Claim Me

  "Here." Bruce hands me a notebook with Suncoast embossed on the cover. "You can bone up on the specs during the drive."

  He tells us that he needs to go prep for his own meeting, promises me we'll do our first-day lunch on Monday, then wishes us luck. Before I know it I'm standing in front of the elevator with Tanner beside me. And, yes, I'm a little nervous. Sure, I can do this job. I understand encryption algorithms and I'm more than capable of presenting a good company face to a client. It's not my skill that's bothering me. It's the fact that I'm standing next to a man who, for some inexplicable reason, seems to despise me.

  Bruce may not have noticed, but I'm certain I didn't misread Tanner. Suddenly I feel a little sick to my stomach. And that queasiness turns into downright nausea when we step onto the elevator and he leans against the far wall, his eyes on me and his lip curled up as if he's just seen something gross in the road.

  I look away, intending to ignore it, but I stop, because suddenly I'm thinking of Damien. To say that he's the most successful businessman I know would be an understatement. So what would Damien do when faced with a recalcitrant, disrespectful colleague? Would he turn away and pretend to ignore it?

  For that matter, if Nikki Fairchild met up with some backbiting bitch under social circumstances, would she ignore it?

  She would not.

  I may be well-practiced in not showing my true face to most of the world, but even Social Nikki wouldn't stand for this kind of shit. Neither would Damien Stark.

  And neither will Business Nikki.

  I press the emergency stop button, then take a step closer to Tanner. I'm not enjoying the proximity, but I deliberately put myself in his personal space. The sneer fades, and he actually looks a little uncomfortable.

  "Do you have a problem?" I ask, ignoring the bell that's now ringing at annoyingly regular intervals.

  His lips thin, and he pales a bit under the tan. For a second I think that this is it. I've made my point and won the alpha dog title.

  Then he opens his mouth, and I see his color return. "Yeah," he says. "You're my problem."

  I force myself to stay where I'm standing. At least now it's out in the open. "Me? You mean working together?"

  "Working together? Together? Is that what you call it?"

  "At the moment, no," I admit. "I don't think this is working at all."

  "We're not working together," he says, making air quotes with his fingers. "You're my fucking boss now."

  "Yeah," I say. "I am. And I suggest you think before you talk to me like that." Seriously, what the hell is this guy's problem?

  "This was supposed to be my job. I worked this encryption package since day one. I know it inside and out. And I've proven to Bruce over and over again that I can head up a team. Then what happens? Some privileged little bitch decides she wants to work for pin money, and suddenly I'm booted back downstairs."

  "Pin money?" I repeat. "What century are you living in?"

  "What's the matter? Get bored with spending your boyfriend's money? Thought you'd come here and shake things up? Do you know how many calls Cindy's had to field? Dozens of calls from reporters who just want to know if you really work here. It's a fucking waste of her time."

  The tempo of my pulse kicks up and I feel beads of sweat rise in my cleavage. How the hell would the press know that I work here? And why won't they back the hell off? Even with Damien Stark in my life, I am just not that interesting.

  On the upside, Tanner's enigmatic "flavor of the month" comment makes more sense.

  "And you know what really chaps my ass?" he asks, then continues without waiting for an answer. "The fact that you're here just because the boss wants to make his wife happy."

  Now my head really is spinning. I haven't got a clue what Giselle has to do with this, but at this point, I'm done playing games.

  I reach over and start the elevator up again, then turn back to him once it lurches into motion. "This job requires a certain amount of finesse. An ability to communicate with clients and the public. And most of all a talent for smiling at people that you'd much rather spit on." I flash my brightest Social Nikki smile at him. "Tanner," I say. "I don't think this position is for you."

  We reach the lobby, and the doors open. I step out, leaving him to follow. I am the one in charge here, and he can damn well deal with it. I may not have a handle on everything he's just said, but I know enough to know that if I don't take control now, he'll do whatever he can to snatch it from me.

