His Secret Desire (25 page)

Alex kissed my forehead and I pulled myself over to him, falling asleep on his chest yet again. I slept like the dead.

Chapter Twenty-five

I woke up from a dream that immediately slipped away from my memory. Alex was already out of bed. It was still so early that it was dark outside. I wrapped myself in one of Alex’s robes which was way too large for me and descended the stairs.

Alex was sitting in the living room, staring out of the window. He was drinking black coffee. I sat down next to him. He took a sip of his coffee and put the cup down.

“There’s more coffee. I just made it. I’ve already had two cups so you’ve got to help me drink some of it,” Alex said.

I nodded and smiled. I got up and walked into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of strong black coffee from the carafe that sat on the counter. There was already a cup sitting next to the carafe waiting for me that Alex had left out. I took a drink of the coffee and relished the warmth that spread down my throat.

Alex joined me in the kitchen. We were mostly silent. Alex made oatmeal. It was a very plain breakfast, but neither of us seemed very hungry anyway. My stomach was dancing and it was hard to finish off even a little bit. I drank more coffee and thought to myself that more coffee probably wasn’t going to help my stomach, but I needed the alertness.

We showered individually and dressed. I tried to enjoy the fancy shower but my mind was a mess of panicky thoughts and distraction. I didn’t even remember washing my hair when I got out and I had to reach my hand up to feel if my hair was even wet.

Alex wore a sharp black suit and a thin black tie. It looked like he was going to a funeral.

We sat in the limousine silently, and Alex placed his hand over mine. I leaned over and kissed his cheek so softly that he probably barely felt it.

“I believe in you more than ever,” I whispered softly into his ear.

“I love you, more with each passing moment,” Alex said.

We kissed like lovers who feared they were never to see each other again.

***

The Strauss Engines building loomed large when we approached. It seemed bigger than the day that I had first started as a temp. I remembered that day vividly. When I first arrived at the address that the temp agency had provided me with, I was astounded by the enormity of the building before me. I was intimidated to even walk into such a monster of a building. That was exactly how I felt now.

Alex’s face was stoic and any wrinkles of worry or anxiety were gone. His eyes were alight and I couldn’t help but look at them again and again. I would follow this man into the worst of dangers, and now I was following him to confront the man who had kidnapped me and stolen a multi-billion dollar company, for the second time.

We walked into the Strauss Engines building. It was nine thirty in the morning. When the employees saw us walk in, they began whispering to each other and a general hushed tone took over the entire building. I followed Alex right up to the security desk.

“Bring me up to William Henderson’s office,” Alex demanded.

The security guard eyed us cautiously, but not maliciously. He lifted a phone and dialed a few numbers.

“I’ve got Alexander Strauss here. He wants to see Mr. Henderson in his office,” the guard said.

There was a silence as the guard listened to the person on the other end. His face remain unchanged. He hung up the phone and lifted his radio.

“Unit one to Unit four, Unit four, come in,” the guard said.

“This is Unit four,” the radio crackled back.

“I need a ten fourteen on the main level.

“Roger that.”

An overweight security guard who towered over us arrived in the lobby after two minutes. He conversed with the guard at the desk for a minute and then turned to us, obviously interested in Alex much more than me.

The huge guard told us that we had to wait another ten minutes. If we wanted, he could escort us up to the cafeteria. Alex and I looked at each other, as if both remembering the day we first met. Alex politely decline and we waited by the desk, a spectacle for every employee who walked by. After the ten minutes had passed, the guard asked us to follow him and led us around to one of the elevators.

In the elevator, the guard entered a number on the keypad and the elevator began to climb. Alex looked straight ahead the entire time, and when the doors opened, he walked by the security guard without speaking.

The secretary was gone. Henderson’s door was open. It was ten minutes until ten AM. We walked into Henderson’s office.

There was a large security guard standing in the corner of the office by the door, not visible until you entered the room. He was larger than the guard who brought us up in the elevator, but there was no fat on him. He was a monster of a man who might have stood a chance in a fight against the Hulk.

