Bianca
I was lying on my stomach on the bed, humming to Billie Elish’s ‘Lovely’ as I did a Sudoku puzzle. I was at my wit’s end and only doing puzzles kept me engaged.
Life, I sighed, was dead boring. Here I was, waiting to attend college, meet people my age and get a degree.
I stared up at the ceiling, brooding.
What would happen at the end of the year, the thought popped up in my head and I felt a sense of impending glom descend over me.
*
The Masters, O’Grady and St Just would move on, get another woman to pleasure themselves…
I would be back to my old life, a lot richer, but…
And then, I sighed, my eyes filling.
Strike that.
Not my old life. Never my old life.
I would be treated like a wh*re.
I bit my lip.
I would need to leave the town, get a job somewhere else, maybe, get an apartment for myself…
*
Suddenly, the little phone on the bed beside me pealed and I almost fell off the bed in shock.
It was St Just.
“Get dressed, something that’s formal,” he rasped and I shot up in bed.
Now what? I thought.
And then, he went on, without waiting for me to say anything,
‘You’re coming to eh office. I’ve sent eh car. It’ll be there in five minutes.”
I sat, staring at the phone, for he had disconnected.
“Huh?” I thought mutinously.
What was that?
Just then, the sound of a car drawing up made me leap up from bed. I rushed to change just as Alfred knocked and said in his Jeeves’ voice,
“The car is here to pick up you.”
I stuck out my tongue at him from behind the wardrobe door and quickly pulled the only really propah clothes I could find.
A full-sleeved white blouse with some frills at the neck and the wrists, and a black pencil skirt. I tugged it down over my large hips despairingly, just as I caught sight of myself in the mirror.
Gloomily I reflected,
I had put on weight.
Sighing I smoothed the skirt, dashed some lipstick and wound my long hair into a chignon at the nape of my neck. Then, grabbing my laptop bag, I dashed down, glancing at the time, triumphantly. I had just taken five minutes in all!
Alfred, who was hovering a the bottom of the stairs, asked in his clipped voice,
“Will you be coming for lunch?”
I stopped and stared at him. Then I said in my most polite voice,
“Why don’t you ask Mr O’Grady or Mr St Just? Cos I have no idea.”
And I marched out, relishing the look on his face. I had been polite for as long as I could. Sorry, NOT.
*
O’Grady had listened to his brother in some astonishment.
“Bianca is not even in graduate school. Saint,” he protested. “How can SHE help?”
St Just shook his head, an infuriating half smile playing on his wide mouth.
“You should have seen her in action, O’Grady. She just sat down, looked at those spreadsheets and did the work.”
He snapped his fingers for emphasis.
“Like this.” He added.
O’Grady still looked doubtful.
“We’re putting a lot at stake here, Saint,” he grumbled but the door opened after a soft knock and Bianca walked in.
*
O’Grady felt the tightening in his groin as he looked at her full figure, the gently rounded curves and her lovely face with the full, plump mouth, the soft brown eyes with the curling lashes.
She looked hesitant, like the young girl she was. His heart went out to her. And he thought of how they had been in bed a few hours ago.
*
She had been so eager to play, had made him come incredibly…he did not recall having had such a wonderful experience with any woman till this day. And when she was with Saint, he had felt a deep desire to pull her to his body. Sharing her seemed to be too much of a strain…
He scowled. Bianca Cruz was getting under his skin and Liam O’Grady was not sure he liked it. He had never had a weakness, but this chit of a girl, barely nineteen, made him feel possessive, made him want to keep her with him, in his bed, all day and all night and the Irish mob boss was not happy to see how vulnerable he had become.
*
*
Bianca
When I walked in, having chosen to wear a pair of sensible black pumps that I discovered as I was rushing from my room, I saw the look on St Just’s face. He smiled at me, his eyes twinkling.
