check on our Los Angeles branch. We did it from time to time, all four of us. Switched scenery, shook things up. As a token of our friendship, we stayed at each other’s places. The four of us co-owned all of our residences. We were a family, and in the upper class, nothing said family like mingled estates and funds.
Normally, I didn’t mind, even though I knew Trent and Dean would dip their sausages in every single honeypot within a twenty-mile radius of my condo. Those fuckers had probably bedded half of Los Angeles in my crib, but that’s what I had a maid for.
And a PA who made sure the sheets they used were thrown out—or better yet, burned—before we switched back.
This time, I especially didn’t mind Dean staying at my condo. I wasn’t prepared to drag my ass out of his apartment either.
Our New York branch was a mess, and I did need a personal assistant to sort it out. Sadly for Help, she was going to get dumped right after I was done with her. I couldn’t let her work for Dean.
Not that he would even want to see her fucking face ever again.
She was dead to him. From his point of view, deservingly so. Anyway, that was her problem, not mine.
“Wrap it up, Vic.” He called me by my nickname. Calling me Vicious in public had become professionally inconvenient in recent years, so now everyone just assumed Vic was short for Victor. “I want my apartment back. I want my office back. I want my fucking life back.”
“And I want to live in a place where you don’t have to give the taxi driver the exact fucking route like you work for them and not vice versa. Don’t worry, I won’t outstay my welcome.”
“Newsflash, douchebag.” He laughed again. “You already have.”
I could hear the woman beside him yawn loudly. “Hey, babe, can we go to sleep?”
“Can you sit on my face while we do?” Dean answered.
I rolled my eyes. “Have a nice day, shit-face.”
“Yeah, go eat a rotten ass. But not on my bed,” he said, then the line went dead.
Just in time, as I had a visitor.
“Good morning, Mr. Spencer! I brought you your coffee and breakfast. A three egg-white omelet on a slice of whole wheat toast with a side of freshly cut strawberries.”
I barely listened to the chirpy voice but turned around in my chair. “And you are?” I checked out the woman in front of me. Her hair was so blonde it was almost as white as her big smile. Taller and thinner than the national average. And her suit. St. John, a recent collection.
Maybe I wasn’t that far off with the outrageous salary I’d offered Help. Hey, it was New York after all.
“I’m Sue! Dean’s PA.” She was still bubbly. “I’ve been working for you for almost two weeks.” Her smile was still creepily intact.
Right. On second glance, she did look familiar.
“Nice to meet you, Sue. You’re fucking fired, Sue. Collect your shit and leave, Sue.”
Sue suddenly looked crestfallen. I was actually relieved for her. Until now, she’d looked like a bad plastic surgeon had sewn that eerie smile on her face.
Her cheeks paled under her heavy makeup, and her mouth fell open. “Sir, you can’t fire me.”
“I can’t?” I arched an eyebrow, feigning interest.
I woke up my Dell—fuck MacBook and fuck all the hipster posers who preferred Macs, Dean included—and double-clicked on the proposal I was working on. I was staging a hostile takeover, a surprise attack on a company that competed with one of our holdings, and fucking Sue was keeping me from finishing the last tweaks. My breakfast plate was still clutched between her French-manicured fingers, and I was hoping she could leave it on my desk before she left.
I clicked on the side comments I’d made on the Word doc last night, after I left Help’s, to make sure my proposal was airtight. My eyes never left the screen. “Give me one reason why not.”
“Because I’ve been working for Dean for two years now. I was employee of the month back in June. And, I have a contract. If I’ve done something wrong, you’re supposed to give me a written warning first. This is wrongful termination of my employment.”
Her panicky voice grated on my nerves like a bad high on a weekend.
I glanced up at her. If looks could kill, she wouldn’t have been a problem anymore. “Show me your contract,” I snarled.
She stomped off in a huff out of the glass box I temporarily called my office. It was usually Dean’s, and the fucker liked glass and mirrors, probably because he loved himself too much not to check his reflection every two seconds. Sue returned after a few minutes with a copy of her contract. It was still warm, fresh off the printer.
Goddammit, she wasn’t lying.