“My two favorite people, it’s so nice to see you,” Henderson said sardonically.

“I see you’ve stayed in your office, as opposed to taking over the CEO office upstairs,” Alex remarked.

“I happen to like my office. I have no desire to take over your office. I was thinking it would make a wonderful room for a storage closet. As you can see, my office is beginning to look a little cramped. And you have so much room up there.”

Henderson leaned back in his chair. He reached into his desk and pulled out a pipe. Carefully and deliberately, he packed tobacco into the pipe and then held the pipe in between his teeth. He struck a match and cupped his hand over it and drew in the flame. Sweet smelling smoke began to crawl out of the pipe, rising to the ceiling. Henderson took a large drag and breathed out slowly, relishing the taste.

“I’d like you to meet my personal guard, Mr. Reynolds,” Henderson said, holding out a hand towards the giant in the room. The giant remained motionless.

Henderson turned to us. His gaze darkened. “Now, what do you want?”

“I know you were the one who kidnapped Samantha, you son of a bitch,” Alex said angrily.

Henderson’s expression remained unchanged.

“Mr. Reynolds, will you please give both of our guests a preliminary scan?”

Alex turned to face the giant approaching and for a moment, I was sure that a fight was about to break out. When the giant took out a large rod, I was positive that we were about to be beaten to death.

“Relax, this will only take a second,” the giant Mr. Reynolds said. His voice was almost comically high, but his tone was neutral.

He waved the wand over my body, starting at my neck and working down. He was quick and did it without any sort of enjoyment. Michelle had been right, he never scanned me above the neck; he had missed the wire in my hair. When the guard waved the wand over Alex, it beeped on his collar, his buttons, and his cuffs. Mr. Reynolds looked at Henderson with eyebrows raised.

“Nice try, Alex. Trying to record our conversation in some vain attempt to implicate me in some sort of crime that you think I was a part of. It’s a low move, even for you,” Henderson sneered. “Lose the coat or get the hell out of my office.”

Alex took off his coat and handed it to Mr. Reynolds. The giant disappeared for a minute and then returned. He waved the wand back over Alex and it made no noise.

“One can’t be too careful, especially with a snake like you,” Henderson said.

“You wouldn’t have taken my jacket if you didn’t have something to hide, Willy,” Alex said flatly.

“Only your father can call me that, and since he’s not here, I’d prefer Mr. Henderson to a boy like you. You really are such a failure. It’s amazing that you could have come from two amazing people who accomplished so much. You were given every opportunity, a silver spoon in your mouth from birth and you’re still the way you are. A fucking loser.”

I recoiled at the vitriol of Henderson’s words. Before, he had simply reprimanded Alex like a father would when his son had let him down. Now he was attacking him like Alex was the scum of the earth. If Alexander Strauss was the picture of a loser, then there was no such thing as a winner.

“And you bring this goddamn harlot with you in here. You’re just unable to walk away from this little whore,” Henderson said, his eyes turning black as they fell on me.

I felt an anger well up inside of me that threatened to spill over. If the giant hadn’t been there, I would have jumped over Henderson’s desk and stuffed his pipe down his chicken neck.

“You’re just proving to me that you’re not worthy of running this company. You try to entrap me by bringing some professional harlot with you. It’s really pathetic, Alexander. But I’ll start everything anew. I thought I was going to liquidate everything, but I think I may keep this building for my new company, Henderson Enterprises.”

Henderson breathed out thick smoke and laughed.

“I’m going to destroy the value of the Strauss Engines stock, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it Alexander. You were born with a silver spoon, but I’m going to bankrupt you and shove the real world right up your ass. You can see what it’s like to be a measly peasant. You might actually have to work, just like I had to do to get to where I am. But you aren’t like me or your father.”

Alex stood unfaltering. His eyes were filled with bottled rage and his fists were clenched so tightly that the veins were bulging out. The giant was looking at him with a certain look of alarm. Despite the size difference, the giant didn’t seem to want to fight Alex.