Liam O’Grady looked anything like the man who had been using my body so feverishly all night long,
His hard, cold face, the thick, fighter’s fist clenched as he watched me made me want to turn and run away. I suddenly felt an unspeakable urge to turn and run out. Why did the man I loved so much that I ached, have such a grim, stony look on his chiselled face?
Was he displeased with me?
*
Why had they summoned me here? I thought in bewilderment.
St Just nodded and I walked to the large walnut desk in the room, behind which O’Grady sat, surveying me.
“Sit,” he barked and I sank down, clutching my little laptop, bag and my purse.
“Master?” I whispered anxiously, licking my suddenly dry lips. His black eyes followed the movement of my tongue and I suddenly felt very hot and sweaty though the air in the room was quite cold.
I bit my lip nervously.
What was going on?
O’Grady scowled and said in a low gravelly tone, sounding irritated,
“Saint says you are good at accounts.”
The sceptical tone he used made me get annoyed too.
*
I sat up straight, my eyes flashing.
“I am,” I snapped.
I felt St Just’s lips quirk in amusement, and I glanced at him.
“What is this?” I said, almost imploringly.
“We have a small problem, Bianca,” said Liam O’Grady and I loved the way he rolled my name in his mouth.
It sounded so…sexy.
‘Uhh…problem?” I asked, mystified.
“We need someone to help with the accounts,” said St Just, putting me out of my misery, and I turned to him, wide-eyed in shock.
“Me?” I cried, pointing to myself.
St Just grinned suddenly.
“Yes,” he said gently, reaching out and taking my hand, stroking the back of my hand as he said,
“I told O’Grady here that you’re a whiz with numbers.”
I turned to look at O’Grady, who was regarding me silently from beneath his heavy lids, silent and disapproving.
Once again, I felt a rush of unwanted emotion.
I loved this man; heck, I was crazy about him.
But I sat stiffly and said in a small voice,
“I did the accounts for my Dad. But they were on a much smaller scale.”
O’Grady made a snorting sound and I felt annoyed.
Glaring at him, I said coldly,
“But I am quite capable of doing the accounts if you could give me an outline, and the necessary documents.”
Sitting up ramrod stiff, I bit out the words,
“It might take some time, but I can handle it.”
I did not say a word. I felt the air in the room had shifted, and something unpleasant might come if I asked too many questions.
It was St Just who came to my rescue again.
‘Let’s just say, our old accountant is …uhhuh…incapacitated. He won’t be coming back to work.”
And he cocked a brow at his brother as he said the words.
I stared at him in puzzlement.
O’Grady looked at his hands and said softly, a warning note in his tone,
“‘Tis sometimes bet not to know too much, lass.” And he lifted his heavy lids and looked at me.
For the first time, I felt a deep fear uncoiling in me. And I knew without a doubt, that Liam O’Grady had caused bodily harm to their previous employee.
His eyes held mine, unwaveringly and I swallowed, gulping.
Nodding my head, I said in a small voice,
“Yes Sir.”
*
O’Grady went on, his tone bordering on disbelief.
“Are you certain that you can do this? It might just be for a short while.”
I glared at him as the meaning of his words sank in.
Liam O’Grady did not think that I would be capable of doing his work!
*
O’Grady’s lips twitched.
“Pet…” he said softly, and his gentle tone would have destroyed me. But I was quite riled. He did not seem to trust my abilities! I would show him that I had the resourcefulness to compute the spreadsheets correctly.
I scowled at him and stopped when I saw his eyes darken, rightly reading the look on his face as they fell on my pouting mouth.
I hastily turned to St Just who was watching me, an unreadable one. With a slight smile, he rose, extending a hand to me and I looked up at him as I placed my hand in his.
“Come on, Pet,” he said, “Time to get to work,” and he winked.
I stood up, my expression stormy.
Liam O’Grady would have to eat his words. Well, unspoken ones, but his attitude had gotten under my skin.
Without a look at him, I marched out, followed by St Just.