Executive Perks (8 page)

* * * * *

After hustling Rye out of his office, Aaron turned back to the report he had been scanning when Rye showed up. “PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL—FOR THE EYES OF AARON WINSTON ONLY”, the envelope had been marked. Mrs. Fields had brought it in, still sealed, without a thought. A great deal of confidential information passed to Aaron this way. It was safer than email sometimes.

Only this wasn’t about business. The report, which Aaron had commissioned from a reputable private detective agency on the morning after his disastrously frustrating car ride with Virginia, was entitled: “Personal Affairs of Miss Virginia Beckett.” A more appropriate title, Aaron thought after reading the few sheets of paper, would have been “Lack of Personal Affairs of Miss Virginia Beckett.” They had not found out anything. Or there was nothing to find out. She was either incredibly discreet or she was a nun. Aaron could not quite believe the latter given her hot response to him in the car. But the report detailed no known current lover or even escort and no record of any past marriages or relationships that would have been serious enough to merit mention anywhere. Even the few discrete interviews with acquaintances that the agency had managed on such a tight timeframe turned up the same seeming pattern of complete lack of romantic involvement. He dialed his contact at the detective agency and instructed him to continue digging until he found something. This just did not make sense. Why would a woman as beautiful and accomplished as Virginia Beckett be so alone that way? She wasn’t cold. They’d proven that. It was as much of a mystery to him as his own inability to accept her brush-off.

Aaron felt a slight twinge of guilt at his tactics—he had never had a woman in whom he was interested investigated before. Let alone a woman who had told him in no uncertain terms to stay away.

Can anyone say
stalker
?

But he couldn’t get her out of his head.

On that unlikely note, he picked up the phone and dialed Julie. “How would you like to go to a charity ball tomorrow night?”

* * * * *

The Museum of Natural History was magically illuminated by the blue light of the huge fish tanks that lined the walls of the main gallery. The charity event, at 8:00 that Saturday night, was already in full swing. All of the members of Virginia’s immediate family were seated at a large, green-velvet-covered table, chatting over drinks. Allie, Virginia’s oldest sister by a decade, had flown in from Maine with her husband Pat for a romantic weekend at the Four Seasons away from their two adorable but mischievous little girls. Nora, Virginia’s next oldest sister, had come by herself and Virginia worried as she watched her sometimes-temperamental sister down another gin that this might indicate trouble in Nora’s marriage. The family had seen little of Nora’s husband, Brian, in the last year or so despite that the couple only lived in Boston, a few hours’ drive from Manhattan. That was fine with her. She wasn’t much of a fan of Brian, but she hoped that he and Nora would work out their apparent troubles, whatever they were, at least for the sake of their three teenaged children. Brendan was also at the table, Virginia noted, with his stunningly sophisticated girlfriend of the night in a black chiffon and silk confection, long pearls hanging to her waist.

Missy and Mindy, twins and the youngest members of the Beckett clan as well as by far the most boisterous, were jabbering away animatedly at their respective dates. The two young men seemed mesmerized by the nonstop flow of conversation, or rather soliloquy, emitting from the petite, fluffy-haired blondes in identical short gold lamé baby-doll dresses. The twins had all of Brendan’s airy charm but absolutely none of his occasional, even if sporadic, interest in the business side of the family. And they certainly, as they would be the first to gaily admit, had none of Virginia’s serious tendencies.

“I don’t know how you can stand that boring business stuff, all those numbers day in and day out,” one or the other of them would often complain to Virginia. “Why can’t you just be grateful to be born rich and leave it at that?”

The twins were certainly in their element now, Virginia thought, watching them glide to the dance floor, dates in tow. Virginia sipped her white wine gingerly, listening to the elegant strains of the orchestra in the background, when Nora, her voice a little slurred even at this early point in the evening, asked, “So did you get that business with Aaron Winston all worked out?”

