The Stand Off (4 page)

Lux awoke the next morning in a
strange mood. Her nerves were slightly rattled, and she was still irritated,
but she was determined to not let it ruin her day. She had a class full of
talented children who were eager to learn to play the piano. That thought alone
brought a huge smile to her face and lightened her somewhat intense mood.

“I will not allow Dean Blake get
the best of me. I have three weeks to fix this situation,” she chanted over and
over as she prepared for her day.

***

Dean was up early, his mind
clouded with injustice and revenge tactics. He’d had trouble sleeping. He kept
dreaming of Lux and her desperate need to take what belonged to him. He was
actually running from her in his dream, and he couldn’t be more livid about it.
He wouldn’t take this lying down; there was no way he would be duped by some
female with a pretty face. He needed to rattle her cage, and he needed to
rattle it
hard
. The new destruction date hadn’t seemed to faze her; but
he had a pretty good idea of what would.

***

Lux had just finished teaching
her last class for the day when she heard a familiar voice calling her name.

“Hi Lux!” Roxanne Reynolds sang
with a warm smile on her face. Miss Reynolds was the mother of one of Lux’s
favorite students, Sally Mae. She was a single mother who worked hard to put
food on the table. She also happened to be a close friend of Kiki’s.

“Hi Roxanne,” Lux smiled, always
happy to see the devoted mother.

“I made cupcakes.” She handed her
the platter filled with brightly colored cupcakes.

“Oh thank you, you know how much
we love your cupcakes. They are always so beautifully decorated. I swear you
and Kiki should open your own business,” Lux said with a big smile.

“It’s the recipe I got from Kiki.
I made the strawberry ones especially for you. I also have a little money I
would like to give you.” She began to dig through her purse, but Lux stopped
her.

“We’ve been through this a
million times,” Lux said with a straight face.

“Please, I know how much piano
lessons cost. Not to mention the keyboard you gave her.”

“The keyboard was a donation.
Besides, your daughter worked very hard to get that prize. She won it fair and
square.”

“See Mom, I told you Lux wouldn’t
take it,” Sally Mae giggled as she walked up to stand beside them.

“Are you sure?” Roxanne asked.

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Thank you so much for everything
you’ve done, Lux.”

“She’s a joy to teach.”

“I just feel so bad; I wish I
could pay.”

“Listening to her beautiful music
and knowing that I’m the one who taught her is payment enough. She loves it and
I love it, why let money ruin such a good thing?” Lux smiled.

“I’m so proud of you Sally Mae.”
Roxanne kissed her daughter.

“Yum!” Pixie sang with glee as
she ran over to stand beside her sister. “I swear you and Kiki make the best
cupcakes on Earth, Roxy. I so adore you.”

“Thank you so much, Pixie,”
Roxanne cooed before turning and leaving with her daughter.

“You’re needed on the other side
Luxy baby,” Pixie informed her as she pulled the brightly colored tin from her
cupcake.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re blocking the lounge
entrance off with red tape and signs,” Pixie said as she stuffed half of the
cupcake in her mouth.

“Who is?”

“Who do you think? Dean Blake’s
men,” she said through a mouth full of pink cupcake.

“What? They can’t do that!” Lux
almost screeched.

“Mom was so distraught about it
that she locked herself in her room.”

“Shit!”

“I’ll go take care of Mom,” Pixie
said as she shoveled the rest of the cupcake into her mouth. She then grabbed
the plate of cupcakes from Lux. “I think these cupcakes might help Mom.”

“Or you.” Lux shook her head as
she watched Pixie rush off.

Lux briskly walked down the halls
decorated with the children’s artwork to the other side of the building where
the Music hall met the lounge. She opened the large double doors that separated
the buildings to find a rather large man in the process of hanging a sign on
the door. There was a group of men in the Lounge, all of them hanging Do Not
Enter signs with red tape on the other doors. They had also used the red tape
to fashion thick, make shift barriers across the doors.

Lux ripped the red tape off the
door closest to her as she walked into the lounge. “What in the hell are you
doing?”

“Mr. Blake wants this section
blocked off,” the man that had been hanging the sign when she walked in
answered.

“I don’t care what he wants… take
it down!” she demanded.

“Sorry Miss, I can’t do that,” he
said sympathetically.

“You cannot block the lounge
off!” she insisted.

“Even if I didn’t do my job, he’d
just fire me and hire someone else to do it. Your best option would be to take
it up with Mr. Blake, Miss,” he informed her.

“Fine, then I’ll do it myself,”
she snapped as she began to tear down the red tape.

The men stood back as she went
from door to door and removed everything they had hung. The foreman grabbed his
cell and quickly dialed his boss.

“Mr. Blake? Yes, she’s taking
down the signs, what should we do?”

“Put them back up when she’s
done. You’re getting paid extra for this scenario,” Dean instructed over the
speaker.

“Yes, Sir,” he said and hung up
the phone.

Lux had finished ripping down all
of the signs and the tape. As she headed towards the garbage can she noticed
that the men had immediately started to put new signs back up.

“What in the hell are you doing?’
she yelled, still carrying the large ball of signs and tape.

“What we were instructed to do… put
them back up after you were done.”

“Your boss told you this?” she
asked as her anger intensified.

“Yes.”

“We’ll see about that,” she
whispered more to herself as she stormed out of the front entrance of the
lounge, still carrying the big ball of signs wrapped in a mound of tape.

