Jane Harvey-Berrick Guarding the Billionaire Read online

“No, sir.”

  “Good. There’ll be a month’s trial.”

  He pauses, measuring my response. I don’t give one.

  “I have live-in accommodation for employees at Wolf Point, and I spend most weekends at the Farm on Long Island.”

  I’m guessing that by ‘Long Island’ he means The Hamptons.

  “Any questions?”

  Where the fuck is Wolf Point?

  “No, sir.”

  Yeah, I have a shit ton of questions, but none that people ever answer honestly. So I’ll wait to see for myself who the new client really is; what’s behind the businessman’s façade.

  “When can you start?”

  “Immediately, sir.”

  “Good. Ryan will give you the details.”

  He presses a button on his desk, and the assistant escorts me out.

  That must be the quickest, goddamn job interview I’ve ever had. And now I’m really curious to see where the dude lives.

  I’m relieved that I won’t be going back to the crummy motel room, not only because I already packed my bags. I wasn’t sorry to say goodbye to that dump. I thought I’d be living on the cheap for a while to save money for Lilly. And her mother who has champagne tastes on a beer budget. But I can admit that she’s a good mother and I loved her once, so I don’t complain. Much.

  I drive my rental over to Wolf Point, having learned that it’s what the real estate websites describe it as a ‘Tribeca Urban Mansion’. Or what I’d describe as another charmless glass and chrome building, also new. I figured him for one of the old Brownstones, but no, he hasn’t chosen anything where other people have lived before. Anderson has made his money very recently and seems keen on spending it, especially on expensive real estate.

  I punch in the entry code that I was given for the underground garage and park in the allocated bay. I can’t take my eyes off the Aston Martin DB9 I park next to. I really hope Anderson is going to need me to drive that some time. I also cast my eyes over the SUV that’s in the adjacent bay. Looks like it’s up to light-armored level and has bulletproof windows. So far, so good.

  The elevator code takes me to the Penthouse which in reality is the entire top four floors of the building. There’s an older woman in a dark skirt suit. What is it with Mr. Anderson and all the gray suits? I wonder if he’s like the original Ford cars, “Any color, so long as it’s black.” This assistant is maybe five or six years older than me. Great legs and a warm, friendly smile.

  “Mr. Trainer? Welcome. I’m Rachel Smith, Mr. Anderson’s housekeeper. Let me show you to your room.”

  Housekeeper, huh? I’m happy Mason told me that Anderson was gay, otherwise I’d have to worry about him fucking the help—it just makes things much more complicated.

  The main room is huge. Christ! You could play ball in here. The floor is white marble, half an acre of it, and there’s what I’m guessing is more expensive art on the walls, plus a grand piano sitting in one corner. I wonder if he plays it or if it’s just for show.

  The staff area is on the first two floors, with its own access and elevator. I follow Ms. Smith inside, and as the doors close, I’m trapped in a small space with a hot blonde who smells like sunshine. As the doors slide open, I find myself appreciating the way her tasty ass fills out her stylish, pencil skirt. Shit! Mind on the job, Trainer. You’re here to work and earn a fucking fortune!

  I let out a slow breath when the doors reopen, and Rachel walks me past the CCTV room where I see a bank of monitors. I’ll have to look at that thoroughly later.

  The rest of the staff rooms are more modest than Anderson’s, but that’s to be expected. And it beats sharing with a camel. Sorry, Nabila.

  When Rachel shows me my bedroom, I nod with approval. It’s large, light and airy, tricked out like a five star hotel, which I guess is what this whole building is, because it sure doesn’t feel like a home.

  But I’m definitely not complaining when there’s a state of the art curved screen TV with sound bar, and a large leather sofa that’s just made for lazy days. Not that I’m expecting many of those.

  Even the drapes are made from heavy raw silk and hide a top quality wall safe where I can leave my spare ammo. The best of everything for Mr. Anderson—and his employees.

  “I cook for all of us,” says Rachel, breaking into my thoughts. “We eat our meals in the private staff dining room, and Mr. Anderson eats upstairs. He has his own dining room, but he prefers to eat in his kitchen or in his office.”

  “Does he have any other employees? At all?”

  She laughs softly.

  “Not live-in. I know that’s unusual, but Mr. Anderson values his privacy more than his convenience. A cleaning service comes during the day while he’s out, and there’s a laundry service that also dry-cleans. The pool man comes every two weeks and Mr. Basqiat, his personal trainer, comes several times a week—usually early evening. Occasionally, they train at DMA Tower at lunchtime. There are more people out at the Farm, but the estate manager, Mr. Van Sant, is in charge of them.”

  She pauses.

  “I’ll be serving supper in an hour if you’re hungry?”

  “That would be great, thank you.”

  She smiles. It’s such a sweet, kind smile that I can’t help but smile back.

  As a rule, I don’t smile a lot. My face nearly cracks.

  “I’m sure you’d like to look around the rest of Mr. Anderson’s home,” she says. “If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me.”

  “Thanks. Where is Mr. Anderson now?”

  “He’s in his private gym on the third floor next to the swimming pool. Mr. Anderson’s rooms are kept private from house guests—well, only his family that I’ve seen—but he has weekend guests on occasion. I don’t work weekends so I don’t really know. Oh, you’ll need this additional access code.”

  I nod, make a mental note, and watch as she leaves. I throw my bag on the enormous king-size bed and wander off to have a look around. As well as the staff rooms, which are bigger than most ordinary apartments with five bedrooms and six bathrooms, Anderson has six guest bedrooms and seven bathrooms, an impressive library with a competition-size pool table, and a TV room that looks like it’s hardly used. Not that it’s dusty, but it’s too neat—no books or magazines laying around, and the remote controller is lined up at a precise right angle to the coffee table.

  Tidy.

  Soulless.

  That’s my gut reaction as I walk around the building, and I wonder who this Anderson guy really is. He doesn’t act like any twenty-nine year-old that I’ve ever met. I sure as hell wasn’t like that at his age. But then again, I was on Sergeant’s pay and sitting in the sandbox waiting to get shot by Taliban insurgents. Nope, nothing in common at all.

  Anderson’s private rooms are on the top floor of the penthouse, separated from the guest area and living room. I take the elevator and use the access code Ms. Smith gave me.

  There’s a large home office with views of the little people on the streets below, three computer screens, a closed laptop and an iPad, lined up on top of a huge slab of white oak desk. One chair.

  Anderson’s bedroom is equally large and empty—a huge bed, walk-in closet that looks as if a GQ photoshoot threw up in there. Does one man need a hundred different suits, fifty pairs of shiny shoes?

  The tub in the attached bathroom could almost double as a second swimming pool, and it’s got those fancy jets that turn it into a Jacuzzi.

  Holy crap, I have tub-envy.

  I find a wall safe behind the painting in his bedroom—good quality, hard to crack. The safe, not the painting.

  There’s only one door that I can’t get access to. Probably storage—I know Anderson recently moved in here. I’ll have to ask Rachel about that later.

  The painting is interesting. It’s an abstract landscape and very restful to look at. But again, the kind of picture a much older man would have.

  Heading back to the staff area, I check out the CCTV room th
at will be my office. It’s everything I could want and more. Top quality comms unit and surveillance: sound and vision from four cameras external to the garage as well as inside, in the elevator and freight elevator, on each floor, and in all the main rooms in the house. No cameras in the bedrooms, the staff quarters, or Anderson’s home office, although there is one at the Penthouse’s foyer.

  If I can work for this guy—which remains to be seen—technically, the job will be a breeze.

  I spend forty-five minutes checking it out, but it’s all adequately secure. I have a few suggestions, but I see signs that tell me Mason’s team has already been out here.

  Eventually, I make my way back to the employee kitchen. The aromas coming out of there are mouth-watering. It’ll make a change from take-out pizza or halal lamb with yogurt.

  “Hello, Mr. Trainer,” says Rachel, when she sees me. “Everything to your satisfaction?”

  “It’s just Trainer. One question: there’s a locked room that I haven’t been able to access. Do you have a code for that? I’d like to check it out.”

  She lowers her eyes, a look of distress on her face. I don’t know what put that expression there, but I can tell that she’s not going to share.

  “That’s Mr. Anderson’s meditation room. He keeps it locked because … well, he keeps it locked. But yes, I have the access code: 6669.”

  Meditation room? Like a yoga studio? Why lock it? What sort of ‘meditation’ are we talking about?

  I head back to the top floor and key in the code. When I open the door, my jaw hits the fucking floor.

  ?!*!!?

  I don’t even want to walk inside, but I do because that’s my job and I’m a professional.

  But this room … it’s definitely not for yoga. Kama Sutra maybe, but in any case, definitely an Aladdin’s cave of twisted fuckery. There’s equipment here that I haven’t even seen in porn movies, and when you’re on a boring-ass deployment in the sandbox, you watch a lot of porn.

  Whips, belts, canes, paddles, floggers, a cat o’ nine tails, even what seems to be a whipping bench with polished leather upholstery. But as I make a mental inventory, I realize that’s it what I don’t see. No cuffs or restraints, no bed, nothing that invites … participation. The emphasis is on self-flagellation.

  There are no windows, no daylight, just one bare bulb glowing a sickly yellow, and the dry-walling has been painted an institutional gray.

  Nailed to every square inch of wall are pieces of paper, some handwritten, some printed from a computer.

  I move closer to read the words.

  Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

  Galatians 5:19-21

  You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

  Leviticus 18:22

  Do you approach males among the worlds. And leave what your Lord has created for you as mates? But you are a people transgressing. Indeed, I am, toward your deed, of those who detest it.

  Quran, Sura 26

  There’s more of the same from various religious texts, most of them fire and brimstone, denouncing the sins of the flesh, several of which I personally enjoy.

  But my eyes are drawn to a piece of paper above the whipping bench and I peer through the gloom to read it.

  The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

  I don’t know who this Henry David Thoreau dude is, but I wouldn’t invite him to my party.

  As I turn to leave, I read the largest banner, strung together with several pieces of paper:

  For sin, seizing the opportunity deceived me, killed me. It is no longer I that work it out, but sin that dwells in me.

  Romans 7

  And in foot high letters, scrawled in red paint:

  DEVON : DEV-ILL

  I stand in that dark, dismal room, a cloud of misery clinging to me. This lair out of place in Anderson’s bright, white building and yet, I suspect it’s the room that matches him the most. And that is very fucked up.

  So that’s it. Anderson feels guilty for being gay. Maybe his parents are religious types, although Mason didn’t mention anything. But whatever has caused it, this guy is a twisted son-of-a-bitch who gets off on his own pain. No wonder he’s prepared to pay top dollar for me to keep his secrets.

  I knew men like that in the Marines: guys who’d stub out cigarettes on their skin. They’d say it was for a dare, or that they were testing themselves, but those were lies. They did it because they needed it. Like Anderson, I’m guessing. But if I’m wrong and he’s bringing other people in here, I’m going to have to get one thing straight: if there’s anything illegal or underage going on, I’m out of here.

  Obviously, Rachel knows and it definitely seems to bother her. Shit! Maybe she and Anderson…

  No, Mason said he was gay, so I try to drive the thought out of my head. I can’t imagine the prim and proper Ms. Smith in here, although everyone has secrets. No. I have to talk to Anderson himself about this.

  I return to the kitchen.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” Rachel says softly. “Well, I suppose it is … Mr. Anderson has a lot of … issues. He seems to be a pleasant young man, but, well. I really don’t know what to say.”

  Her voice drops to a whisper.

  “Sometimes he whips himself until he bleeds.” She swallows and looks away. “That’s not normal, is it? But … I think other things happen when he goes to the Farm.”

  I’m trying to keep up, but she’s not making it easy.

  “The farm?”

  “That’s Mr. Anderson’s weekend retreat in Sagaponack on Long Island. I don’t go there.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  Her cheeks turn a delicate shade of pink and she shakes her head.

  “Never.”

  Hmm. Why wouldn’t Anderson send his housekeeper to his weekend home?

  “I haven’t had anything to do with the Farm or Mr. Van Sant.”

  Discreet, Rachel, very discreet. She’s told me everything and yet nothing. But something about the boss’s farm bothers her.

  I’ll know more when I check it out for myself. I could ask Anderson, but I’d prefer to come to my own conclusions, especially given Rachel’s odd reaction.

  I had a client once who was into pothead male prostitutes and dives on the wrong side of town. No way I can do close protection for someone like that, someone who likes the danger.

  Anderson’s addiction is of a different kind, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any safer or easier for me to do my job. Does he go to S&M clubs? Are there boyfriends? Because all of this makes him a target for blackmail. Okay, so he doesn’t have a wife to worry about, but he does have a family; and even though he doesn’t have shareholders, he still has customers who buy his products. And in the competitive world of business, reputation is everything.

  I wonder who else is in on his secret lifestyle? Ms. Smith, obviously. But his family? Maybe. Anyone else? The more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to be discovered.

  I rub my forehead—this job just became a whole lot harder. I’m beginning to understand why Anderson needs to pay the big money to his CP team.

  I go sit in the CCTV room and think about what I want to say to him. I see on the monitors when he’s on his way, so I’m waiting, standing to attention when he walks into the Penthouse’s foyer.

  “Trainer.”

  “Sir.”

  He’s ringing with sweat after what must have been a punishing workout.

  “Debrief in ten minutes,” he says.

  “Sir.”

  He pulls off his t-shirt as he strides towards his room and wipes his face with it. And I stare—I can’t help it. Because his back is crisscrossed with scar tissue: dozens and dozens of raised, painful-looking welts, on top of paler scars. The
y’re on his back and chest. I’d guess that they were caused by a leather belt—one with a buckle. But they’re old, healed for a long time. The fresher ones are pink and slightly puckered, newly healed. Shit. The guy really likes pain … or needs it.

  It gives me another piece of the puzzle. I shake my head. I’m finding Anderson too interesting. I just need to do my job.

  I wait a few minutes and then head to his office. I stand with my hands behind my back, head up, eyes front. When Anderson enters, he’s casually dressed in jeans and a loose shirt, and his hair is wet from the shower. His feet are bare, and the message is clear: I-don’t-give-a-fuck-what-you-think-of-me.

  I’m older than him by three years, but he’s going to be my boss. Maybe. So it’s a power play of sorts. But in the Marines, you take orders from your C.O. even if he’s a wet-behind-the-ears dickhead, right out of officer candidate school.

  He points to a chair, and I sit while he positions himself behind the enormous desk.

  “You’ve had a look around the place?”

  “Yes, sir. No access points of concern. I might need to adjust a couple of the CCTV cameras for better coverage and I’d like one more camera in the garage, and two external ones at the rear of the property.”

  “Fine. Anything else?”

  He raises an eyebrow. The bastard knows what I’m going to ask him. He’s waiting for it.

  “Your meditation room, sir. I have to know that what goes on in there is legal and consensual.”

  “It’s for personal use only. Occasionally … very occasionally, I’ll invite a … special friend to join me.”

  Can I take him at his word? I think I’d rather see for myself. Well, not all of it and not in use.

  He pauses again.

  “Any more questions?”

  “Mason said you’d had some low level threats: were any of them trying to blackmail you?”

  He hesitates, considering my question.

  “No.”

  “But blackmail is a possibility,” I state.

  He sighs and leans back in his chair, his eyes tired.

  “Possible but unlikely. My sexual partners all sign NDAs and…”

  I interrupt for clarification.

  “All?”

  He gives a cool smile.