Sue had the right to thirty days’ notice and all kinds of fancy shit. This was not a standard FHH contract. I’d drafted the original myself and used every loophole known to man to make sure we had the minimum legal obligations to our employees in case of termination. This PA chick had signed a contract I wasn’t familiar with.
Was Dean fucking this girl?
My eyes skimmed over her whip-thin, malnourished body again.
Probably.
“Ever been to LA, Sonia?”
“Sue,” she corrected through another unnecessary huff. “And once,” she added. “When I was four.”
“How would you like to fly there so you can help Dean while he’s working in LA?”
Her face turned from annoyed and sad to confused then elated.
Definitely. Dean was fucking her.
“Really? But doesn’t Mr. Cole have your PA to assist him?”
I shook my head slowly, my eyes still on hers. A huge smiled tugged at her lips, and she clapped her hands, barely containing her excitement. Thrilled. Such a simple creature, our little Sue was. Exactly how Dean liked them. He was stupid enough to mistake Help for someone like Sue.
I knew his ex-girlfriend better than he did.
“So I get to keep my job?” Her voice was breathless.
“It’s in the contract.” I smacked the papers she’d printed, eager to kill the conversation before she killed my remaining functioning brain cells. “Now move it. You have a flight to catch.”
As soon as she left my office, I picked up my phone and called my PA in Los Angeles. People were disposable. I’d realized it from a very young age. My mother certainly was when my dad replaced her with Josephine. Of course, he’d never acted like a parent, so it was easy to believe that I was disposable too. That’s why the idea that no one around me was of much importance was ingrained deep within me.
Not my friends.
Not my colleagues.
Not my PA.
“Tiffany? Yeah, collect your stuff and your last paycheck. You’re fired. I’m flying someone else out to replace you tonight.”
I wasn’t fucking her.
She had a standard contract.
Goodbye.
I saw her on the security monitor near my laptop the minute she walked through the etched glass doors into the reception area of FHH.
My new PA arrived at eight a.m. sharp, but to say I wasn’t impressed was an under-fucking-statement. I’d expected her here at least fifteen minutes earlier. I’d talked to Sue at seven thirty, and I had better shit to do than wait around for Help. But I should’ve known better. This girl had always been a headache.
I couldn’t ignore her when I saw her at that seedy bar, McCoy’s. For one thing, she’d been dressed like she was about to climb over my lap and give me a twenty-dollar lap dance. For another, her shoes were too small and the bra peeking from her uniform was two times bigger than her boobs. Meaning she wore shoes that weren’t hers and a bra that used to fit before she’d lost so much weight.
I couldn’t help but feel slightly responsible for her situation.
Okay, a lot responsible for her situation.
I’d driven her out of Todos Santos. Then again, no one told her to land her fine little ass in the most expensive city in the whole fucking country. What was she doing living in New York anyway? I had no time to ponder this as I pressed the intercom button.
“Receptionist,” I barked—I didn’t know her name, and fuck if I cared—“direct Miss LeBlanc to my office, and make sure she’s got Sylvia’s iPad or a notebook.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but do you mean Sue?” the old woman asked politely. Through the glass wall, I saw her already standing up to shake Help’s hand.
“I meant whoever that chick was who served me breakfast,” I growled.
I got back to staring at my screen when Help knocked on my door.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi.
After ten seconds, I leaned back in my seat and knotted my fingers together. “Come in.”
She did.
She came in wearing a red-and-white ladybug dress—I shit you not—and yellow leggings. I also saw that the heel to one of her shoes was glued on crooked. At least they were the right size this time.
Her hair was still light purple. Good, I liked it that she no longer reminded me of Jo. And her roots weren’t showing anymore. Great, that meant she’d made an effort for me since my visit last night. She’d tied her hair into a loose French twist. Emilia stared at me defiantly, not even offering a hello.
“Sit down,” I instructed. It was easy to be cold to people. Cold was all I knew.
My last real hug was when I was a kid. My mother. Shortly before the accident that stole her freedom. My stepmother, Jo, pretended to hug me. Once. At a charity event. After my response, she never did it again.
