Page 5 of Boss With Benefits

They’d all agreed that the interest in them needed to be nixed asap. But it was Zane who’d come up with the idea they take themselves off the market by dating one woman—and one woman only—for the duration of the summer.

At the time, that suggestion had made no sense to Adam at all. How on earth wouldthatreduce the rampant interest in them? he’d asked himself while wondering whether the ruthless corporate raider had actually lost his mind. Wouldn’t the sudden shift from multiple dates to one only increase it? Wouldn’t the women in question attract attention of their own? And then there was the subterfuge and manipulation that such a response would involve. The lying, deception and the complete absence of integrity—everything he strove to avoid.

Given that the three of them were at the top of their game with infinite resources at their disposal, he’d racked his brains for a more mature, less complicated way to protect their reputations. But before he’d been able to come up with anything, Zane’s absurd proposal had somehow evolved into a bet, with their Helberg shares as the stake.

‘We meet back here on Labor Day,’ the man had drawled with a languid smile, as if acquiring the ailing conglomeratewas nothing more to him than a game. ‘Winner takes all accumulated shares and has an unimpeded run at Helberg. Two birds. One stone.’

While Cade had gone along with the mad idea, Adam had reeled, scarcely been able to believe his ears. This solution to the twin problems of the reputational impact of the article and the stalemate surrounding the company they all wanted had felt farcical. Surreal. Ill thought out at the very least, and he’d protested these points. But ultimately he hadn’t been able to see how else they were to keep the share price down and determine who got Helberg. As Zane had coolly pointed out, the likelihood of them stepping out of each other’s way just because he—Adam—had asked nicely was zero.

So he’d accepted the bet. He’d had no choice. No matter how important his principles, he was not forfeiting Helberg. He needed it to right the wrong that had been a festering thorn in his side for years. Only when he’d reclaimed Montague’s would he find some kind of peace from the torment of knowing that because he’d declined his mother’s call the night she’d overdosed he was responsible for her death. Only then would he be free of the guilt that was preventing him from exploring a proper relationship with his sister, Charley. Vengeance and justice would appease his conscience, he was sure. Therefore, he had to play the game and play to win.

After leaving the gym on Saturday morning, he’d checked out theBlusharticle, which had been just as inaccurate yet as salacious as he’d feared, and the ‘one-date wonders’ hashtag, which had been worse.

Realising he needed to nip any fallout in the bud, he’d immediately called an extraordinary pre-emptive board meeting. He’d spent an hour soothing the ruffled feathers of those who’d caught wind of the story and had then moved onto reassurances that his standing—and that of the company—would remain intact.

That evening, he’d attended the event that had prevented him from insisting to Cade and Zane that the terms of the bet required celibacy and involved no unwitting women in it at all. He couldn’t have cried off the company’s Fourth of July extravaganza when he was hosting the bloody thing. He hadn’t even been able to ditch his date for the event because Annabel St James was the face of the Courtney Collection’s leading cosmetics brand, which had just launched a new five-hundred-dollar face cream whose sales would benefit from as much publicity it could get.

Instead, he’d capitalised on the situation by asking her to do him a favour and, for the next couple of months, feed any speculation that they were dating. Annabel—an old friend he’d known since school—had recalled that he’d once done the same for her to deflect some tiresome speculation about her own sexual preferences and agreed.

At least she wouldn’t get the wrong idea about the nature of their relationship, he thought darkly as he sat down at his desk and fired up his computer. There was no danger of her wanting more than he could ever give. He was never settling down for real. For that to happen, he imagined he’d have to embrace the chaos of desire and emotion, and even thethoughtof it turned his blood to ice.

Short discreet flings with women who posed no threat to his control were more than adequate for his needs. He had no wish to pursue the kind who tempted him into recklessness in the compact bathroom of a cocktail bar, who blew his mind and then left him there dazed and confused, and who subsequently stormed into his thoughts and dominated his dreams with alarming and unexpected regularity until he’d forced himself to shove her from his head once and for all. That had been a blip.

He wasn’t cut out for love or family anyway. To him, that word didn’t conjure up images of loud happy dinners round the table and warm cosy thoughts of unconditional love and support. It meant a father who’d preferred the company of much younger women to that of his wife and children and who’d liked to party hard even into middle age. A mother who’d been so miserable in her marriage that she’d wasted away in the castle in Northumberland before life had become too wretched to bear. A sister who, because he’d been away at school when she’d been born, he’d never really got to know but had let down nevertheless. It meant dysfunction so severe that if they hadn’t had billions in the bank, they’d have been on the radar of social services.

So Annabel was perfect for the situation in which he now found himself. He’d secured one woman for the entirety of the summer, and though it pained him to admit it, Zane had been right about the effect of that tactic. The half dozen paparazzi that had gathered outside his Central Park West apartment block had gone by the time he’d left home at the crack of dawn this morning, which meant that he was no longer a one-date wonder. His reputation was safe.

All he had to do now was sit back and wait for Cade and Zane to knock themselves out of the contest, and Helberg Holdings would be his. He didn’t imagine it would take long. There was no way on earth either man would be able to limit himself to one woman for the next nine weeks. Not only did they go through the opposite sex as if the human race were on the verge of extinction, but also, they weren’t nearly as driven as he was.

