Dominick
On the one hand, I managed to stay focused all week at the office, instead of obsessing over Xavier's curves. On the other, every time I closed my eyes, I thought about those lips.
Pink and puffy and raw from my beard.
Forming a perfect little O when they closed around my cock the morning after he slept over. Surprise! Xavier had said. Like I had earned a reward, even if we were still building up enough trust to get back to our kinks.
A knock on my office door pulled me back to reality, and I almost bumped my coffee over from the surprise of it. It was another busy afternoon, and with construction speeding along at most of our redevelopment zones, I'd had to switch into public relations mode.
"Another newspaper interview?" I asked my assistant. "I'm starting to feel like a parrot, repeating the same tired lines over and over."
"Just a delivery from New York," she said, dropping a file on my desk with a smile. "But don't worry. There's a radio interview on your schedule for later this afternoon." She winked at me. "Squawk, squawk."
I leaned back in my desk chair and thumbed through the file. Zachary had sent along the final contracts from my frenzied trip the previous weekend. After my lawyers glanced over the details and I added a signature to some pages, I'd be the proud of owner of a whole string of properties in Long Island City. It was far from the diversified portfolio I had spent years building, but the real estate was a solid investment, and if it meant I'd have a firm I believed in to return to, the transfer seemed well worth the cost.
I'd even let myself indulge in a little fantasizing of my own. I'd imagined a luxury condo on the water and a gorgeous little candy shop on the street. I knew Xavier would never actually leave his home in Denver, but I still enjoyed daydreaming about him returning to New York with me.
Frowning, I noticed some extra pages tucked in at the end. I almost turned away, wanting to keep my head in the Denver projects, but then I realized what I was looking at.
It was the opposition research I had requested from Clark. I was glad to see he'd done as thorough a job as I expected, gathering together more than enough details to give me a look at Alex's green firm and their past decade of work. I glanced through everything from quarterly filings and summaries of major projects to profiles of their executives and major employees. Squinting down at the paper, I trailed my finger across the numbers, scrolling through what looked like project after project of legitimate work.
A sticky note from Clark was stuck at the very end. "Looking like a great company! Wish we had more like them in New York."
I set the papers down, sighing to myself. It did look aboveboard, and Alex appeared to be a model executive. That didn't mean there couldn't be something shady going on and maybe exceptionally well hidden, but if Clark's team wasn't capable of tracking it down, I had no idea who would be.
Alex had been my one lead as I hoped to root out the corruption in the project. If he proved solid, I wasn't sure where I was left. Could my team really be so incompetent?
I picked up my phone and punched a few buttons. Almost immediately, Zachary picked up.
"I got the files," I said. "I'll have them signed and back your way by the end of the day."
"If your intention was to make the firm miss you even more than they already did, you succeeded. I'm pretty sure they're going to throw you a ticker tape parade when you get back."
"Except for the guys who tried to take part in the takeover."
"All on permanent vacations."
I sighed, wishing I felt more excitement at the success. "Sounds relaxing," I joked dryly. "Anything else you need on my end?"
"Nothing pressing. But hey, I did want to tell you I ran into your predecessor."
"My predecessor?"
"Pauline Breed? The woman who used to run the redevelopment in Denver? She was in New York for the weekend, rubbing shoulders with the same angel investors I was trying to court."
I leaned forward on the desk, furrowing my brow. "Pauline Breed? Are you sure? She supposedly disappeared altogether. I couldn't even get in touch with her for a quick phone call. Everyone here says she screwed up the project so royally she wasn't willing to show her face in a boardroom."
Zachary chuckled, and I heard cars honking in the background of his call. "That's not her story. She was complaining about all the snakes in the Denver system. Said it's like a real sewer over there. But as soon as I mentioned I knew you, she changed the subject and slipped away."
"Fucking hell," I muttered. "You have any more bombshells for me? Want to admit your undying love or anything?"
"Now that you mention it..." Zachary joked.
"Bye bye, peaches," I said, laughing despite myself.
"Enjoy the mountain air, sweetheart," he answered, and the line went dead.
I stood up from my desk and crossed to the large glass doors that divided me from the rest of the office. Everyone was hustling about, the same as usual. I saw a few designers from the architectural team carrying large prints of their new visions into a conference room and watched as some assistants laughed by the coffee machine. It looked like any other office I had been in, and just like any other office, there were apparently at least a few bad apples floating about.
I scanned the faces, considering each person in turn. I'd seen managers turn paranoid, trying to root out corruption and then driving their good employees away. That wouldn't be my fate, but I wasn't ready to accept defeat yet, either.
Which is when Patricia crossed the office, her heels clicking against the floor as she hurried toward the elevator.
Patricia...
With a tiny yelp, she stumbled over a stray computer cord, and her briefcase went flying. Immediately, I hurried forward, appearing by her side and helping her back to her feet. "Are you okay there?"
She shook her head, then smoothed down her pantsuit as she laughed to herself. "You'd think I would have learned enough to watch my feet when I'm running all over this place. Yes, I'm fine. Thanks, Dominick."
As much as I preferred to avoid underhanded business practices, I still knew how to play dirty as well as the next guy. I darted my eyes across the files that had spilled from her briefcase. Drawing on my speed reading skills, I pulled in as much information as I could without seeming obvious.
"Let me help you with this," I said, dropping to my knees.
"Oh, I've got that!" Patricia said brightly, dropping down to a squat beside me.
I caught some basic numbers for her team, the protocol for a new email server they were switching to, and a few perfunctory emails from employees. There were contracts with the city, a few with our collaborating firms, and a memo from a corporation called Zed Four.
"No problem at all," I said, tidying a stack of papers, then turning and catching her eye. "We shouldn't have cords lying across the walking path anyway."
"Occupational hazard," she joked, taking the last of the papers from me and rising back to her feet. "All good on your end? Happy days for the handsome executive?"
