Surviving the Rich-Sunshine and Sir Ch. 03

The Offer

"Good morning. Thank you for calling The Hillcrest, this is Rae, how may I help you?"

Killian shifted in his chair, his body stirring. Her voice on the phone was softer, silkier, dripping with sultry invitation. And she knew it.

"Hello Rae, how was your Christmas?"

"Wonderful Mr. Laird, thank you. How was Texas?"

He smiled, they hadn't discussed his trip. "Always good to see the family. I was hoping to get a table for four in a private room for lunch."

"What time?" she asked.

"1:30."

He heard her typing and quietly speaking to Ryan. His usual room was booked and she wanted to move the party to another one. If he were anyone else he'd be on hold, but he told once not to bother. He enjoyed listening to her.

"All set Mr. Laird," she said. "We'll see you at 1:30."

"Thank you Rae."

He hung up and relaxed in his chair. The Hillcrest was the best place to make the offer. She'd maintain the outward appearance of calm, her professional ethic allowing for nothing less. He'd written a contract that would benefit both of them equally, and after the initial shock and outrage she'd see that. She was too smart not too.

He stood and walked over the window of his corner office. Located in the only skyscraper outside the city, his offices were on the top floor, affording him a clear view of the mall and the Hillcrest on the other side.

He could enrich Rae's life, she just had to let him.

***************

Rae looked at herself in the mirror and grabbed concealer from her pocket. She'd woken up at one in the morning in a full blown panic attack and then tossed and turned the rest of the night. The attacks had started about a month ago and were taking their toll, evident in the ever darkening circles under her eyes. Fluffing her curls, she washed her hands and took one last look. Her knee length black jacket had hugged her waist when she bought it, now it hung loosely, just like her pants. But buying new clothing was out of the question.

She smiled brightly, putting on the mask, and left the restroom. The lunch push was over and only a few tables lingered in the dining room. The calm before the storm. Tomorrow was New Year's Eve and it was always busy from the moment they opened till the last reservation. She was looking forward to the extra cash, if not the craziness.

Rounding the corner to the lounge she saw Bob sitting at the bar and her smile became genuine. A retiree who ate lunch at the bar a couple times a week, Bob was one of her favorite patrons. Round, with salt and pepper hair, he seemed to have a permanent tan from his various trips to the Caribbean.

"Late lunch today?" Rae asked, leaning on the bar next to him.

"Babysitting the grandkids," he said, gruffly. "I need a drink." She laughed, knowing how much he reveled in being Grandpa Bob. He glanced at Paul and his business partner conversing with the bartender and lowered his voice. "How are you doing?"

Lack of sleep and raw nerves had her emotions right under the surface, and the genuine concern in his eyes brought all the fear and anxiety to the fore. She looked away, swallowing hard.

He briefly touched her arm and said, "There's always a way a kiddo. Hang in there."

"I'm trying," she said, putting the mask back on. "Thanks."

"Rae." She and Bob looked towards the end of the bar, and Paul's business partner gestured to the bartender. "You both went to college for acting?"

"Yep," she replied.

"So why aren't you acting?" he asked, the barest hint of a smirk on his face.

"We act every day," she said. "You're convinced we like you."

Paul almost choked on his drink and burst into laughter. Everyone else followed, and even Rae laughed like it was a joke. The funniest part being she meant what she said. She exchanged knowing glances with the bartender and headed back to the front desk.

On his phone in the Captain's Room, Killian looked like he was ready to hold court. One of four side rooms, it was behind the host desk, and its double doors were open for service when it wasn't reserved. He and his guests had taken the second table on the right, with Killian in the corner chair. He always took the corner chair. It was the Chicago way, back to the wall with an eye on the door. He was highly amused when she mentioned that to him one day, and had dropped the line himself a time or two in her presence. His guests always laughed and agreed, and he'd give her a smile, sharing the victory.

He caught sight of her and gestured for her to join him. His guests had departed and his table was cleared of everything but two water glasses. Wearing a black three piece suit and blue paisley tie, he lounged in his chair as if the room was his office. His jacket was unbuttoned and she caught the occasional flash of a watch poking out of his sleeve as he soundlessly tapped a finger on the manila folder in front of him. After about a minute he hung up his phone and said, "How are you Rae?"