  As we head through the lobby toward the exit, I see a poised-looking Asian woman sitting at a table outside the cafeteria. She's reading what looks to be a stock report, and in the brief instant when she flips a page, her eyes lift and catch mine. I've never seen her before, but something in her poised, confident manner inspires me. This is my job, and I got it on merit, not because of Damien, and certainly not because of Giselle. I'm in charge here, and I'm damn well going to prove it.

  I march to the exit and burst through the doors--and half a second later, my bright, shiny bubble of self-assurance pops as six paparazzi with flashing cameras and rising voices rush toward us from where they were apparently lying in wait in the parking lot.

  Before I can even think about reacting, I am verbally bombarded.

  "Is it true that Stark is looking to take over Innovative Resources?"

  "Nikki, what exactly is your role at IR?"

  I fight to keep my composure. To keep my Business Nikki face plastered on. I hate this, but I'm not going to let them have the satisfaction of knowing it.

  "Are you reporting back to Stark's company?"

  "What do you say to the allegations of corporate espionage?"

  At that, I have to force myself not to clench my hands. Not because I want the pain, but because I want to smash my fist into the face of whichever one of these assholes has dared to suggest that Damien would send me in as a corporate spy.

  "Is this a ploy to up your value to reality-show producers?"

  "Tell us about the real Nikki--is it true your sister committed suicide?"

  I stumble backward, my composure knocked out of me by the force of those words.

  No. No, no, no.

  This time I do clench my fists. I want the pain. I need it to collect myself. To give me strength.

  I need it because I have to find the will to put the mask back on. To face these people. And then to get the hell out of here.

  Slowly, I square my shoulders. And though it takes every ounce of strength within me, I look at each one of them in turn. Then I flash my million-watt smile. "No comment," I say, before I turn casually around to find Tanner.

  He's still in the building doorway, and my eyes locate him just in time to see his smug expression fade. "Hurry up, Tanner," I say as I push my way past the paparazzi. "We need to get to a meeting."

  "Oh, my God! I can't believe you got paired to work with such a twit!" Jamie says. We're sitting at the polished wooden bar in Firefly Studio City drinking dirty martinis. She eats the final olive out of hers, then points the little plastic sword at me. "It's like you're living a sitcom. No, a movie," she amends. "One of those screwball comedies where the spunky heroine is paired with the completely incompetent idiot and wackiness ensues."

  "Except he's vengeful, not incompetent. And doesn't the heroine in those movies always end up with the idiot?"

  "Not necessarily," Jamie says, leaning back and looking smug. "Not so long as there's another love interest in the B-story." She swipes her hand through the air. "A Day with Tanner. I can practically see the trailer."

  I grimace. "Well, you can star in it. Personally, I'd rather have another leading man."

  "You do," Jamie says. "And as much as it pains me not to talk about either of our fuckalicious men, I want to hear the rest of this story first. How did the camera-vultures know you were there? Did Tanner tell them? Have you told Damien about the corporate espionage comment? Was he totally livid?"

  "I'm going to tell him when I see him," I say. "And
yeah, he'll be livid." I bite back a grimace. This wouldn't have been prevented by Edward driving me to work, but I have a feeling that simple fact isn't going to matter when Damien hears what happened and goes ballistic.

  "As for Tanner ..." I trail off with a shrug. I suspect he's the source, but I can't prove it. "Doesn't matter much. They know now. Yay," I add dryly.

  Jamie leans closer to me, her brows pulling together as she studies my face. "Are you okay? I mean, really okay?"

  I almost put on my practiced smile and nod and say that everything will be fine. But this is Jamie, and she's been my best friend since about forever. More important, she knew how much my big sister meant to me. How much I'd relied on Ashley to survive all the shit my mother put me through. The nights locked in my room with no way to turn on the light because my mother was convinced I needed my beauty sleep. The interminable hours walking with a book on my head. The second weekend of the month when I was allowed only water with lemon so that I would detox and "keep that nasty cellulite at bay." The big things, the little things, and so much more.

  I was the one to win the ribbons and the tiaras, but it was Ashley I'd envied. Ashley, who'd been allowed to live a normal life, or so I'd thought. Ashley, who'd tended to her little sister even before tending to herself.

