Claim Me: A Novel (14 page)

I eye the door curiously. The truth is that I have no idea what he’s talking about, but what I do know is that the proper response
to such a question from your new boss is “Not at all. What’s going on?”

“Calendaring screw up and I’m double-booked. I need you and Tanner to head downtown to meet with the IT team at Suncoast Bank. They’re interested in the 128-bit encryption algorithm we’ve been beta testing. You’ll be stepping in to head up marketing on the product anyway, but I had hoped to give you a little time in-house to get your feet wet. Sorry to bring all this down on your first day.”

“Not a problem,” I say. My voice is calm, but inside I’m doing cartwheels. Bruce told me about Innovative’s cutting-edge encryption software during my interview, and I know that it is shaping up to be the company’s gold-standard product. I hadn’t expected to actually land such a choice assignment right off the bat, but since I have, I fully intend to use this meeting as a chance to prove to my boss that I can do this job, and do it well.

“It shouldn’t be too hard a sell,” Bruce adds. “The product is exactly what they need, but we’re going to want to put our own team on-site to make sure their IT group gets trained properly and that we have eyes on and a fast response to every bug and every glitch.”

“Of course.”

“That’s why I’m sending Tanner in, too,” he adds, tapping lightly on the cartoon-covered door. “He worked on the development of the project and, frankly, I think it would be good for him to work six months in-house with a client.”

“Why?”

Bruce frowns. “If you don’t mind mixing business with pleasure, we can go into that when I see you tomorrow. Right now, I’ll just say that when I was talking about the wolves, I didn’t mean the client.”

“Sure,” I say, realizing with a mental head-thwap that of course he’s going to be at the party. The first hour will be
intimate—just our friends who know that it’s me up there on Damien’s wall—but then Damien is opening the third floor to a whole slew of Blaine’s clients.

A voice filters out from behind the still-closed door. “I said ‘come in,’ already.”

Bruce pushes the door open, and a blond man with a surfer’s tan and the air of a salesman looks up at us. His desk is buried under an array of papers, and probably twice as many sheets are splayed out across the floor. He looks up at us and smiles widely. I know I should wait until I have more to go on, but I instinctively do not like this man.

“Bruce!” he says, his voice full of friendly bluster. “Just got off the phone with Phil. He’s sending up the information on the Continental Mortgage proposal. I’ll make sure he stays on top of it.”

“Sounds good,” Bruce says, but I have the feeling he’s only half-listening. “Tanner, this is Nikki.”

Tanner’s smile grows even wider and for an odd second I feel as though I’m looking at a mirror of myself. That’s not a real smile any more than my practiced pageant smile. Or any more than the Social Nikki smile I paste on right now.

“We’ve all heard a lot about you,” Tanner says. “Everyone’s been eager to meet the flavor of the month.” He half-laughs as his eyes dart to Bruce. “So welcome aboard and all that.”

I meet Tanner’s eyes and deliberately let my smile grow wider. “I’ll try to live up to expectations.” I shift just enough so that I’m looking at both men, then I pull out all the stops, dazzling them with my “what I really want is world peace” pageant-perfect smile.

“I’m sure you will,” Bruce says. “We’re thrilled you’ve joined the team.” The sincerity in his tone is unmistakable, and I can tell by the look on Tanner’s face that he realizes it, too.

“We really should get going,” Tanner says, then grabs a messy sheaf of papers off his desk and shoves them into a leather messenger bag.

“Here.” Bruce hands me a notebook with
Suncoast
embossed on the cover. “You can bone up on the specs during the drive.”

He tells us that he needs to go prep for his own meeting, promises me we’ll do our first-day lunch on Monday, then wishes us luck. Before I know it I’m standing in front of the elevator with Tanner beside me. And, yes, I’m a little nervous. Sure, I can do this job. I understand encryption algorithms and I’m more than capable of presenting a good company face to a client. It’s not my skill that’s bothering me. It’s the fact that I’m standing next to a man who, for some inexplicable reason, seems to despise me.

Bruce may not have noticed, but I’m certain I didn’t misread Tanner. Suddenly I feel a little sick to my stomach. And that queasiness turns into downright nausea when we step onto the elevator and he leans against the far wall, his eyes on me and his lip curled up as if he’s just seen something gross in the road.

