Page 10 of Dominant

“Sure. What would work for you?”

She walked into my office two hours later, dressed casually in jeans and a ponytail, and took a seat across from my desk.

She was striking, I noticed again, with her pale, alabaster skin that contrasted so dramatically against her dark hair, and the unexpected warmth of her hazel eyes. She was a bit on the thin side, but with full breasts that strained against her cotton t-shirt, and which I couldn’t help but glance at. Breasts that would feel full and soft and heavy in my hands.

I tried to turn my thoughts to accounting. “Thanks for coming in, Miss Starck. Hopefully this won’t take too long, and you can get back to work shortly.”

“It’s fine.”

“Do you work for a firm?” I asked, almost unintentionally. I wanted to know more about her.

She looked surprised. “An accounting firm? No. I… I don’t work for anybody, unfortunately.”

I didn’t understand. “You don’t like freelancing?”

One delicious little brow furrowed. Her mouth made the slightest of pouts. “No, I… I’m not freelance. I just do this to help out my parents. I’m looking for a job.”

“Oh,” I answered in surprise. “You did this… ” I waved my hand across the stacks of paper on my desk, “all this… for free? Like a favour?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded.

I looked back down at the stacks of paper again, astounded by her claim. It was a lot of work. Months worth of work. Work that needed to be done by qualified accountants.

And I felt panic rising. If this work wasn’t done by qualified accountants, I thought to myself, and if the Andilets had this… this child keeping their books - as a favour, a hobby - what were the chances that these numbers were even accurate?

As an investor, I was always vulnerable to other people’s shady dealings: the illegal businesses or money-laundering schemes they tried to legitimize. It’s why I always had the accounts for any prospective purchase thoroughly vetted before closing the deal. I’d used someone new for the Andilet purchase, a freelancer who had been recommended to me. “Everything’s fine,” he’d said. “Maybe some shortcuts taken in the rationale column but everything’s tight.”Why had that seemed like an acceptable response at the time?

I became aware that I was glaring at Jordan furiously.

“Why on earth,” I asked sharply, “are you doing your parents’ books and not a qualified accountant? What the fuck is going on here, Miss Starck?”

An angry flush spread quickly across her face, the same flush she’d had when I’d first met her and she’d been having some hushed, heated discussion with her stepmother. I had a sudden, powerful urge to slap her - to release some of my own tension, to see and feel the visceral response in her. I pressed my hand harder against the desktop, aware that I was glowering at her.

“I am a qualified accountant, Mr. Abbott,” she said icily, and I felt the heightened tension in me stir at the clipped, assertive tone of her voice.

Her outrage gave me a rush. This was the dangerous arena I liked to play in, where anger, adrenaline and arousal all mixed together. It was impossible to speak with Jordan Starck without wanting to grab her by her bruised little masochistic wrist and tear her clothes off.

I arched an eyebrow at her, trying to hide the shift in my attention. “You don’t look old enough to have graduated school.”

“I’m twenty-three. I graduated last year.”

Twenty-three.Hmm. I did the math. Seventeen years younger than me.

“So you’re a qualified accountant, and you do all your family’s financials for free to help them out?”

She nodded, yes, just as something occurred to me. I’d been looking at their financial records all morning.

“Your sisters, Nicole and Jacqueline, are both on the payroll as General Managers, earning full-time salaries.” I watched her shrewdly as I said this, clocking the tension in her jaw and the slight flush I was quickly learning was her giveaway when she was angry. “What do they do for the winery that’s worth so much more than your labour?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Her face was perfectly neutral, but I detected a little fire in the eyes. “That’s between them and our parents.”

I nodded and leaned back in my chair, not speaking for a moment as I thought through my options.

Finally, I reached for the phone and pressed the intercom button for Marianne. “In my office, please.”

Jordan furrowed her brow - wondering what I was doing, no doubt. I was wondering the same thing. My common sense told me I was making a bad decision, but I was driven by a sense of justice. It had always been my weakness. At the end of the day I couldn’t tolerate discrimination, favouritism, or inequality.

“You’re looking for a job?” I asked her.

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