The seriousness in his demeanor threw her, but she smiled and said, "Never better. You?"

"There's something I'd like to talk you about," he said. "Do you have a couple minutes?"

Her eyes clouded over and she looked over her shoulder. "I'm not sure."

Just then Ryan walked by the door. "Ryan," Killian called.

He backtracked and said, "Yes Mr. Laird?"

"Could I borrow Rae for a few minutes?"

"Of course," Ryan said, looking at her. This was all the fodder he needed, he was going to gloat later.

"Thank you," Killian said. "Please shut the door Rae, and have a seat."

She shut the door and sat in the chair to his right. He took a bottle of water from the ice bucket and poured some into the glass in front of her. He knew where she would sit, or he knew she'd unconsciously sit in the seat with the only other glass. Either way it was deliberate.

"I have a proposition for you, so please, before you say or do a thing, hear me out." She nodded, and he said, "Stella, my everything, is moving to Florida in the fall and I am in need of a replacement. I think you'd make a great addition to our team and would like you to consider becoming my personal assistant. Stella's official title is executive assistant, which you will take on when she leaves. Before that you will train with Stella and myself in preparation for her departure." He placed the manila envelope in front of her and said, "Salary and benefits are inside as well as a contract. I think you'll find your bonus structure intriguing."

His gaze flicked to the envelope so she opened it and slid out the contents. The whole situation was surreal and she was trying to keep it all in perspective, but her salary alone made her jaw drop. To go from sixteen dollars an hour to a beginning salary of fifty thousand a year was a change. The insurance coverage was better than anything she'd had before, and he was right, the bonus structure was intriguing, and left her completely speechless. On the left was a thorough list of her family's debts, while on the right almost all the debts were zeroed out, with TBD next the zeros. At the top of the list were her husband's fines and fees due to his DUI, and since Michigan, where he received the DUI, informed Illinois those fees were compounded. For a couple who'd just gotten to a point of living a small step above paycheck to paycheck, it upended them completely.

As if reading her mind he said, "Illinois goes for the jugular when it comes to DUIs. I'm sure you both hoped Michigan wouldn't share the information, some states don't, but unfortunately for you that was not the case, and a lawyer could have told you that. But your husband, in his rush to own up to his mistake and put it behind him and by extension you, listened to his aging mother with no legal experience and pled guilty without a lawyer. Now you're paying for it."

"How do you know any of this?" she whispered.

"Bob genuinely thinks the world of you, and he was quite a few in when he shared that tidbit, the rest I learned on my own. You really should have gone with your gut and told Jimmy to get a lawyer, or at least listened to Bob and gone to one yourself. You could have come to me." She looked at the table and he said, "What?"

"It never occurred to me to ask you for help," she said, after a moment. "My relationship with Bob is different. He's like an actual..." She searched for the right word, grasping for tact.

Killian smiled wryly. "Friend?"

She shrugged off the discomfort and said, "He and I talk. I've gone out for drinks with him. You and I exchange pleasantries and occasionally converse, but not about anything truly personal. Until now."

"And now is what matters most," he said. "Because now you're about to lose your home."

She just stared at him. No one at The Hillcrest, not even Bob, knew just how bad it was. "Seriously," she said. "How do you know all this?"

"I have extensive resources at my disposal," he said.

"Do you research all of your potential employees like this?"

"We vet our employees thoroughly," he said.

"Nice dodge," she said. "So why do you need to know how screwed my family is? And what exactly does to be decided mean in regards to the bonus of our debt being erased?"

"My everything is Stella's unofficial title, but it's an apt description. She knows my life as intimately, if not more so, than I do. She is my representative, my link to others, my sounding board and confidante. You will be even more, everything in almost the truest sense of the word, and your bonus structure reflects that."

She was unable to wrap her mind around what was happening. Maybe the exhaustion had finally caught up to her and she was hallucinating, because Killian couldn't actually be implying that her duties would include sex. That just wasn't possible.

