The Deal Read online

  Our business was thriving, but our cash was all tied up in other projects we had invested in. This particular project was more about using our contacts to build up the Cook, Sparser, and Conner Buildings. We stood to gain a huge commission, and then we could step away from the deal when the time was right.

  So, Kevin was right, I had to stay away from Anna. I couldn’t have my way with her and expect things with Edward Cook would go over smoothly. She was his youngest daughter, and I was his business partner—those two worlds had to stay separate for now.

  Chapter 2

  Anna

  Jason was absolutely going to be mine. I had no doubt about it at all. The way he looked at me made me horny, and I knew he could barely resist me. I wasn’t even sure why he kept trying to resist at all. I was more than happy to have a fun fling with him and leave it at that, nothing major, nothing like a commitment or anything. I just wanted Jason to be my first. After fantasizing about him since he and his wife had moved in next door, I couldn’t help but keep thinking about him as I grew into adulthood and his wife left him.

  It was perfect. We would be perfect together. I’d saved my virginity for the right man, and deep down I knew that man was Jason. I couldn’t describe it; I just knew he was the guy for me. I had to call Patrick and tell him all about my afternoon.

  “It’s the middle of the night, why are you calling me?” Patrick said in his usual grumpy voice.

  “What are you talking about? It’s the middle of the afternoon. Did you go out all night without me?”

  “I had a date with that new guy. You know the really tough guy that surprised me by asking me out? I swear he’s the perfect gay man. He’s a fitness model… can you even imagine me dating a fitness model? We would seriously be the talk of the town.”

  “Was he nice?”

  “Oh, yeah. I mean he’s perfect. Nice, smart, amazingly handsome. I’ve hit the jackpot, Anna. The total jackpot.”

  “That’s so amazing. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Well, I was thinking I might wait a little bit to have him meet everyone. I don’t want to rush things like I normally do.”

  “Oh, um. Okay...”

  “It’s not that I don’t think you’re amazing, Anna. You know you are the most amazing friend in the world. I am just trying to do things a little differently this time. What’s that saying about when you do things over and over and expect a different result?”

  “It’s the definition of insanity,” I said as I climbed up the stairs in my house and then into my own bed as Patrick and I talked.

  “Yeah, that was it. I don’t want to keep messing up. I’m getting old, you know. It’s hard for a guy like me to find a good match here in Chicago. It’s not like we live in San Francisco or someplace amazing like that.”

  The idea of Patrick running off with a boyfriend and not including me made me sad. It was silly that I was thinking about it and even sillier that I didn’t want him to be totally happy. But Patrick was my go-to guy when everyone else was working or out with their boyfriends. Patrick was perpetually single, like me, and therefore always available.

  My best friend Lilli had run off with her new boyfriend and was traveling the world. I had plenty of other girlfriends, but they were perpetually dating guys and hanging out with them. The only other friend I could count on being available was Summer Edwards, but she drove me crazy with her whining and always trying to get a rich boyfriend so she didn’t have to work.

  “Speaking of doing something new…” I giggled as I thought of how I’d jumped into Jason’s lap. “I may have done something a little crazy this morning.”

  “May have? That implies you don’t know if you did or didn’t do this crazy thing. We both know you did it. Now tell me what happened. Was it that hottie dad that lives next door to you? Did you bone him? Please tell me the two of you finally knocked boots.”

  “No!” I protested as if he had just suggested something vulgar. “But I did tease him and force him onto my trampoline.”

  “You got a trampoline?”

  “Yeah, I told my dad that it was to help prevent backaches.”

  “Your dad believed that? How can such a smart man be so absolutely stupid when it comes to anything you want from him?”

  “My dad just really likes it when I’m happy,” I said proudly. “He’s the best dad in the world.”

  “He is a pretty damn good father to you. I wish my father were half the man yours was. But seriously, a trampoline? How does he not know you are trying to seduce that hot neighbor of yours?”

  “I don’t know, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue. I even ran into Jason and was talking to him in the front driveway when my father got home from work. Not a clue at all.” I laughed at the memory.

  My father really was oblivious to what I did with my time. He and my mother traveled often with his work and left me home to fend for myself. My four older brothers were all out of the house and living their own lives, and I swore my parents couldn’t wait for me to finally decide to move out. At nineteen years of age, I had put off going to college because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself yet, but sooner or later I’d have to make some life decisions.

  “I feel bad for your hot neighbor. He’s got to have blue balls by this point.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I just can’t believe he hasn’t given in to you yet. I mean he seems like a pretty stand-up guy for refusing your flirting. Does he know you’re nineteen or does he think you’re jailbait?”

  “Oh, he knows. Since the day I turned eighteen, I made sure he knew it was my birthday, and I was an official adult. I’m almost twenty now, Patrick. For nearly two years, he’s been avoiding my flirting.”

  “Some girls would have taken that as a hint that he wasn’t interested,” Patrick snickered.

  “Shut up. He’s interested. His shorts were about to burst open as he was so hard for me today.”

  “Really? How do you know?”

