Ulterior Motives (8 page)

“Where did you learn to speak German so well?” she asked.

“I worked in the Elite school in Munich early in my career.”

“What other languages do you speak?”

“French and Arabic. The French doesn’t really count, though. I was raised bilingual. My mother’s French. I spent a lot of my childhood over there.”

“I see.” That would probably explain his educated, carefully neutral accent, particularly if he spent most of that time in France among friends and relatives who didn’t speak English.

“You look lovely today,” he said in a more personal tone of voice.

“You look quite... well, you know... you always do.”

“Thank you, I think,” he said dryly.

Shelley cleared her throat. She suddenly had a vivid mental image picture of the two of them locked in each other’s arms on Saturday morning. She couldn’t have something like that happening here in her office.

“I thought you said you came here to discuss business,” she reminded him.

“Actually, I did. I just find you so distracting.”

“Sublimate,” she suggested.

“Very well.”

Ross tilted his head to one side and studied her for a moment. An aura of feminine sexuality surrounded her, even in a business setting. She could certainly use it to her advantage, as Charles had intimated, yet it seemed to be quite unconscious and natural. Charles had suggested—no, specifically stated—that Shelley used
all
her attributes in an unprofessional way to ensure her professional success. Since that was a type of competition that Charles obviously wouldn’t enter into, it could explain Shelley’s remarkable success this past year and exonerate Charles.

If it were true, Ross wouldn’t have to fire Charles and thus throw a middle-aged man out of work. Yet the thought of Shelley behaving as Charles claimed disturbed him more than he cared to acknowledge. Now, looking at this small woman with her ivory skin, her tumbling copper hair, and her candid gray eyes, he felt stronger, more compelling needs stir inside him. And so he wanted her to convince him it wasn’t true.

He felt caught in the middle, confused and uncertain. This was all the more disturbing because it was unfamiliar and uncharacteristic. In the past he had been headstrong, rebellious, selfish, and careless, but never indecisive. Could he be losing his touch? He frowned, willing himself to take charge of the situation, to use that combination of ruthlessness and charm that had always been his strength.

Shelley watched Ross curiously for a moment, aware he was fighting some sort of an internal battle. She wasn’t vain enough to assume he was having that much trouble sublimating his attraction to her, so she watched for some clue about his dilemma. It must involve her, or he wouldn’t be here.

A subtle change came over him in that moment. When he spoke again his tone was polite and had lost all trace of intimacy. His eyes flattered her, but they were no longer warm and admiring.

“I’ve come across evidence of some rather unprofessional disagreements between you and Charles,” he said.

Shelley narrowed her eyes. “Is this about the time I swore out a peace bond on him?”

“Peace bond?” Ross heard the obvious surprise in his own voice.

“Ahh,” said Shelley, “I can see it’s not. He managed to keep that a secret, didn’t he?”

Years of experience made Ross recover his
sangfroid
almost immediately. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me about it.”

“I called the police because I felt Chuck had y gone too far that time, and I didn’t want to deal with it myself.”

Ross suddenly had a feeling this conversation wasn’t going to be anything like what he’d planned. “What do you mean?”

“There were other incidents, of course.”

“What sort of incidents?” Ross asked coolly. His mind was working furiously as he listened to Shelley with an expression of polite interest.

“Well, shortly after I first arrived and started picking up new business, Chuck started making crank phone calls to my office day in and day out. It got to the point where we didn’t even want to answer the phone anymore.”

“What makes you think it was him?”
 

“I mentioned it to him one day when I saw him having lunch in a restaurant near here. One look in his eyes and I knew he was responsible for it,” she said with certainty.

“That’s sheer speculation.”
 

“I also thought I recognized his voice,” Shelley said. “What’s more, our office opens an hour earlier than Elite and stays open an hour later, but we only got these calls during Elite’s business hours.”

“That can hardly be considered evidence,” Ross pointed out.

“No, I realize that. But I walked over to Chuck’s office the next day and told him that if I received one more crank phone call from
anyone,
I’d call the police and report him.” She paused. “End of crank calls.”

Ross absorbed this in silence for a moment. “I see. But that doesn’t—”

“Then, believe it or not, Chuck started sending spies over here. Once every two or three weeks, someone would make an appointment with me, then demand to see every inch of the school and ask all sorts of detailed questions that had nothing to do with language tuition. They were pretty easy to spot, and even easier to get rid of, but I was getting pretty annoyed.”

“I’m afraid I find that as unlikely as the crank phone calls,” Ross said, attempting to get control of the conversation. “Surely the police didn’t issue a peace bond based on your vague suspicions.”

Shelley felt hurt for a moment that he was so skeptical of her convictions. But he was the man from Elite, and that was exactly why she had decided not to get involved with him.

“No, of course not,” she said. “Last October I signed another big client Chuck had been after. He made all sorts of threats—privately, where no one else could hear him—about ruining my business. Then someone broke in here one night.”

“Broke in?” Ross repeated. This was serious.

Shelley nodded. “They didn’t take any money or valuable materials, but they did take my client address book, my list of teachers’ phone numbers and—get this—my schedule board. It took us two weeks to get everything back to normal efficiency.”

“That was when you called the police?” Ross had to wonder why Charles hadn’t mentioned any of these unpleasant incidents to him while he’d been defaming Shelley’s character on Saturday.

“Yes. I asked them to pay him a visit. I swore out a peace bond on Chuck and made it very clear he’d be in trouble with the law if he ever came near me or my school again.”