“You can’t just decide to devalue the stock, Henderson. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Oh yes, but with the new direction of Strauss Engines, the investors are already pulling out and the future profits look dismal. We’ll be in the red in no time. Then the truth about the faulty investments that you’ve been making over the past two years will come to life. You will be shown to be embezzling money from your own company. It’ll ruin Strauss Engines. Hell, you might even face jail-time, but that’s unlikely. Rich people don’t go to jail for stealing. But you will be finished.”

“I never embezzled a single cent! You know that! Why the fuck would I embezzle money from my own company?”

Henderson began to laugh. He took another deep drag off his pipe.

“Does it matter? Rich people are greedy. You wanted more money. It doesn’t matter whether you’re innocent or guilty, it’ll cause enough doubt about you that your stocks will crash.”

“You set me up.”

“Yes, I certainly did. Everything is in your name. Everything has your signature. I bet you didn’t know that I’ve been slowly doing this behind your back, using computer specialists to track your every phone call, email, and website transaction. Samantha, do you want to know what kind of kinky pornography your boss is into?”

Henderson’s snake-like eyes were on me.

“You know there is a special place in hell where the devil chews on your flesh for eternity for bastards who betray those closest to them!” I yelled at him.

Henderson only laughed, amused at my outburst.

“Why?” Alex asked.

“Because I’m sick of being in your goddamn shadow! Just like I was in Max’s shadow. With Max, at least I recognized that he was the better man. But you... You’re just a little boy.”

“It’s no wonder that my mother loved my father instead of you, then.” Alex was staring at Henderson fiercely.

Something clicked in my mind. I remembered when I mentioned Alex’s mother Henderson’s entire demeanor changed in an instant. He had turned from being mildly annoyed with me to downright enraged at me. Henderson had loved Alex’s mother, yet she did not return the feelings.

Henderson rose from his chair and slammed the pipe down on his desk. Ash exploded from the top and sparks flew.

“At least I’m not in love with some stupid whore like her! It defies belief that you would have even gone to the trouble of saving her, let alone saving her yourself!” Henderson screamed. He calmed down after he said the last sentence when he realized what he had just admitted. He turned a cold stare on me.

“I was never going to let you go,” Henderson hissed. “I was going to keep you there until you died of old age. Watching television and growing fat off canned noodles until you went insane.”

The giant looked over at Henderson and there was a genuine look of disgust on his face. I felt a small pang of pity for Mr. Reynolds when I realized that he was just a hired gun who had no idea of his boss’s true evil. The look of disgust on his face showed me that he was probably a decent person.

Alex moved forward towards Henderson. Mr. Reynolds made no move to stop him and Henderson recognized that Alex was going to attack him.

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a large pistol. He pointed it at Alex.

“No uh uh. You keep your distance,” Henderson said. “Oh, and Mr. Reynolds, get the fuck out of my office. You’re fired.”

The giant gave us an apologetic look and walked out of the office.

“Henderson, you won’t get away with this. That guard just heard you confess to a kidnapping and he saw you pull a gun on me. Put the gun away and let’s talk.”

Henderson quietly considered this for a moment. Then he shrugged and smiled simultaneously.

“He won’t talk. I’ve got some good dirt on him anyway. And as for you, well, you attacked me. You lost your mind after I called you out on your embezzling. Then, that bitch Samantha attacked me with a knife.” Henderson reached into his desk again and then tossed a large letter opener over to me. I reflexively caught it to defend myself and Henderson started laughing.

“You are one dumb whore. You should have walked away when I gave you that option.”

Something caught Henderson’s eye out of the window and he leaned down to look closer. When he looked back at us, his face was twisted with rage.

I reached in my hair and took out the hair tie and tossed to Henderson.

“You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are,” I said triumphantly. “There was a microphone in here. Everything you said was just played for the board members.”

The elevator doors were opening. Henderson ran over to his office door and slammed it shut, never taking the gun off of me and Alex. Then there came a pounding on the door.