Bad Influence, page 8
Then he was on her again, sliding his tongue into her mouth and cradling her head so she had no option but to submit. His beard scratched her skin in a way that was new and exciting. One hand was at her waist, smoothing up her body, over her rib cage, until it connected with the swell of her breast. Annie groaned into him. Yes! And then Joseph’s other hand delved behind her, nudging aside the decorative bowl and carefully arranged stack of antique books. Something fell over the edge with a loud thump.
He hoisted her up, placing her butt on the surface and nudging her knees apart so he could stand between her legs. More. This was how she remembered him—furiously passionate, unstoppable in his seduction. Not smooth and definitely not charming. He was almost rough. Primal and visceral and operating on pure instinct.
He tore at her shirt, clumsily popping the buttons open until he palmed her bare breast. Everywhere, she ached. Her nipples beaded intensely, the feeling bordering on pain, and sweet relief came when he rolled one between his thumb and forefinger, bringing her straight to the edge of mind-numbing pleasure with a speed that was both terrifying and soul-soothingly satisfying. He knew her. Knew her body, knew her pleasure points, knew exactly how to ride the line of hardness and softness that drove her wild.
She fisted her hands in his hair, pulling his head down so that his lips scorched a trail down the side of her neck until he hit her collarbone. Joseph would burn her alive if she let him, and right in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be turned to ash. The scent of faded aftershave on his skin, the lingering taste of the spearmint gum he favored dancing on her tongue, brought memories rushing back. All the times they’d made love—from that very first time, awkward and tender under the stars, to the last time while she’d blanked out her adult worries—swirled into one memory blob.
“No,” she whispered. His lips closed around her nipple and he sucked, causing her to arch into him with a sound that was barely human. It felt better than anything on earth. “No, stop.”
Joseph jerked his head up, eyes wide like he’d snapped out of a trance. He released her and stepped back as though she’d burned him, reality slapping her in the face so hard it brought fresh tears to her eyes.
“You need to leave.” She shimmied down from the table and tugged her shirt closed, her shaking fingers fumbling with the buttons as she attempted to cover herself. “Thank you for your help, but please go. Right now.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his brow furrowed and his jaw set. But then he turned and walked to the front door, collecting his coat before exiting her apartment and letting the door close behind him with a soft click.
Annie slid down to the floor, her heart thundering in her chest. What the hell had she done?
* * *
Sunday afternoon at Per Se was a who’s who of Manhattan society. The exclusive restaurant was peppered with everyone from property and media moguls to important political players, old-money heirs, CEOs, and other corporate bigwigs. The old fogies on the bank’s board—the same ones who’d unsuccessfully objected to his employment—would also dine here.
These people epitomized everything his father stood for: privilege, high-society expectations, and the “old way” of doing things. Morris Preston was well aware of his son’s feelings. No doubt that was why he’d chosen the restaurant. Anything to pull Joseph into line.
He scanned the crowded room for his father. After dreading this lunch all week, the event hanging over him like a black cloud, he wanted it over with. The damn thing had eclipsed the small wins he’d made at work as well as the encounter with Annie. Not that it could be counted as a win, necessarily. They’d kissed and she’d told him to leave. Hardly a raging success. But he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it on a loop ever since.
A waving hand caught his attention, the pigeon-egg-sized bauble on the woman’s finger glinting in the light.
“Mother, I didn’t know you were coming.” He bent down to kiss her, not daring to actually put cheek to cheek lest he mess up her carefully styled hair.
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m so happy to have you back home.” She smiled warmly, her light-blue eyes crinkling.
“Dad.” He stuck out his hand.
Morris accepted the gesture and nearly crushed Joseph’s bones in a vigorous handshake. “Son.”
His father had always told him that a firm handshake asserted dominance, and he never let an opportunity go by to remind his only son of the family hierarchy. Even at what was supposed to be a “pleasant” lunch.
“I still can’t believe you’re home,” his mother said, reaching for her champagne flute and almost blinding him with another flash of her ring. “It feels like yesterday you were leaving.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” he said drily.
She sipped. “And you didn’t even tell us you were coming home until it had all been organized. We could have helped you find a place.”
“I didn’t want to trouble you with something as trivial as that. The bank has people who sort out housing for executives.”
“A home is not a trivial thing, Joseph,” his mother admonished, clucking her tongue. “Home is where the heart is… Isn’t that what they say?”
That might be true if one had a heart.
Joseph glanced at his father and waited for a response. But Morris simply lifted his whiskey to his mouth and drank, long and slow. Clearly, matters of the heart were not in his conversational repertoire.
Shocker.
“How’s the job going?” Morris leaned back in his chair and watched Joseph with a cool gaze. “McMartin tells me you’ve had an interesting start.”
One of his father’s minions had obviously been gathering intel for him. Fucking brilliant.
“Well. The CEO’s new organizational structure has been implemented and people seem to be settling in. Only time will tell if the changes actually fix the problems they’ve been having. But so far, so good.” He signaled to a waiter and ordered himself a beer. He had a feeling he was going to need it. “We can press on with the digital strategy now that the people changes are complete.”
