Torn Between- Seduced by the Billionaires Read online

  “Good for you,” Cami said as she walked away. “Working is getting.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Jasmine smiled until Cami’s elevator doors closed. Then she opened up her phone and hit a preprogrammed icon. “Miss Hill just arrived. No briefcase, just her usual bag. Yes, sir, I’m sure.”

  Three dresses on the nightstand, two more on the floor and Cami was still pawing through her closet looking for the perfect thing to wear. She owned a lovely black cocktail dress, but it was on the size 14 side of the closet and she was on the 16 to 18 side of life right now. She pulled out a hot red number that was more suited to a night club than dinner and it made her look like one of the “Angry Birds” instead of a desirable companion. Finally she settled in a grey scoop neck sweater with a black skirt sporting a luscious, but not excessive split up the side.

  A limo arrived exactly when it was due. She expected to find Eddie sitting in the back awaiting her, but the seat was empty. A smile crossed her lips, however, when she noticed the car was turning right—going farther up the mountain. As the car continued to climb, passing several of upper Grafton’s finest dining establishments, she grew more curious and worried. What if she was being kidnapped? What if Dunning thought she knew the whereabouts of the formula? What if he planned to blackmail Tyler into exchanging the formula for her life? Would Tyler even do that?

  “Where, exactly, are we going?” she asked the driver, her voice quivering just a tad.

  “To Mr. Dunning’s house, of course,” the driver remarked.

  “Oh, I thought we were going to dinner,” she mumbled, unsure if this was good or bad news.

  “You are,” the driver responded and pulled into the double gates surrounding the Dunning family mansion.

  It may not always be this way, but tonight Eddie Dunning was true to his word. His cook served them perfect lobster, beautiful wine and a wondrous dessert. They talked of growing up in Grafton, and the differences between their young experiences on opposite sides of Central, their taste in music and love for food. As the dessert wound down Eddie walked her to a sitting room to continue their time in private.

  “I like Rafael’s Cappuccino Mousse Trifle but the cinnamon always seems flat,” Eddie commented as he poured her a glass of wine.

  “My best friend Maralee grows her own herbs and spices, including cinnamon. She sells them at Lightfeathers. I can get her to send over some for your chef to try,” Cami offered, growing restless to find out the real reason behind this meal.

  “You know Maralee Snow from Lightfeathers? Is it true what they say about her?”

  “That she is an amazing business woman who runs one of the most successful spas on the East Coast?” Cami bristled at the question.

  “No,” Eddie answered matter of factly. “That she holds monthly orgies in her backyard around a bonfire where Grafton’s elite run around in masks and nothing else.”

  “They aren’t orgies! They are solstices and spiritual celebrations where the participants just happen to…um…well…have sex…naked…around a fire pit…in masks. It’s all very…moon oriented…and um…well…natural.” Cami began to giggle as she talked. She had no idea how weird Maralee’s solstice greetings sounded until she tried to describe one out loud. No matter how spiritual Maralee thought it was, to most folks it was, in fact, an orgy.

  “Do you go to those?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I?”

  “Sorry. Invitation only.”

  “Well, you could invite me. I own a mask,” Eddie teased with his best come on smile. Cami was so nervous to get to the topic they appeared to be avoiding her hands started shaking. Finally, she blurted out her thoughts.

  “Mr. Dunning, what do you want from me?!” Cami’s eyes revealed her frantic reaction to the suspense and pressure around her. Eddie leaned back, took a deep breath and slowed everything down. Taking her hand, he looked straight at her, giving her a few seconds to truly connect with him.

  “Everything.”

  “What?” Cami was stunned with the blunt and basic response.

  “I want you to work for me, I want you to be intimate with me and I want you do to the biggest favor of your life for me. I don’t have time to con you or charm you and I don’t want to do that anyway. I want someone I can always tell the truth to and I know will tell the truth to me. So here it is in a nutshell. I want your body. I want your talent. I want you to give me Tyler’s formula for the cure.”

