Saving Lena [Ashcroft Security 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
Ashcroft Security 1
Saving Lena
Three men bound by honor, one woman trying to survive in a world she never knew existed, and a world of bad men out to get her.
Melvin Ashcroft, R.J. Blackmore, and Harold Klien are the owners of Ashcroft Security. Lena Scott is unemployed, desperate for a job, and frantically trying to prove herself innocent of crimes she didn't commit. Is it fate that brought the four of them together?
Lena didn’t know how much trouble she was in or how badly she needed help but falling in love was never part of the plan. When all evidence points to her guilt will the men believe the proof in black and white, or will they trust their hearts? Can evidence even be found to dispute the case against her?
Saving Lena, the first story in the Ashcroft Security series by Rose Nickol.
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 38,671 words
SAVING LENA
Ashcroft Security 1
Rose Nickol
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
SAVING LENA
Copyright © 2016 by Rose Nickol
E-book ISBN: 978-1-68295-076-0
First E-book Publication: February 2016
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2016 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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Regarding E-book Piracy
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The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Rose Nickol’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Rose Nickol’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For my best friend and confidant, you know who you are. I don’t know what I would do without you. You listen when no one else is there. Without you my world would be dark and dreary. Thanks for always listening no matter how crazy I get.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the Author
SAVING LENA
Ashcroft Security 1
ROSE NICKOL
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
Lena Scott walked nervously into the office of Ashcroft and Associates. This was her sixth interview this week and she had more that afternoon. She was glad it was finally Friday and that she had no interviews scheduled for the weekend. She had been searching for a job for several weeks, ever since she had been let go from her job as a loan specialist at the bank.
Let go, the politically correct term for fired. The way her supervisor had put it to her was that she was released from her position. She still couldn’t believe they had fired her. It hadn’t even been her fault. Ms. Brighton, her supervisor, had been very kindly to her for the few years she had worked there.
That totally changed after Franklin Franks II, the manager’s son, was finished with her. She had broken her rule of never dating anyone she worked with—Frankie. A rule she had put in place when she was let go from her first job in banking. Frankie had been so convincing and charming, promising everything she wanted to hear. She hadn’t had a clue as to what he was up to or capable of.
Lena wasn’t naive. She knew the score. Frankie wasn’t the first workplace romance she had been involved in. The other one had gone bad, too, and she had been released from that job also. Two jobs in banking in seven years and she was fired from both of them, for the same thing. That was why she was applying for a job in a security agency. She knew absolutely nothing about the security business, but she needed a change. Besides that, none of the interviews she’d had with people in the banking business had been promising.
Twenty-five interviews in four weeks and nothing, not one callback, nothing. Frankie promised to blackball her and he had. Most of the applications she put in were never responded to. She filled out applications day and night on the internet trying to find something. Anything. Her meager savings were almost gone, her car payment was overdue, and she had a box of ramen noodles in the cabinet. Desperate wasn’t the word for it.
Steeling herself for another letdown, she knocked on the door that was simply labeled “Security,” hoping it was the right place. The address was right.
“Come,” a deep male voice said from the other side of the door. Lena wondered what the body attached to that voice looked like. Probably nothing like what her imagination had thought up. No one looked that good. She heard a click and the door swung open. She walked into an empty office and stood there for a moment looking around. “Sit,” the voice said again.
The picture in Lena’s mind became clearer. He would be tall, very tall, and would have wide shoulders, an athlete’s frame, maybe like a football player. A man that knew how to handle a woman.
She could also picture his girlfriend. He wouldn’t be married. He would date a different woman every night and they all would be beautiful, tall, thin, long flowing hair, the opposite of Lena
. Lena wasn’t short at five feet six inches, but slim, no. She had a few extra pounds she needed to drop. Baby fat, her mother called it. She had tried to explain to her mother that most people lost their baby fat before they hit their thirties, but her mother didn’t seem to hear her.
