Page 2 of Spooked

“You must be Meera?” The lady behind the desk was my mother’s age, dressed in a burgundy shift dress and a pearl necklace. Her hair was cut into a sleek bob, a shorter version of the style I currently sported. My waist-length hair had been the first sacrifice I’d made before coming to the West Coast.

“That’s right.”

“It’s lovely to meet you. Can I get you coffee? Tea? A glass of water?”

Coffee? That fight in the parking lot had been for nothing? Well, not nothing—I’d come out of it ninety-six dollars richer, which made the bruised hand worth it. That cash would pay for two weeks’ worth of groceries, although I wassosick of eating rice. One of my roommates had suggested ramen, but that didn’t taste much better.

“Coffee would be wonderful.”

“Do you take milk? Sugar?”

Low-calorie caramel syrup with foam was probably out of the question.

“Just milk, thank you.”

I was one minute early, and Braxton Vale was ten minutes late. A power play to prove that his time was more important than mine? Probably. My father used the trick regularly. Meera called it a dick move, but at least I had time to drink my coffee and use the bathroom. The bathroom that was stocked with expensive perfume and unused Chanel make-up, just in case I got the urge to go back to my old ways. Would the receptionist think it strange if I came out with scarlet lips when they’d previously been pale pink? I left them as they were.

“Mr. Vale will see you now. Take the hallway to your left and go through the double doors at the end.”

“Thank you for the coffee.”

The hallway was lined with photos, artful black-and-white shots of the Los Angeles skyline, the ocean, Sunset Boulevard. Santa Monica Pier. The Hollywood sign. A naked woman staring out across the city.

Wait.

What?

I paused to stare, and apart from the barely there panties, she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. I mean, the picture was certainly artistic, and I was no stranger to nudity, but was it really suitable for the workplace? The taut ass of the man in the next print was no less risqué. What sort of company was this? I’d googled, of course, but little had come up, just a vague paragraph on some business website noting that Dunnvale Holdings had backed a new indie movie starring Violet Miller, this year’s hottest Hollywood property. Did she know about this objectification? I stepped closer. The pictures weren’t tasteless—quite the opposite, in fact—just…unexpected.

Maybe Violet did know? After all, shehadfilmed a gloriously dirty movie last year, an erotic thriller with Kane Sanders. I’d seen it in the movie theatre with Meera on one of our final nights out together in Boston, and I’d had to fan myself on more than one occasion. My father would have lost his mind if he’d found out what I’d been watching.

There’s something strange about this place…

A part of me wanted to spin around and run out of the building. There was an odd vibe in the air, an undercurrent of energy that left me twitchy. But the rent wouldn’t pay itself, and nobody else would even give me an interview. So many employers wanted ten years of experience in return for minimum wage these days, and I lacked the first and couldn’t afford to live on the second. Not with no support network whatsoever. Living alone was every bit as hard as I’d feared it would be, but despite the constant setbacks, I knew I’d made the right decision in leaving my old world.

I might have been tired, and poor, and a little bit scared, but I was free.

And freedom was worth more than a healthy bank balance.

Silence reigned as I approached Braxton Vale’s office. The doors ahead of me were as opulent as the rest of the building, carved wood with gold handles. Should I knock? The receptionist hadn’t said anything about knocking, but if anyone walked into my father’s office unannounced, even at home, his annoyance was all too evident.

I knocked.

“Come in.”

The doors were as heavy as they looked, but when I pushed on the left-hand one, it swung open silently on well-oiled hinges. I took one step forward and nearly threw up.

Why?

Because the man sitting at the desk in front of me was the same man whose penis I’d insulted in the parking lot less than an hour earlier.

CHAPTER2

BRAX

Braxton Vale sifted through the stack of résumés on his desk. Dozens and dozens of them. Getting applicants was never a problem—he paid well over the market rate—but finding the right person for the job always presented a challenge. Some of the candidates had included headshots, and he weeded out all the pretty ones and filed them in the trash. Too tempting. They definitely had to go.

Perhaps he should try hiring a male assistant again? Although that was a minefield too—the first one had tried hitting on a married chef, so Brax had picked out a gay guy as his replacement. Scottie rearranged everything in Brax’s office, his home, and even his car, then started redecorating. Emails went unanswered. The phone kept ringing. Interior design had been Scottie’s passion, not admin. Two years later, Brax was still finding miscellaneous items in strange places. Who stored Scotch in a white wine refrigerator? Horizontally?

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