Sleeping With My Boss: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (A Dirty Office Romance) (112 page)

CHAPTER
FOUR

ADAM

  
The
rest of my day after I finally manned up and told Alicia I wanted to take her
out to dinner flew by. It dawned on me all at once that I was sick to death of
sneaking around like I was cheating on someone. My marriage with Marjorie had
been over for years before we finally separated. We had been separated for six
months before Alicia and I ever started seeing each other. We weren’t doing
anything wrong, and I was tired of feeling like we were. Besides, the thoughts
I’d had this morning about Alicia getting tired of it all and leaving me had
haunted me all day. It would crush me to lose her.

I was buried in paperwork when I finally
pushed it back across the antique oak desk and decided to call it a night. So
far, there were thirteen plaintiffs in the case against Brigham Oil, and the
numbers grew daily. They were being sued by the EPA for unsafe practices, by
several local fishermen that were claiming lost revenue over not being able to
fish in the waters after the spill, by a representative of people from a
village in the area that were not able to drink the water, and the list went
on. I had actually begun to worry that it may have been a mistake to take it
on. But, tonight was about me and Alicia. I wasn’t going to allow Marjorie or
Brigham to ruin it for me.

My penthouse is on Fifth Avenue, quite a
ways from the office. I keep suits at the office, though, so I grabbed one out
of the closet and used the executive lounge to get ready for my night out with
Alicia. She’d left me a message that she was leaving about an hour before. I
felt a little silly at my age, but I was really excited about taking her out.
It felt like a first date. At forty years old, I was damned lucky a young,
beautiful woman like Alicia wanted me. I knew that I had to do this more often,
she deserved it and if I didn’t start, she’d find someone that would. I wanted
her to finally be able to stop feeling like the “other” woman, although that
was never really what she was.

When she opened the door to her apartment,
my mouth went dry. I almost forgot how much I wanted to take her out and took
her to bed instead. She had her auburn hair down and curled around her face. It
brushed against her soft bare shoulders and the thin straps of the dark
burgundy dress she was wearing. It was cut conservatively, but it accentuated
every one of her hot curves. It stopped just above her knee and also showcased
her long, shapely legs that ended in a pair of matching stilettos on her small,
sexy feet. I pictured them up on my shoulders in those shoes while I fucked her
and my cock did a dance in my pants.

“Wow, you look amazing.”

She actually blushed. “Thank you, so do
you.” When she turned to get her bag, I saw the back of the dress was wide open
to her waist. I had no idea how I was going to keep my hands off of her in
public half the night. We’d have to eat fast. She grabbed her bag and coat, and
I put my hand against her bare back and led her into the elevator. It took
every ounce of impulse control I could muster not to take her down and fuck her
right there and again in the Lincoln Town car. I was actually almost relieved
to see how busy Romaletti’s was. It would make me behave, at least.

Marco, the grandson of the original owner,
came out to greet us. He was a client of our firm and ever since I had saved
the restaurant from a bogus lawsuit a few years earlier that could have put
them out of business, Marco treated me like a visiting dignitary when I came
in. “Mr. Hanson, so very nice to see you,” he said in a thick Italian accent,
“and who is this ravishing young lady?”

“Marco, this is my girlfriend, Ms. Alicia
Winston,”

Marco took Alicia’s small hand in his
large arthritic one and brought it up to his lips, kissing the back of it
gently. With a bow, he said, “Welcome to my restaurant, Bella. Please, choose
anything you would like from the menu and I will make sure it is cooked to
absolute perfection for you and Mr. Hanson, and tonight is my treat. Come,”

We followed him to a table across the
room. In the center was a “Reserved” tag. It sat next to a large, picture
window that looked out onto a small man made pond. Marco kept the pond stocked
with gloriously-colored Koi fish and ducks and a gaggle of swan glided across
its mirrored surface.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Alicia said as Marco
held out her chair for her to be seated. She looked out on the pond and watched
in fascination as the moonbeams danced off the surface and the colors of the
Koi underneath glimmered like a rainbow.

“It’s my pride and joy,” Marco said before
leaving us to get our waiter. He bowed at the waist once more before going and
said, “If not for Mr. Hanson, it would have been lost to me. Please, enjoy
yourselves tonight.” We thanked him again as he left and our waiter approached
with a wine list right away.

I looked at it and then told Alicia, “I
don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood for a real celebration tonight.”

She readily agreed, and I ordered a bottle
of the restaurant’s best champagne. The waiter returned promptly with a bottle
and two flutes. He filled Alicia’s and then mine and then handed us both a menu
before setting the bottle back in the brass ice bucket and leaving us to make
our choices. I picked up my champagne glass, and holding it up in Alicia’s
direction, I said, “To us.” She picked hers up and clinked it to mine and said,

“To us.”

We sipped our champagne and after ordering
our meals, we talked about Alicia’s parents’ upcoming visit to the States. It
was so nice to be out in public with her and talking about things that had
nothing to do with work at all. When our food came, we indulged in rich,
homemade bread and the fabulous pasta and steaks that Marco had made just for
us. Afterwards, even though we were both so bloated we could hardly move, we
shared a piece of cheesecake.

Once we were both uncomfortably stuffed,
we decided we needed to walk some of it off. Marco let us out the side door and
we took a stroll around the pond in the moonlight. Alicia was as excited as a
child as she pointed out the multi-colored Koi and the beautiful white swans. I
smiled as I watched her pretty hazel eyes dance. I wanted to make her happy
like that forever. She made me feel young again, and she was everything that I
had always wanted in a woman.