Virginia clamped down on her confusing associations with Winston, just as she had all week. “It’s all taken care of, Nora. Didn’t you and Brian get the memo I had Brendan email to everybody?” Nora and the other family members, however uninvolved in the mechanics of the business, had been kept up to date on the threat from Winston and then the temporary settlement with him.

Uncle Victor, who was not sitting at the Beckett table but instead had opted to host a table of friends from his own generation, came over to say hello just as Virginia referenced the email. “I don’t know, Virginia, dear,” he said, kissing her on the cheek, “why you have to always use such an impersonal mode of communication for family members. I’d like to see you hand-write a note once in a while rather than put me to the trouble of having my secretary print out your computer scribbles.”

“You could try to read things on the computer screen like the rest of us,” Brendan pointed out as their uncle gave a little wave to all and departed as quickly as he’d come.

“Yes, I got the email,” Nora responded nonchalantly to the initial question. “I wanted to make sure because I think that’s Winston heading over here right now. I recognize him from his picture in
People
.”

Virginia turned in the direction Nora was indicating and made out Aaron Winston, tall and handsome in a traditional tuxedo, threading his way through the crowd toward the Becketts’ table.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, tempted to try to flee her own table but it was too late anyway. He was already here.

“Virginia, how nice to see you.” He hovered by her chair, waiting for her to introduce him to the others. When she merely nodded, a deliberate slight he was too pigheaded to acknowledge, he turned to Brendan, who, a prisoner of his own good manners, rose to make the introductions around the table.

After he had introduced his family members, Brendan smoothly continued, “This is Aaron Winston, of whom you have been reading so much of late.”

Pat rose to shake Aaron’s hand and Allie and Nora smiled at the handsome man despite themselves. Brendan’s model of the moment harrumphed loudly, causing him to laugh. “Sorry,” he said, “Freudian slip.” He turned back to Winston. “And this is my date, Linda Smith.”

“And where is your date?” Winston asked Virginia without preliminaries, although he did lean forward a bit toward her and spoke softly enough that the rest of the table could have been forgiven for turning back to their own conversations, surmising that a private one had been struck up between Aaron and Virginia. In fact, though, all eyes at the table continued to be glued to the two of them. Virginia looked into Aaron’s own teasing blue eyes and froze. Improbably, it was Nora who came to her rescue.

“She came with me,” Nora called out. “My husband couldn’t attend and Virginia didn’t want me to be the only one without a partner.”

Virginia took the opportunity to down the rest of her glass of wine and a waiter she had never seen came to refill it as Aaron commented, “How very sporting of her,” addressing Nora, but never taking his eyes off Virginia.

The waiter left without refilling the glasses of anyone else at the table, Virginia noticed. She must have been the only one who really looked as though she could use another drink. She downed it gratefully, despite its slightly funny taste. Almost salty. It was probably some outrageously expensive vintage her uneducated palate couldn’t properly appreciate.

Fortified by a sudden, unfamiliar buzz—she usually just nursed her drink all through an evening—Virginia was about to demand of Winston the same rude question he had asked of her when a stunning, dark-haired woman appeared at his side.

“My, my, my,” the woman said brightly. “What a coincidence. Look who you ran into on the way to the bar.” Never mind that the bar was in the opposite direction. Unexpectedly, she reached forward to shake Virginia’s hand. “You probably don’t remember me. We met on a deal once when you were practicing law.” The woman gave her name, Julie something or other, and the name of the investment bank she worked for.

“Nice to meet you,” Virginia offered, not knowing what else to say, and stood up as if about to make the introductions around the table. Aaron flicked his eyes down the length of Virginia’s classic, body-hugging, floor-length dress.

“No, no, sit down,” Julie protested. “We don’t want to interrupt. Aaron, there are some people you really must meet. Will you excuse us?”

After Aaron and Julie walked away, the Becketts’ table was strangely silent for a moment and then Brendan irreverently let out a low whistle. “Wow. How come I never have an investment banker like that on my deals?” His brother-in-law Pat gave a cautious sideways glance at his wife, but laughed in agreement and Linda poked Brendan in the ribs.