“People changes,” Morris scoffed, waving his hand. “They spend far too much time and energy on that stuff. Why they don’t outsource the whole delivery segment is beyond me.”
Joseph bit his tongue. His father had earned the title of the Executioner for the many jobs he’d cut in his long career.
“Please tell me I won’t have to listen to you two talk shop for the next hour,” his mother said, sighing and shaking her head. “I get enough of that at home.”
To anyone listening in, it might have been missed that his mother was a powerful businesswoman in her own right. A CEO of one the world’s largest cosmetics companies, she was a highly respected industry player. But her approach to family time was that work had no place intruding on it. At least, she’d gotten that way in the last decade or so. It had been a different story through his childhood years.
“Still taking conference calls at the dinner table?” Joseph asked with a raised brow. That kind of question was like pouring gasoline on an open flame, but after finding out that his dad was keeping tabs on him, Joseph felt he deserved a return shot.
“No.” His mother gave her son a self-satisfied smile. “I’ve instructed Marcie not to feed him if he’s on the phone.”
“How is Marcie?”
“She’s a cook. Why do you care how she is?” Morris shook his head. “I pay her. Well, I might add.”
An awkward silence descended on the table, and Joseph pretended to look over the lunch menu. The older he got, the harder it was to bite his tongue, but he always tried to find a way if his mother was around. Conflict between the two men in her life was the thing she hated most, and he’d seen her reduced to tears enough times in his life already. For some reason, she genuinely loved her husband, despite the fact that Morris Preston seemed physically incapable of giving a shit about anyone but himself.
His mother cut the silence with a tinkling laugh, as if enthralled by her husband’s humor. It wouldn’t do to be seen in public looking like they weren’t the Most Perfect Family Ever.
“I heard that Emily Halstead is back from her stint in Seattle,” she said, changing the topic. “Why don’t you give her a call? I always thought you two would be lovely together.”
“I’m not interested in dating.” Joseph nodded at the waiter who’d arrived with his beer and grabbed the cold glass gratefully. “I’m concentrating on work.”
“Like father, like son,” his mother said with a proud tone.
Joseph quashed the visceral repulsion by clearing his throat.
“He’s not concentrating on work,” Morris scoffed. “If he was, he wouldn’t have come back here.”
“Oh, really? Do tell me how I’m living my life the wrong way. I so enjoy hearing it.”
“I told you that you needed ten years’ experience overseas. This position might seem like the biggest jump now, but you’re shortsighted and inexperienced. You should have done at least five years in Asia, then a stint in Europe. I could have connected you with any of the majors—Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, RBS, Barclays—”
“I wanted to come home.”
His father snorted. “Why, because you think you’re going to get that girl back?”
Rage ricocheted around Joseph’s head. His father had always called Annie “that girl,” as if she was something for him to turn his nose up at. That girl. The maid’s daughter. Whatshername. Leanne, if he had to address her by name. Never Annie.
Joseph sucked in a breath. He’d lost count of the number of times his father had told him that Annie wasn’t suitable because she and her mother had once cleaned their house.
Why would you want to marry a girl like that? She’s probably after your money.
“Is that true?” his mother asked, her fine blond eyebrows creasing above her nose.
“I came back for my career,” Joseph said.
You’d think being the bank’s youngest CIO in its hundred-plus-year history would be a good enough reason to come home. Apparently not. No, he was “shortsighted and inexperienced.”
“Except that you quit before this job came up.” Morris eyeballed his son with a cold expression. “Didn’t you?”
How in the hell would he know that?
Joseph leveled his father with a stare. “No,” he lied.
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Now you’re spying on me?” Joseph shook his head, taking a long gulp of his drink. “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”
“I spent a fortune on your education. I will not have you throwing it all away for some girl who, frankly, is beneath you.” Morris looked him up and down, the corners of his lips downturned.
Joseph’s hands ached from how tightly he’d balled them into fists. Heat flared into his face as he fought for control. Oh, how he’d love to stand up and thrust his fist straight into his father’s nose!
“Is it going to work if I threaten to cut you off again?” Morris said.
“Boys,” his mother admonished. “This is not suitable public conversation. What have I said about airing dirty laundry in public? Somebody might overhear.”
The look of horror on her face made Joseph want to shake his head. She lived for her company, for her high-profile career, and the thought of the Ladies Who Lunch gossiping about her was “positively terrifying.”
Joseph could think of something more terrifying: living life in debt to Morris Preston. That was exactly how he’d been made to feel his whole life, as if the privileges and education his parents had given him were a loan to be repaid in blood.
“You know we only want what’s best for you.” His mother placed her hand over his, her fingertips cold from where she’d been handling her chilled champagne glass.
Joseph shrank away. “Then don’t interfere with my life.”
“You didn’t seem to mind me interfering when I got you that job in Singapore.” Morris shrugged.
“Only because you told me I’d no longer be your son if I turned it down.” He drained the rest of his beer. “I was too stupid to see that the threat of no money and no family was nothing compared to losing someone who actually cared about me.”