She cursed under her breath as
she headed out to her car. She opened the passenger’s side and tossed the big
sticky ball in the seat. She rushed to the driver’s seat, started her car, and
headed to see the attempted-lounge-wrecker himself, Dean Blake.

***

Lux parked in front of the office
building and then stormed inside. She knew Dean’s office was not located on the
same floor as their original meeting. The secretary that had led her there that
day had told her as much. She walked through the lobby and headed straight for
the receptionist’s desk.

“Can I help you?” the woman
smiling behind the over-sized, round desk asked.

“Yes, I am here to see Dean Blake.
I just can’t remember which floor he told me his office was on,” Lux said
nonchalantly, despite the fact that the receptionist was staring at the large
red ball of tape in her hand.

“He’s at the very top; I’ll just
call him.”

“That won’t be necessary; he’s
expecting me.” Lux smiled before walking away from the desk.

“But no one is allowed up there
without permission,” her voice grew louder as Lux rushed to the elevators.

Lux took the long ride to the top
and stepped into a huge lobby. Despite her anger, she took a moment to stop and
look around her. The whole place screamed of wealth… extreme wealth; but more
than that, it screamed of art. She looked at the clean white stucco walls, the
charcoal furnishings, and the platinum accents. The walls were covered in
large, darkly themed paintings that seemed to oppose as well as complement the
elegance surrounding it.

“May I help you?” the secretary
at the main desk asked.

“Dean Blake’s office?” Lux asked.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes.”

“Your name?”

“Lux Hart.”

“Um, I don’t see you here.”

“Just show me where he is,” Lux
sighed in mounting irritation. She preferred to not take her rage for Dean out
on this woman, who was just doing her job.

“You’ll need an appointment
first.”

“I have an appointment. There is
obviously a mistake.”

“Okay, I’ll take you to his
personal secretary. Come with me please.” She smiled pleasantly.

She led Lux down a wide hallway
decorated in the same dark paintings. The end of the hallway opened up into a
large, brightly lit area with a desk and a door. They stood before the desk
that looked too pricey for a secretary and a secretary that was too under
dressed to be a secretary.

“Hello, can I help you?” the
secretary asked in a sweet, cartoonish voice.

“She’s here to see Mr. Blake, but
I’m not positive if she has an appointment,” she informed the other secretary
before she headed back to her desk.

“Is this his office?” Lux asked.

“Yes, is he expecting you?” she
asked sweetly.

“Yes,” she lied with a straight face.

“You’re name please?”

“Lux Hart.”

The secretary picked up her phone
and dialed her boss.

“There is a Ms. Lux Hart here to
see you, Sir.” She relayed the message in the sweetest of tones.

“Send her in,” Dean said
dispassionately.

The secretary held the door open
as Lux sashayed into Dean’s office and then quickly closed it behind her. Once
they were alone, Lux glared accusingly at Dean for a moment as she held up the
large ball of tape. She strolled across the room with the air of a queen, despite
the butterflies wreaking havoc in her belly. She stopped in front of his desk
and dropped the large, sticky ball down on his paperwork.

“What is this?” he barked.

“
This
belongs to you.”

“You have to the count of three
to get it out of here,” he warned her.

“Save your count; I’m not moving
it.” She glared at him as she handed him the paperwork.

“Excuse me?”

“I want you to sign this, then I
want you to get the rest of that red tape out of my building.
Then
I
want you to leave us the hell alone before I expose
all
of your secrets!
You have no idea the mental trauma you’re causing everyone!”

“It’s just a record store; tell
everyone to download there music like everyone else,” he mocked.

She tried to count silently to
ten before she jumped across his desk and decked him.

“It’s not just a record store!”
she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Oh yes… I almost forgot about
the lounge.”

“It is so much more; if you’d
even taken the time to look inside you would know that. If you’re trying to
eradicate the building; you should at least know the extent of what you’re
destroying. It’s way more than just a record store and a lounge.” Her patience
was dwindling by the second.

“You’re wasting my time; I’ll
never sign.” He was angry but somewhat amused by her audacity as well as her
passion. Despite his need to crush her, he also wanted to dominate her; she was
turning him on at rapid speed. He could feel his cock lengthen towards her
direction.

“Then I will be forced to go
public with your affairs. The governor’s wife is bad enough, but what you did
to your last competitor is also damaging. Not to mention the long list of
disgusting deeds you have committed over the years.” She smirked.

“Then by all means, let the world
know how depraved I am while you let them know how low you’d sink to win.”

“That’s not going to work on me.
I fought too hard for the music hall to care about stuff like that. Unlike you,
I don’t have the public eye on me due to my family’s celebrity stature and
wealth. I also don’t have a family established enough to tarnish with my
scandalous affairs.”

“You don’t know anything about my
family.” He rose from his chair and walked around the desk to stand beside her.

She was suddenly over powered by
his smell. The appealing scent of freshly washed flesh drifted into her
nostrils. He didn’t wear cologne or anything more elaborate than soap, but the
simplistic smell was ruggedly appealing to her. She’d expected some overpriced
cologne or something equally obnoxious, probably something flecked with gold.
Surprisingly, she was just as impressed that he’d unknowingly proved her wrong,
as she was by the fact that he could make soap smell so fucking sexy.

He took another small step closer,
and she felt the room shift with her unease. He dominated her with his size,
his muscular body towered over her five foot five frame. She suddenly felt very
small and was embarrassingly stimulated by the feeling. Normally, she preferred
to be the dominating force in the room, but somehow this felt just as
comfortable. The thought was unpleasant, but the feeling it caused was
exquisite.