Nicolai Powerful Read online

  Contents

  NICOLAI

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  ©

  Chapter One Him

  Chapter Two Her

  Chapter Three Her

  Chapter Four Him

  Chapter Five Her

  Chapter Six Him

  Chapter Seven Her

  Chapter Eight Him

  Chapter nine Him

  Chapter Ten Her

  Chapter Eleven Her

  Chapter Twelve Him

  Epilogue Him

  Epilogue Her

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  © Alice May Ball 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or to any actual events is purely coincidental.

  All the people portrayed in this story are over the age of eighteen, and entirely imaginary. If you think that you know some of them, or that you may be one of them, then you should consider writing fiction yourself.

  Cover Design by Signs of Desire for TzR Publishing

  Chapter One

  Him

  THE HEAVY HEELS OF my hand-made Oxford brogues click on the marble-tiled floor and echo. For my first visit to Sangford Brewen Bairnson’s building, I chose a hand-printed silk Hermes tie, exclusively fashioned for me in Saint Petersberg, perfectly knotted and pinned with a sapphire to my high-collar, tailored Balmain white cotton shirt, and a hand-stitched English Saville Row suit. Walking tall and proud, I stride across the reception area of the old and respected finance corporation’s home office as if I own it. Which I do. As well as the bank itself.

  Given the purpose of my first visit, I want everybody to know that I’m here.

  Heads turn. Talk lulls. Younger men stop what they’re doing. They turn, stand up straight and watch, all hoping to catch my eye. All the young women turn their attention to me, too. Beautifully dressed and presented, every one of them is a graduate from MIT, Stanford, or Oxford.

  Their eyes gleam and sparkle as each one stands tall and lifts her chin. Lips are hopefully wetted. I’m here for business. I don’t have time for any of that foolishness. They’re wasting their time, but it establishes my power. I’ll let them find that out in their own time. My mission is not to guide or instruct them. Only to own and command them.

  I inherited the global corporation on my father’s passing. I never wanted it. Money markets, trading, finance, and financial services all bore me to death. I never wanted any part in the business. But since the corporation is my responsibility, I will know every nook and cranny of it. I scrutinize every column in every balance sheet, and I will tune every operation, large or small. Every part of the business will run precisely as I dictate it.

  I took the trouble to visit every corporate headquarters in the global network and school them. The Moscow, Berlin, Paris, and London divisions all function perfectly now. In each location, I showed myself to the entire staff, left them in no doubt that I am the commander and final authority over all of the businesses.

  Every executive, every clerk understood that I know what I’m doing, and they’ll do the business my way or they’ll look for work elsewhere. Face-to-face meetings with the Chief Financial Officers and Chief Operating Officers were enough to make my position absolutely clear.

  In the end, only a few of them needed to be fired. That made for easier transitions.

  I left the American division of the business until last. It is an anomaly. The operation is out of line with the corporate structure I require. In the Wall Street building, the trading floors and client portfolio managers have too much independence. Clients have way too much sway over how their financial services operate.

  Sangford Brewen Bairnson will not serve the market, it will dictate the market. That is what I am here to establish.

  Nevertheless, this is the most profitable arm of the corporate family. I will learn what makes the business so very ripe and fertile here, and I will pump that back into the wider corporate culture.

  Everybody else enters with a card through the brass and steel turnstiles. For me, a uniformed security guard opens the gate personally and steps aside, inclining his head to usher me in.

  He is Stephen Crowder. Before he came here, I know that Stephen spent ten years in service in an elite special forces group. I will meet him separately from the other staff.

  Crowder stands by the executive elevator, holding it open, waiting for me. I thank him by name.

  He inclines his head as I step onto the thick carpet in the dark, polished wood and brass car. The hushed and sleek elevator’s copper doors slide smoothly shut.

  But a small, female hand jams between them. The doors sigh as they slide open. I am aware of scowling as I watch the smiling, bouncy blonde shove her hurried way into the car, precariously balancing a large paper coffee cup with a loose top.

  “Oops!” She beams up at me. ”Didn’t know there was anyone in here!”

  The doors slide shut again behind her. She leans forward, extending her free hand while she juggles her purse, a laptop bag and her coffee cup with the other arm.

  “Good morning.” Her smile is as bright as a summer morning. “Who are you?”

  Maybe the unexpected upward movement of the car, more likely the darkening look on my face, makes her balance shake. The lid of the coffee cup wobbles.