"You come work for me, and over the next six months your debts will be cleared. Beyond that I'll require a two year commitment as my personal assistant. The training is too extensive to throw away on anything less. Now, I also have a copy of your specs for a restaurant. I like the concept and am always looking for investment opportunities. Not only for myself but for my colleagues, and we've discussed the possibility of putting our money into a restaurant. Your husband's menu would do well in this area."

"I won't be any man's whore," she said.

"That is not, even remotely, how I see you."

"How you see me doesn't change the fact that you're offering to pay off my debt and invest in my husband's dream in exchange for sexual favors. Pretty much the textbook definition of a whore. But wait, that's not all, I also get to be your indentured servant."

"Employee," he said.

"I'm married. How could you ask me to cheat on my husband so casually?"

"When was the last time you had sex with him? Or even the last time you kissed him? At least a couple years now. But your happiness isn't important to you. What matters is your daughter and you can't imagine putting her through a divorce and being shuttled between parents. You aren't in love with her father, not anymore, and you're not even sure you ever were. You wanted to love him because he loved you, so you did. But if Reagan hadn't come along you probably wouldn't have gone through with the wedding. The cracks in your relationship were already showing, and you were having doubts."

She was stunned. Everything he said was true, they were her own words spoken to very few people, and none of them would've told Killian. Her gaze drifted over his shoulder to the wall. Each of the four tables in the room was in a corner, and his corner shared a wall with the coatroom. Her stomach dropped to her feet and she said, "You can hear us."

"When the music is off and the door closed, quite clearly."

"Shit," she breathed.

He smiled and said, "I've gotten to know you all very well. The laughter, tears, and raunchy tales shared in that closet could fill a book."

"And everything you heard convinced you I have a price?"

"Everyone has a price, and that price varies depending on the circumstances. There is nothing wrong with being my inspiration in exchange for financial stability."

"Inspiration," she said. "What a nice way of putting it. I thought you were different. I really did. If anything, you're worse. Exploiting my situation, and acting like you're doing me a favor..." She stood so abruptly she knocked the chair back. "Thanks for the offer to fuck me out of debt, but you can go fuck yourself instead."

He didn't say anything or react at all. He was completely relaxed, and it only enraged her further. She picked up the chair and instead of throwing it at him, which was what she wanted to do, put it back then headed for the door. She grasped the handle, and he said, "I expect your answer by the end of the week."

She froze. Telling him to go fuck himself wasn't enough of an answer. She looked over her shoulder to emphatically tell him where he could stick his dick, and the look in his eyes stopped her short. He was the predator swooping in for the kill.

"I'm sorry you won't be able to bang pots and pans at midnight tomorrow with Reagan," he said. "A tradition from your childhood you've carried forward, and this is the first year she'll be doing it without you. You've been missing out on a lot of traditions this year. Crushing debt does that."

"Bastard," she whispered.

"I prefer Killian," he said, standing. "You forgot your contract."

"What part of go fuck yourself did you not understand?"

He put everything in the envelope and walked over to her. She stood her ground, refusing to run from him. She could have sworn she saw approval flash through his eyes, and desire. He stood over her and then leaned in close. Her heart hammered as his lips got closer to hers. The side of his mouth twitched and then he was just barely resting his lips against her ear. "I understand that I always get what I want, and I want you Rae. In more ways than one."

He placed the contract in her hand and moved even closer, practically pinning her against the door. Taut and coiled, the energy emanating him was dominating with a slight undercurrent of danger. She'd seen that in his demeanor occasionally when dealing with others, the predator overwhelming his prey into submission. For an attorney like Killian everyone was prey. What she hated most was the quickening of her breath, and the warmth that spread from her chest down between her legs. She stared at his tie, and for a brief moment she wondered why not, why not give in to him and get ahead for a change?

He gently grasped the side of her face and raised her eyes to his. "Read the contract, and when you're done ask yourself, why not sign? You won't have an answer."

He was a frightening man. Always three steps ahead. He smiled knowing what she was thinking, and then slid his hand down her neck and around her back, pressing his body to hers. "I look forward to hearing from you," he said, his mouth hovering a hairsbreadth above hers. "Happy New Year Rae."

He opened the door and turned away without another word. She fled, flushed and clutching the contract.