Escalation Clause (19 page)

His business and life partner, Andrew Rollins, stood beside him, Bluetooth earpiece at the ready. Both men were brutally handsome, always dressed in top-shelf suits and ties. Allen was slightly taller, and reminded her some of Blake with his snapping green eyes and close cropped brown hair. Drew was average height, with wavy dark blond hair and bright blue eyes. They were, in a word, adorable. But at the moment, she was not happy with either of them.

“Hi guys. Please, have a seat. Sorry I had to change the meeting time.” She shut the door and leaned on her desk.

“Nice shoes,” Allen said, flippantly.

“Yeah, I know. Listen, you guys have got to stop sending business to Northern Title. We agreed, I thought. You know Stewarts has an issue with them. We only use Arbor and Chicago. Northern’s management is shady and I, for one, don’t want our clients signing any of their paperwork.”

Allen leaned back in his chair. He was a vision of masculine perfection. You would never in a million years pin him as openly gay as he was. Drew was even more manly. She’d been out with them before and had not been surprised at the steady stream of women who would eyeball them, buy them drinks, and openly flirt. They ate it up. But while Drew had admitted he would consider himself bi-sexual if he were single, Allen had come out in high school and had never looked back. “Fine,” he said. “I just—”

Sara held up a hand. “I know, you have a relationship with them from your former brokerage. You promised me you would move it all over when you came here. However,” she went around and sat, opening a file that contained a completely botched closing package for a large deal and an influential client. “This is bullshit. These numbers are wrong, no matter that they got everything they needed in a timely manner, including funding from the lender. And I had to hear about it from our client?” her voice rose slightly. She’d learned in the past years as a manager to hold her temper, not expect everyone to work at the same level of detail as she did, but these two should  know better. Something felt wrong about the whole thing.

Drew glanced at Allen, then away. She looked at them. “I needed to know about this from you, the second it fell apart at the closing table. You’ve been babying this client way too long. Longer than you normally do, and I let you, but Jesus, guys, this is a fucking forty-thousand-dollar commission at stake, and that’s just
my
cut. What the hell?” She slammed the file closed and shut up, prepared to listen. Another skill Jack had forced on her as manager—don’t do all the talking. It lets people off too easy.

“I think the money is dirty,” Allen said running his hands through his hair. “My seller wants out from under the building, with good reason, it’s a white elephant. But the buyer,” he shrugged. Since Allen was “double dipping” representing both sides of the deal, it was a much more delicate operation. Both parties had to agree to let him handle the negotiation between them. And he had with his typical alacrity, but things had dragged on way too long and now, the closing had been totally botched and she’d gotten an earful from both buyer and seller. “I am afraid the buyer wants the building for …”

“What the buyer wants to do with a run down, crappy empty building in downtown Ypsilanti is not your business. Your business is to sell it and close the deal.” She pointed at him. “Why do you even care?”

Allen stood, anger flashing in his eyes. Drew stayed seated. “Sara,” the softer-spoken man said. “We want to move this deal over to Arbor. We think,” Allen put a hand on his shoulder but Drew ignored it. “I think Northern Title is fronting the money. You know Jim Williams is a crook. We all know that. It’s why Stewart won’t deal with Northern anymore. But we were stuck because the buyer insisted, claimed he wouldn’t sign closing papers at any other title company.”

Sara sat back, flabbergasted. This was not the answer she expected. The typical “Northern Title people are idiots” discussion and agreement to never use them again after they got this one closed was all she wanted. She put a hand over her eyes.

“Okay, I…shit….”

“How can I dump this buyer now?” Allen demanded. “I need to, and want to. I also want to report Northern to the state for mishandling escrow funds. But this buyer is…a little intimidating lately.”

She narrowed her eyes at the two men. They were both college scholarship athletes, one in baseball and one in soccer. They were fit, imposing figures, hardly easily cowed by a fussy client. She recalled the subtle threats the buyer had flung at her on the phone that she had discounted as the usual bluff and bluster of blowhard rich guys who weren’t getting their way. She shivered, realizing that it was potentially more than that. “Let’s get Jack in on this one.” Allen said. “He….”