She looked around and didn’t see anything but a small sofa against the wall. She sat on the very edge of the seat and nervously smoothed down her skirt.
The man in her mind would still tower over her, and he wouldn’t care about those extra pounds.
There was nothing but the couch. No table, no magazines, nothing. She took a small mirror out of her bag and checked her makeup and hair. She sat nervously clenching and unclenching her hands, wishing she had thought to stick her e-reader in her purse.
She sat, purse in her lap, her hand fiddling with it for what she was sure seemed much longer than it actually was. After a few minutes she heard a knock at the door. She looked around and didn’t see any other doors except the one she had come in. She wondered why the person who had invited her in wasn’t answering the door.
The knocking continued incessantly until Lena couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t even know if the door would open. Smoothing her skirt again as she stood, she walked over to the door and opened it a crack. “Security,” was all she said.
“Is this the Ashcroft Security office?” The most amazing man stood on the other side of the door. He was tall, several inches taller than Lena, his big frame filling the doorway. His head almost reached the top of the door and his shoulders were so wide he could hardly fit through it. He looked like a weight lifter and it was all Lena could do to keep from drooling at him. It was as if the man from her imagination had come to life. He had dark brown hair and steel-gray eyes that looked as if they could see deep into her soul. A rugged face and strong chin. Not a classically handsome man, but rugged. The look of someone who had seen the best and worst life had to offer. Lena wanted to sit him down and hear his life’s story. It would be interesting, she was sure.
“Yes,” she answered. “The owners are busy at the moment. I’m Lena. I’m waiting for an interview. Are you here on business?”
“Yes,” the man answered and pushed his way into the room.
Lena wasn’t sure what to do and stood watching the man as he made himself comfortable on the couch, right where she had been sitting.
The man patted the seat beside him, silently asking her to sit.
Lena looked around again, and seeing no other option other than standing there like an idiot, she sat on the edge of the couch smoothing her skirt again, a nervous habit she had acquired since she started going on so many interviews.
“So you’re here for the receptionist position?” the man asked.
“Yes, I applied by e-mail and then did a phone interview with Mr. Ashcroft. This is my first time being here.” Lena didn’t know why she was volunteering so much information. She didn’t know this man from Adam, but she felt very comfortable with him.
“So have you done this kind of thing before?” he asked.
“Kind of. I worked in banking for a long time, but I’ve done some receptionist work,” she answered.
“Did you like it?” the man asked.
“Yeah, it was okay. I like getting to know people and greeting people and answering the phone isn’t too hard,” she answered, smiling.
“I guess it wouldn’t be. Why the change? Why didn’t you get another job in the banking industry?” the man asked, smiling back at her.
Lena thought a minute and decided to tell the truth. “The last two jobs I had didn’t work out and I decided it was time for something different. I’ve been looking for a job for several weeks and haven’t had any luck yet,” she answered and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears. She really needed this job and she was about to give in and tell this stranger her life story. Way to go.
“Do you think you’ll like working in the security field?”
This was starting to feel like an interview, Lena thought and wondered who this man was. Maybe it was time to start asking some questions of her own.
“I don’t know. I don’t know much about it. Are you here to hire them for something or for a job?” Lena asked, feeling a little braver.
“No, I’m Harold Klein. I came here to talk to the owners. You can call me Hal,” he answered and lifted his hand to shake hers.
Lena shook his hand. It was so large it engulfed hers and she felt a little spark shoot up her arm as they touched. “Nice to meet you, Hal. If I get the position here, maybe I’ll see you again.”
“Oh, you can bet on it, honey,” Hal answered and his low gravelly voice rumbled through her body.
Lena swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She wished she had a piece of gum or something, but that wouldn’t be very professional.
Lena heard a sound and looked up to see a door she hadn’t noticed before opening. As she looked closer, she noticed it was built into the wall in such a way that you wouldn’t see it unless you knew it was there.