“Jesus,” Ross breathed, staring at Shelley. He had intended to question her until he had satisfied himself about the truth or falsehood of Charles’s accusations. All he had now were more accusations, this time aimed at his own employee. And Shelley’s accusations were largely as vague and as difficult to confirm as Charles’s.

“Have there been any other... problems you’d like to tell me about?” he asked. If she would offer something he could easily prove or disprove...

Shelley’s cheeks reddened slightly as she considered whether or not to tell him about Chuck’s latest offense, “It’s... a little embarrassing, actually. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else. Maybe... well, you’re his boss, Ross, am you’re obviously a gentleman. Maybe you can tell him to knock it off.”

“What?” he prodded. He was far less a gentleman than Shelley realized, but that was something he didn’t think he wanted her to know about him.

“Mike Paige of Keene International confided to me that Chuck insinuated that I offer... after-hours favors to men, to clients I mean, to get them to sign contracts and pay bid money. He implied that I didn’t know how to run a language school but had... slept my way into this position.” She was relieved to see Ross’ eyes widen in surprise. At least he believed her this time. “You can imagine, I’m sure, how embarrassing that is. Fortunately, Mike didn’t believe a word of it, and I know it won’t go any further. But I shudder to think how many other people Chuck may have said that to. I mean... for God’s sake, Ross!”

He stood up abruptly. For the first time since Shelley had met him, he looked agitated. He rubbed a hand across his face, started to speak, stopped himself, then thrust his hands into his pockets and looked away from her with a dark, brooding frown.

She saw confusion, anger, and surprise in his face. She waited for him to apologize for his employee’s behavior, assure her it wouldn’t happen again, make some personal gesture of comfort or commiseration.

He simply stood there, though, looking dark and unapproachable, looking like a total stranger, neither the charming flirt, nor the polite businessman, nor the teasingly tender suitor she’d seen in him. He looked like the ruthless man Henri Montpazier had hired to strengthen Elite’s worldwide business empire and to eliminate obstacles to success.

She suddenly knew that he hadn’t come here to hear her complaints about Chuck or to propose a more civil relationship between their companies. With a sinking heart, she stood and drew herself up to her full height.

“Why did you come here today?” she asked.

His eyes met hers. He realized there was no point in denying anything. She obviously knew. She was too damned quick for her own good. He merely nodded, confirming her suspicions.

“How dare you?” she exclaimed.

“I didn’t come here to accuse you of anything,” he protested wearily. “I just came to find out if it was true.”

“Why would you believe it even for a moment?” she demanded.

“Because it would explain a lot of things.”

Shelley felt as if he’d slapped her. “Explain
what?
How I managed to get this job? How I run a successful business with a growing clientele in a city where my only competition is a dishonest, incompetent, underhanded slime-puppy like Chuck?”

“Shelley, don’t—”

“You obviously have a very high opinion of my capabilities,” she continued angrily, “to think for even a moment that I would sleep around to get a job, to get clients. And to think that I would
need
to! As if I had no intelligence, no self-respect, no business acumen, no integrity—”

She broke off suddenly, and stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. “Is
that
what you were doing the day we met?”

“
No,
” he said. “Stop—”

“Is that why you came to my apartment? To see if it was true? To see if you could get some
entertainment
while you confirmed Chuck’s preposterous stories about me?”

“Sit down and listen to me,” he said firmly.

“Get out of my office.”

“Shelley, this has nothing to do with how we met or what happened between us in your apartment. I hadn’t even talked to Chuck yet,” he said, unconsciously using her nickname for the man.

“Oh, well, that makes all the difference!”

“Will you try to think objectively?” he snapped. “I’m new in town, I hardly know you, and I don’t know Chuck at all. As my employee, he offered one possible explanation about why your business has done so much better than ours ever since you came to town. It’s my job to investigate that possibility. It’s not personal. It’s got nothing to do with us,” he insisted.

“Of
course
it’s personal, and there is no ‘us!’ Do you think I can hear an accusation like that and simply forget about it when I go home at the end of the day, not caring who else heard it or might believe it? Do you think I can feel anything but embarrassed about kissing you on Saturday, knowing that it was so casual to you that you seriously considered Chuck’s accusations about me?”

Feeling surprisingly defensive and a little ashamed, he retaliated. “I think you’ve met Chuck blow for blow when it comes to accusations, Shelley. And yours can’t be proven any more easily than his can.”

There was a tense silence between them. Shelley was shocked at them both. She so seldom lost her temper that her stomach was churning now. He had hurt her. She was disgusted with herself for allowing him that kind of access to her emotions and furious with him for doing it. As if they realized in the same moment that things were getting out of hand, they both sat down and composed themselves.

“All right, Ross,” she said with forced calm. “If you want to regard my experiences as unfounded accusations while you deem Chuck’s insulting stories to be worthy of investigation, that’s your choice. But I will continue to take it personally, and I don’t want to see you again under any circumstances.”

“Look,” he began, wanting to prevent an ultimatum like that, “we need to talk—”

“What’s more, I’ll give you something you can investigate. Chuck’s salary can’t be much more than mine, yet he owns a house in Hyde Park, drives a Mercedes, and vacationed in Japan last year. Since he’s not independently wealthy and hasn’t won the lottery recently, and since your profits in Cincinnati have fallen off while he’s been the director here, surely a smart fellow like you can figure out that there might be a connection.”

“How do you know all this?” he demanded.

“There are very few secrets around here, Ross. Besides, it’s written all over his face,” she added with certainty. “But I wouldn’t want to bore you with any more of my unfounded accusations. If you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run.”