Mariette And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 2) (15 page)

"Your brother lost me a client, and that will not just cost me three hundred thousand dollars," he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her face to his. "He cost me that every single month until I get that client back. So unless you plan to pay me three hundred thousand per month, this means nothing."

She stared into his dark eyes and he smiled back at the grey of hers, the gaze only broken when Jake walked into the room.

"Boss, take a look at this," he said and handed Josh a letter. Josh ignored Simone as he read the papers that told him he had to pay more tax, the total of which was just a bit too much for his liking. Then he remembered something Michael had said, his sister was an accountant.

He turned back to her and smiled. "If want to free your brother from my debt, you have to do something for me."

"Not interested!" She said and shoved Jake out of her way, as she was about to walk off he grabbed her by the hand.

"Not so fast," he said and the steel in his voice told her that her day was going to be a long one.

Chapter 3

Simone felt the iron grip of one of the most dangerous men in Chicago sink into her forearm and thought in that moment that maybe, just maybe she should have taken Cara’s advice and leave him be. But what was she to do? Joshua had all but nearly killed the single most important person in her life. Never mind that Michael was an idiot by all accounts, but he was her baby brother.

“Let me go,” she said to Josh whose grip only tightened with what he no doubt perceived to be her insolence.

“You storm into the lion’s den love and then want to give us orders,” the man chuckled. “That’s not how this works.”

His henchman blocked her exit and he gestured to her to take a seat. “You are an accountant right?” When she didn’t answer his question he continued. “I need you to take a look at these tax papers and tell me how I can avoid paying all of it legally.”

He shoved some papers towards her and she ignored them.

“I am not getting involved in anything you have going on here,” she shot back at him. His unbothered expression told her that he had ways of making her do just that.

“You can do it by will or by force, but don’t test my patience because I have very little of that left.”

Simone looked at his smooth face as he stood up. Another time and another place and she would have bedded him in a jiffy. He was sexiness personified and the air of danger that surrounded him was every bit as appealing. Yes, an argument could be made that she was just as stupid as her brother for thinking what she was thinking now. He walked around his desk to the office bar he had and poured himself a drink. She watched him, admiring the way the black pants of his designer suit hugged his ass, and when he turned and flipped his jacket open to shove his hand in his pocket she could see that beneath his shirt were the kind of abs that women drooled over.

Oh, only if he were not the devils spawn.

Her eyes lifted to see his staring at her and a slow smile spread across his lips. He had seen her admiring him and she knew that just stroked his oversized ego even more, but with that realization came the fact that she knew, unless she did his bidding it was highly unlikely that she would be leaving his office the way she came. She resigned herself to his demand and flipped through the papers. Her mother had spent a butt load of money on her Ivy League education; it had better not fail her now. Not like she was running off to anywhere in particular other than back to the hospital to kill her brother herself. She had quit her job the week before when her boss had thought it was okay to walk into her little cubicle and hail insults at her for reporting a discrepancy in one of their accounts. Excuse her for thinking she was just doing her job.

She watched him whisper something to the man at the henchman, who left to do his bidding. Maybe they were preparing her body bag or something but she pushed those horrific thoughts from her mind and spent the next five minutes looking at the statements that accompanied the auditors demand and came to the conclusion that he really was not to be paying that much tax. “Fire the agency you have doing your books, because they are just trying to swindle money out of you.”

“What?” he asked her in shock, and the deadly look that slowly engulfed his face told her that she might just have gotten someone killed.

She sighed knowing that answering his question would just be digging herself deeper into a hole but she did it anyway. “You are only legally obligated to pay roughly thirty percent of the amount quoted her,” she said to him and then spent the next thirty minutes explaining the math behind it. She watched his brows furrow and loosen with every word she said, and felt drawn to the way he soaked up every bit of information she passed on to him. When she was finished talking she turned her gaze from the papers to find his eyes tracing every line of her face and found it disconcerting.

“What?” she asked him and she could feel the blush creeping into her face. She was happy that her mother’s darker skin tone had overshadowed her father’s pale skin or she would be wholly embarrassed.

“I like your mind,” he said to her barely above a whisper, and if any line in history was a panty dropping line, that one was. His face was close enough for her to lean in and kiss him and she nearly did but stopped herself just in time. She had always wanted a man who complimented her mind and not her body, and here he was packaged like the demon who cops knew should be thrown in jail for all manners of evil, but were too afraid to touch him. And even then Simone knew that there was a lot more to him than meets the eye.

“Thank you,” she responded her gaze focused on the lips that pulled her in.

He got up abruptly from the seat he had taken beside her and pulled the envelope she had tossed at him earlier. His henchman came back into his office and handed him a paper which he perused before looking back at her.

“I see you are currently out of a job,” he said and again she did not answer him so he continued. “I will let your little weasel of a brother off the hook if you come work for me as my accountant.”

Her breath caught in her throat at the offer, and her eyes widened when he told her how much he would pay her and that she could take back the money she had brought. It was all a little surreal and she looked at him suspiciously.

“What’s the catch?” she asked him.

He again smiled at her as if he was pleased by what she said. “You have to work for me for two years.”

“Why two years? Why so specific?”

His eyes flashed with a warning that she should not question him and she slowly sank back in her chair. “I need to think about it,” she said.

