The Dangerous Seduction (6 page)

They announce Joseph’s award, and he gets up from his seat with a rehearsed look of surprise on his face. He beams at everyone at the table and squeezes Ryan’s shoulder as he brushes past in a way that’s a little more intimate than Ryan expected. It makes him freeze in place as he watches Joseph thread his way through the tables toward the stage.

“Your boyfriend’s very impressive,” the judge’s wife sitting next to Ryan remarks to him as Joseph bounds onto the stage. “So young to be so successful. And very handsome too.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. We just work together,” Ryan says.

“Oh right. Of course,” she says with a wink. “I understand, honey.”

Joseph accepts his award with a speech that Ryan almost buys, if it weren’t for the fact he’d heard Joseph call the whole thing bullshit only four hours earlier. But the guy’s good, really damn convincing. He certainly seems to have everybody in the room convinced too, unless they’re all equally good at bullshitting, which is not that unlikely given the audience here. Joseph bestows smiles all around—for the host, the panel, the photographers, the audience. It’s the smile that makes his eyes crinkle, the one Ryan saw in close-up on the TV screens a few days earlier, and if it is false, then the guy’s a damn fine actor.

There’s dancing once the speeches are finished. Ryan dances with the judge’s wife and two of her well-groomed, immaculately dressed friends who flock around him, giving him scary smiles and touching his arm a little too often for his liking. Still, he puts on his best smiles and makes elaborate small talk and generally acts like the courteous Texas boy his mama raised him to be.

Joseph doesn’t dance. Instead, he takes a spot at the bar and a succession of people line up to congratulate him on the award, which sits on the bar beside him in all its plastic, kitschy glory. Ryan watches him surreptitiously as a tall, dark-haired, and extremely attractive woman approaches him. She’s zipped into a tight midnight-blue dress that shows off her assets to their best advantage, and she has the kind of smile that wouldn’t be out of place in a toothpaste commercial. He can’t help watching Joseph and her together, how she leans in really close to hear what Joseph is saying, the way her fingers run over the award, the way she tips back her head when she laughs.

He drags his gaze away from them and glances down at his watch. It’s 1:00 a.m. and he suddenly wants to be away from here more than anything. He wants to be back at home in bed with Daisy, feeling her warm, soft body pressed up against him and her hair tickling his face. It feels like he hasn’t seen her in months, and it’s making him feel strange and unhappy and discombobulated.

He lifts his brandy glass to his lips to take a sip. He’s been drinking steadily all night, and he’s feeling a little dizzy right now. Some of the older couples are starting to leave, the women taking their wraps and coats from the staff, the older men exchanging last-minute small talk.

Does he have to wait for Joseph’s say-so before he can leave too? The guy’s been practically ignoring him all evening and it’s getting late. It’s going to be hard enough to get a cab at this time of night, and he doesn’t really want to take the subway. He looks back toward the bar and freezes in surprise. Joseph is looking at him,
right
at him. The attractive girl in the blue dress is still next to him, leaning into him and whispering something into his ear, her back to Ryan, but Joseph is not looking at her, he’s looking over her shoulder and directly at Ryan, something hot and dark and compelling in his gaze.

Ryan blinks and brings his glass up to his mouth with shaky fingers. He’s staring unblinkingly back at Joseph and not paying attention. The ice cubes clink against his teeth, taking him by surprise. The cold sticky liquid dribbles down his chin and onto his collar. He curses under his breath and wipes his mouth with the side of his hand, his cheeks flushing red with embarrassment. He’s feeling ridiculously flustered, a stupid klutz making a fool of himself right where Joseph can see him. He takes a breath, drops the glass onto the nearest table, and crosses the room toward Joseph.

“Hey,” he says.

The girl acknowledges him first, turning around to eye him curiously. “Uh, hey?” she says.

“I’m Ryan,” he says. He holds out his hand. Her eyes drop to it, like she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do with it. She glances over her shoulder at Joseph, who just shrugs, looking infuriatingly amused by the entire situation. Finally, she takes Ryan’s hand.

“Wow, you have really big hands,” she says. She drops her hand from his and holds it up, palm side out. “Look.” She nudges Joseph in the side. “Look what big hands he has.”