The man that walked out was gorgeous, even more so than Hal. He walked up to Hal and stretched out his hand. “Hal, great to see you again.” He then turned to look at Lena. “Ms. Scott? I assume you’re here for the interview?”
“Yes,” Lena answered. “Are you Mr. Ashcroft?”
“No, I’m a partner of Mr. Ashcroft’s. I’m R.J. Blackmore. If you’ll have a seat, I’ll be right back.” He indicated the sofa and led Hal off to the office.
Lena relaxed against the sofa as she watched the two men disappear behind the door. She felt a shudder run though her body and had a feeling of impending doom, but didn’t know what was wrong.
Chapter Two
R.J. led Hal into his office and closed the door. “Well, what did you think?” he asked as they sat.
“Why all the subterfuge? She’s great, and beautiful. It was all I could do to keep my hands off of her. Her pictures don’t do her justice. Did you listen?” Hal asked.
“Yeah, I heard it all. Mel wanted it set up this way. You know how he can be. You’re right. She’s so much more that her biography and photograph show and I agree, she’s a sub, but may not know it. None of the history I got indicates she’s ever been to a club or dabbled in the lifestyle, though her reading selection on her e-reader tells me she’s interested enough in it. She has over a hundred romance books on the subject. She gave you the same answers Mel got over the phone. Did you read her background?”
“Yeah, girl’s had a rough life. I don’t think either of the positions she had before knew what they had.”
“No, and I don’t believe any of the stuff they tried to say about her. She just doesn’t have it in her to do those things. I think she’s a submissive and that’s why those assholes were able to take advantage of her.”
“Yes, I agree. Now we need to talk about how we’re going to handle her latest problem. Did Mel say why his FBI contact asked us to investigate her?”
“Right. He just said that when he started the preemployment investigation on her they were very interested in her and asked him to forward everything he found on her to them. Do you think she has a clue as to what’s going on?”
“No, I don’t. Let’s get her out of here and see if we can get her talking, then we’ll know more.”
“Sounds good. How do you propose we do that?”
The men finished talking and made a plan then went out to whisk Lena off.
* * * *
With eye candy like that in the office it couldn’t be too bad of a place to work, Lena thought. She just might like this. Hal was handsome in a rugged way, and R.J., wow. He was just wow. Blond hair just brushing the top of his collar. Ice-blue eyes. Handsome didn’t describe him. He was what she pictured a Norse god might have looked like. She could picture women falling to their knees and worshipping at his feet. Yes, she was at the head of that line. She could think of at least one other thing she would do while on her knees in front of him. She’d slowly release his
zipper. His cock would be so hard she would have to go slowly to keep from hurting him. Once she had him freed from the confines of his pants, she would try to wrap her hand around him, but he would be too large for her fingers to touch. Taking that beast into her mouth would take some work, but she could do it.
She let her mind continue to drift while she waited. What would it be like to have the attention of those men? In the few minutes she had been with them she had felt her body flush with heat, and parts she didn’t know she possessed had been starting to wake up. She let herself imagine what they would be like in bed. Her mind was still wandering and when she heard the door open again, she felt herself flush. Stop it, she told herself, they can’t read your mind and have no idea what you were thinking. Smile, be professional. You need this job. Don’t screw it up. Mental talk completed, Lena stood awkwardly in front of the couch, not comfortable sitting down.
“It was good seeing you again, R.J. Call me soon and I’ll bring you the numbers on that deal, but I think I can get my guys to go for it.” The man Lena had been talking to, Hal, slapped Mr. Blackmore on the back and let himself out the door. Just before he stepped out the door, he turned to Lena and winked.
Mr. Blackmore then turned to Lena. “Ms. Scott, follow me.”
Lena glanced once more toward the door Hal had just walked out and followed R.J. into the office. She felt a little like Alice sliding down the rabbit hole, but she wasn’t sure why.
“Have a seat, Ms. Scott.” He indicated a leather chair placed in front of the massive desk, and Lena perched on the edge.