I look away, intending to ignore it, but I stop, because suddenly I’m thinking of Damien. To say that he’s the most successful businessman I know would be an understatement. So what would Damien do when faced with a recalcitrant, disrespectful colleague? Would he turn away and pretend to ignore it?

For that matter, if Nikki Fairchild met up with some backbiting bitch under social circumstances, would she ignore it?

She would not.

I may be well-practiced in not showing my true face to most of the world, but even Social Nikki wouldn’t stand for this kind of shit. Neither would Damien Stark.

And neither will Business Nikki.

I press the emergency stop button, then take a step closer to
Tanner. I’m not enjoying the proximity, but I deliberately put myself in his personal space. The sneer fades, and he actually looks a little uncomfortable.

“Do you have a problem?” I ask, ignoring the bell that’s now ringing at annoyingly regular intervals.

His lips thin, and he pales a bit under the tan. For a second I think that this is it. I’ve made my point and won the alpha dog title.

Then he opens his mouth, and I see his color return. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re my problem.”

I force myself to stay where I’m standing. At least now it’s out in the open. “Me? You mean working together?”

“Working together?
Together?
Is that what you call it?”

“At the moment, no,” I admit. “I don’t think this is working at all.”

“We’re not working
together
,” he says, making air quotes with his fingers. “You’re my fucking boss now.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I am. And I suggest you think before you talk to me like that.” Seriously, what the hell is this guy’s problem?

“This was supposed to be my job. I worked this encryption package since day one. I know it inside and out. And I’ve proven to Bruce over and over again that I can head up a team. Then what happens? Some privileged little bitch decides she wants to work for pin money, and suddenly I’m booted back downstairs.”

“Pin money?” I repeat. “What century are you living in?”

“What’s the matter? Get bored with spending your boyfriend’s money? Thought you’d come here and shake things up? Do you know how many calls Cindy’s had to field? Dozens of calls from reporters who just want to know if you really work here. It’s a fucking waste of her time.”

The tempo of my pulse kicks up and I feel beads of sweat rise in my cleavage. How the hell would the press know that I work
here? And why won’t they back the hell off? Even with Damien Stark in my life, I am just not that interesting.

On the upside, Tanner’s enigmatic “flavor of the month” comment makes more sense.

“And you know what really chaps my ass?” he asks, then continues without waiting for an answer. “The fact that you’re here just because the boss wants to make his wife happy.”

Now my head really is spinning. I haven’t got a clue what Giselle has to do with this, but at this point, I’m done playing games.

I reach over and start the elevator up again, then turn back to him once it lurches into motion. “This job requires a certain amount of finesse. An ability to communicate with clients and the public. And most of all a talent for smiling at people that you’d much rather spit on.” I flash my brightest Social Nikki smile at him. “Tanner,” I say. “I don’t think this position is for you.”

We reach the lobby, and the doors open. I step out, leaving him to follow. I
am
the one in charge here, and he can damn well deal with it. I may not have a handle on everything he’s just said, but I know enough to know that if I don’t take control now, he’ll do whatever he can to snatch it from me.

As we head through the lobby toward the exit, I see a poised-looking Asian woman sitting at a table outside the cafeteria. She’s reading what looks to be a stock report, and in the brief instant when she flips a page, her eyes lift and catch mine. I’ve never seen her before, but something in her poised, confident manner inspires me. This is my job, and I got it on merit, not because of Damien, and certainly not because of Giselle. I’m in charge here, and I’m damn well going to prove it.

I march to the exit and burst through the doors—and half a second later, my bright, shiny bubble of self-assurance pops as
six paparazzi with flashing cameras and rising voices rush toward us from where they were apparently lying in wait in the parking lot.

Before I can even think about reacting, I am verbally bombarded.

“Is it true that Stark is looking to take over Innovative Resources?”

“Nikki, what exactly is your role at IR?”

I fight to keep my composure. To keep my Business Nikki face plastered on. I hate this, but I’m not going to let them have the satisfaction of knowing it.

“Are you reporting back to Stark’s company?”

