Hard Limits

2. Brax

CHAPTER 2

BRAX

Braxton Vale sifted through the stack of résumés on his desk. Dozens and dozens of them. Getting applicants was never a problem—he paid well over the market rate—but finding the right person for the job always presented a challenge. Some of the candidates had included headshots, and he weeded out all the pretty ones and filed them in the trash. Too tempting. They definitely had to go.

Perhaps he should try hiring a male assistant again? Although that was a minefield too—the first one had tried hitting on a married chef, so Brax had picked out a gay guy as his replacement. Scottie rearranged everything in Brax’s office, his home, and even his car, then started redecorating. Emails went unanswered. The phone kept ringing. Interior design had been Scottie’s passion, not admin. Two years later, Brax was still finding miscellaneous items in strange places. Who stored Scotch in a white wine refrigerator? Horizontally?

Hmm, what about an older candidate? A possibility, but in Brax’s experience, they rarely lasted long. Jealous husbands, family commitments, a dislike of last-minute travel… Although he’d once hired a terrific lady in her sixties, fun yet quietly efficient, a former actress with an adventurous streak and a deliciously warped sense of humour. But Luisa had suffered a heart attack when one of the shows in the basement—the space nicknamed The Dark—got a little wild, and after she recovered, she’d retired to Acapulco.

Brax had adored Luisa.

He missed Luisa.

Today’s candidate was twenty-four, but she’d passed the telephone interview, and Rhonda, his HR manager, thought she had potential. Brax scanned through her résumé. Meera Adams had been educated at Harvard with a concentration in environmental science and public policy and a secondary in European history, politics, and societies. Since she graduated, she’d held two positions in LA, the first as a receptionist at a gym and the second as a PA at a packaging company. She’d lasted two months at the first, four months at the second. Brax’s assistants averaged two and a half months. The record was thirteen months—Luisa—and one girl had quit within five hours.

Rhonda had tagged the corner of the résumé with a sticky note.

Well-spoken, uptight, would turn her nose up at a man like you. A possible?

Bless Rhonda’s heart. She knew exactly what he was looking for in an assistant, and she was Team Brax all the way. Loyalty was invaluable, especially in Brax’s unfortunate situation. Every so often, one of Carissa’s stooges slipped through the net, so he had to remain constantly vigilant, watching for any signs of betrayal.

A sigh escaped. How had it come to this?

Because you let your guard down, asshole.

Eight years ago, Brax had gotten distracted and fallen victim to an ambition greater than his own. When he married Carissa Dunn, signing a prenup with a vicious adultery clause hadn’t seemed like such a problem. Just a mere formality. They’d been young and in love, and she’d appeared as eager to make a success of Dunnvale Holdings as he was.

Appeared as eager…

It turned out that Carissa was allergic to latex, costume jewellery, shellfish, and work. Possibly dogs too, although Brax suspected they just didn’t like her very much.

Fast-forward the better part of a decade, and Brax had come to realise that Carissa had one love in life, and it wasn’t him. No, it was money. Shopping came second, and luxury vacations took third place. He wanted a divorce. So did she, but only if she got the lion’s share of the spoils. And therein lay the problem. Clause eight of the prenup said that if one party to the marriage cheated, they were entitled to one million dollars or ten percent of the joint assets, whichever was smaller. Brax hadn’t spent his adult life building an empire just for Carissa to take ninety-nine point eight percent of it.

Mediation had failed, as had couples counselling, so now they were engaged in a game of s****l chicken—no b********y involved because even he wouldn’t stoop that low—and Carissa had a definite advantage. Her s*x drive had never been as high as his, which had been yet another problem in their marriage.

Brax had taken cold showers, swallowed pills, bought every s*x toy known to man, and even spent two weeks in a Peruvian monastery, but he was still trapped in his worst nightmare. Some of the most beautiful women in America worked in his clubs, women who were up for anything, and he wasn’t allowed to touch any of them. And if he hired an assistant who was in any way attracted to him, it would be game over. Hell, she didn’t even have to be beautiful. He could just close his eyes and sink into that warm—

A soft knock stopped him from going down that hole.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and all his prayers were answered.

Halle-f*****g-lujah.

Because Meera Adams and the woman he’d nearly run over this morning were one and the same person. In truth, he’d been feeling slightly guilty about that—yes, she’d walked out from between two stationary cars, but he probably shouldn’t have been checking his phone behind the wheel, even in a parking lot.

This was perfect.

He wanted to ask her to start right away, but if he made things too easy, that might soften her attitude toward him. So he leaned back in his obscenely expensive swivel chair and studied her. Stared long enough to make her fidget.

Funny, she wasn’t so talkative now.

Meera was slender, with shoulder-length black hair and light brown skin that suggested South Asian heritage. Luckily, Brax preferred blondes. Her features were fine, dainty, but her big brown eyes still held a flash of fire. Good. The ballet flats were another check in the “pros” column. Brax liked his women in heels, the higher the better. At home, Carissa had started wearing Crocs just to spite him, even though they made her feet sweat. No, Meera definitely wasn’t his type. Although somehow, she still managed to appear regal while at the same time looking as if she wanted to vomit onto his Persian rug.

“So, you majored in environmental science? Now I understand the ‘gas-guzzling’ comment. Why aren’t you busy measuring ice in the Arctic?”

She hesitated for a moment. Surprised he hadn’t kicked her out right away?

“I’m actually more interested in ecosystem restoration.”

“From restoring ecosystems to office work—that’s quite a change.”

“There are more jobs available in offices.”

“And yet you only lasted four months in your last position. Why did you quit?”

Her hands balled into fists at her sides, and she glared for a second before she caught herself.

“Do you want the real reason or the one they gave me?”

“Let’s hear both.”

“Officially, I was fired after I called in sick.”

“I see. And the real reason?”

“My boss exposed himself to me in his office.”

“And that was a problem for you?”

“Of course it was a freaking problem! I reported him to HR, but he was the CEO’s son, so guess who took the fall.”

She objected to seeing her boss’s c**k? This got better and better. That jackass’s loss was Brax’s gain.

“An entirely predictable result. If a man raises his son to believe that non-consensual s****l activity is acceptable, he’s going to protect him when he harasses a woman.”

Brax’s father had done the opposite—punished him for every indiscretion, real or imaginary. His mother suffered too. Brax had turned twenty by the time she finally left him, and by then, her psyche had been damaged beyond repair. Vernon Dupré might have been a pious son of a b***h, but the devil lived inside him.

The backbone of Brax’s business portfolio, his s*x clubs, had been born out of that troubled childhood. When he escaped to college, he’d wanted to experience all the sins his father deemed abhorrent, in private, with no judgment. And later, as he explored the darker side of Washington, DC, he’d discovered that there were plenty of wealthy individuals who shared the same desire. Each branch of Nyx—there were eight now—made Brax a lot of money and gave others a lot of pleasure.

“So you’re saying it was my fault?” Meera asked. “That I shouldn’t have reported him to HR?”

“If you’d thought things through, you would have realised that introducing his genitals to a paperweight would have led to a similar result with infinitely more satisfaction.” Brax took another glance at her résumé. Strong academic record, little in the way of extracurricular activities. A good work ethic. “Do you make a habit of shouting at strangers?”

“Only when they deserve it.”

A fair answer. The woman tried to smother a yawn, not very successfully.

“Am I keeping you up?”

“One of my neighbours had a party last night. All night.”

“Then you should go back to bed and get some rest. I don’t tolerate laziness here. See Rhonda in HR on your way out, and she’ll provide you with a contract, a non-disclosure agreement, and details of our working arrangements.”

“I’m sorry? A non-disclosure agreement?”

“Many of our clients are high profile. We need to ensure their privacy.”

“Wait, are you offering me the job?”

“Unless you don’t want it anymore. In which case, what are you doing here?”

“I…”

“I’m sure a smart girl like you can work out how to pick up my dry cleaning.”

Those pretty brown eyes narrowed. “But—”

“That’ll be all. You can start tomorrow morning.”

For a moment, Meera just stood there. Despite the fact that there was a chair positioned in front of Brax’s desk, she’d remained on her feet, fidgeting. No doubt she hadn’t been expecting to stay long. Another moment, and she turned on her heel and marched out, leaving the door open behind her. Book smart but a tad ditzy, Brax assessed. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get lost running errands. One time, an assistant had collected several shirts from the tailor, and he’d never seen her again. He’d begun to suspect something nefarious, been on the verge of reporting her missing, when he’d received the shirts in the mail, cut into tiny pieces with a note telling him to go f**k himself.

Brax rose to close the door himself, his mind on the future as he strolled across his office. How long would Meera last? If past form was anything to go by, he gave her three weeks.

What the…?

His new assistant walked right into him, and he grabbed her arm as she stumbled. Why had she come back?

“You need to learn to look where you’re going.”

“You just appeared from nowhere.”

“Isn’t that my line?” he asked, referring to the earlier parking lot incident.

She bit her bottom lip as she looked up at him, and somewhere deep inside, Brax began to wonder if he might have made a terrible mistake in hiring her. Later, he’d wish that he’d paid more attention to his subconscious, to that little voice telling him to wake the f**k up. Maybe he was the one who needed more coffee?

“I thought the door would close by itself.”

When Meera tried to take a step back, Brax realised he was still holding onto her arm. He released her, and one step turned into a dozen.

“We start work at eleven a.m. tomorrow,” Brax called after her. “Don’t be late.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just closed the door and headed back to his desk. His laptop was open, and he typed out an email, copied to five of his oldest friends and one new one.

From: Brax

To: Dawson, Zach, Justin, Nolan, Alexa, Ari

Subject: Assistant #27

Her name is Meera. So far, she’s told me to go screw myself and called my car a gas-guzzling p***s extension. Place your bets, folks.

B

The first response came from Alexa. As far as Brax could work out, she never slept.

Two weeks. And I’m going to need her surname, date of birth, and social security number.

Brax could get those from Rhonda. He hadn’t asked Alexa to start running background checks, but three or four years ago, she’d taken it upon herself to help and discovered that his former finance director was embezzling funds, so Brax wasn’t going to stop her. She also read all his emails. Some might have resented the intrusion, but short of disconnecting from the internet entirely, there was no way to keep her out, and in her own strange way, she cared.

Dawson’s answer came next. Ten days. If she doesn’t like your car, she’ll hate your boat.

Quickly followed by a message from Justin: Three weeks. Did she see your d**k already? I thought that was against the rules?

Brax tapped out a quick reply. Ha-ha. Very funny.

And the boat was only a small cabin cruiser, not a super yacht. He needed a hobby to distract him from the Carissa nightmare, so he’d begun escaping to the water.

Nolan: Five weeks. Why don’t you grow some willpower and hire an assistant who doesn’t hate you?

Willpower? He thought Brax hadn’t tried that? Even the hypnotherapist had given up on him.

Ari: One month. Women are tough, but should we really be betting on them this way? Why don’t you look for a guy like Chase instead? P.S. Zach says six weeks.

Ah, Chase. Alexa’s assistant was a true unicorn. If there was the slightest chance he might be looking for a new job, Brax would offer the man any salary he asked for. But Chase would never leave Alexa. Their arrangement had grown from employer-employee into a deep friendship that had withstood the test of time. Plus there was the fact that Alexa would erase every last byte from Dunnvale’s network if he tried to mess with her.

Brax: If you stumble across Chase’s twin, let me know. I’ve given up hope.