Page 192 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

SILAS

“Silas.” Robert Hyport, the company’s CEO and founder, called to me as I stood in front of the bank of elevators. A ding announced the arrival of one of the cars, but I ignored it and turned to face the older man.

“May we talk in my office?” he asked.

Our meetings were scheduled in the evenings, rather than during the day. A little unorthodox, but everyone involved in the upcoming merger had the day-to-day running of our two corporations to also handle on top of the negotiations.

He held out his arm indicating I should precede him down the hall. For some reason, I felt like I was headed to the principal’s office for a scolding. I hadn’t been in the mood for one when I was a kid and whatever he wanted to talk about could probably wait.

I was going to be late for my cam time with Eve and that took precedence over everything.

He closed the door behind me and went around his desk. “Please sit.”

I did. I knew, as CEO, that one could learn more from keeping quiet. Maybe I learned that back in middle school and Principal Shemanski. Now she’d been a ball buster.

“I see that the meetings are ending early for the third night this week.”

I nodded. “Yes. We’re starting at three instead of four to compensate. I now have a consistent meeting at seven.” With Eve in the cam room.

It might be eight in Hunter Valley, but I was an hour behind.

“Meeting or porn addiction?”

Shit. Shit!

I wanted to freak out, but I wasn’t going to show my hand. I hadn’t yet in any of the merger talks and I wasn’t going to now with this. Although there was a big difference between negotiating a billion-dollar deal and trying to talk my way out of watching porn. “Excuse me?”

“The porn that you pulled up during the meeting and I assume you’re watching every night at seven.”

What I did with Eve in the cam room might be considered porn to him, but it wasn’t. Not to me. It was me and my woman having fun. There was zero wrong with that. Except that I’d been caught.

“That was–”

He held up his hand to stop me.

“I’ve dealt with your father,” he said, his voice more disappointed than angry.

“I knew what he was up to with my secretary and the strip clubs. That was why the sale with him didn’t go through all those years ago.

The deal made sense then and it makes more sense now.

I want to retire and while my son wants to take over, it’s not his dream.

Selling will let my legacy live on and ensure financial stability for generations of Hyports to come. ”

Stability? The merger was in the billion-dollar range. That was really fucking stable.

He was in his late sixties, a similar age to what my father would be now, if he lived. He knew as much, or if not more, about how my father’s extracurricular activities affected his work.

I had no interest in his current assistant, especially since he was a man, but I wouldn’t have gone there anyway. The only woman I wanted was Eve.

Thus, the cam time and my obsession with her.

“Mr. Hyport, I assure you–”

With a quick shake of his head, he said, “Don’t. I heard it with him, and you assured me things were different. That his… behavior died with him.”

I heard the disappointment in his voice.

“It did,” I vowed. “I’m nothing like my father. Nothing.”

I was making that crystal clear with him, even though he’d believed in me enough to begin a new round of sale negotiations now. With me. The new era of James Corp.

“Then explain to me the porn that you pulled up on your phone.” His voice didn’t go up but got quieter.

Not a good sign. “And your disappearance into your office every night instead of finalizing the merger. I expected more from you. Perhaps you’re only more subtle in your behavior than your father was. ”

I swallowed. Shit. SHIT!

Any therapist would say everyone had a trigger, something that poked at a festering, unresolved wound from childhood. Mine? Being anything like my father. Hyport was outright saying we were like father, like son when it was absolutely, completely not the truth.

I did everything, everything, to distance myself from the man and his behavior.

Now, the deal was going to go south because I actually was behaving just like the guy.

Fucking a woman and then playing games with her in a cam room.

If there had been live streaming in my father’s day, I had no doubt he’d have lost a fortune with all the women bleeding him dry for showing off her panties or doing raunchier things.

The only difference was that I wanted Eve. Wanted more from her than a quick fuck or two. Or some sexy fun in a cam room. I was doing it because I was possessive, but I also wanted to give her the money for Steaming Hotties that she wouldn’t accept with the loan.