Help sat down, and my eyes glided over her legs briefly. She still had a nice body, despite looking like she could use a good meal or three. She had an iPad clasped in her hand. Her eyes were on me. They bled suspicion and disdain.
“Do you know how to use an iPad?” I asked slowly.
“Do you know how to talk to people without inspiring their gag reflex?” she responded, mimicking my tone and cocking her head.
I swallowed down a chuckle. “I see I got someone’s panties in a wad. Very well. Start writing. Book me an appointment with Jasper Stephens—you’ll find his number in my email, which you should have access to by now. Then a meeting with Irene Clarke. She’ll want to meet outside the office. Don’t allow for that to happen. I want her here, and I want her to bring the other CEO of her company, Chance Clement. Then send a driver to JFK—my stepmother should land there at half past four, and book me a taxi to Fourteen Madison Park for seven p.m. We’re having dinner there.”
I continued rattling off orders. “I want you to send fresh flowers to Trent’s mom—it’s her fifty-eighth birthday—and make sure there’s a personalized card with my name on it. Find her address. She still lives outside San Diego, but I have no fucking clue where. Ask the receptionist what I had for breakfast, and make sure it’s on my desk every morning from now on at half past eight or earlier. And coffee. Make sure there’s coffee as well. Make extra copies of every single document in this file.” I tossed a thick yellow file her way.
She caught it midair, still typing on her iPad, without lifting her head.
“Familiarize yourself with what’s inside. The players. Their likes and dislikes. Their weaknesses. There’s an upcoming merger between American Labs Inc. and Martinez Healthcare. I don’t want anything to fuck it up. Including my new PA.” I rubbed my chin, my gaze shamelessly gliding over her body. “I think we’re done here. Oh, and Emilia?”
Her eyes flicked up, meeting mine from across the desk.
I smirked arrogantly and tilted my head to one side. “Doesn’t it feel like we’ve come full circle? The daughter of the help becomes…” I dragged my tongue across my lower lip. “The help?”
I didn’t know how she’d react, just knew that I wanted to poke her one more time before she left my office. This woman made me feel uncomfortable, exposed. Fuck, I didn’t even know why I’d hired her ass. Well, I did. Still, most of the time she made me feel like I wanted to explode and tear the whole place apart.
Help raised her head proudly and got up from her seat, but didn’t make a move toward me. She just stared at me like I was a fucking freak. I knew my shirt was stainless and ironed. Black, crisp, and sharp. That I looked presentable. Handsome, even.
Then what the fuck was she staring at?
“You’re still here,” I said, moving my eyes to my laptop screen, clicking on my mouse a few times without purpose. She needed to leave. I needed her gone.
“I was just thinking…” She hesitated, staring at the reception area through the open blinds of my glass office walls.
My eyes snapped to where her gaze landed—the golden FHH hung inside a bronze circle. There was a hint of a frown on her full pink lips, and despite disliking her, I wouldn’t mind having them wrapped around my dick under my desk at some point.
“FHH?” She scrunched her nose in a way that I suspected most men would find adorable.
“Fiscal Heights Holdings,” I replied, curt and formal.
“Four Hot Holes,” she shot back. “You’re the Four HotHoles of Todos Santos. You, Trent, Jaime, and Dean.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Just hearing her utter his name aloud made me want to punch the desk. The initials of our enterprise were our little secret, but sometimes, especially when we met once a month for beer and business, we’d talk about how we’d fooled everyone. How people put their hard-earned millions in the hands of a company whose name stood for four football idiots, three of whose rich daddies paved their way to success.
But not Help. She knew. Saw past our bullshit. Guess that was what had always drawn me to her. To the girl who lived off cheap carbs and wore four-year-old shoes but never once fawned over my big mansion and glitzy car.
There were several reasons why I hated her. The first and most obvious one was that I suspected she knew what Daryl and I were talking about in my family’s library. That she knew my secret. It made me feel pathetic and weak. The second one was that she looked just like a young Jo. Same eyes. Same lips. Same slightly overlapping front teeth and that Lolita look about her.
Hell, even the same Southern accent, even though I could hear that she’d lost most of it now, after ten years.
Hating her was like atonement to my mother, Marie, for a sin that wasn’t even mine.