  “I straddled him and ground up against him on my trampoline.” I couldn’t help laughing at what I had done. It was a bit strong even for me.

  “Anna, really?” Patrick said with a huge hint of disappointment in his voice.

  “What Patrick? What’s that tone about? He liked it. He could barely keep his hands off of me, and he almost kissed me.”

  Patrick was quiet for a minute, and I knew that was a really bad sign. Patrick was never quiet, and he never had an issue with telling me exactly what he was thinking. One time when I’d used my fake ID and we went out drinking, Patrick told me I looked like I was twelve because the dress I had on was too childish. Sure enough, we got turned away at the club door, and my identification was confiscated as a fake. Another time, I’d been dancing with this dude who I liked, and Patrick told me he was married. I argued that he couldn’t tell such a thing by looking at someone, but sure enough, the guy ended up being married. Basically, I knew Patrick had something he wanted to say to me and was biting his tongue instead of saying it.

  “Come on, just tell me. What do you want to say?” I urged him.

  “You know I love you. I’d never say anything to hurt your feelings, and this is coming from a place of total love,” he said as he paused again. “You’re acting like a slut.”

  “Patrick!”

  “I’m not saying you are a slut. I know you aren’t. But what kind of self—respecting woman chases after a guy and basically accosts him like that? Why not let him chase after you?”

  “Because he won’t chase after me. He’s not that kind of guy. He’ll just keep going about his busy life and not show any interest at all.”

  “Well…” Patrick started to say and then stopped himself.

  “Well, what?”

  “Maybe he’s not really interested in you then.”

  Patrick’s words hit me hard, and I sat up in my bed as I tried to come to terms with what he was saying. I wasn’t acting like a sl
ut. I was just teasing Jason. He obviously wanted me and was just saying no because of my father. There was no other reason for him to deny his attraction to me.

  “He is too interested,” I protested.

  “Anna, don’t you want a guy who will do anything to have you? Who will go out of his way to make you feel special? This guy won’t even give you the time of day.”

  “That’s not true. We talk all the time. He is just in the middle of a business deal, and it involves my dad, so he’s keeping his distance.”

  “I wish you’d back off a little and see what he does. If he wanted you, he’d come after you and let you know it.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. When this deal with my father is over with, I know he’s going to be asking me out. Like a real date and everything. And I know he likes it when I flirt with him. He smiles and laughs and can’t keep his eyes off me.”

  “I’m sorry if I sounded harsh. I just want you to find that fairytale man for your first time. You deserve that.”

  “Well, you don’t know him like I do. Anyways, I better go. I have to help my mom with cleaning up. I’ll talk to you later,” I said curtly and hung up without giving Patrick time to respond.

  Patrick meant well. If there was anything in life that I was sure of, it was his intent. I wasn’t angry with him. I just didn’t like the idea of looking at the situation from his perspective. Never had I thought I was throwing myself at Jason. Instead, I was seducing him and teasing him so he couldn’t refuse me.

  Jason wasn’t saying no to me because he didn’t want me—that wasn’t it at all. I might have been inexperienced in sex, but I knew men, and Jason wanted me. It wasn’t something I could explain to Patrick, but I knew Jason wanted me just as badly as I wanted him.

  The way his hands grabbed my ass, that wasn’t the grip of a man who was being forced into anything. Sure, I’d been a little more aggressive than I probably should have, and I was going to back off a little when I saw Jason the next time. I wasn’t going to be one of those girls who kept throwing herself at a man who didn’t make any effort to go after her. Patrick was one hundred percent right about that. I deserved a guy who couldn’t resist me and wanted nothing else in the world than to be with me.

  But, I didn’t want Jason to think I was a cheap girl who didn’t respect herself and perhaps throwing myself at him wasn’t the best way to show him I liked him. Then again, I hadn’t even had a regular boyfriend yet, so I really didn’t know what I was doing when it came to Jason. I acted like I had all the answers, but the truth was, I was just pretending because it was easier than being vulnerable and honest with people.

  “Your father is going to be home at six o’clock. Do you want to help me get the grill going so he can cook?” my mother said from the bottom of the stairs.

  I jumped out of bed and sat on the top step as I looked down at my beautiful mother. I was the spitting image of her with blonde hair and blue eyes and a petite frame. My mother and I could wear some of the same clothing, and if we did our hair the same, we practically looked like sisters.

  “Mom, what is the purpose of getting all the food prepared and ready, but then waiting for Dad to come home to grill it? I can just grill it and have everything ready for when he gets home.”

  “Oh, no! Your dad likes to do the grilling. We can’t touch the grill.”

  “Are you serious? Is this the eighteen-hundreds and women can’t touch the grill?”

  “Anna, I’m a happily married woman who knows that her husband really enjoys his grill and takes pride in making his family food on it. That’s part of being in a relationship—sometimes you do things purely because it makes the other person happy. Now come help me already.”

  “Fine, fine, but someday I’m going to get my hands on that grill,” I joked as I came downstairs to help my mother get dinner ready, or semi—ready since we had to wait for Dad to come home to actually start the grilling.

