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  The smiles on his board members’ faces quickly melted away. Sitting at John’s right hand, I had the luxury of observing the others without being subject to the same scrutiny they were. It was one perks of being John Alister’s assistant—one of the few.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is unacceptable.” John’s voice took on an authoritarian tone, filling the conference room with seemingly no effort on his part. The natural beast that was always there within him, swimming just below the surface, was ready to break out and devour its prey without a second’s notice.

  “I want those two points back,” John said, “plus another fifteen percent by the end of this upcoming quarter. That’s seventeen percent, ladies and gentlemen, or this will be your last Christmas at Alister Fashions… or anywhere in New York if I have anything to do with it!”

  He was so strong, so forceful, and I couldn’t deny a stirring which was altogether too familiar. I’d developed a little bit of a crush in the sixteen months I’d been working with him—his power, his money and his handsome charisma made for an irresistible combination. John Alister was an alpha male, the CEO of a company he had founded and which bore his name and his alone. He was the master of all he surveyed, capable of facing any adversary to protect his domain. He was powerful, he was dangerous, he was thrilling. But he wasn’t mine, and he never would be.

  He was married and had a daughter, an adorable seven-year-old named Bailey, and I would never interfere with a situation like that. And say what one might about John Alister (and a lot of people did!), he was a dedicated family man who was above the kind of low-rent scandals that plagued so many high-profile figures. So John Alister was forbidden fruit, a man I could never have—and I had to admit that made him all the more attractive.

  “Moving on,” he said, clicking a small black device in his hand. On the screen behind him, the TV was dominated by the photograph of a man with a shaved head and a craggy, handsome face the color of milk chocolate. Though it was a close-up, we could all see that the man was wearing a suit and tie.

  “This is Sherman Mathers, of the Federal Trade Commission.” John sighed and turned to look at the big picture of his new adversary. “Mathers is a good man, a conscientious public servant, and right now he’s being a complete pain in my ass. Between these guys and the IRS, it’s amazing we’re able to do any work at all.”

  The board of directors chuckled just a bit, but a glare from John shut them up quick.

  “Anyway,” John went on, “if he comes to you, I’m not… I am not… suggesting you tell him any lies or obstruct his investigation in anyway. We’ve done nothing wrong; we’ve got nothing to hide. And if we have in some way inadvertently overstepped one line or another in our pursuit of excellence, we’re open to the opportunity to correct those oversights, even eager to do it. But I do ask that you let me know if Mr. Mathers approaches you. He’s a very… determined man, it would seem, and he seems comfortable enough using unusual methods.”

  I asked, “How do you mean, sir?”

  John rubbed his forehead. I could read his impatience, how the stress of the situation was compounding his other worries. I regretted asking, worried that I was revealing my ignorance, my incompetence, but it was too late. “These people pull all kinds of dirty tricks, Sheryl, from pretending to have information they don’t have, to coercion, to extortion, to blackmail. Sometimes a person sets out to do the right thing, but… but they get caught up in things, carried away by circumstances, corrupted by power. Let’s just keep our eyes and ears open, that’s all.”

  The conference room door flew open, grabbing everybody’s attention. A woman I didn’t recognize stormed in and slammed the door closed behind her with one hand. The other held a semiautomatic handgun which she pointed at John, at me, seemingly at the whole table at once.

  John said, “What the—?”

  The woman’s Asian features bent in an angry frown. Her hair was short and black on each side of her broad face. “Shut your mouth, you lying son of a bitch!”

  I couldn’t help but look over at my boss. “Mr. Alister?”

  “S’okay, Sheryl, s’all right—”

  “No, it’s not okay, Sheryl,” the woman said, snarling out my name. “I guess you’re the one he’s fucking now, am I right?” She looked me over, hate in her chilly, almond eyes. “Of course. So obvious.”

  John said, “Lisa, take it easy now.”

  “Take it easy,” Lisa repeated, “is that what you said when you had me bent over your desk last week? Is that how you wanted me to take it then, nice and easy? Or was it more like, ‘Oh yeah, you take it, take it all’?”

  A palpable tremor passed over the table, a shared fear than any of us could instantly be slain by this crazed woman without ever truly knowing why. I could see in the board members’ faces that they were each recalling the last thing they’d said to their husbands or wives or children, thinking of the Christmas holiday they were all looking forward to sharing.

  But this year they’d be having funerals, not Christmas morning, condolences instead of presents.

  John looked around the conference table with an awkwardly innocent smile as Lisa began circling the table, coming directly toward me. “I don’t even know this woman,” he said to us all.

  She managed to sound both incredulous and snide. “Oh, no? No? Then I suppose I should introduce myself. Everybody, my name is Lisa Ling, and this lying prick has been stringing me along for months, promising to leave his wife, buying me off with cheap gifts, keeping me in a hovel like some ready-made whore just waiting to service him! I was going to be a writer for one of your stupid magazines…”

  I couldn’t help but feel for her, even as my fear grew as she got closer to me and to John on my left side. She returned her attention to John. “But you’re never going to leave that harpy for me, and you know it! How can you let that bitch raise your beautiful little girl?”