Cade seemed more bothered by the article and its effect on his PR team, and Zane clearly consideredthe whole thing nothing more than a source of entertainment. The text message he’d sent ten minutes ago was evidence of that. It had contained a photo of him—Adam—and Annabel at the party, entwined in adeliberately intimate embrace. Zane had captioned the photo withCould do worse for the summer!and a winking emoji.

Adam had rolled his eyes at the puerility of the message, but it was gratifying to know that his efforts had produced the desired result, and so soon. Now he could look to the fortnight ahead and the annual financial audit, which, this year more than most, needed to go without a hitch because the battle for Helberg wouldn’t be completely won on Labor Day. Even after taking possession of Cade’s and Zane’s shares, he’d still need to hoover up the rest. Unlike Zane, he wasn’t in the business of hostile takeovers. He’d have to woo the remaining stakeholders, and they’d be more likely to greenlight the deal if the credentials of the Courtney Collection were as spotless as could be.

Therefore, he would be laying out the red carpet for the people his father had scathingly described as ‘bean counters,’ the auditors who were due to arrive any moment now. He would see that their every requirement was satisfied. He’d be available for consultation 24-7, on hand to deal with anything that arose personally, which was why he’d had his secretary relocate the team from the basement to his domain up here and cancel any imminent travel arrangements he had.

He could not afford another hit to his reputation or that of the company should something be amiss. Both needed to remain squeaky clean until the acquisition of Helberg was tied up. He would allow nothing to go wrong and jeopardise the absolution he’d been pursuing for months and was now within such close reach. Nothing.

There were more disagreeable places to be spending the next two weeks before going on some much-needed leave, Ella mused as she glanced around in appreciation, then headed forthe lift to which she’d been directed. Such as the noisy, cold, out-of-town manufacturing plant, where she’d been scheduled to go right up until seven this morning when she’d received instructions to divert to this team instead.

The twenty-five-storey Courtney Collection tower had been constructed thirty years ago. Its highly complex postmodern Art Deco design was said to resemble the fall of a skirt over a bent knee. It was clad in glass that was green on the left and white on the right, lit with multicoloured neon at night and had won widespread praise from architectural critics.

Inside, the extravagantly airy lobby oozed controlled, refined elegance. A palate of soft creams and taupe exuded expensive and exquisite sophistication. In between acres of glass that granted a view of Madison Avenue, tastefully abstract art hung on the walls and pale Italian travertine tiles covered the floor. Even the air smelled divine.

She’d read briefly, in the blissfully air-conditioned cab on the way in, that the Courtney Collection was the world’s largest luxury goods empire. It had one hundred offices on five continents. Vineyards in France and Australia. Seven-star boutique hotels in London, Paris and Rome. And upmarket retail spaces selling clothes, jewellery, perfumes and cosmetics in every fashionable corner of the globe.

Far more importantly, however, it offered her the chance of a long-awaited, well-deserved promotion.

In the aftermath of her regrettable affair with Drew Taylor, her then boss’s then boss, her career had stalled. She had not moved a rung up the ladder, as she’d previously expected. She’d continued as team leader on small, low-profile audits, and she had received neither a pay rise nor a bonus in a year.

A coincidence? When Drew had been transferred to the other side of the country to head up the office there? She didn’t think so. But she’d had no solid evidence of discriminatory treatment,and even if she had, she doubted she’d have done anything with it. The moral high ground could be a lonely place. Word travelled. She’d have likely been eased out of the firm and might never have worked in the industry she loved again, and she’d fought too hard to risk everything.

It had taken an immense amount of courage and determination to finish high school and attend college when, on that front, expectations both at home and in the classroom had been virtually non-existent. She’d had to be incredibly strong to stay out of trouble in an environment that seethed with it and retain the belief that unlike her parents, she didn’t have to deal drugs for a living. Once she’d decided at the age of fourteen that acquiring a profession was going to be her way out—accountancy, since she was good with numbers—she’d pursued it with dogged determination. She’d found the library. She’d researched and contacted charities that would help. She’d blagged her way into jobs in town to fund her studies and kept her endeavours quiet. Later on, she’d shed the visible stain of her upbringing by taking elocution and etiquette lessons and learned to network. She’d done whatever it took to graduate top of her class. She’d had her pick of jobs and she hadn’t looked back.

Briefly, stupidly, she’d lost sight of her goals, but she would not double down on her mistake. So instead of filing a complaint, instead of risking unemployment by resigning, she’d shoved a lid on her anger and bitterness and kept her head down. She’d bided her time until memories had faded, although her own hadn’t because she still couldn’t believe she’d been so reckless.

What had she been thinking? was the question that had hammered her for days after the affair had come to light when she’d accidentally messaged her boss instead of her lover. How could she have lowered her guard the night her departmenthad gone out to celebrate the end of a successful financial year? Sure, there’d been gallons of champagne, and after working flat out for months, everyone had been on a high, but that was no excuse for falling into conversation with Drew and flirting. For allowing herself to be flattered by the attentions of an older man. For succumbing to the spark of attraction and then investing far more in it than he had when he’d made her no promises.

Even now she couldn’t work out what had been going on in her head. She’d lost focus. She’d let herself down badly. Because of the fallout, she’d ceded control of her career for the first time ever. She was still as furious with herself as she was with HR and Drew over what had happened. But playing the long game—however frustrating and unfair it had felt—finally seemed to be paying off.

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