“What?” Brendan laughed innocently. “I’m just asking. Virginia, can we hire her for our next transaction?”

“I’m sure Winston has her under some kind of exclusive arrangement,” Virginia responded cattily, feeling the effects of the wine rather more than she usually did. Her sisters and Linda laughed heartily.

“I, for one, thought she looked a little overblown,” the rail-thin Linda, more than willing to get into the catty spirit of things, opined.

Brendan and Pat rolled their eyes at each other, but let the remark go, outnumbered by their female table companions.

Missy and Mindy returned from the dance floor. “What did I miss?” Missy demanded, flouncing into her seat, looking around at her brother and sisters, as if sensing a drama somewhere.

“Aaron Winston and his date came by,” Nora explained. She reached for the wine bottle and was startled when Virginia beat her to it.

“Shoot! You’re kidding. And we missed it?” Mindy cried. “Darn, we wanted to meet him! He’s supposed to be gorgeous, though you’d never know it from the way these two talk about him.” She nodded toward Virginia and Brendan.

“He was very good-looking,” Allie said mildly.

Good-looking. Yes, that was one way to put it. And charming and sexy and…

What was wrong with her? She must have taken more of a blow to her head last week than her doctors let on. Mixed with the alcohol, it left her with some unfamiliar pounding. Lost in her thoughts for a few moments, when she surfaced again, she looked around for Winston and saw that he was dancing with that black-haired bombshell.

“Do you want to dance?” she asked Pat suddenly, grabbing his hand before he could answer and gliding out with him onto the dance floor, feeling light from all the wine and graceful in her swirling white dress. She deliberately danced them over toward that dark handsome head leaning over his companion in her slinky red dress.

Seeming to be on the same game plan as her, Aaron also maneuvered his date so that before she knew it they were next to Pat and Virginia. “Can we switch partners?” Aaron asked Pat, ignoring his own partner’s furious expression.

Pat started to object, when Virginia simply walked from his arms into Winston’s.

He’d taken the words right out of her mouth.

Virginia felt a naked stab of satisfaction at the sight of his girlfriend or whatever she was standing there speechless as she and Winston whirled away. “You’re not very nice to your girlfriend,” she chided him, suddenly feeling alarmingly loose from the wine and the intoxicating experience of being in his arms again, even in just this most innocent of circumstances. Aaron pulled her full against his body as they danced and she felt his cock against her, immediately lengthening and growing hard.
Uh, oh.
Maybe not so innocent.

“I’d be different with you,” he promised in a whisper in her ear. She felt a shiver right down to her toes.

“We’ll never know, will we?” she countered gaily.

“That’s up to you.”

“So what’s next, Mr. Winston? May I call you Mr. Winston?”

She laughed at her own pun.

“What’s the alternative?”

“I guess I could call you by your first name.
Aaron.
Oh no, wait, I don’t want to send any mixed signals. Do you read use of your first name by a woman as an invitation to bed?”

She leaned defenselessly against him, but clearly still had her weapons.

He smiled at the barb. “Not if they preface it with an explanation.”

“Okay, fine. I’m sick of calling you Mr. Winston. So Aaron it is. But I don’t mean that as a pass at you.”

“Thanks for clarifying that.”

She seemed very different tonight, Aaron thought. Light and flirtatious. She was devastatingly attractive in this mood, but a small part of him was wary, wondering if this was just a new move in some game she seemed to be playing with him. He had meant to try to charm her tonight, just to see if he could change her mind about them. But he hadn’t expected her to initiate anything.

If Virginia sensed his hesitancy, she gave no sign.

“So tell me the truth. What’s behind all this interest in my company? Can’t you find somebody else as good to gobble up?”

“You make me sound like the big bad wolf.”

“That’s what we call you, me and Brendan.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“I know. I’ve read all about you.”

“A fan?”

“A target.”

They danced together smoothly.

“Any chance we could leave the business world behind, just for tonight?”

“I will if you will.”

He tugged her closer just as the song ended. “I definitely will.”