I knew now that Marjorie had been a
terrible mistake, and often wondered what had taken me so long to realize it.
Marjorie is, was, and always will be a social climber whose name and position
on the social registry was more important to her than anything else. Standing
here next to Alicia, watching her revel in the beauty and wonder of something
as simple as a bunch of fish and some ducks, made me love her more than I had
ever thought possible. Surprising even myself, I asked her,

“How do you feel about ice skating?”

“Really?” Alicia almost squealed. “I love
to ice skate. I haven’t been for years!”

“Let’s go then,” I told her with a smile.

We went back inside to get our coats and
thank Marco. I tried to pay our bill, but Marco said he would be insulted at
the very thought of accepting my money. After helping Alicia on with her coat,
I dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the table for the waiter and we stepped
outside into the frigid cold November night. The driver had the seats of the
car warmed and the heater on before we got in, so the ride to Rockefeller
Center was warm and cozy. Alicia rode snuggled in the crook of my arm until the
huge lighted tree came into view. She sat up and like a child at Christmastime,
pressed her face to the window to look at it.

“I love the tree!” she exclaimed with pure
delight. “When I was a girl, I used to watch the lighting of the tree on
television with my mother. I just knew I’d live here someday when I grew up.
Mother cringed every time I would mention it.”

“I’ll bet they miss you.”

Alicia turned to look at me. “They do, and
I miss them so badly sometimes. But this place, New York, it’s in my blood now.
I don’t think I could ever live anywhere else. I can’t wait to see my parents
when they come to visit, though, and introduce them to you!”

“I hope they’re more pleased with your
choice in men than they were with your choice of cities to live in.”

Alicia laughed and said playfully, “Me,
too.”

The driver stopped near the ropes that
framed the entrance to the frozen pond sitting in the shadow of the gigantic
Christmas tree. Alicia and I made our way to the kiosk where we could rent our
skates. On the way, I bought us a cup of hot chocolate from a vendor. “Are you
warm enough?” I asked her.

“I’m freezing,” she said with a smile,
“but I don’t care.”

I laughed and said, “Come on, let’s go
stand by the bonfire while we drink this, maybe you’ll defrost a bit.” We stood
near the roaring outdoor fire, sipping our chocolate and listening to the
sounds of the live band that played near the Christmas tree and the people
having fun all around us. I pulled Alicia up on her tip-toes and kissed her
softly on the lips. “You ready?” I asked her.

“In a minute,” she said. She went back up
on her toes and kissed me again. This one was longer, and deeper. “Okay,” she
said, pulling back and leaving me breathless after a minute, “I’m warm now.”

I was just plain hot. She made my blood
boil with desire every time she touched me. I tried to will my rising erection
down as I took her by the hand and led her to a bench where we sat so we could
put on our skates. There was a little stand nearby and I ran over to it quickly
and bought her a pair of furry gloves and a scarf.

 
“Thank you,” she told me. “But what about you?
You don’t have any gloves.”

“You’ll just have to keep me warm,” I told
her. We finished putting on our skates, and I led her out on the ice. I hadn’t
been skating in a long while, but it came back quickly. Alicia was doing well,
too. We held hands and skated around the oval rink, watching the young children
all bundled in their colorful parkas, falling down and getting right back up
with a smile on their faces.

“This reminds me of a pond near the royal
property back home. My father had permission from the crown to fish there. He
took me skating there a few times when I was little.”

“Did you ever meet any of the royal
family?”

“No. My mother is distant cousins with the
queen, but too far removed for us to be considered ‘royals.’ Mum and Daddy
still cling to the titles, though. It’s kind of embarrassing for me.”

“I wouldn’t be embarrassed by it. We have
a right to be proud of our heritage, don’t you think?”

“I do, I just don’t like all the snobbery
that comes along with it.”

It was amazing to me. A woman like
Marjorie who came from practically nothing with an entitled and superior
attitude and a woman like Alicia who had every reason to be a snob and wasn’t
in the least.

We skated until we both had to finally
admit our legs had probably had enough for one day. It was getting late, and we
had both worked a long day. It was the best time I’d had in a long time,
though, and as much as I wanted to get her home and make love to her, I was
still reluctant to see it end.

When we were back in the cozy warmth of
the car, she said, “I can’t even begin to thank you for tonight. I had such a
good time.”

“I should be thanking you,” I told her.

“For what?”

“For being so patient with me this long
and sticking around, and for giving the things I grew up looking at every day a
fresh new look for me through your pretty eyes. Thank you, Alicia, I mean it.
Tonight was great and we are going to have a lot more great times to come. I
want to experience everything I’ve never done and even things I have with you.
You see the wonder in everything like a child, but yet here you are, a sexy, beautiful,
intelligent woman. You’re an enigma.”

She laughed and said, “I’ve been called a
few things in my time…” and then added, more seriously, “I want to see
everything with you; I want us to see everything together.”

I pulled her to me and we kissed passionately,
finally coming up for air as the car pulled up in front of my building. The
doorman opened the car door and helped Alicia out and held the door open for me
as he greeted us both. He called the elevator down for us and said goodnight as
he pushed the button for the top floor. Alicia and I kissed again in the
elevator, and we were still kissing when the doors slid open. I walked us out
backwards to the penthouse door and held her against it while I slid the key
into the lock. I tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t turn. What the hell? I tried
it again, it was like I had the wrong key, but I knew this was the right one.

“Is something wrong?” Alicia asked.

“I’m not sure. My key isn’t…” The door
flew open, and Marjorie stood there in a silk robe and a diamond necklace that
I’d bought her for our fifth anniversary.

“Can I help you?” she asked, smugly.
   

“Marjorie, what the hell is going on?” I
felt the anger surging through my veins. I hated this woman with a passion. I
despised myself for marrying her in the first place. The tight-faced bitch
looked at Alicia, running her eyes down her disdainfully…how dare she? Marjorie
looked back at me and in a nasty tone she said,