The Dangerous Seduction (5 page)

“I’m not most people.”

Joseph takes a long sip of his drink before he answers. “Yes, I’m beginning to see that.”

R
YAN
DOESN
’
T
see Joseph over the next three days. He’s in court, winding up another case, an intellectual property lawsuit. The client, a young M
IT graduate, is claiming his idea was ripped off. The defendant is running scared, or at least that’s what the gossip around the office says. Ryan is busy anyway: he’s finally gotten to work on the McNeil case, trawling through witness statements, timelines, and endless and exhausting e-mail trails from ex-employees of McNeil Industries. He’s been assigned all of the Corporate Operations team, and they’ve got a lot to say, most of it completely irre
levant to the case.

He spends the next three days going through the files, writing up lists of questions for the employees he’ll need to interview, noting points for clarification and contradictions in their statements. Not all of the Corporate Ops team are part of the lawsuit, and it’s one of his jobs to figure out why some of them don’t feel the same level of animosity toward their former boss as their coworkers.

The news about him accompanying Joseph to the TV studio and for dinner afterward is all over the office already. It seems to have had a negative effect on most of his coworkers, who have made up their minds that he’s trying to sleep his way to the top, never mind that it was Joseph who asked
him
to help out in the first place.

But whatever. They can gossip if they want to. He’s used to the bitchiness and backstabbing of the theater world, so a few whispered comments and dirty looks don’t mean anything to him. Besides, he’s too busy to stand around trading gossip over the water cooler. As far as he can see, the only real negative side of his current pariah status is that nobody’s shown him how to work the state-of-the-art Gaggia coffee machine in the break room yet. He’s sick of the weak shitty stuff from the regular vending machines.

“Hey, look. Like this.”

He steps back as Fiona, one of the few people who doesn’t seem to have decided he’s on a mission to fuck himself into a better job, steps forward and presses a couple of buttons. The machine immediately whirs into action and starts to dispense thick caramel-colored liquid into his cup.

“Oh man, thanks,” he says. “Thanks so much. At my last place we just had vending machines, nothing like… this.” He waves a hand at the machine. “Whatever this is, it’s like something from the Space Age.”

She laughs and he smiles in relief. Finally someone is not giving him the stink eye. She makes herself a cup and they take a seat at one of the chrome bistro tables in the break room. She’s working on the same assignment as he is, only she’s gotten the IT department. “I guess that means we’ll have to work together,” she says. “I think the COO had ultimate jurisdiction over IT.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Phil Cartwright. Yeah, he’s a strange one. He’s not part of the lawsuit, though according to the records, he’s lost a lot more than most. He probably knows a lot about what exactly went down there too. He must’ve been pretty close to McNeil at the time.”

“Oh yeah, I think Joseph already has him as target numero uno,” she says.

They finish up their coffee and she walks with him back to his office. “So you got Brad’s office, huh?”

“Brad? I thought it belonged to someone called Emily before me,” he says.

“Yes, that’s right. Brad was the one before her. No one seems to know what went down with Brad. Just one day he was here, next, he was clearing out. I guess you got the speech from Estelle about how we work here?”

“I did.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “It’s good advice. We all thought Brad would be a keeper, he seemed to play everything right. Joseph was real friendly with him too, put him on his special team.”

“Joseph’s special team?”

“He likes to groom certain people,” she says. “You can always tell. He’ll give them extra assignments; take them along with him on business trips or whatever. Like he did with you for the
Liza Show
thing.”

“Oh, I see,” he says, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation is going.

“Listen, Ryan, you seem like a nice guy, and I get it, you want to do the right thing, be the model employee Joseph wants. But if you really want all this then you have to make sacrifices. I’ve been here three years and I’ve had to give up a lot to stick around. I’m not saying that I don’t like it. This is
the
place to be, and Joseph is… well… he’s Joseph. But just—” She taps the doorjamb again. “—don’t get too attached.”

He gives Fiona a friendly smile and watches her leave, feeling the smile freeze and slide off his face as soon as she slips into her own office. He’s not sure exactly what kind of game she’s playing, but he’s not naïve enough to assume that there’s no game. Of course, she might be genuine, giving him a friendly warning. But then again, she has been here three years; she can’t have lasted this long if she didn’t know how to play some sort of a game.

The news comes in around 3:00 p.m. that the defendant’s agreed to settle out of court for $150 million.

“That kid didn’t even have a fucking case,” one of the senior attorneys, Sean, scoffs, as they gather around the TV in the kitchen to watch the news scroll across the screen. “Joseph really skewered that bastard, Jelf. We’d’ve been lucky to get twenty-five out of his ass if they’d let the jury rule on it. But Jelf never had any balls. That kid should be fucking worshipping Joseph after this, 150 million, lucky asshole.”

There’s a smattering of laughter. Ryan hangs back, watches the high-fives, sees the toothy, bullish grins and macho posturing. Sean and his group of cronies are acting like they’ve just walked off the set of
Wall Street.
He leaves them to it and goes back to his office to call Daisy. The phone rings, then cuts through to voice mail. He hangs up without leaving a message. Daisy hates listening to voice mail messages and she’s probably busy at work anyway.

He’s getting ready to call it a night when a knock on the door startles him as he’s logging off his computer. He looks up in surprise to see Joseph Van Aardt leaning against the doorframe, regarding him with the sort of look in his eyes that makes Ryan instantly want to check for his wallet and keys.

“You got any plans for tonight?” Joseph says.

He has got plans, as a matter of fact. He and Daisy are supposed to be meeting up with the usual crowd for beers and nachos at one of their favorite Mexican places. But that’s not important, not when Joseph’s here in person, asking him if he has plans.