  Cami’s mouth fell open. Her loins were still hanging onto the “body” part, her ego soaked up the talent comment but her mind was screaming, He wants you to betray your boss!

  “I…I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.

  “Don’t say ‘no,’ at least until you hear me out.” Eddie rushed to shore up his argument. He told her that he knew about the cure and felt it would ruin Grafton. He painted Tyler as an opportunist who blackmailed his way to the top of Dyes Industries and threatened the enigmatic Dr. Sovich, then made him a promise that would ruin Grafton in the long run by agreeing to move the chemical factories to Russia and close down the town’s main source of income. He said he had evidence Tyler paid a man to fool around with his wife so he could start an affair with his receptionist. He ended with a simple plea.

  “I don’t care what you think about me, Camellia. But you and me—we are from this town and we love this town. We live here. Letting an ambitious outsider like Tyler Bach patent the cure will kill it and we will lose so much we hold dear.”

  “Do you have proof for any of this?” She was overwhelmed by the mountain of information that was just dumped in her lap. “I knew Mr. Dyes and I don’t think he was blackmailed. I’m also the person who put together Tyler’s proposal to Sovich and while it was generous, there were no promises to kill Grafton made in it. I don’t know much about his divorce other than it nearly destroyed him and I’m very sure he is not dating Kendra Jackson.”

  Eddie got up, walked to a side table in the den and picked up a number of folders Harold collected for him earlier in the day. He sat down with a sympathetic look crossing his brow.

  “I can’t prove anything about Dyes. I just know Tyler Bach was a wet-behind-the-ears junior executive one minute and CEO the next. John Mesner from the board told me there was some arm twisting because Dyes was pushing for them to give Bach the nod. In the end, they caved. Maybe because they thought Tyler would be good; maybe because Dyes was desperate and dying. The rest is right here.”

  Eddie opened the first folder with pictures from a factory that looked somewhat like the chemical plant her father worked and died in. The pictures showed it being built in a small Russian village on the Ukrainian border. Eddie told her the offer she put together for Sovich was good, yet wasn’t much different than every other offer, but after a private session with Bach, the scientist took his deal.

  The second held a copy of Tyler and Rachel’s divorce decree where it was spelled out clearly that Tyler would keep the Arlington mansion and be released from most alimony because of his wife’s affair. The wife entered evidence that Tyler had known her lover for some time and questioned the decision of the court, to no avail.

  The third folder was the one Cami feared most. She wanted to ask Eddie not to open it and keep her denial that Tyler was a good man who did want to be with her a while longer. But, she had to know.

  “I had a PI follow Tyler the past few weeks. I was hoping for some clue about the cure. But all he was able to capture were these.”

  Eddie opened the folder to reveal images of Tyler and Kendra sitting on the same park bench she ate lunch with him on the other day. In one of them Tyler had his arms wrapped around her. In another he looked like he was drying her tears. There were pictures of them dining together, an outing with Kendra and his son Chris, and the two of them walking into Witzke’s Jewelry Emporium in Bethesda.

  “He…he told me…he wanted…” She caught herself before letting everything spill. Her brokenness apparent for Eddie to see, she steeled herself,
sat up straight and locked her jaw. “None of this matters. Even if I wanted to leave Dyes and save Grafton, I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? You have reason, you have skill and you are the only one with opportunity.”

  “What I don’t have is the formula.” Cami’s wounded heart closed with a temporary seal and the practical business woman emerged in her place. “There are five color coded envelopes, but I don’t have them. At noon we are giving each envelope to a different courier. Mr. Bach is bringing the envelopes and standing with me. There is no way for me to get the right one away.”

  “Do you know which color the right one is in?”

  “Yes, but…”

  Eddie held up his hand and went to the landline phone in the room. Picking up the receiver of the telephone that looked like something Beaver Cleaver’s mom would use, he actually dialed a number.”

  “Does Steve know any couriers?” he asked directly. “Sure Messenger? Hold on. Camellia, is one of your companies Sure Messenger?”

  Cami nodded in response to the question, amazed at how quick and able Eddie seemed to be. It took Tyler twenty minutes to remember where his phone was, let alone make a call by himself.