Ryan feels the absurd urge to laugh out loud as he raises his hand to press his palm against hers. He really does have big hands; he knows that, and he’s heard all the jokes about it, too. He glances across at Joseph, who’s watching them both with an inscrutable look on his face, his eyes dark when their gazes cross.

“Can you pick up a basketball with one hand?” the girl asks. “I have this friend who can do that? He’s, like, six foot seven, though, so he’s taller than you. How tall are you?”

“Six four,” Ryan says, “and no, I’ve never tried picking up a basketball with one hand.”

She nods. Her eyes are glazed, her cheeks pink, and Ryan realizes that she’s actually pretty drunk. She’s listing into Joseph a little, her other hand resting on his arm, more to steady herself than as any real attempt at groping him. “So, did you, like, come over to talk to me, or him?” she says after a moment, gesturing vaguely at Joseph.

“He came with me, sweetheart,” Joseph says, leaning into her from behind, his lips almost brushing her ear.

“Oh, oh,
oh,
” she says, jerking away from them both, her legs unsteady in her high heels. Ryan puts out a hand to help steady her, and she leans into it gratefully, looking between them both with a look of dismay on her face. “I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t realize that you were”—she gives Joseph a reproachful look—“
gay
.”

Joseph raises his eyes to Ryan’s; the smirk has dropped away and that hot dark look is back, the one that made Ryan spill his brandy down his chin. He licks his lips, keeps looking at Ryan. “It has been known,” he says.

Ryan feels the breath catch at the back of his throat. He can’t fool himself over what this is. Joseph is admitting something out loud; Joseph is deliberately letting Ryan know that he’s into guys.

“Though, I have also been known to prefer my partners more girl-shaped,” Joseph adds, and he’s looking away from Ryan once more, teasing smirk back on his face as he places his hand on the back of the girl’s neck and draws her in. She goes willingly, smiling goofily and letting him cup the back of her head, his fingers in her long, glossy hair, pulling her down into a kiss.

Ryan looks away again. He can feel his heart thumping in his chest, his stupid fingers tingling. He feels unsteady, dizzy, and drunk. It occurs to him all of a sudden just how strange and unprofessional this entire evening has turned out to be. He’s actually watching his boss—Joseph Van Aardt, no less—making out with some girl he just picked up at a private charity event. And that’s before he tries to process all the revelations about Joseph’s sexual preferences and the blatant innuendos Joseph has been throwing him…. Unless he’s been imagining all that stuff, of course? Maybe what’s actually happening is that his overactive imagination sees something that isn’t there, but something that he secretly
wants
to be there. He’s not even sure anymore.

He clears his throat, attempting to get their attention. He doesn’t want to be too obvious, but damn it, he really,
really
wants to go home.

“I should go,” he says. “My fiancée will be worrying where I am.”

Joseph pulls away from her slowly, turning his head and giving him an inscrutable sort of look. “Your fiancée? Of course. I forgot about that. Tell Dave to drive you home, Ryan. He’ll be out front.”

Ryan hesitates, unsure whether or not Joseph is being serious about lending him his private chauffeur. He really hopes he is; it’ll definitely save a lot on the cab fare.

“Well, go on, then,” Joseph says. “Don’t want to keep your girl waiting.”

“Right, yeah. Okay, yeah. Well—thanks, thanks for the evening, and everything,” he says. Joseph is already turning his attention away from him, back to the girl who has her face buried in the crook of his neck. “Bye, then,” he says lamely.

“Oh, hey, wait!”

He spins around. Joseph pushes the kitschy award along the bar toward him. “Take that with you. Just give it to Estelle.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he says. He picks up the award. It’s surprisingly heavy for something that looks so plastic. He jams it under his arm and strides out of the room as quickly as he can.

“W
HAT
’
S
THIS
?”
Daisy asks the next day.

She’s up before him, eating cereal at the kitchen table in her pajamas. The award is sitting on the table, not looking less plastic or kitschy in the cold light of day. Ryan pauses on his way to the shower and turns to look at her.

“You win something and forget to tell me?” she says. She’s smiling at him, eyebrows raised in her quizzical look.

He scratches his belly and pads toward her. He’s not feeling so good this morning. He’s tired, with a nagging headache and knots in his stomach. It’s mainly the hangover, but it’s also something else—that weird, out-of-place feeling from yesterday still lingering.

“It’s Joseph’s,” he tells her.

“Joseph? Like, Joseph Van Aardt? Your boss?”

“Yes. It’s his outstanding achievement award. He asked me to take it home last night. I guess I’ll have to bring it into the office on Monday.”

“Outstanding achievement—but the guy’s only—how old is he? Like, thirty-five?”

“Thirty-four,” he corrects. “Yeah, I know, it’s kinda dumb. He said it was dumb, but it’s still an award, and it’s really prestigious. It’s from the Whitehall Foundation.” She looks at him blankly. “Private charitable organization. They’re kind of a big deal.”

She raises her eyebrows again and mouths, “A big deal.” She pokes at the award with her spoon, making it turn around. “Couldn’t they have gotten better statuettes? It looks like crap.”

Ryan snorts. “Yeah. That’s what Joseph said.”

She spins around on her stool and clasps her hands together in her lap, watching him eagerly. “Sounds like you’re really getting on with Joseph. This is so great, babe. He must really like you.”

He forces a shrug, doesn’t meet her gaze. “I guess.”

“No, seriously! First he asks you out for dinner, then he gets you to attend some prestigious awards thing with him,
and
he just gives you a super-expensive tux. Are you sure he doesn’t have the hots for you?” She chuckles, like it’s too ludicrous to consider. “I’m kinda jealous.”

He thinks of Joseph again, of how he looked watching Ryan across the room, that girl hanging off him, how his eyes ran over him after Alexandre had worked his magic, that look on his face when he’d told Ryan that he liked guys. The queasy, nauseated feeling in his gut tightens.

“He left with a woman last night, so I think it’s doubtful,” he says, trying to make his tone as light as possible.

Daisy just shrugs and goes back to munching on her cereal, the subject already forgotten.

J
OSEPH
IS
not in the office for the following week, and Ryan can’t help but feel disappointed. The office is different when Joseph is around; there’s more buzz, more intensity. Admittedly, everybody seems to be breathing a collective sigh of relief with Joseph absent, but Ryan is already addicted to the adrenaline and drama and that intense, unsettled feeling that Joseph’s presence seems to bring with it. The award is still sitting on the window ledge of his office. He knows he could hand it over to Estelle if he wanted, and he’s not exactly sure why he hasn’t done that. He doesn’t let himself think about it too much.

With Joseph absent, people seem to be less openly hostile toward him, and in an effort not to burn all his bridges, he goes out with a group of other junior associates to a bar two blocks down from the office.

“Are you fucking Joseph?” one of the first years, Krista, asks him. She’s just out of law school, fresh-faced and naïve in a way that doesn’t seem to match the rampant cynicism and back-stabbing Ryan has come up against so far at Chase Mackey Van Aardt. She’s been drinking steadily all night, margaritas and white wine, and she leans into him as she talks, her breath alcohol-sour as it ghosts across his face.

“What?”

“A lot of people are saying that. Like, that’s why he’s been favoring you so much.”

“I’ve only been here a month!” he protests. He wants to laugh at the insinuation, but the laugh catches at the back of his throat and dies an immediate painful death. He knows this is what people have been saying, and hell, in a weird way it’s actually a relief to finally have someone say it out loud, but it’s also hitting really close to something. Something that makes his body feel hot and tight and prickly, something he’s definitely not willing to think too closely about, but something that he can’t stop dwelling on anyway.

She shrugs clumsily, her shoulders dagger-thin in her cream silk shirt. “He doesn’t know who I am,” she says. She turns a big-eyed, almost Bambi-like gaze on him. She’s pretty in a wholesome, ingénue kind of way, and he wonders once again what the hell she’s doing in this place. She shuffles on her seat, pressing her body up against his side, and looks up at him plaintively.

He gives her a strained smile, trying to pull away gently from her. “I have a fiancée. And I’m not gay, and I’m definitely not involved with Joseph.”

She doesn’t look convinced, frowning at him in a way that
makes her look even younger. In the end, he just laughs
uncomfortably and quickly finishes his beer. He gives his excuses and heads back to the office, deciding that socializing with his coworkers is not such a good idea right now. At least he’s got work to distract him.