“You have fifteen minutes.”

Simone took that to mean she could leave and quickly made her way down to the front where she had left Cara waiting. Her friend was nowhere to be seen.  She began to panic as she asked the receptionist who stared at her with contempt, where her friend had gone. The woman reluctantly directed her to the library around the corner.

The building known as New Horizons was home to one of the fastest growing businesses in Chicago and she had always passed it and marvel at its design. Being on the inside today she was definitely wowed by it and the library she entered to find children from the south side milling around, was heartwarming. She had heard some time ago that Joshua was trying to build up the project where he had grown up, and back then she had thought it ironic that he sold drugs on the same streets he was trying to make better. But her father had once told her that sometimes you had to take a step backward in order to move forward, and it was not until now that she had realized how true it was. She had never grown up in the projects, but her mother told her stories of how that was. This library and the free day care she passed on the way to it, where testament to something new and uplifting. God knows the community needed it.

Ok, now you are idolizing a drug dealer, stop it!
She admonished herself, but truth be told she knew she was going to take the job before she found Cara with legs curled comfortably in the library lounge reading a book. She explained what had transpired and her friend made it clear that she had very little choice. Simone left her there and went back to his office only ten minutes later.

“Okay, I will take it,” she said, and his smile this time was a bit more joyful than she knew he wanted to show.

“You start now,” he said, and she didn’t object to the fact that it was Saturday. “Jae will show you around and find you an office. Welcome aboard Simone,” he finished and handed her the envelope with money. Her father was on the well to do side, hence the availability of this much cash, but she had always told herself she would make her own. Especially after he had cut her baby brother off. This was a good start in that direction provided Joshua’s illegal business did not get her in trouble. She looked at his face with urbane good looks and the languid elegance with which he poured himself another drink. He defied all the stereotypes of drug Kingpins, but she was not stupid, she knew that if she made the smallest mistake, he would put a bullet in her head and bury her in the middle of nowhere.

That didn’t stop the stirrings of lust that crept into her tummy, in fact that just made her want him some more.

You are an idiot
, she thought to herself and sent Cara a text to let her know what was up. Her friend would no doubt stay in the library reading all afternoon and a confirmation text came back saying as much.

Chapter 4

“Today must be my lucky day, or I am being haunted by the ghost of sexy women past,” Cara heard a familiar voice directed at her. She had been so far buried in the book she was reading that she was almost certain it was the Casanova character she was reading about that had spoken.  But when she lifted her head, her blood ran cold and then the anger crept up her spine.

“Go away!” she said to the man who had beat Michael in the alley. He smiled down at her and she remembered that he was now Simone’s boss, so she stilled the words that were about to creep out of her mouth.

“You are in my building and my library, so if you don’t want to see me then you should leave,” he said sitting beside her.

“What are you doing?” she asked him apprehensive of his closeness as he lifted a brow at her.

“Sitting in the same spot I sit in every day at this time to think, so please be quiet,” he said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t do that.”

He looked at her and she felt oddly endeared to the confused look that crept into his face. “Do what?” he asked

“Think. You might hurt yourself,” she said and moved from the chair. She walked to the other side of the room and she could feel his eyes following her. She wanted to send Simone a message that she had just met her evil boss but she didn’t want to bother her, and so she climbed the ledge to a window with cushions and made herself comfortable while she read. She loved this library, and she had a feeling that she would visit it often. It was the kind of space that made you feel like you were transported to a different world and she needed to escape her reality every so often.

She was not sure how long she had been seated there, but the next thing she knew was that the librarian was telling her she had to go, because they were closing up. She lifted her head from her book to see the fading evening light and tried her best not to let her sadness show.

“It’s okay Cynthia,” Josh said from behind the woman. “She is waiting on her friend so she can stay with me,” he said and the woman nodded her head as she walked pass him.

“No eating in my library,” Cynthia said eyeing the food he carried. “I don’t care if you own it.”

“Yes ma’am,” Josh responded with a laughed as the woman left them. It was only then that Cara noticed how quite the library had gotten.

“A woman who reads is a dangerous woman,” he said to her.

“You need to remember that,” she spat back at him.

“Ok enough,” he said to her resting the boxes of food that smelt like fried chicken and chips. Her stomach grumbled but the steel in his voice was enough to distract her from her hunger for a moment. “Michael and I had business and he went against the plan and cost me money yet again.”

“Well, your mistake was rehiring him after he had failed the first time,” she shot back.

He glared at her and she found his stare provocative. His eyes narrowed and he loosened his tie then the top two buttons of his shirt. “Forgive me for being a man who had faith that if he could make some money after his father cut him off then he would be snorting drugs.”

“Drugs you sell,” she answered.

“Be very careful Cara Wright,” he said staring at her and whatever calm he had shown before was replaced with the ominous warning he gave her.

“His family pushed him to the edge and I just tried to bring him back. Now you can hate me for punishing him when he crossed me, or you can leave it alone, eat the damn food I brought you and wait on Simone for as long as you like.”

She looked at him and when he huffed, she couldn’t help but laugh, realizing how insane she must seem.

“What’s so funny?” he asked her.

“You,” she said taking the food he handed her. “Your legend is more intimidating than you actually are.”