  I had to admit, I agreed with her on that last point.

  Lisa stepped to within a few feet of me on my right and just a foot behind. I could sense that her attention was more fixed on John than on me, and I felt like that gave me my opening. She took another fateful step closer.

  “Now she won’t have a father at all,” Lisa said, “and that thing you married is next on the list!”

  She was in the perfect position behind me, just to my right. I threw my right hand up and behind and grabbed her gun hand, my fingers locking around her wrist. I stood quickly, forcing her hand up like the Statue of Liberty. A hard squeeze compressed her artery against the tiny bones of her wrist, nearly crushing it, and bent her thumb back in one swift move.

  The gun fell out of her hand and clattered onto the conference table, where John scooped it up. What had seemed like a slow-motion moment suddenly flashed forward, and no sooner had John grabbed the gun than I’d spun around, still clutching Lisa’s hand, and flipped her deftly over my shoulder. Like the gun before her, she landed on the conference table, but with more of a thud than a clatter. She let out her breath with a wince.

  But she wasn’t done yet.

  Lisa reached up and grabbed my right arm with her free hand. With a strength I hadn’t anticipated, she pulled me onto the table on top of her and flipped me over the other side. I fell into the arms of two members of the board of directors, the three of us tumbling onto the floor while several other members of the board grabbed Lisa and pulled her kicking and screaming off the table.

  The door flew open again and four uniformed security guards raced into the conference room. Beefy men with confounded expressions and short, military haircuts, they fell upon Lisa Ling and cuffed her.

  “Where the hell have you been?” John hollered at them. “How did this woman get up here?”

  “Sorry, sir,” one man said as they wrestled Lisa up and out of the room.

  Lisa hissed at John, “I’ll kill you, John Alister, I swear I will!” Then she looked at me, fingers clawing like some animal. “And you, you little bitch, I’m gonna t
ake you apart piece by piece, you hear me? Piece by fucking piece!”

  The security guards dragged her out of the conference room, leaving a stunned silence and shocked expressions. John turned to me as I rose to my feet. “Are you okay, Sheryl?”

  “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”

  “That was… amazing, Sheryl, really. Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “Folks made me take self-defense before coming out to the Big Apple.”

  John sighed and nodded. “Smart.” He turned his attention to the others. “Okay, I’m going to have to go downtown and take care of this. The rest of you just go about your day, not a word of this to anyone. This didn’t happen. Understood?”

  They all shared nods and mumbled assurances before John added, “Alright then, meeting adjourned.” They filed out, but he said to me, “Hang back a minute?” I nodded and waited, eager to hear what he had to say.

  Once we were alone, John began pacing around the conference room, running his fingers through his graying black hair. “I swear to God, Sheryl, I never slept with that woman.” My silence couldn’t help but challenge him, even though that wasn’t really my intent—not completely, anyway. “I know her, from the magazine I guess, maybe we met once or twice. But the rest of it? She’s either delusional or… I dunno, on drugs? You know how it is with gun violence these days, Sheryl, people have all kinds of twisted reasons for doing what they do, taking innocent lives… innocent lives, Sheryl, like yours, like mine.”

  I couldn’t disagree, but I also knew very well how charming and conniving John Alister could be. Those traits had made him several vast fortunes and were helping him preserve them for as long as he could.

  “But of course I have to keep this quiet. My wife won’t believe me.” He huffed, shaking his head. “My wife. I… I know I didn’t marry very well, Sheryl, I… I tried to make the right decision.”

  I had to say, very softly, “I know, Mr. Alister, I do.”

  He kept pacing, lips pulling tight as the curtains of his memory drew back to reveal images he would rather not see. “When Lori, Bailey’s mother, died… in childbirth, no less, I… I felt I had to find a mother figure for her. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, Mr. Alister. Any good man would feel that way.”

  John Alister smiled, but there was no joy in it. “You’ve always thought too much of me, Sheryl. But I have tried, and Margaret’s a good woman, really, deep down. She’s had disappointments, the way we all have, she’s been hurt. And hearing this, even though it’s not true—”

  “I understand, Mr. Alister. I won’t say anything, of course.”

  “No,” he said softly, “I know you won’t. S’funny, of all the people in my employ, and that includes hundreds of people, you’re the only one I feel that I can really trust.”

  I wanted to take that for more than it was, but something in me just couldn’t resist saying, “Well, you don’t really know most of those hundreds of people well enough to trust them.”

  After a moment of consideration, he released a knowing little chuckle, setting his hand on my shoulder. “Very good, Sheryl, very good.”

  “Are you going to want me to come to the police station with you?”

  “No, that’s… that’s something best taken care of behind closed doors, Sheryl. Besides, I need you to take care of a list of things for me, extremely important.”

  My heart and stomach sank. Memories of the previous year’s list surfaced in the back of my head; groceries, dry cleaning, buying gifts for his family and friends, buying a puppy for Bailey and delivering it at five in the morning without getting caught.

  I tiredly asked, “Santa’s list?”

  “The bossman’s list,” he said with an unyielding baritone as he handed me a thrice-folded piece of paper from his breast pocket. It listed errands similar to the year before, the little things a man ought to do for his family personally.