She stopped him. “No, not yet. I’ll tell him about it, but frankly, the seller is entitled to pick the title company where his property transfers so it seems to me, you and your seller can say to the buyer you are switching it to Arbor. He has to show up and sign. We have a contract. If he wants to breach and be liable, that’s fine. But in the meantime I’ll file another report with the state about Northern, citing your concerns.”

“Sara,” Drew leaned on the other side of her desk. His bright blue eyes were full of worry. “I don’t think you’re hearing us. These guys are dirty. I’m pretty sure we’re talking drug-money kind of dirty. They want the building as a front, for I don’t know what, but they won’t sign anything that isn’t at Northern. They’ve made that clear. I say we close it there and walk away, lucky to have our tires intact.”

“No, I’m not gonna be bullied.” She put a hand to her forehead, her brain spinning with the new information. “Let me dig into it a little. Tell your seller we are working through some details and hope to have a date for closing for him soon. And, if you honestly think it is drug money, we are obligated to go to the police.” She bit her lip, her nerves snapping with this latest disaster.

Allen blew out a puff of air, and leaned on her door. “You need to get laid, sister.”

“What?” She looked up at him, felt her face redden. “Jesus, Allen.”

“No, seriously, you are as tense as a violin string. You and the boss man need to get your act together. You are seriously losing it. And from what I hear he is not much better.”

“How would you …. Oh.” She recalled she’d spilled everything to him over drinks about a month ago.

Allen came around and gave her a perfunctory shoulder massage. “Damn, even your shoulders are bound up. Listen,” he leaned on her desk, staring at her. “This thing is beyond us now, you can’t handle it. Don’t even try. Let’s get Jack in on it, and let him contact the cops. I don’t want to be in the same room with this buyer ever again. The guy is a thug and his true colors are really showing now. I’m afraid if you try and intervene he’ll… I don’t know….”

She stood, staring at him. “So, you think, because I haven’t ‘gotten laid,’ I’m going all Wonder Woman on this trying to fix it myself?”

Allen shrugged. She frowned at him, then at Drew, who looked away. She dropped back into her chair, her head pounding with anger. “You know what, get out. I am the manager of this office and I will handle it. You tell your seller what I told you. I’m not afraid of some two-bit crook trying to deal Northern Title in on a crooked purchase. Fuck that six ways to Sunday.”

“Sara,” Allen started, but she pointed the door.

“Go. And keep your god damned opinions about my sex life out of our conversations.”

He raised an eyebrow and left. Drew sat a minute staring at her. But she ignored him until he followed Allen out. Her ears rang, her face was hot when she dialed Jack’s cell number on reflex, then stopped. She would handle this. They were overreacting. She called Northern, left a message for that crook Jim Williams telling him he could dump the Harris Street file. She was taking it to another title company.

At three p.m. she got a call from a strange number, but answered it by rote. “Is this Sara Thornton, manager of the downtown Stewart Realty office?” The voice was soft, male, and non-threatening, sounding more like a salesman than anything else.

“Yes, can I help you?”

“Why, yes, you can. You can march your hot little linen suited ass back to Northern Title, meet me there and close this fucking deal. I’ll be there tomorrow at nine a.m. If you aren’t, then you and everyone around you will regret it.”

She stared at the phone that had gone dead in her hands for a solid five minutes before calling the police.

Chapter Thirteen

Sara drove out to Barton Hills, Ann Arbor’s most prestigious private neighborhood on the northwest side of town and let anger fill her chest, replacing the terror that had gripped her since the call almost an hour or so ago.
Fucking men, with their attitudes, thinking they could push me around with lame threats.
She screeched to a halt in front of the large, imposing mansion Keystone had built in the last year with Maureen at the helm. She smiled, thinking about Jack’s sister. She made a mental note to call her, invite her over for some girl time. Hopefully, after she and Mo’s brother fucked and made up in this empty house.