His mother gasped. “How can you say that? Of course we care about you.”
Joseph turned to his father and waited from him to echo the sentiment. It would have been quicker to wait for a blade of grass to sprout out of the ground.
“Morris, darling, tell Joseph how much we care about him.”
Morris looked at his watch as if he had somewhere he’d rather be. “A man shouldn’t need to be coddled like that.”
“Yeah, I think that about justifies my decision.” Joseph stood and patted his mother on the shoulder. “Thanks for the beer. Sorry I won’t be staying for lunch.”
“Joseph, don’t be rash. Your father doesn’t mean any harm.”
A part of him—the part that still desperately craved his father’s love—wanted to give Morris another chance to prove him wrong. To prove that he wasn’t a heartless man hell-bent on mentally beating his son into obedience.
But that part was on life support.
“Let him go, Melinda.” Morris waved his hand as if shooing an insect. “The boy won’t listen. He never did before, and he won’t start now.”
Joseph threaded his way through the restaurant, forcing himself to walk with slow, even steps. His father wouldn’t ruffle him anymore. He’d tried for too long to please the old man, and he’d paid dearly for it.
Never again would he make that mistake.
Chapter 7
“Dear Bad Bachelors, if it weren’t for you, I might never have found true love right under my nose.”
—EternallyGrateful
Annie smoothed her flat iron over her hair, forcing out any kinks until it hung in a shiny shoulder-length sheet around her. Then she applied a touch of makeup—a subtle pink to her cheeks so she didn’t look completely dead, and a healthy dab of concealer to hide her dark circles from a night of tossing and turning. She needed a disguise right now, and looking put together on the outside would hopefully hide that she was a wreck on the inside.
After Joseph had left her apartment in the dead of night, she’d gone back to bed and stared into the darkness until daybreak. Then she’d packed her things and gone straight to her parents’ place. It was Sunday afternoon now, and for once, being around her family hadn’t made her feel better. After a day of hanging out with her sister and her mother, not feeling any more relaxed, she’d slipped into tortured sleep intermittently last night. The hours had been punctuated by nightmares of a masked intruder clamping a hand over her mouth. Those dreams gave way to ones where she hadn’t turned her ex away—where he’d stayed and carried her to bed. She’d woken up in a cold sweat, her mind reeling from the ping-ponging visuals.
The voice on the radio told her it was almost two, and that meant she had about three minutes to get dressed before lunch would be served. The scent of her mother’s cooking wafted under the door, teasing Annie’s senses with the aroma of fresh basil, tomato, and pecorino. Wriggling her hips, she tugged a pair of jeans over her legs and tried to button them up while looking for her shoes.
Her foot connected with the corner of her bed. “Ow!”
“Annie?” Sofia’s voice came from the other side of the door. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She bent down to inspect her big toe. No blood. “Just being clumsy.”
“Maybe we should Annie-proof the house,” Sofia said, laughing. “We’ll get those corner protectors they use for babies.”
Annie shook her head as she fished a cream sweater out of her overnight bag. “Very funny.”
“You ready?” Sofia asked. “Mom’s calling us, and Darcy is here.”
“Uh, yeah. Just a sec.”
“Annie, come on!” Sofia pounded on the door. “You’re supposed to help set the table.”
It figured Sofia would be there waiting for her, despite all the times growing up in this house that Annie had set the table while her sisters conveniently needed to use the bathroom whenever it was time to do chores.
“Crack that whip, Sofia.” Another voice sounded as someone came up the stairs. Darcy. “Do I have to drag you out?”
“Way to have some loyalty.” Annie yanked the door open and put on her best smile. “Who invited you anyway?”
A few minutes later, the table was set and people took their seats. As Annie placed the last dish on the table, the family’s Irish wolfhound, Lupo, sat patiently by her legs. The top of his head came to midthigh, his large paws stepping all over her ballet flats. To anyone else, he might have looked like a fearsome guard dog, but to Russo/Maxwell family members, he was merely a canine version of their grandfather: a grumpy but lovable old soul with a hearty appetite for cold meat and leftovers.
Annie was half-Italian—on her mother’s side—and she fit right in with the noisy Calabrese on Sal’s side of the family, enjoying the way the house always felt so warm and so full of love when they were all together.
“Hey, Lupo.” Darcy scratched the dog’s head as she walked past.
The group sat at a long table in the dining room. Nonno Pietro, Sal’s father, was perched at the head of the table, as usual. His T-shirt had already been spattered with pasta sauce, and he chatted in Italian with Zia Carla.
Food spread out across the table in a rainbow of variety: ragù pasta, assorted meats, radicchio smothered in olive oil and vinegar. At some point, they’d given up on the traditional courses of an Italian lunch, and now all the food ended up on the table together, save for the dolci, which were either in the fridge or on the kitchen counter.
Annie dropped into a chair between Darcy and Carla’s daughter, Viv.
“Tell me someone brought some green stuff,” Viv said with a shake of her head. “If I keep eating here every weekend, I’m going to end up with clogged arteries and an ass the size of Brooklyn.”