  But there was one item on the list I didn’t understand. “Langdon Cane? What’s that, a fancy brandy or something?”

  John chuckled. “CEO of AussieGarb, coming in for the week to talk about some joint projects. I need you to pick him up at the airport, see that he’s got everything he needs, get him to the meetings, things like that. Think you can handle it?”

  Think I can handle it? I’m capable of being a lot more than some errand girl or chauffeur. I just saved your life; I think I can handle a trip to the airport! How long are you going to keep me on the short leash? When do I get my chance?

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Alister.”

  “Good girl,” he said in a low growl, as if I were his obedient pet. And I couldn’t at that moment lay claim to being much more than that.

  John stepped out of the conference room and left me alone. I felt as hollow and empty as that big room with cold bare furniture and hardly a breath of life. I’d very nearly died, and now I had to pretend as if nothing had happened. Blood was still pounding in my veins; my brain was swimming with confusion; adrenaline was making my limbs quiver. I felt like I was feeling everything I’d ever felt, all at once. I was flush with strength, a sense of my own undiscovered power.

  Now I was going to squander it running errands and driving some Aussie to and from the airport.

  On my way down the hallway, Flynn McGinnis slunk up behind me, green eyes wide on his pale, freckled face. “Sheryl, what’s going on? What happened?”

  Keeping an even pace down the hallway, I said without looking at him, “Nothing, Flynn. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “C’mon, Sheryl, that woman the security guys dragged out of the conference room. You were there. What happened?”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Flynn.”

  He kept up with me down another long corridor, his tall and lanky frame loping behind me like some eager Irish retriever. “Oh, I get it,” he said, “it’s on the D.L., I get that, sure. Hey, secrets, I like that… sexy. How about dinner this weekend?”

  “Flynn, I really can’t—”

  Flynn rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Again? C’mon, Sheryl, we had a good time in Central Park. Let’s do it again. Or I could take you to the Guggenheim, or… apple-picking in Amish country? That’s romantic.”

  “It is, and it sounds wonderful, but… I have a list of things to do for Mr. Alister, and with just two weeks till Christmas, I really don’t have a second to spare. I’m sorry, Flynn, really.”

  He kept following me, glancing around as he tried to reason things out. “Okay, well, that’s all right. We’ll plan on something after the new year, then. Hey, what are you doing on New Year’s Eve? We could check out Times Square, maybe they’ll put us on the Kiss Cam or something.”

  “Flynn I…” I looked into his eyes, a small-town glint barely surviving the soul-crushing New York lifestyle. I knew what he was thinking and feeling, and I knew I didn’t share those thoughts or feelings. I didn’t want to hurt him, but although I kept hoping he’d get the hint, he just didn’t seem interested in or willing to do so. “I was thinking I might head back to Oregon for New Year’s,” I lied, not feeling good about it but finding little practical alternative. I’d just endured the results of unrequited love between Lisa Ling and John Alister, and I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation with Flynn just ten minutes after that disaster.

  “But if you don’t?”

  “Then we’ll see, Flynn,” I said, quickly and tiredly, and ducked into the ladies’ room which appeared miraculously to my right. “We’ll see.”

  I wasn’t sure, but as the door closed I thought I heard him say, “It’s a date, then!”

  Chapter 2

  Ricardo fluttered around our little living room, waving his hand in front of his little brown face like some demented version of a Southern Belle given to the vapors. “My God, Sheryl, you flipped her over the desk?”

  “Well, only before she did the same to me. I’m just lucky she wasn’t still holding the gun—”

  “
Not lucky, honey,” he said, his voice high and looping with excitement, “you were the one who disarmed her! You were like the good guy with the gun… without the gun! You’re Batgirl, and you know it!”

  “Just remember, you can’t say a thing about this, not to anyone!” Ricardo crossed his arms over his chest, closed an imaginary lock over his pursed lips, then opened them again to take a sip of chardonnay. He sat in the love seat near the window, Brooklyn spread out on the other side. The formerly seedy borough was becoming more hip, and more expensive. It wouldn’t be long before we were both priced out.

  I took a sip of wine myself, cold and dry and bracing against the back of my throat.

  “So you get to babysit some visiting billionaire, eh?” Ricardo shook his head. “You white girls get all the luck.”

  I had to shrug. “I think the tall white girls get most of it. Odds are this’ll be some drunkard jerk who can’t keep his hands off me.”

  “Like I said…” We shared a silent moment before breaking out in a mutual chuckle.

  “Thing is, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to drive this guy wherever he needs to go and still get all the things on John’s list done in time.”

  Ricardo tilted his head forward, looking at me from under his eyebrows. “John?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I mean Mr. Alister. Whatever.”

  “Uh-huh. I know how you feel about him.”

  “I admire him, Ricardo, that’s all.” But a long, knowing moment squirmed by between us, and I couldn’t keep up the facade any longer. “Sure, yes, I’d go for it if I could. But he’s married—”

  “To a total bitch—”

  “That’s not the point. I admire him… and that’s all.” I wanted to tell my best friend that; in truth, I wasn’t sure how much I still admired my boss. But I would have to keep it to myself.