She shivered in anticipation, all thoughts of the asshole on the phone and Allen and Drew’s worried faces gone in the blink of an eye—the one where she blinked and saw him, Jack, standing at the top of the steps, light gray suit and subtle blue tie, looking amazing as usual. As he read something on his phone his blue eyes darkened. She gulped and realized for the umpteenth time that everything about him turned her on, no matter how hard she resisted it.  She got out and started up the steps.

“What the fuck is this, Sara?” He shoved the phone at her, nearly making her lose her balance. Her ears were still buzzing in anticipation of the fine time she was about to have with her estranged husband, talking and screwing their way back into a some semblance of normalcy. This sudden mood shift threw her off. “God damn it.” He stomped into the open door of the house, leaving her to read the email sent from Jim Williams at Northern Title informing him that Stewart was in breach of contract over the property at 110 Harris Street, Ypsilanti, Michigan as of eleven a.m. today. That he, Jack, could expect papers served immediately forcing their seller to sell at the time and place of the buyer’s choosing.

“Jesus,” she dropped to the top step, overwhelmed and exhausted and on the verge of tears. Once she realized Jack was not going to re-emerge she hauled herself to her feet and went inside. He stood, leaning against the plywood, temporary countertop, design plans spread out behind him. His eyes blazed with fury. She took one step towards him realizing this was perhaps not going to end as she thought. “Honey,” she whispered.

His jaw tightened and a shudder passed through him. She was in tune to his body language and read it immediately. His eyes narrowed and he met her halfway, holding her close and laying a tongue-tangling kiss on her so fast she moaned and wrapped her arms around him. “Wait,” she whispered, not meaning it, when he picked her up and started down the back hall.

He put his lips to her ear and his words sent shockwaves through her so strong she shook. “I am going to take you somewhere you know you want to go. Right now. Right here. And you will not talk, or complain, or protest. You will however, come. A lot. And then we’ll talk. Because if I don’t do this now I am either going to kill the next person who speaks to me or asks me a question or ….” She put a hand to his face.

“Jack, this isn’t the answer.”

He tossed her on the bed, his jaw set. “Oh, yes it is, Sara. You just don’t realize it yet. I am through playing games. You need to let me have control. Right fucking now. I’m in charge and you are not gonna regret it.”

She gasped at the sound of ripping silk, grinning when he yanked her skirt down and off as he tossed the remaining scraps of her blouse to the floor. She squirmed on the bed cover, her brain fogging over and going to a familiar place—the place where she did give up control. A familiar haze stole over her, forcing relaxation through her every bone, muscle and sinew at his words.

She gasped and stared up at the ceiling, her body frozen with a sudden acceptance of something. She couldn’t do this, not anymore. If she gave up the tight reign she had on herself, this thin thread of sanity she’d been gripping like a drowning sailor to a life preserver since losing Blake, she would have nothing.

Because that one thread, that small bit of self-control she kept so those around her could fall apart was the single thing holding her together. She pressed her lips closed to hold back the moan of realization, horror struck at the clear fact—she simply could not give in to Jack anymore. She had to resist the compulsion to let him take her pain, her anguish from her otherwise she’d be left a quivering pile of uselessness. All she had was the hard won, brittle bit of command she had exerted over herself since waking up in that hospital after being sedated when she got the news about her brother.

She shivered, pulled her knees up and rolled over to her side.
What now, Sara? This is the dynamic you have with the man you love. What the fuck happens now, if you aren’t willing to let him help you?
A tear slid down her cheek. “Jack,” she choked out, holding herself small, and feeling utterly vulnerable and exposed. These weren’t games anymore, not to her. All she wanted was her brother back, and her husband to understand that she was handling it as best she could. She wanted to talk, not fuck, not play, not mess around. Just talk. But, she’d told him that, over and over again to no avail. So, he was handling it his way, and expected her to just cave. Another tear dripped onto the duvet cover.