The third one, though, was part of the reason why I didn’t just hate Help, I respected her too. Her indifference to my power somewhat disarmed me.
Most people felt helpless around me. Emilia Leblanc never had.
I uncuffed the links on my dress shirt and rolled my sleeves up, taking my time and my pleasure in knowing she was watching me. “Now get your ass out of my office, Help. I have work to do.”
“Darlin’, bless your heart, I swear you look too good!” Jo clutched my cheeks in her cold, leathery hands. Her manicured fingernails dug into my skin a little deeper than they should have, and not by accident.
I flashed her a detached smile and allowed her to lower my head so she could kiss my forehead one last time before everything between us went to shit. This was the most physical contact I’d allowed her over the years, and she knew better than to overstep her boundaries. She smelled of chocolate and expensive perfume. The cloying scent felt rotten in my nostrils, even though I knew other people probably found it sweet.
Finally, she released me from her grip and inspected my face closely. The bluish tinge under her eyes suggested she was recovering from yet another facial surgery. Jo was what happened to the Bond Girl twenty-five years later. Her resemblance to Brigitte Bardot used to be uncanny. Only unlike Bardot, Jo never agreed to this thing called nature. She fought it, and it fought right back, and this was how she’d ended up having more plastic in her face than a Tupperware container.
That was her problem. All the bleached-blonde hair, surgeries, makeup, facials, and superficial bullshit in the world—the designer clothes and shoes and Hermès handbags—couldn’t cover up the fact that She. Was. Getting. Old.
She was getting old, while my mother remained young. My mother, Marie, only thirty-five at her death. With hair black as night and skin white as a dove. Her beauty was almost as violent as the accident that eventually ended her life.
She looked like Snow White.
Only unlike Snow White, she wasn’t rescued by the prince.
The prince was actually the very man who agreed to poison the apple.
The witch in front of me arranged for it to be delivered.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the truth until it was too late.
“I adore this restaurant!” She fluffed her over-styled hair and followed the maître d’ to our table, gushing about expensive shit and mistakenly thinking it passed as small talk.
I tuned her out. She wore the gray Alexander Wang dress I’d bought for her birthday—it took me forever to find a cheap knock-off that’d make her rich friends laugh at her behind her back—and a perfectly applied lipstick a shade darker than her favorite red wine, just to make sure she’d look prim and proper, even after her meal.
A part of me was angry at Help for not fucking up any of the tasks I’d given her today. I thought she’d promised to be a shitty PA? If only she’d forgotten to book Jo a driver, I wouldn’t be here now.
I trudged through the avant-garde design of the exclusive restaurant, moving past walls made of live plants, French doors, backlit black cabinets, and ornate paneling. For a few seconds, I felt like a kid who was about to endure some punishment he dreaded, and on some level that’s exactly who I was.
We sat down.
We drank our water silently from crystal stemware that was as impractical as it was nonsensical.
We flipped through the menu, not looking at each other, murmuring something about the difference between Syrahs and Merlots.
But we didn’t talk. Not really. I was waiting to see how she was going to broach the subject. Not that it mattered in any way, of course. Her fate was sealed.
She’d not murmured a word about the reason she’d flown here, not until after the waitress served us our entrees. Then she finally spoke up. “Your father’s getting worse. He’s going to pass soon, I’m afraid.” She stared into her plate, poking at her food, like she had no appetite. “My poor sweet husband.”
She pretends to love him.
I stabbed my steak with my fork, cutting into the blood rare filet, chewing the juicy piece of meat, my face blank.
But my hate for him is genuine and real.
“That’s a shame,” I said, my voice devoid of emotion.
Her gaze met mine. She shivered inside her fake designer number.
“I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to hold on.” She rearranged the silverware over the napkin she hadn’t placed in her lap, straightening them in a neat line.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and spit it out, Jo.” I smiled politely, draining my glass of scotch—fuck wine—and sat back, making myself comfortable. This was going to be good.
Squeal, Mother. Squeal.
She took a tissue from her purse, patting the mist of sweat from her waxy Botoxed forehead. It wasn’t warm in the restaurant.
She was anxious.
It felt good.
“Baron…” She sighed, and my eyes clenched shut, my nostrils flaring.