  I hadn't thought about how my mother's harping must have been drilled into my sister's head, too. Or, at least, I hadn't thought about it until it was too late and I was holding Ashley's suicide note in my hand and looking at her neat, precise handwriting blaming her husband leaving her on the fact that she must have failed at being a woman and a wife. That somehow, she hadn't managed to be the lady our mother had tried to train us to be.

  Bitch.

  I close my eyes and realize that my hand is resting on my thigh--right over the scar beneath my skirt. I'd cut before Ashley died, but once she was gone, I'd kicked it up a notch.

  There are so many memories tied up in those scars, as if each small ridge of tissue represents an emotional mountain. Mostly, though, there's Ashley.

  "No," I finally say in answer to Jamie's question. "I'm not okay. But I was--before they brought up Ashley, I was dealing with it. I didn't like it, but I was coping. And I'll be okay again. I just wasn't prepared today."

  "It will pass, you know. That's the good and the bad about publicity. It goes away."

  "And like Tanner said, I'm the flavor of the month." I smile, and this time it's genuine. "Maybe next month they'll leave me alone and focus on the rising starlet who's dating Byron Rand."

  "Bryan Raine," she corrects. "And don't even try to change the subject. So come on--forget the stupid paparazzi. I want to hear the rest of what happened at the meeting."

  "Right," I say, then finish off my martini. I've been telling Jamie what happened once Tanner and I reached Suncoast, and I was up to the actual meeting with the clients.

  "I'll field that," Tanner had said when the head of IT asked me a conceptual question. "Ms. Fairchild is coming at this from a purely administrative point of view."

  "The little prick," Jamie says when I get to that part of the story.

  "No argument from me," I say. "But I probably should have said nothing. I mean, the whole idea was to get the client to take the product and the team. That would get Tanner out of my hair for six months."

  "So what did you do?"

  "When he finished, I just casually pointed out that while Tanner's overview was entirely accurate, he left out some key information. Then I spent the next fifteen minutes running through ways to tweak the algorithm to give them a huge variety of options. I mean, conceptually, the program is brilliant, but when you get down to the actual coding, then all you really--"

  "Okay," Jamie says, lifting her hand. "I get the idea. Techie stuff. You impressed them. Tanner looked like a doofus."

  "So sweet and so true," I admit. "But the beauty is that he didn't look like an ignorant doofus. He knows his stuff. He just left out some important details."

  "Which is good, because they wouldn't want some bonehead moving in-house for six months," Jamie says.

  "Exactly. I think I'd have to quit if Tanner were working down the hall from me. The guy's toxic."

  "Well, we wouldn't want you to quit," Jamie says, rolling her eyes. "How on earth would you live? A million dollars just doesn't go as far as it used to."

  I toss my napkin at her, but I'm smiling as I do it.

  The bartender comes over and Jamie orders another martini. I go with a sparkling water.

  "You have no sense of adventure," she says.

  I think about the rather adventurous things Damien and I have done together and bite back a very self-satisfied smile.

  "So when do you get the money?" she asks.

  "It's already mine. But I need to tell Damien where to transfer it."

  "Uh, yeah," Jamie says.

  I shrug. The truth is, I'm oddly hesitant to invest it. There's so much riding on that money, and after seeing how my mother's horrible investments went spiraling down the drain, I'm nervous about making my own choices. Of course, Mother's failure was about her craptastic running of the family business and her ridiculous over-the-top spending habits, but knowing that I am not my mother and believing that I am not my mother are two entirely different things.

  "I've been talking with brokers," I say, which is sort of true. I've talked with two receptionists to make appointments to talk with brokers. From the way Jamie eyes me, I'm pretty sure she's cluing in to my deception. "And enough about the money," I say, as the bartender returns with our drinks. I lift my water. "To you. Today a commercial, tomorrow an Oscar."

  "I'll drink to that."

  "You'll drink to anything."

  "True," she says, and polishes off half the martini. "Would you have believed it?" she asks.

  I don't know what she means. "Believe what?"

