Chapter One
Wednesday
Simone was filing her nails, making a game of ignoring her boss on the intercom.
"Sim, I know you can hear me," Mick Gargone barked at last. "You`ve got
one minute to get down here or I`m calling security to come get you."
Twenty five year old Simone Leary smiled. He didn`t mean it, of course. The verbal banter
was all part of a relationship that had gotten more than a little complex in the six
months since Mick had taken over for his late father.
Before that, the black haired, green-eyed beauty had been a mere receptionist. Now she
was a personal assistant, with the emphasis on personal. Not that she didn`t pull her
weight in other areas, too, though. In fact, she`d made herself darned near indispensable
to the business.
Which gave her leeway to give the manall the grief she wanted.
"You do know it`s four thirty?" She announced her arrival in his office,
closing the door behind her discretely. "I already gave you your blow job for the day
and you aren`t due to screw me till Friday."
Fifty one year old Michael Gargone, President of Gargone Good Food and Beverage, crinkled
his forehead above a single silver black eyebrow. For the right price the man would beg,
borrow or steal anything you needed to run a restaurant from licorice to imported lager,
but it was this one employee that seemed most often to consume his energies.
"Damn it, Sim," he grumbled, yanking open his gray silk tie and unbuttoning the
collar of his blue silk shirt. "For what I`m paying you, you ought to be taking it up
the ass."
Simone smirked, neither intimidated nor insulted. Under this rough surface, the man was
not only her lover and employer he was her mentor and friend.
"That`s what you have your salesmen for." Sim made herself at home, collapsing
into one of the twin mint green leather wingbacks and kicking her shoes off onto the
maroon carpet, both of which were legacies from his color-blind father. "When are you
gonna redo this fucked up decorating scheme, anyway?"
"As soon as you clean up that longshoreman`s mouth of yours."
"It`s only filthy from slurping your dick constantly." It was typical Simone
style, making jokes out of life`s awkward cracks and in-between places, in this case that
fine line between mistress and whore.
Gargone, with three kids and a wife of twenty-three years, shook his head in response.
"If my old man had been alive to hear the hired help talk like this, he`d have
dropped dead of a heart attack," he teased.
"Hired help?" She laughed, pursing her full, luscious red lips. "Is that
what you call sex workers nowadays?"
"Sixty thousand a year," he groused, "to sit on your behind and do the
crossword puzzles and I still don`t get a moment`s peace."
Simone arched a brow. The woman was more than a geisha and they both knew it. She might
not have a business degree, but she sure as hell made up for that when it came to
detecting fraud and waste. Since becoming the man`s personal assistant, she`d managed to
save him every extra nickel he was paying her and another two thousand dollars above
that.
"Is that right? Well if I`m such an all-fired albatross around here how come
everyone lives in fear of my audits?" she propped her tiny stocking clad feet on his
mahogany desk.
"When you feel like doing them, sure."
"Just like you put me on my knees when you feel like it," she trumped.
The balding Mick threw up his hands, pudgy and ring covered. By contrast, his old man was
skin and bones, a complete spendthrift. "All right, I give already. I can`t live
without you, are you happy now?"
Simone grinned. Mick wasn`t a horrible guy. He took care of her, and as far as she was
concerned, loyalty begat loyalty. "I`m ecstatic. So how about an advance on
Friday?"
She crooned the words, running her hand up her nylon-clad leg under the hem of her gray
wool skirt, indicating just what it was she was advancing.
"Blood pressure won`t take it," he shook his head. "Not with the money I`m
gonna lose tonight on the Knicks game. Besides, there`s something I need to talk to you
about."
He had his serious face on. Sim hopped up and went around to the other side of the desk
in anticipation of pleasing his cock for the second time today. "You can talk,"
she spun his chair to face her. "I`ll listen."
Simone couldn`t help it; she really loved sex. And she knew how much it meant for this
man to be served by her, too. Honestly, she had never been into women`s lib. As far as she
was concerned, in a world like this, a girl was best off finding a way to make the men in
her life happy. Her boss was the main one, along with her on again off again boyfriend,
Randy the detective.
Then there was her brother, who needed other things. Like money. To get out of trouble. A
lot of what Mick gave her, for better or worse, went to this cause.
"Come on, Mick, let me relax you."
"Sim, baby, no." He had his hand on her upper arm. He really wasn`t fooling
around. He didn`t want her on her knees, didn`t want her warm mouth wrapped around his
penis.
"Okay," she sat on his lap instead. "Let me tell you what I want for
Christmas, then. I`ve been sooooo good."
"Simone, I`m into the Russian mob for fifty large."
She stopped trying to nibble at his ear. "You`re what?"
"It`s gambling," he sighed. "Poker mostly. It`s a long story."
She tried to absorb the full meaning. "But what`s fifty thousand to a man like you?
You can cover that easily ... can`t you?"
Mick ran his hands over his scalp. He had a strong jaw, solid brown eyes. As far as she
was concerned he was still one damned handsome man. "That`s the trouble, Sim. I ... I
didn`t just start losing this week. Or this month. Hell, if you must know, I`ve been on a
losing streak two years now."
She blinked in astonishment. "Two years?"
"Yea. I lost just about everything. Dad had no idea the debt I was putting us in. I
thank God he didn`t live to see this day. Now I`m down to pocket change, and if I don`t
come up with this fifty thousand ... well, you know the deal. I sleep with the
fishes."
He attempted a weak smile, which did nothing to allay her terror.
"They threatened you? But they can`t do that, Mick. We have to go to the
police."
He laughed dryly at her naiveté. "You can`t go to the police on the mob,
honey. Not even cops will protect you. Especially not from Russians. These guys make the
Italians look like choir boys."
"I know of one," she thought of Randy. "He`ll do it. He`ll keep you
safe."
Mick licked his lips. His eyes were complicated storms. Simone knew at once he had
another plan, all along, and that he hadn`t just invited her here to share his concerns or
look for a friendly shoulder to cry on.
"A couple of them have made me an offer, Simone. I swear to you, this wasn`t my
idea."
She got down off his lap. "Say it, Mick. Just say it."
"They`ve seen you. Last week, they stopped in. They were ... impressed. And now
they`re giving me a chance to show good faith. Aw, hell, Sim, I`m pleading for my life
here."
She looked at her boss, sweat on her forehead, cheeks twitching. He was not his father.
Not even close. But he was her boss now. And he was in real trouble. "They want me to
sleep with them," she stated the obvious.
"One time," he said, visibly relieved at not having to put it into words
himself. "That`s all. And it`ll be classy, I promise. At the Plaza, the Presidential
Suite. A nice dinner first, a little wine. Hell, it`ll be like a party."
A party. She resisted the urge to ask him what kind of party he would consider where you
end up with perfect strangers poking their cocks in your various orifices.
"When?" She asked. "When do they want this?"
"Tomorrow. Right after work. A limo will pick you up. First class, sweetheart, all
the way. And I swear to you, I`ll make it up to you. Just let me get through this and I`ll
treat you like a queen the rest of my days."
"You`re supposed to be doing that now," she quipped, determined not to burden
him with her own emotions.
Mick laughed. "That`s my girl. That`s my good girl. Oh, you don`t know how relieved
I am. You have no idea."
Like she said, Michael Gargone was a decent man. He didn`t like to exploit anyone and in
his mind he was always trying to scrape together some perfect world where everyone would
he happy. His wife, his daughters, his mistress and even his elderly mother who he took
very Sunday to mass down at St. Bartholomew`s.
The only ones who seemed to have it tough were the salesmen, who were more like the sons
he never had. Unfortunately, the only model Mick had in this department was his own
father, who wouldn`t have known a kind feeling if it lodged itself a foot up his ass and
gave birth to a jungle of magic beanstalks inside his stomach.
"Just remember me at bonus time," she said, readying herself for a quick exit
before she risked showing any of the growing number of powerful emotions she was feeling.
"My favorite color Porsche is canary yellow. And whatever you do, don`t ever go
within a mile of a poker chip again, promise?"
He nodded, his eyes full of care for her ... and guilt. "Yea. Promise. You`re the
best, Simone."
And you`re a damned fool who`s living on borrowed time, she thought to herself on the way
out the door, choking back the tears.
* * * *
Mick drew a deep breath. Thank god Simone was willing to go along. He felt like a heel, a
total piece of shit asking her to do this, but what choice did he have? The Zarkhov
Brothers played hardball. Either they got cash or body parts. He was out of hard currency,
which left the soft bargaining chips, like the body of his personal assistant.
Okay, so he`d told one small lie, a white lie, as white as they get. The Zarkhov`s hadn`t
actually been by here and it wasn`t exactly their idea to have sex with Simone in
compensation for his debts. Truth be told, he`d shown them her picture and tried to make a
deal. The Zarkhov`s wouldn`t pay fifty cents for a fuck, but they knew people who would.
Foreigners who liked unsullied American women, amateurs with the bodies of professionals.
For one hour of Simone`s time and service, he was getting ten grand knocked off his debt.
And a week later, once he broached the subject with her, he would get another ten taken
off. And after that, another ten. Five times in all. Just five hours of the woman`s life.
And then he would never, ever gamble again, just like he`d promised her. Simone was a
good woman. She deserved that respect. He owed her now, this was true, and he`d make it up
somehow. For starters, he was going to think about giving her a bigger job, in recognition
of what she was doing for him. His old man had never let her do more than make coffee, but
he`d seen her potential.
Granted, the old man had never fucked her either, but life was full of tradeoffs. Simone
needed this extra money to help her brother. One hand washed the other. And she liked
helping him, she`d said as much. So wasn`t he doing her a favor here?
Mick pulled the whisky bottle from the drawer. The burning liquor was a lot easier to
swallow than his own bullshit. Who was he kidding? He`d just arranged to pimp out his
totally loyal assistant to some Russian thugs to cover his gambling debts. This was
supposed to make him sleep nights and fill him with all kinds of warm fuzzies about
maintaining the high and mighty traditions of the Gargone family?
His grandfather Vito would kick his ass if he were alive. He`d take him up and down the
aisles of his tiny one room grocery store that he`d built with his own hands and show him,
item by item what a worthless, treacherous piece of shit he was in comparison to the
honesty and sweat represented by each item on display there.
Hell, even his tough as nails grandmother, Giuseppina would beat the snot out of him with
her home made broom brought all the way from Sicily.
The whisky burned going down, but it was waking him up, too. He was a man, he was the
boss, and he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself. Mick had done something to Simone,
and he needed to make it right, needed to do his share to support her so her sacrifice
wasn`t in vain.
For one thing, he could read her reports. The results of her examination of the latest
paperwork turned in by the sales staff. Also some new analysis he`d had her do on possible
ways to cut costs. One plan was to restructure the commissions. Basically, lower them
retroactively. It was tempting, because it saved big money. The thing was, how to justify
it? This was where Simone`s audits came in. If she had managed to catch the salesman at
anything, he would have all the wiggle room he needed.
And how hard could that be? They were lazy, the lot of them, and cheaters, too. His
father had warned him, salesmen were your best friends in this business and your worst
enemies. In as much as theycould sell ice to Eskimos, they could also turn around and
cheat their employers blind.
Mick scanned the columns of numbers, looking for something Simone had red flagged. She
had the eye for details. She never missed a thing. The first ten pages were clean. On the
eleventh, he found it. A definite discrepancy in one of the mileage logs. He scanned back
to the top of the page to see whose it was.
Charlie Jenkins, his head of sales. Son of a bitch. Mick flippedthrough to the next page,
where she`d circled his submitted numbers in red ink. These she had cross-referenced and
stapled to sign in sheets procured from the two field offices. Yep. It was true, all
right. The lying bastard was putting in for trips he`d never taken. And here was one for a
hundred miles to the coast submitted for a morning he`d been signed in for computer
training downstairs.
What a dumb son of a bitch. Mick`s father had put up with shit like this because Charlie
and the others brought in business. They had regular customers and they knew the products
like the back of their hands. But Mick couldn`t afford this kind of waste.
The commissions had to be scaled back. And if Charlie had a problem relaying this to the
others as head of sales, then he could find himself another job and good luck getting a
reference with all this fraud on his record.
Mick picked up the phone and dialed Charlie`s office. Turned out the leech was downstairs
in the kitchen. God knows where he would claim he was come time sheet day.
"Jenkins, I need to see you. Right now," said Mick. Leaving the man no time to
respond, he broke the connection. Now that was how you acted like the boss, he smiled to
himself in satisfaction. Pulling out his calculator, he did a quick double check of
Simone`s numbers to see how much this new commission structure would save.
Oh, yea, he beamed at the number. That`s more like it. This is how we`re going to stay
afloat.
Taking one more swig from the bottle, he readied himself to confront the square jawed,
brush cut, glad handing Jenkins. He was more than prepared, and if he had any doubts about
what he was doing, all he had to think of was Simone`s lovely face and the sacrifice she
was about to make for the company.
Jenkins could lose his whole commission and it wouldn`t approach what she was doing.
"Sit down, Charlie," he smiled as the man entered his office, more than a
little wary. "You and I are overdue for a little talk."
* * * *
Simone called Randy as soon as she got home. She made it like it was no big deal, wanting
to go out for a steak or something, but she`d been desperately relieved to find him free
for the evening. Often days went by with no contact, sometimes as long as a week, but she
was needing him tonight. Needing to be wanted and cared for as a woman, even if casually
so.
Three years together and she`d never finished a serious conversation with the man.
Marriage, even living together, was out of the question.
"You see me at my best, Sim," the tall, sandy haired policeman would croon.
"Why would you want to mess that up? Everything I say and do with you now is sincere.
I`ve been married before, trust me, you`ve got it good."
That was the thing. Men were always telling her she had it good with them, but mostly
that just meant they got to fuck her without making any kind of commitment.
Her mother had blamed it on her looks. A curvaceous body, the kind that makes a man think
of sex, and a face that will keep him coming back for more.
"Men will see in you only one thing," her small, thin, exceedingly plain mother
was fond of saying in between loads of wash and sinks of dishes accumulated by their
family of four, forever augmented by various cousins and uncles from the old country.
"A cheap and easy fling. Trust me, Simone, you`re going to have trouble staying on
the straight and narrow."
Simone never understood her mother half the time, or her father with all his talk of the
family`s legacies and the blessings of the saints. They were simple folk. Boston Irish and
prone to politics and the bottle. It was her brother got in over his head, though.
Afflicted with the drink, as they liked to say.
She`d never seen her five foot one inch mother sit down for more than five minutes,
unless it was to say the rosary over some poor lost soul. Maybe that was why Simone needed
so bad to be a servant herself, a sacrificial lamb.
Mick Gargone was helping with that, wasn`t he? And by this time tomorrow, he`d have
helped a good deal more, having introduced her to the high class world of sex for favors,
spreading one`s legs for the advancement of one`s prospects. Or make that for his
survival.
Randy was looking totally delicious in jeans and a polo shirt. He wasn`t wearing his gun,
nor did he have his badge clipped to his belt.
"Hi, baby," he crooned, wanting a kiss right away.
She stood on tiptoes, melting against his lips. "I want to play the game tonight,
Randy."
He hesitated only for a second. "All right, sweetheart."
Like he`d said, she got him at his best. In short doses, cooperative, attentive, ready to
meet her every need. Day in day out, that shininess would tarnish. Or so she had to keep
telling herself, those long and lonely nights when she cried not to be alone, trying in
vain to convince her woman`s heart that it didn`t want what it wanted. That it didn`t need
a man`s heartbeat next to it, didn`t crave a strong will to guide her and direct her, to
say no and fawn all over her and protect her and get jealous and give wings to set her
free and all the other things, a million of them, totally contradictory, that a husband
could do.
These were the times when she had to tell herself most strongly that she didn`t really
love Randy, that he was just filling, or half filling this empty place in her heart that
rightfully belonged to someone else.
As could be imagined, sometimes it was easier to convince herself of these things than
others. Sometimes it all made sense and she was real glad Randy was logical, properly
scarred and wary from a three-year marriage to the "Wicked Bitch of the West".
But there were other times she thought maybe he was just being gun shy, using past
experience to play the jaded, confirmed bachelor to a tee.
The game of control, as they called it, was something that turned them both on
enormously. And it always led to phenomenal sex. The premise was Simone`s complete
submission to her lover`s will, beginning with and including all their public contact for
the evening.
Especially thrilling were the moments he would push her, to the very limits of exposure.
Her trust and devotion warmed his heart, she knew that, and certainly the fact that he
would take the time to dote on her like this, to exercise breathtaking power, stripping
her bare, yet using every ounce of his strength to protect her, was something that never
failed to make her heart soar.
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