I hated that name. It was my father’s. I would’ve legally changed it long ago if it weren’t for the fact I didn’t want anyone to know I gave a shit.
“You don’t need all of his money,” Jo said with another sigh. “You’ve built a multi-million-dollar company on your own. And of course, I have no expectations about how much I might inherit. I just need a place to stay. This whole thing has caught me so unprepared…”
I was only ten when Dean’s father, Eli Cole, a family law attorney who represented some of the biggest actors in Hollywood, shut Dad’s office door for a two-hour consultation on estate planning. Despite being crazy for Jo—or maybe because he was crazy for her and never really trusted himself—Dad insisted on a prenup that protected every penny and gave Jo nothing if she ever filed for divorce.
Death wasn’t a divorce, but she was worried about the will.
Neither Jo nor I knew what his will said, but we could guess. My father was a vain old man whose wife was his once mistress, a second violin to his business empire. And me? To my father, I barely existed except as a name that symbolized his legacy, but unlike her, I could help that legacy live on.
In all likelihood, I was going to be in charge of his entire business empire soon. I would hold the purse strings, and Jo was worried that my main vice—vindictiveness—would mean she was going to lose her cushy lifestyle. For once in her miserable life, she was right.
I exhaled, lifting my brows and looking sideways, like she’d caught me off guard. Not uttering a word—it was too much fun to watch her hopeful gaze as it met my armor of indifference—I took another slow sip of my scotch.
“If we find out that he…” she trailed off.
“Left you penniless?” I finished for her.
“Give me the mansion.” Her tone was clipped, and surprise, surprise, she was no longer pretending to be warm and motherly. “I won’t ask for anything else.”
The way she looked at me—like a brat who’d been denied their favorite toy, like she was in a position to negotiate—almost made me laugh.
“Sorry, Jo. I have plans for that mansion.”
“Plans?” She seethed, her bleached teeth shining with saliva. “It’s my home. You haven’t lived in Todos Santos for ten years.”
“I don’t want to live there,” I said simply, tugging at my tie. “I want to burn it to the ground.”
Her blue eyes flared, and her mouth collapsed into a frown. “So if it comes to that, you won’t give me even one thing, huh? Not even the mansion.”
“Not even the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. Sans fruit,” I confirmed, nodding. “We should do this more often. Jo. Spend time together. Dine. Share a nice wine. I had a lot of fun tonight.”
The waitress placed the bill on our table, the timing perfect, just like I’d arranged. I smiled, and this time—this one miserable fucking time—my smile actually reached my eyes. I yanked my wallet out of the breast pocket of my blazer and handed over an American Express black card. The waitress took it immediately and vanished behind a black door at the end of the busy room.
“Remember, Baron, we don’t know what the will says.” Jo shook her head slowly, her eyes hard. “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others.” She was quoting the Bible now.
Nice touch. I distinctly remembered Thou shalt not kill somewhere in there, too.
“I smell a challenge. You know I’m always a little silly for a challenge, Jo.” I winked and thumbed my collar, widening it. I’d been in this suit for far too long. I wanted to shed it along with this shitty day. My expression remained amused.
“Tell me, Baron, do I need to seek legal representation for this?” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table
Elbows on the fucking table? Josephine would’ve smacked me good if it were me with my elbows anywhere near the table when I was a kid. Her brother would’ve finished the job with his belt in the library, too.
I cracked my neck and squeezed my lips together, pretending to think about it. I definitely had legal representation of my own. It was the nastiest motherfucker to ever study law, and it was me. I might be cold, heartless, and emotionally handicapped, but Jo knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was also the best in the business.
I’d spoken to Eli Cole, too. He’d agreed to represent me in case my father did leave her something and I needed to scare her off. I wanted her penniless. It wasn’t about the money. It was about justice.
The waitress reappeared with my credit card. I tipped her a hundred percent and got up, leaving my stepmother alone at the table in front of her half-eaten dish. My plate was clean. My conscience was, too.
“By all means, please feel free to lawyer up, Mother,” I said as I shouldered into my cashmere pea coat. “Frankly, that’s the best idea you’ve had in years.”