  She pulled the hamburger meat out of the fridge and all the extra ingredients she liked to put into the patties. My mom was a little fanatical about her cooking and added chia seeds and other antioxidants to just about everything. She insisted that we couldn’t tell the difference in the taste, and all her extra ingredients made us healthier. My father and I learned a long time ago not to question Mom’s ideas around the super foods she wanted us to eat.

  “So, how are you?” Mom asked as she tried to weasel in some typical Mom questions while we worked.

  “I’m good.”

  “How’s Lilli doing? Did she run off with that man?”

  “Yeah, and she says she’s in love.” I laughed.

  “Well, love is a sneaky creature. You never know when it will bite you,” she said under her breath as she kept squishing the meat with her hands to work in the ingredients.

  “Yeah, well I wouldn’t know anything about love.”

  “Oh, honey. Someday you’ll find a boy that knocks your socks off.”

  “That sounds dirty, Mom.” I laughed.

  “You know what? I don’t care.” She giggled, and her face totally turned red. “You’re an adult now. We can talk about naked stuff.”

  “Oh, God, Mom. No, we cannot.”

  I refused to look at her and moved to the other side of the kitchen while I cut up the tomatoes and onions for our burgers. There was absolutely no way I was talking about sex with my mother. It had been nearly eight years since the dreaded ‘you’re a woman now’ talk, and I was still traumatized from that.

  “Have you had sex yet?” my mother blurted out.

  “Mom, I swear to God, I’m not having this conversation with you.”

  “Because I know you haven’t had a steady boyfriend, but girls are having sex, and I want you to know you can talk to me about anything.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m serious. We can talk about the oral sex. Or the anal, I’m ready. We can talk about any of it.”

  “I’m going to die right here. Please stop talking, Mom.”

  “Okay, but you know I’m here for you whenever you want to talk.”

  “Please, someone save me,” I mumbled as I put my head into my hands.

  “I’m here to save you,” I heard my father say from the other side of the kitchen. “What do you need saving from?”

  “Nothing,” I hurriedly said before my mother could announce what we had been talking about. “We have the food ready so you can grill. I was wondering if you would show me how to use the grill?”

  I had never offered to help with grilling before, but I was desperate to get out of the kitchen and away from my mother and her questions. The pure fact that she had uttered the word ‘anal’ was too much for my mind to handle. No child should be subjected to hearing that from their own parent.

  “Not today honey,” my father said as he kissed me on the forehead. “Maybe next time.”

  “Please Daddy, I’d really like to learn,” I lied.

  “Fine, you can come watch, but that’s it.”

  “Deal,” I said excitedly and grabbed the platter of meat.

  I hurried outside so fast that I nearly tripped over my own feet. My Dad was behind me though, and as we stood in front of the grill, I knew my mother hadn’t told him what we were talking about. He looked at me sweetly and gave me a big hug as he started the gas grill.

  “This is nice. We haven’t spent much time together lately.”

  “I know, Daddy,” I said as I hugged him.

  My father was the kindest man I knew. He was the best father to me and my brothers and a pretty damn good husband to our mother as well. The only downfall I could ever see was his dedication to his job. For many people, they wouldn’t see work dedication as a downfall at all, but for my father, it was his first family, and we were left to be his second family. He traveled constantly growing up and was still doing that. At least as we grew older he was able to bring my mother with him so they got more time together, but growing u
p there had been a constant emptiness in our house.

  “So, what’s new with you? Have you decided what you’d like to do with yourself yet?”

  “No, Daddy.” I laughed. “But I did talk with our neighbor, what was his name again?”

  “Jason Hartley, I’m actually working with him now to help our company out. Don’t tell your mother, but if this deal goes well, I should be able to retire with a sizable bonus.”

  “Really? Why not just retire now?”

  “I’d like to make sure the company is okay when I leave. Jason’s company is the best at helping people reorganize so they can stay profitable.”

  “So, they are buying your company?” I asked, a little confused.

  “Not exactly. They are investing in us and helping to make some changes. Then we will be more profitable, and they will get a percentage of that profit. It’s a win, win for everyone involved.”

  “Ahh, I bet that takes a lot of hard work. That’s probably why Jason was hiring an assistant.”

  “Yeah, it’s a tremendous amount of work. I don’t know how he ever gets to spend time with his son.”

  This was my moment, I felt it. Over the years, I’d learned how to test my father and find just the right moment to ask for what I wanted. It was a gift that I’d been given being his only daughter and the youngest child. My brothers got the benefit of our father pretty much giving them any car they wanted and paying for their extravagant lifestyles. He never questioned their love life and certainly didn’t care what they decided to study when they went off to college, but he cared about all those things for me.

  I was my father’s sweet little girl, even if I was anything but sweet. No one could ever tell my father that I wasn’t an innocent darling girl – he just wouldn’t hear of it. He trusted me to be home alone while he and my mother traveled. He gave me a credit card to use for expenses and a nice BMW to drive. I was spoiled; there was no question about it. But I still didn’t get everything I wanted. Sometimes I had to deploy a high level of sucking up to get what I wanted.