He locks his eyes on me, pinning me against the car, his hand on my chin, stopping me from looking away. “You don’t know anything about me. Not a fucking thing. But if you’re going to know one thing, it’s this. I don’t take kindly to someone attacking my company or my family. And you did both. That doesn’t bode well for you, darling.” He pulls away from me. “And no, I don’t expect anything from you, Clarissa Masters, except to be everything you’ve always been.”
He walks away, smirking. “You can close the car door yourself. Unlike poor Halifax in there, I’m not a fucking simp,” he calls out as he throws his suit jacket over his shoulder and disappears down the street.
And as I climb into his car, slamming the door, I can only hope it’s the last I will see of Matthias Baxter.
MATTHIAS
F
our years ago, our grandfather passed away leaving express instructions with the company’s board of directors that he wanted my brothers and I to retain our positions as the regional
directors of Baxter Enterprises, me in North America; Kylian, the youngest Baxter brother, in Asia;
Damien heading up the Australia and Oceanic region; and Kingsley, the eldest, in Europe. And for Uncle Douchebag Gerry, to be the interim CEO until Kingsley turns forty-two.
Gerry is a fucktard with no business acumen or talent. He rides on everyone else’s coattails and never takes responsibility for his bad calls. We are all convinced that he was adopted at birth, considering he neither looks like any of us nor has any integrity to speak of. But Grandpa felt that the board of directors wouldn’t be on board with Kingsley taking the realm at such a young age, and that appointing Gerry would appease them.
And now we’re stuck with dealing with him.
Luckily, other than regular meetings and the occasional check-in when he’s trying to stir up some shit, he mostly leaves us to our own devices. So, when I return to my desk after a meeting and see a message that Gerry called, it conjures up all sorts of annoyance.
Before I can decide whether to return the call or not, Paula, my PR rep, comes running up to me, her face contorting like someone is shoving something up somewhere something shouldn’t be shoved. “We need to talk,” she pants.
“Yeah, Paula, I… don’t think I want to talk to you,” I say, backing away. “I’m guessing it has something to do with this message from my uncle.” I wave the post it in front of her.
“Mr. Baxter.” She sounds like she’s about to reprimand me for something, and frankly, I’m still smarting from some of the lines that Clarissa landed on me the other day.
I point to my assistant, who’s pretending that she’s not eavesdropping on the conversation. “Can you tell Hannah instead, and then she can tell me?”
Paula huffs impatiently, so I give in and gesture for her to go into my office. I seriously consider locking the door behind her and hightailing it out of there.
“Get inside,” Hannah commands, coming up behind me, clearly trying to block my escape.
“Hey, Hannah, I’d just like to remind you that you work for me.”
She shrugs. “Technically, I work for Baxter Enterprises. You want to pay me out of your own pocket?”
My head shakes so hard, my brain almost comes loose. “Hell no, I don’t know who negotiated your contract, but I think you’re way overpaid.”
“You negotiated it for me.”
“Maybe I’m not such a good businessman after all.”
She shoves me as hard as she can, which isn’t very hard at all, but I still pretend to go flying. “Just go inside!”
“Don’t make me send you to one of my brothers!”
“I’d gladly go!”
I pretend to stomp into my office with a sulky scowl, but when I see Paula’s voice, it dies on my lips.
“Okay, what did I do now?” I say, sinking into the leather couch.
She drops a stack of photos on top of the coffee table in front of me. “See for yourself, sir.”
With a frown, I pick up the photos. Instantly, I recognize the location as the street in front of Leanne’s apartment. The rest of the subject matter, I’ve actually been trying to forget. But can’t. Me, leaning in so close to a woman, it almost looks like we’re kissing.
Clarissa.
One hand is tucked under her chin, the other braced on the car over her head. It looks much more intimate than it was. Too bad they can’t see her face because if my memory serves me correctly, they’d see her looking at me with pure and unadulterated loathing. Hatred aside, the photograph does paint the picture of two people caught in an embrace.
“Oops?” I say.
Paula’s face tells me that her reaction to these pictures is not “oops.”. “Mr. Baxter, what did I tell you just a week ago?”
I sigh. “You said that I was not allowed to be… flirting… with women.”
“I’m pretty sure I said ‘manwhoring. ‘”
“That sounded a little too crass for me. I’m a classy gentleman.” I lean back onto the couch and lift my feet up onto my coffee table.
“Mr. Baxter!” she yells, her face turning red, looking like she’s on the verge of stomping her foot like a toddler.
I stop talking for a minute because I understand that she has a genuine worry that her job is on the line. Not everyone is as privileged to work at a job where their name is on the plastered-in-neon lighting on the side of the building. I take a breath and straighten my face. “Paula, would you relax? It’s nothing. This was… definitely not me manwhoring. Trust me. It was just a conversation. A very unwhorey conversation.” I jab my finger on Clarissa’s head. “Anyway, do you know what that woman is?”
“Does it matter?” she exhales.
“It will when you learn about who it is. That’s Clarissa Masters. That’s Terry Masters’s daughter.
As in the chairman of the board.”