He gets to his feet, shakes his head. “No, no plans. I’m all yours.”

Joseph’s mouth twitches, like he’s trying to repress a laugh. “Right,” he says, drawing the word out. He takes a step forward, hand brushing against the door. “I’m being given an award by the Whitehall Foundation. It’s bullshit of course, though it’s good PR for the firm. You should come along.”

“Me?”

He blazes past Ryan’s interruption like he hasn’t spoken. “Do you have a tux?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do. But it’s at home. Do you need me to go get
it?”

“In Brooklyn?” Joseph snorts. “I don’t think so. Get yourself down to Bergdorf’s, ask for Alexandre. He knows what I like.” His gaze lingers on Ryan, runs up and down him like he’s trying to mentally calculate his inside leg measurement. He turns to leave. “You should go now,” he says over his shoulder.

“Oh, wait, Joseph!” Ryan calls out.

Joseph spins around, already looking irritated at being called back, but thoughts are buzzing around Ryan’s head, fragments of overheard bitchy conversations, Fiona saying
Joseph was real friendly with him too….

“Why… I mean… sorry, just, why am I going to this awards thing? Why do you need me there?”

“I need someone who looks good in a tux,” Joseph answers smoothly. “And remembering the lilac ruffles, I have a feeling you’d fit the bill perfectly, Ryan.”

Ryan freezes, gaping after him, feeling the color flood into his cheeks. He swallows and glances at his watch. Six p.m. already; he should get moving.

A
LEXANDRE
IS
professional, immaculately groomed, and a little insulting. He tuts and groans over the state of Ryan’s hair and skin, and insists on having one of their senior stylists wash and cut his hair, shave his face, cleanse and moisturize, and generally treat him like he’s on one of those terrible daytime makeover shows, before he’s allowed anywhere near the formal wear. Once Ryan is ready (and Jesus,
they plucked his freaking eyebrows
; he’s never going to rag on Daisy again when she complains that women have it so much harder than men), Alexandre leads him to a rail of pants, dress shirts, dinner jackets, vests, shoes, and, to Ryan’s immense embarrassment, underwear.

“How much is this going to cost?” he asks, as the guy holds out the fourth or fifth pair of dress pants against him and commands him to: “Don’t be shy! Tuck everything in!”

“That’s not your concern,” Alexandre says, squatting down to grab onto the waistband of the dress pants and drag them up Ryan’s legs. His face is right in front of Ryan’s junk, which is carefully encased in some really fucking sculpted boxer briefs.

Ryan lets his head fall back, stares up at the ceiling, and counts to ten while Alexandre zips up his fly.

Alexandre finally pronounces him done, stepping back and nodding approvingly, eyes raking up and down Ryan’s body in a way that he’s not even finding uncomfortable anymore. Ryan finally allows himself to look in the mirror and he has to agree that, yes, perhaps Joseph is right, Alexandre does know what he’s doing. He looks… good. Successful and rich and professional, like the sort of person who regularly attends prestigious awards dinners alongside Joseph Van Aardt.

Joseph’s driver picks him up in the town car and takes him uptown to Joseph’s apartment. That is, one of Joseph’s apartments; he apparently has one uptown and one downtown. Ryan thinks of Daisy, of how much she’s always wanted to move to Manhattan, and the tiny boxy rooms they’ve looked at in their price range. She was annoyed when he called her to say he couldn’t make it tonight, but changed her mind when he told her why not. “Oh wow, Ryan! Just think of all the people that are gonna be there. He must really like you, baby, to have asked you to something like that! He must really think you’re something special.”

Her words don’t make the queasy feeling in his gut any easier to bear, neither does the way his brain seems unable to stop fixating on the look on Joseph’s face when he said,
I have a feeling you look good in a tux.
It’s not the first time a guy has commented on how he looks, but he’s never felt comfortable being objectified in that way. He tries to clear his mind and think of some suitable topics of conversation as he strides up and down the lobby of Joseph’s impressive uptown apartment building.

The sound of Joseph’s voice wrenches him out of his thoughts. Ryan turns around to see Joseph stepping out of the elevator, phone to his ear. He pauses in front of the elevator as the doors slide neatly closed behind him while he finishes up his call, all the while his eyes raking over Ryan in a manner that seems as intrusive as Alexandre and his damn tape measure. Ryan feels like he’s back doing the audition rounds again, standing in front of directors, producers, and casting people, and willingly letting them scrutinize and judge and inevitably find him wanting. He hated that part of the life back then, and he really doesn’t like it now.

Joseph finishes up his call, slips the phone into his inside pocket, and strides forward, the heels of his dress shoes echoing on the marble floor. “Well, what do you know? I was right. You do look good in a tux.”

“Thanks, and thanks—for inviting me, I mean,” Ryan says. He’s starting to feel like he’s on a date, a date that’s also like a weird mixture of an audition and a job interview all rolled into one.

“We should go,” Joseph says.

He puts his hand on the small of Ryan’s back to propel him forward and Ryan resists the urge to squirm away. Joseph’s palm feels stiflingly hot through the material of his dress shirt and jacket, and he’s terribly aware of Joseph’s proximity and the smell of his aftershave and shampoo. He’s also becoming uncomfortably aware of the sweat beading under his own armpits and in the small of his back, the exact place where Joseph is still touching him.

Joseph cocks his head, catches his eye. “Ready?”

“Yes,” he says, forcing a smile.

T
HE
AWARD
is for “Outstanding Achievement,” though no one bothers to explain exactly what Joseph’s outstanding achievement is. Perhaps just being Joseph Van Aardt is enough of an outstanding achievement in itself. Apparently, Joseph is the youngest person ever to be honored in such a fashion by the Foundation; at least that’s what the organizers say when they make the big announcement.