  Eddie mumbled into the phone a moment more and returned.

  “Have you ever met Harold’s partner Steve?” Eddie asked casually. “He owns a number of gay bars and straight clubs in DC, Bethesda and here. He knows every bartender and young hustler in the area. He’s got a guy who works for Sure Messenger. That’s the guy who will pick up the package tomorrow. Give him the right one. He will stop just long enough for us to get the formula, replace the package with a fake, and then he will take the package where it belongs. Bach will never know it’s you.”

  “Oh, Eddie, I don’t know.” Cami could see this plan working perfectly. Somehow, that frightened her more than ever.

  “You don’t have to know tonight. Think about it. Think about saving Grafton. Think about starting us.”

  “Um, so I am to be some kind of package deal? You get ownership of the cure and the girl?” Cami returned to her brusque tone. Eddie just laughed again.

  “Honey, I don’t want to own you, but I do want to lay you down and love you, now and forever more. You’re the woman for me—hot, smart, curvy and cutting. If you don’t want to quit Dyes Industries, don’t. But it might make it hard to be his assistant and my lover.”

  Leaning over, Eddie went in for a kiss. No asking permission, no hinting around about what was right or wrong, he just kissed her—his lips pressing firmly against hers while his arms wrapped around her shoulders. Any resistance she may have had withered when he pulled back just long enough to look at her ample body and smile lustily before kissing her a second time.

  Taking her hand, he led her to the bedroom, wrapped his arms around her and guided her down on the bed. Caught up is his spell, she lifted her arms so he could pull her sweater off and unclasped her bra to save him the trouble. Eddie pulled back for a moment to get a full, unobstructed view of her breasts.

  “Magnificent!” he said as he reached out to them, grabbing and squeezing them, then lowering his mouth and kissing them gently at first, his teeth rubbing roughly across the rigid nipples until his kisses turned to small bites. She reached down and felt for the zipper in his slacks, an unmistakable bulge greeting her hand. He stood for a moment and disrobed.

  “That will save us some time,” Cami muttered as she pulled down her own skirt and hose.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked as he went back to her breasts, then begin nuzzling her neck and ear, his hot breath sending electric pulses through her spine as her loins flooded with passion. “We have all the time in the world.”

  His lips never left her body, even while his hands explored her, finally coming to a resting place between her legs. He rubbed the top of her mound for a few moments then inserted a finger inside her, feeling the warm, wet core of her body begging him to come in. Holding himself up on strong arms, he let his penis rub across the top of her midsection, and then guided it up and down just between her nether lips. He smiled as he saw her hips rising, trying to bring him to her entryway.

  Reaching down, he positioned the head of his cock right inside her vaginal opening and held it there, her body pumping to try to bring him inside her. Her clitoris rising from its hood, she gritted her teeth with the pained state of arousal she was enduring.

  He inched his cock slightly farther, leaning over to kiss her once more.

  “Please,” she gasped, growing desperate for his entry.

  “What do you want, Miss Hill?” he asked teasingly, his lips lightly touching hers after he spoke. With all her strength Cami reached up and wrapped her arms around the broad shouldered man. She pulled him down so his ear was right by her lips. She flicked her tongue on his earlobe, sending a shockwave straight to his member which she felt jump as it hovered just inside her.

  “Fuck me,” she whispered coarsely, knowing the effect it would have on him. “Fuck me like you own me.”

  He thrust deeply into her, causing a groan to escape her lips as her back arched and hips opened to receive him. He pulled nearly all the way out and thrust deeply again, impaling her on his cock as she lay beneath him, her hands now wrapped around him—pulling him further inside her. Soon his thrusts became a rhythmic, pounding in her core as he pushed himself inside her again and again, each time her hips rising to meet him.

  The feeling of her wet pussy rubbing against his cock and her eager reception of the rough thrusts Eddie was using set him aflame and he grabbed onto the bedspread, pushing himself inside her faster and faster, feeling his shaft grow and surge inside her. He also felt his lover’s body clinging to him, her channel gripping him on the inside—increasing the friction and pulsing against him.