I wanted all of her, but the merger was the deal of my career.

Fuck!

Hyport was a family man. Married for decades with five grown kids. One of them was the VP.

This deal was over unless I came up with something and something good. Right now.

I’d been caught. I couldn’t tell him what he overheard wasn’t porn.

Especially when they all heard the voice of a woman who said something about a big dick was too much for her virgin pussy.

I also left early each night at the same time as the original porn-watching fiasco to go in the chat room. And to jerk off watching her.

He waited.

“It wasn’t porn. It was my wife.”

He blinked and his mouth parted. I’d stunned him. Not just with the words, but with my tone. No one told me what I did with Eve was wrong.

“Wife?” he asked eventually.

I nodded. Fuck, it was the only spontaneous thing I could think of that would work.

He wasn’t going to accept me, a single man, watching porn.

As if I had to go on the Internet and find nasty shit to get off.

Not after my father. While I doubted my father fucked the assistant during a meeting, I’d actually–and unintentionally–opened a porn site with the Hyport team in the conference room.

Robert wouldn’t be thrilled if I said it had been a girlfriend.

That term made it sound like I was in high school, not thirty-four years old.

And doing sexy shit with a girlfriend wouldn’t play with him.

With five grown children, he probably knew people had sex before marriage, but with my father’s history, he wanted to deal with a guy who was pretty much a monk.

I didn’t blame Robert for any of this. He was right to question and if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t do the deal with him either. But I wasn’t my father.

Therefore, I had to lie. It had to be a wife.

“Yes, we married two months ago.”

A smile spread across his face, and I could see the tension releasing from his body. “I hadn’t heard. No one has, as far as I know.”

He glanced at my left hand which rested on my thigh, searching for a ring.

I shook my head. “It’s been a secret. It was a whirlwind romance, really.”

“I knew Mrs. Hyport was the one for me five minutes into our first date,” he admitted.

“Love at first sight.”

He nodded.

“I’m sure you saw one of those gossip magazines put me as their top eligible bachelors,” I added.

He nodded. It wasn’t part of my CV as CEO, but social media circles cast me as an epic catch for a woman. I wasn’t hard on the eyes and had a huge bank account.

“I wanted to have some time, at least for a little while, with her all to myself before the media learned about it. She’s not used to any kind of spotlight.

” I paused and actually blushed remembering how I’d gotten hard in the middle of the meeting when I pulled up Eve’s live stream.

“I admit, the link she sent me was…” I cleared my throat.

“...a little inappropriate, and for that I apologize. It wasn’t a random woman on there.

It was her. I’m traveling all the time for this deal.

Denmark, Singapore, all over. Well, you know what being a newlywed is like. ”

God, I really fucking hope he did.

He grinned. “We didn’t have cell phones back in my day but when I got home...”

“Right. Right.” I scrubbed at the back of my neck, hoping I looked a little contrite and embarrassed at being caught out. “She, um… runs a coffee shop and seven is the only time we can connect. She goes to sleep early.”

Now it wasn’t any random woman, my imaginary wife was now Eve.

“I see.”

“She called me and obviously expected me to be alone. But I wasn’t and I definitely didn’t expect her to surprise me in such a… private way. Again, apologies.”

“You’re ducking out early every night to talk with her?”

“Yes, sir.” That wasn’t a lie. I was doing exactly that. Just with her on camera in barely-there sweaters and pearls. “As I said, I’ve adjusted the schedule earlier so our meetings won’t be cut short. But my wife… it’s important I–”

“I understand.” He stood and came around the desk.

I hopped to my feet and took my first deep breath in the past five minutes.

“Congratulations then. I shall keep your secret.”

I smiled. Genuinely. Because holy fuck, was that close.

“Please give your wife my best when you talk. In private.”

I nodded, then left, making my way back to the elevators.

Two things came to mind. One, that was fucking close. Two, no way in hell was I telling my sexy virgin librarian the CEO of Hyport wishes us best in our marriage.