  I tell her, “Perhaps you don’t know that this is the executive elevator.”

  Her hand is still extended. “Of course I do, silly. That’s why I’m in it.” Her smile broadens.

  For her insolence, I have an urge to discipline her. Firmly.

  “You are not a board member,” I tell her.

  She shakes as she giggles. The lid is slipping on top of her cup. “How do you know?”

  “I am Nicolai Stravinski-Romanoff. I own the corporation. And you are not a director.”

  “No,” she sniggers, “No, I’m an intern.” My cock is so hard and thick right now, I could beat her with it. Her eyelids flutter and her soft tits shake as she giggles again. “I’m headed up for the indoctrination.”

  “We’re taking you onto the director’s floor to indoctrinate you?”

  She’s laughing again, “No, silly. I’m indoctrinating the directors.”

  “An intern is going to brainwash the Board of Directors? This should be funny.”

  “Alas, no. It’s all business. It’s the new UI rollout. The UX is transformed and we need everyone to be across the CRM and CSM implementation.”

  “I have no idea what the fuck you even said, much less what you’re rambling about.”

  “Oh. Well, you’re going to learn a lot then. It’s all for you.”

  “I’m not going to learn anything. I’m not spending my time listening to buzzwords and acronyms.”

  “Um, I think you have to. It’s a board-level order. The training is a requirement.” She sniggers some more and her body shakes. Her round and generous tits bounce in a way that’s alarmingly appetizing. “EOs are coming in from all over the world. the CFO is leaving his yacht in Mustique. The COO—”

  “STOP! It’s enough that I have to speak English while I’m here. Don’t give me any more of your fucking bullshit management initials and code-speak.”

  The girl is too young and too bouncy to be focusing herself on such dreary nonsen
se.

  “I’m sure what you really want is a white wedding. Bells on Sunday and a big church, cascading with flowers. Arriving in a horse-drawn carriage, with a huge party afterwards in a marquee on a lawn.”

  She laughs. Her laugh is unsettling and infectious. “A train of maids of honor, tossing an enormous bouquet over my shoulder.”

  “That is what you want, isn’t it.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “I’m sure that’s what you dream about.”

  When she throws back her head to let out a peal of laughter, I’m nervous about her coffee, but I’m watching the warm shake of her breasts and the lovely stretch of her throat. Her eyes gleam. “Yeah. Then I wake up screaming in a cold sweat.”

  The car stops. We have reached the directors’ level at last. The penthouse office suites. The doors swish open behind the girl and, waiting in a line in the corridor are all twelve of the senior directors, all splendid and at their most imposing, doubtless in their best suits for the occasion of my arrival.

  The corner of the girl’s eye must have caught the waiting wall of directors. She spins, grinning and chuckling. As she does, her balance shifts. The coffee cup unbalances. Turning quickly again she straightens her arm to rescue it. She swivels back toward me.

  A thick, milky foam, richly dusted with cocoa powder, bursts up from under the plastic lid and out. Chasing behind it like a wave leaping after the white surf, the hot, dark coffee splashes to paint itself on my tie, my shirt and my suit coat.

  Chapter Two

  Her

  THE LOOK ON HIS face is priceless. I wish I had my phone out. I would love to keep a picture of that look. He’s a great-looking man, too. Fabulously well-built. Marvelously distinguished. He has an aura of power. Only an older man can ever really carry that off.

  He’s so strict, it’s funny. And wildly sexy. I’ve been drenched since he started telling me I shouldn’t be in the elevator. I thought he was going to spank me. What an idea! Shame he is so much older. That hasn’t stopped me getting distinctly inappropriate feelings, way way down below.

  I drop delicately to a crouch, as delicately as I can, to put down the coffee. Although, the cup’s almost empty now. He’s wearing most of the coffee. On that beautiful tie and his lovely shirt. I get back up, stretch toward him. With a wad of tissues from my purse, I started to dab at his shirt. It’s really soaked.

  I look up into his eyes. They’re pale blue lamps of liquid magnetism. I feel a thud, deep in my core. But he looks so serious.

  It’s really hard not to giggle.

  He leans forward. His rich dark scents cloud my senses and his voice, low and deep, curls like hot smoke in my ear. “I should spank you for that.”

  My panties are soaked. My thighs zing and my ass clenches.

  I’m dabbing at his beautiful shirt. Behind it, I feel the hot ridges of muscle so hard, it’s like he’s sculpted out of granite.