  "When we were in high school and you were doing all those damned Miss Corner Gas Station pageants and I was auditioning for community theater. Would you have believed we'd be in Los Angeles and I'd have a commercial and you'd be on the cusp of starting your own business? Not to mention lassoing the town's most eligible bachelor."

  "No," I say. "I never would have believed it."

  "So this is for both of us," Jamie says as she holds out her fist, waiting for me to bump it. I do eagerly. "For two Texas girls who moved to LA on their own, we're not doing half bad."

  Since Jamie walked to the bar, I drive us both back to the condo. It takes longer than I anticipate since my Honda keeps stalling out at the lights.

  "Face it, Nik," Jamie says. "You can't do LA in this car."

  I'm afraid she's right, but the truth is bittersweet. The car is the first thing I bought on my own. I'm proud of what it represents, and I can't help but feel a little bit superstitious about the fact that she's starting to die right now when I'm starting to take off.

  "I'll take her in for a tune-up soon," I decide. "It's probably just something like spark plugs or a gunked up carburetor."

  "Do you even know what a carburetor is?"

  "No," I admit. "But presumably the mechanic does."

  "Open your eyes and observe the reality, Nik. She's been a great little car, but she's going to stall out on the highway one day, and you're going to be the lead story on the eleven o'clock news. 'Billionaire's girlfriend squashed like a bug in fifteen-car pileup.' Don't say I didn't warn you."

  I roll my eyes, but I don't argue. The truth is, she may have a point.

  "Speaking of the billionaire boyfriend," Jamie continues, "who all's coming to the party tomorrow? I'll finally get to meet Evelyn, right?"

  "Oh, yeah," I say. "And Blaine, of course. And you and me. We're the only ones who know it's me on that wall, so we're keeping it intimate--"

  Jamie interrupts me with a snort, and I curse my choice of words.

  "We're keeping it small," I begin again, "until eight. That's when the regular guests arrive to see all of Blaine's paintings and do the mingling thing."
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  "Cool. And Ollie?" She says it casually, and I can't tell if she's just making conversation or if there's still something going on between the two of them. I know I should simply ask, but I can't bring myself to do it.

  "He's not coming," I say.

  "Not for the first part," she clarifies. "I know you never told him about the painting." She eyes me sideways. "Did you?"

  "No," I say firmly.

  "I was wondering if he was coming to the rest of it. The showing, or whatever you want to call it."

  "I'm still calling it a cocktail party," I say as I pull the car into my assigned parking space. "And no, he's not coming. I think he and Courtney have plans," I add, referring to Ollie's fiancee. I feel guilty about the lie, but I don't want to tell Jamie that Damien refused to invite Ollie to his home. It bothers me that Damien and one of my best friends don't get along, but I get where Damien's coming from.

  Though they'd started out sniffing around each other like two alpha dogs, they'd ultimately forged a tentative truce. But that came to an abrupt end when Ollie told me some of Damien's secrets--and breached the attorney-client privilege by doing so. Damien understands that Ollie thought he was protecting me, and that's probably the only reason that Ollie is still a lawyer and still working in this town. Or on this continent, for that matter.

  But Damien doesn't want him in the house, and I can't say that I blame him. I hope they find a way to get along, because I need both these men in my life. But it's only been about a week since all the shit went down, and things are just too raw between them.

  Jamie, however, knows none of that, and I don't plan to tell her. But that's one more wedge between us, even if I'm the only one who realizes it's there.

  Soon we're at the door and I'm fumbling for my house key. I slide it into the lock and push open the door--then stop dead on the threshold.

  "Holy fuck," Jamie says, looking over my shoulder.

  I don't say anything. Jamie has pretty much said it all.

  There, in the middle of our living room, is the bed. The bed. The beautiful iron bed beside which I'd posed. The stunning bed upon which Damien so thoroughly fucked me last night, and so many nights before that.

  I realize we're both standing frozen and take a step into the room. There's a dress bag from Fred's on the bed with a note pinned to the plastic. I only have to glance at the handwriting on the envelope to feel my body tighten with anticipation. Slowly, I pull the folded slip of paper from the envelope, then unfold it and read: