Executive Perks (13 page)

“You could jump me in any condition,” she countered saucily, her hands on her slim hips.

Startled at first, he saw that she was still just teasing and he laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She was a pert little thing. Sexy, he noted, his eyes running down her scantily gold clad body. No doubt about it. But there was only one Beckett woman he was interested in and she was oblivious to the world right now. “I guess I should go and leave you to your sister. Good night.” He headed out of the room and down the stairs, but she was after him in an instant.

“Wait a minute, maybe you could stop by tomorrow, play a little tennis? I’m sure Virginia would want to thank you for all this personally.”

Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she does
.

But he just said, “Maybe I’ll do that.”

He was halfway back to Manhattan when he realized he couldn’t stop thinking about Virginia. And, disturbingly, not just about sex with her. Although he was thinking about that a good deal as well. Her unguarded way of laughing tonight, her earnest declaration that she needed to make her dead loved ones proud…all the details of her personality that whatever she had ingested allowed to slip out tonight kept coming back to him. It occurred to him that when she wasn’t fighting with him, Virginia Beckett seemed like somebody he could maybe enjoy a walk in the country with or just talking to. She was funny and feisty and…

He roared the Jag into a higher gear, confident the ever-vigilant I-95 cops were already asleep in their patrol cars or else at the twenty-four-hour donut shop. Jesus, a walk in the country! Cue in the violins, Winston. He had learned a long time ago that the only company he could really count on was his own. And he was fine with that.

Although, maybe after they fucked tomorrow, they could take a walk around the grounds or get a bite to eat in the nearest town or…

Who knew?

* * * * *

Virginia awoke with an unpleasant, unfamiliar taste in her mouth and grimaced. She opened her eyes and looked down at the soft blue satin, recognizing it immediately. Bransport. What was she doing here? All at once the images of last night flooded in on her. Oh God, no. Please let it have been a dream. She rolled over onto her back on the bed and felt the tuxedo jacket hampering her movement ever so slightly.
Oh my God
, it was real. It had happened and she was still wearing Aaron Winston’s tuxedo jacket to prove it. No, no, no, no, no! She could not stop saying the words in her head over and over. How could this have happened? It seemed as if one minute she’d been fuming at the arrogant Winston, hating him and his stacked little girlfriend in her racy red dress, and then the next she was dancing with him, elated to have gotten rid of the girlfriend, and throwing herself at him. Her head ached. The wine. That was the explanation, obviously, but it didn’t spare her from the crushing sense of regret and humiliation and embarrassment. She would never be able to face Winston again. He must be laughing his head off by now. He’d practically had to drag her home, she remembered, with her continuing to beg him the whole time to kiss her. What had possessed her to behave like that? She was completely mystified. Why couldn’t it have been anyone but Aaron Winston?

Despite the pounding in her head, she dragged herself out of bed, flung the tuxedo jacket to the floor, followed shortly by the white silk, and headed for the shower. The pulsating jets of water helped her head, but did nothing to erase her disturbing memories. “Come on, Virginia, help me out here,” he had said, pushing her away from him. After a punishing hour and a half of exercise tapes, concentrating on the complicated steps, working herself to exhaustion, she felt a little more herself again. Following forty-five minutes on her stair master, she was finally ready to face this day. She decided to get something to eat before taking another shower. Who else was here at Bransport? She had a vague recollection of a lot of people and Missy. She was sure Missy was here. What to say to her?

Virginia peeked into the hall. No activity despite how her bedroom clock had indicated it was almost one in the afternoon. She had almost made it to the kitchen, no one in sight, when the doorbell rang. Probably one of Missy or Mindy’s freeloading friends. But when she opened the door without thinking, she was horrified to see Aaron Winston. As if her worst nightmare had materialized just by her thinking of him. He was cool and crisp in fawn-colored corduroys and a chocolate-brown cashmere sweater.

Immediately, she grabbed the towel from around her neck and pathetically clutched it in front of her. Those dark blue eyes followed the movement and he laughed. “Come on now, Virginia. Aren’t we beyond that kind of thing?”

She knew she was being unreasonable, but at this very moment she hated him. She wished he would drop dead in front of her right now and she would not be loath to aid in that end if given the opportunity. “What are you doing here?”

His laughing expression dimmed somewhat. “Take a wild guess. Wait, I’ll give you a hint.” He reached for her.

She dodged him. “I don’t think so. Look, I keep telling you, I don’t want that kind of…ah…thing with you.”

“That wasn’t the impression I got last night.”

“I don’t want to talk about last night,” she snapped.

He nodded. “Okay, fine. You were kind of out of it. But let me just point out, if you can’t remember, that we got on pretty well together.”

“I know we didn’t sleep together.” She was pretty sure of it, anyway.

“Not for your lack of trying.”

It was a casual observation, but she cringed, feeling her cheeks burn. “Yeah, I remember enough about last night to have gotten that part, but thanks for the tactful reminder.”

He glanced around the entranceway. Virginia blocked further entrance, so he moved to take one of the wooden straight-backed chairs against the wall of the hallway, looking for all the world as if he was under the impression that she had just offered him a seat.

“I didn’t sleep with you last night, Virginia, but we sure as hell
both
wanted to. For my part, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t bombed out of your mind when we did it. And there was something else I wanted to ask you about that.”

“I just want you to get out of here. I’m embarrassed enough as it is.”

“Embarrassed of what? You had a little too much to drink…or something. Listen, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Really.” She put her hand to her pounding head. “Can you just leave? I want to completely forget about last night.”

He stared at her.

Finally, he said, “Where have I heard that before? Great. So this is what I get for my chivalry? A brush-off? Do you have to be bombed out of your mind to have any fun, Miss Perfect?”

“Oh, shut up.” Her head was hammering so hard, she thought it would break open.

“I should have just fucked you,” he muttered.

“Why am I not surprised that any honorable behavior you manage to exhibit always comes with a price tag?

He stood up again and yanked the towel away from in front of her, his blue eyes blatantly staring at her breasts bound in the exercise top, her bare midriff, her legs encased in the bright spandex like a second skin. “I just don’t like all these games you’re always playing. One minute you’re all over me and the next you want to act like it never happened and pretend to hate my guts.”

“No pretense necessary.”

“This is the second time,” he said, seeming as pissed off as he probably was. “The second time you’ve done this to me. I’ve finger-fucked you, but you know I get a lot more out of it when I use another favorite part of my anatomy in the process.”

His sense of entitlement was starting to piss her off as well and anger overtook embarrassment. “God, you are so crude!”

“Oh, so you can do it but you can’t say it? Oh no, I forgot. I did it. I did all the work—”

“Get out.”

“You’re like some kind of a hot chick version of Jekyll and Hyde. Let’s end this already, preferably not out in the hall. Come on, Virginia, take me back to your room and I’ll make sure you’re glad you were sober for the experience.”

“There you go with your lack of confidence again, Mr. Winston.”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, you were starting to give me a blow job in the limousine and by the end of the night you were practically attacking me.”

Blow job? Oh, for heaven’s sake, he was probably lying about that one. She didn’t…she’d never…

Before she could respond, a high voice behind them called out, “Oh, you’re here! Why didn’t somebody tell me? I’m glad you could make it. Didn’t you bring your tennis stuff, though? Oh, that’s okay, you can borrow something of Brendan’s.”

Missy was charging at them from a long corridor in the rear, in a skimpy white tennis dress, her long thighs almost completely exposed, her curls down to her waist. He smiled a slow smile at her and said warmly, “Missy, there you are. I was just telling Virginia that we had a tennis date.”

Virginia’s jaw dropped as she took in the adoring look Missy was giving Aaron. In the course of spurning Virginia’s attentions and unloading her off at home dead drunk, he had found the time to make a date with her baby sister? This guy was not to be believed.

Missy grabbed Aaron’s hand, apparently gratified at his warm greeting, and started to pull him upstairs, intending to point out Brendan’s room and his store of tennis clothes, when Virginia’s curt voice stopped her, “Wait a minute, Missy. I want a word with you.”

Missy turned back to her older sister like a reluctant child about to be scolded. “Go on up,” she told Aaron. “It’s the third door on the left. Pick out anything you like. All his tennis stuff is in there and we have rackets downstairs. I have some friends down at the courts now. We can play doubles.”

Aaron followed her rapidly fired-off instructions, disappearing after a sardonic smile at Virginia. “See you later, Virginia.”

Missy followed Virginia into the library, flopping down on one of the maroon leather sofas as Virginia closed the door behind them. Missy decided that the best defense was an offense. “Now, if this is about the party, Virginia, I just want to say that I think you’re hardly one to judge anybody about last night. I mean, you should have seen yourself! You could barely walk! If Aaron…” She paused in her lightning-quick speech, as if were the first time she had used his first name out loud and liked it. “If Aaron had not been so helpful and given you a ride home, then I don’t know quite what would have happened.”

Virginia surveyed her sister calmly. Yes, Aaron Winston had been extremely helpful, but she was not about to get into the circumstances of her episode with Winston last night. God knows what he had told Missy about it, but she certainly didn’t seem to suspect anything romantic between Virginia and Aaron. Fine, that was not the point. And she didn’t care about the unauthorized party Missy—and Mindy, probably, although the second twin was not in evidence—had thrown behind her back. What she wanted to do was make sure that her silly little sister knew how two-faced Winston was. Virginia sat next to Missy and began in her best “wise older sister” tone, “Missy, I hope you’re not thinking about seeing Aaron Winston.”

“Why not?” she interrupted petulantly. “He said there was nothing between you two, right? Well, not exactly in those words, but—”

Virginia bristled. “Of course not. We’re business associates, or rather adversaries, which is exactly my point. Winston has been trying to get stock in the company, you know that, right? Well, in a family company you get stock by cozying up to the family.”

“All my stock is in some kind of a trust, right?” Missy argued.

“Yes, but Winston doesn’t know that.”

“Well, I’ll just tell him and if he still sticks around, we’ll know that wasn’t it.”

Virginia grimaced. Her baby sister could be so unexpectedly, infuriatingly logical sometimes. “Winston is a lot more subtle than that, Missy. He’s very sneaky and I’m asking you not to see him.”

“I’m over eighteen.”

“Just barely.”

“And I can see whoever I want.” Missy stood up to go, smoothing her tennis dress—what little of it there was. At her sister’s tight expression, Missy relented and said, “We’re just playing tennis, don’t worry. I’m not giving him any family secrets or anything. Besides, I’m surprised he even showed up. He didn’t seem that interested in me. Funny,” she tossed over her shoulder as she left Virginia alone in the cavernous library. “I almost thought last night that he had some kind of a thing for you.”

Virginia stayed in the library long enough to make sure she wouldn’t run into Winston and Missy on their way out to the tennis courts and then snuck upstairs. Her plan to shower and change into blue jeans morphed into a need to try to generate some more endorphins to counteract her fury at Winston’s visit. She hit the elliptical this time, blasting Red Hot Chili Peppers on her iPod as her arms and legs slogged through the paces. She didn’t know how long she lasted, but by the time she threw in the towel, sweat was pouring off of her and she’d pretty much lost her hearing.

Panting, she wandered over to her open bedroom window to take a deep whiff of the crisp outside air, but unfortunately she’d forgotten that the tennis courts were just below. “Game,” someone shouted. The ball sounded as if it was still being slammed time and time again. “That’s the set. Hey, Missy, your friend here sure likes to win.”

Virginia moved to look down at the tennis courts below and saw a grim Winston, in white trousers, polo shirt and sneakers, say something low to which the other three evidently agreed. Then he furiously lobbed the ball over the net out of reach of the other team but within bounds. “That’s our point,” Missy, Aaron’s teammate, squealed and Aaron unexpectedly looked up at Virginia’s window, catching her watching them. He turned and said something to Missy who yelled up to her, “Virginia, why don’t you come down and play a set? Aaron says he’ll bet you one thousand shares, you against him.”