Page 27 of Her Boss

The outdoor section was cantilevered out from the fourth story of the soaring office building and featured see-through railings, and huge sections of the floor beneath us that were plexiglass cut-outs affording a dizzying but exciting view of the street below. The food was outstanding, the view even better, and the clientèle top shelf. Most especially my dining partner, looking dapper in a navy single-breasted suit that a man of his imposing size shouldn’t have been able to pull off. But Will did.

He was a tad grayer than he was the last time I’d seen him, many months prior, but he was still lean, tall, and just about as ruthless a son of a bitch—and yet one who still managed to stay just this side of the law—as I’d ever met.

Five years ago, we’d crossed paths in… not the best of circumstances. But it had worked out, in the end, and a well-timed assist I’d lent him in a bid to find some dirt on a hated corporate rival had resulted in me traveling in his circles from that point onward. It had been a profitable business relationship, and one that had evolved into a good friendship over the years.

“You remember the Clandes Group trade? The one Becker got pinched for?”

It was an insider trading rap, one that I only had passing familiarity with, but a situation Will had been inextricably tangled in, since Becker’s company and Will’s had been in an ongoing—and quite bitter—competition in a takeover bid for Clandes.

“Becker was looking at five to ten in the gray bar hotel last time I heard.”

Will grimaced, stubbing out his cigar in a sparkling cut glass tray. “Don’t know how, but that slippery son of a bitch wriggled out of it. They dropped the fucking case.”

I hated tobacco, but Will allowed himself a fine Cuban now and then. He’d called it a vice, as if it was one of the only ones he indulged.

But I knew better than that.

“Made a deal?”

Will nodded, sipping from a glass of water, the stem catching the dazzling sunlight.

“How does that, uh, look for you?” We both knew the answer. Becker loathed Will, and any deal he made with the SEC probably meant the prick would try to drag Ellison Industries down into that cesspool with him.

“Not great, but it’ll go away, eventually. Nothing there. I’ve already had a sit down with the lead agent. Went nowhere.”

Fortunately, Will had an ace in the hole too. Namely his brother, Stanton—who just happened to be a senior attorney for the Department of Justice.

I’d always had to keep Will at a little bit of an arm’s length, due to who his brother was. Fortunately, Stanton was most definitely not a Boy Scout either. But considering the clients I was tasked with assisting, my need to stay well away from even a tangential association with a Fed was, well, it wasn’t even a question.

Fortunately, Will understood that, and accepted it without issue.

“Need your brother’s help on it?”

Will shrugged, gazing out over the city. “Not unless I need to—which I won’t. I used up… quite a few favors with him with what I had to do for Alyson.”

One of the reasons he and I were friends was that we were so similar in outlook and temperament. Like me, Will would—and did—do whatever it took to get what he wanted. But he would fiercely protect those he loved, and anyone in his inner circle. Though it had always gone unspoken, it was a quality we did admire in one another.

“Do you plan on telling me why you wanted to meet for lunch?” Will gave me a wink, laying an elbow on the beveled glass of the tabletop. “You and I go back a ways, and I don’t ever remember you being the sort given to shooting the shit over a one o’clock and some drinks. I’d have brought Alyson along if I’d known this was just going to be a friendly chat.”

“How is she, anyway? Haven’t seen her in months.”

“Oh, she’s at home. You know, doing the kept woman thing.”

She’d managed to get herself in quite the jam that Will had needed to extricate her from. Aftermath of her piece of shit ex screwing the pooch royally with the sort of men who didn’t take kindly to even a single fucking dime of their money going missing.

Will had rescued her… then decided to keep her for himself. For good.

The man absolutely adored her—and her young son—but she was not only his wife, she was a very strictly controlled, owned plaything too.

Will’s most prized possession.

Ellison plucked up his phone from the tabletop, punching something in. Then he slid it across the glass to me. “Have a look.”

There was a quick video of Alyson playing on the screen. It was in his kitchen, presumably. She was very pregnant.

“How far along now?” I asked, not lifting my gaze from the screen, entranced at what I was watching.

“Thirty-two weeks. Be thirty-three in a couple days.”

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