  He brushes me aside, roughly.

  “I think you’ve done enough damage.” The power of his voice sets off little electric charges all over my body. I mean, he’s a total ass. But, what an ass.

  He looks around, scanning the directors. “You.” He points at Marcus Shankman, the most distinguished member of the board. Nicolai tells him, ”You’re about my size. I assume you keep spare shirts in the office?”

  “Usually, I do,” Shankman responds with his rich, smooth New England vowels, “But I’ve been on my yacht, sailing, and I took all of the spares with me.”

  Nicolai’s eyes narrow. He’s clearly annoyed. I don’t believe Shankman, either. He doesn’t want to give one of his shirts to his new boss. Nicolai’s response is hard and demanding. It makes me vibrate inside. ”You have a secretary or a PA?”

  Shankman nods, “Yes. Of course.”

  “Have them get me a shirt in your size. Right away.”

  Shankman is obviously shaken. He hesitates, “Of course.”

  Nicolai is undoing his tie. “Give them this.” He holds up the tie to Shankman, who reaches, uncertainly, to accept it. “And this.” He takes a wallet and phone from the pockets of his suit coat and slips them into his pants pockets before he hands over the jacket. “Have them get the coat dry cleaned by experts. Today.”

  Meekly, Shankman accepts the jacket. He turns to leave with the coat and tie. He obviously doesn’t want to be seen putting them down.

  “Wait.” Nicolai instructs him.

  The whole Board of Directors, but especially the Chief Financial Officer, Helena Martenssen, all watch with intense interest as Nicolai pops his shirt cuff links, drops them into his pants pocket, then, one by one he undoes his shirt buttons.

  He pulls the shirt off and reveals a dark bronzed body that a prizefighter would be proud off. He’s inked with elaborate and immaculately executed tatts. Long swirls of symbolic knots, chains, and symbols trace his glistening bulges. The man is built like a Greek god or a superhero.

  Standing in just his pants and his shoes, wearing only an Aviator watch and a heavy silver chain, he holds the shirt out to Shankman. “Throw this in the trash.”

  It draws a long, suppressed sigh from Helena Martenssen. I catch a glimpse of her eyes, sparkly and glittering as they flicker over the heroic bulges of his magnificent torso.

  His shoulders flex as he looks around, still clearly angry.

  “So,” he thunders, “It seems we are to be in your hands,” and he looks down at me. “I hope you handle the meeting better than you handled your coffee cup.” As an afterthought, he calls after Shankman, “Get a coffee brought for the intern, too.” Then to me, “Tell him what you want.”

  I have to clear my throat to find my voice, and I feel like my composure is scattered over the floor like the petals of a flower in a hurricane. Shankman is looking at me from halfway down the corridor.

  Pulling myself together as quickly as I can, I say, “Double latte with French vanilla.”

  Nicolai says. “Sounds good. Get one for me, too.”

  Resigned, Shankman asks, “Would anybody else like coffee?”

  Nicolai is stern. “Nobody else lost their coffee. They can all take care of themselves.”

  “We’re scheduled to meet for the indoctrination in the panoramic boardroom, at,” I look at my watch. I look back up across the waiting group, “at about 10 minutes ago.” One or two of the men let out small, unsure smiles.

  Nicolai’s voice booms, “We had better make a start, then.”

  He looks down at me. “Lead the way, Ms. … I assume you have a name, intern?”

  “Laurel,” I tell him. My voice is shaking, and when I try to take my eyes off his glistening pecs, they only slide down to his thrillingly defined abs. And the top of his iliac crest… I have to tear my eyes away from there.

  “Laurel,” he repeats. Hearing my name roll in his mouth sets a glow deep down inside me. He registers the direction where my eyes flicked up from. He’s waiting. Like I might add ‘Sir,’ on the end.

  What am I doing, having floods of sexy thoughts about an older man, the boss of the company where I work? How can I even be thinking of anything that would risk my position here?

  If I lost this internship, it would give my father the excuse he’s been waiting for.

  Chapter Three

  Her

  THE PANORAMIC BOARDROOM IS fully glass on three sides and big enough to host a ball. The boardroom table seats thirty. The directors spill in through the double doors and arrange themselves around the table, jockeying for position, as always. Helena Martenssen puts herself at the head of the table, as she so often does. There are two other women directors, and she never misses an opportunity to out-maneuver them both.