“What do you say to the allegations of corporate espionage?”

At that, I have to force myself not to clench my hands. Not because I want the pain, but because I want to smash my fist into the face of whichever one of these assholes has dared to suggest that Damien would send me in as a corporate spy.

“Is this a ploy to up your value to reality-show producers?”

“Tell us about the real Nikki—is it true your sister committed suicide?”

I stumble backward, my composure knocked out of me by the force of those words.

No. No, no, no
.

This time I do clench my fists. I want the pain. I need it to collect myself. To give me strength.

I need it because I have to find the will to put the mask back on. To face these people. And then to get the hell out of here.

Slowly, I square my shoulders. And though it takes every ounce of strength within me, I look at each one of them in turn. Then I flash my million-watt smile. “No comment,” I say, before I turn casually around to find Tanner.

He’s still in the building doorway, and my eyes locate him just in time to see his smug expression fade. “Hurry up, Tanner,”
I say as I push my way past the paparazzi. “We need to get to a meeting.”

“Oh, my God! I can’t believe you got paired to work with such a twit!” Jamie says. We’re sitting at the polished wooden bar in Firefly Studio City drinking dirty martinis. She eats the final olive out of hers, then points the little plastic sword at me. “It’s like you’re living a sitcom. No, a movie,” she amends. “One of those screwball comedies where the spunky heroine is paired with the completely incompetent idiot and wackiness ensues.”

“Except he’s vengeful, not incompetent. And doesn’t the heroine in those movies always end up with the idiot?”

“Not necessarily,” Jamie says, leaning back and looking smug. “Not so long as there’s another love interest in the B-story.” She swipes her hand through the air. “
A Day with Tanner
. I can practically see the trailer.”

I grimace. “Well, you can star in it. Personally, I’d rather have another leading man.”

“You do,” Jamie says. “And as much as it pains me not to talk about either of our fuckalicious men, I want to hear the rest of this story first. How did the camera-vultures know you were there? Did Tanner tell them? Have you told Damien about the corporate espionage comment? Was he totally livid?”

“I’m going to tell him when I see him,” I say. “And yeah, he’ll be livid.” I bite back a grimace. This wouldn’t have been prevented by Edward driving me to work, but I have a feeling that simple fact isn’t going to matter when Damien hears what happened and goes ballistic.

“As for Tanner …” I trail off with a shrug. I suspect he’s the source, but I can’t prove it. “Doesn’t matter much. They know now. Yay,” I add dryly.

Jamie leans closer to me, her brows pulling together as she studies my face. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay?”

I almost put on my practiced smile and nod and say that everything will be fine. But this is Jamie, and she’s been my best friend since about forever. More important, she knew how much my big sister meant to me. How much I’d relied on Ashley to survive all the shit my mother put me through. The nights locked in my room with no way to turn on the light because my mother was convinced I needed my beauty sleep. The interminable hours walking with a book on my head. The second weekend of the month when I was allowed only water with lemon so that I would detox and “keep that nasty cellulite at bay.” The big things, the little things, and so much more.

I was the one to win the ribbons and the tiaras, but it was Ashley I’d envied. Ashley, who’d been allowed to live a normal life, or so I’d thought. Ashley, who’d tended to her little sister even before tending to herself.

I hadn’t thought about how my mother’s harping must have been drilled into my sister’s head, too. Or, at least, I hadn’t thought about it until it was too late and I was holding Ashley’s suicide note in my hand and looking at her neat, precise handwriting blaming her husband leaving her on the fact that she must have failed at being a woman and a wife. That somehow, she hadn’t managed to be the lady our mother had tried to train us to be.

Bitch
.

I close my eyes and realize that my hand is resting on my thigh—right over the scar beneath my skirt. I’d cut before Ashley died, but once she was gone, I’d kicked it up a notch.

There are so many memories tied up in those scars, as if each small ridge of tissue represents an emotional mountain. Mostly, though, there’s Ashley.

“No,” I finally say in answer to Jamie’s question. “I’m not okay. But I was—before they brought up Ashley, I was dealing
with it. I didn’t like it, but I was coping. And I’ll be okay again. I just wasn’t prepared today.”