  Cami put her head back and closed her eyes, riding the waves of his powerful thrusts, feeling herself climbing the cliff, so close to the edge and then going higher and higher, her passion built up to a fever pitch. She felt herself farther up than she had ever been, holding on and trying to last when his rhythm turned from long even strokes to short hard bursts. She held on a moment longer, lifted her bottom off the bed and pulled his as far into her as she could and then she let go.

  Flying, floating, falling into the bottomless atmosphere, she opened her mouth and let the cry of her orgasm tear through the room. Her body convulsed under his, jerking and grabbing him until she felt him release deep inside her, his seed filling her body as she received all of him.

  Sweating and exhausted, he withdrew from her, leaving her cavern feeling empty and raw for a moment and then flooded with the warm feelings of afterglow. The new lovers stayed silent for a time, catching their breath and enjoying the pleasant vibrations pulsing through their bodies.

  “My God, you’re hot.” Eddie said, his fingers tracing small circles on her breasts.

  “In more ways than one,” she stammered. “Can you get me some water?”

  “You bet,” he replied. He got up to get her a drink and put a robe on in the process. When he returned, she was gone. He noticed the bathroom light shining under the door and turned to see her skirt and blouse were missing as well.

  Cami emerged from the bathroom once she could see clearly again and was composed. She took the water from Eddie, sat down on the edge of the bed and asked him to call his driver to take her home.

  “I don’t know what to do about the formula. I need to think. Send your messenger. If I do it, I’ll text you. If you don’t hear from me, I chickened out. Either way,” she said as she leaned over and kissed him goodbye. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”

  ***

  Cami didn’t have to worry about her alarm going off the next morning because she didn’t sleep a wink. All night she went over and over the pictures she saw at Eddie’s. Could they be photoshopped? Why would Tyler lead her on and be dating Kendra the whole time?

  Kendra Jackson was what Cami called a “skinny witch”—healthy and thin, she ate salads f
or lunch and some kind of oatmeal paste for dinner. Like Tyler, she was divorced and had kids. Her style was livelier and less professional than Cami dared to be seen in at work. She hadn’t paid much attention the receptionist before, but now—she hated her. And maybe Tyler too.

  Arriving at work, every step caused her to ache, a reminder of the vigorous, delicious pounding she endured the night before. She saw Tyler kneeling by Kendra’s desk, talking to her in low tones, his hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you ready?” Tyler asked when he walked into her office. “I have the envelopes and will bring them to you when the couriers arrive.”

  “Oh, I’m ready, Mr. Bach,” she said, just barely disguising the acid in her tone. As soon as he left she pulled her cell phone out of her bag and sent a text to Eddie Dunning’s direct line.

  “Send your man. I’m good to go.”

  The transfer went off without a hitch. Five slightly unkempt young men—who all looked like they were working this job so they could focus on their band—in different uniforms arrived at noon. Kendra led them to Cami’s office where she registered each colored and numbered envelope and handed it to the driver. Tyler stood beside her beaming with enthusiasm.

  “Today is the day our ship sets sail,” he told her as the last courier walked through the door. Cami managed a weak smile. “Grab your stuff! We’re heading to the city!”

  Cami checked her phone to make sure it had plenty of power. The patent office was supposed to send her work address an email with each envelope verifying its arrival. She pulled out her SmarTrip pass in case Tyler wanted to take another running jump at the subway system. He smiled when he saw it in her hand.

  “No Olympics today. We’re taking my car.” His bright mood served a distinct contrast to Cami’s cold exterior. When she saw his wedding ring on his hand, her attitude plunged from ice cube to frostbite. He clapped the driver on the shoulder. “The Vermillion, please.”

  “I’m not very hungry,” Cami said uncharacteristically. A chance to eat at Vermillion was a once in a lifetime treat but today she just wasn’t in the mood. Had he taken Kendra there yet? Did they sit over their gourmet meal and laugh at the way he was stringing her along? The angry assistant’s stomach soured by the minute.