Sleeping With My Boss: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (A Dirty Office Romance) (24 page)

CHAPTER 32

Asher

After I'd double-checked that I'd packed everything I
needed, I called Lilah to see that she was on schedule to leave.

“Hey, Lilah, are you and Meghan all set to go? Should my
driver pick you both up from your place, or should he pick you each up from
your own places?”

“I was just about to call you,” she replied. “There's
a problem. Meg can't go; she's come down with something.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah,” she said. “She thought she’d eaten some sushi
last night that was a bit off, and when she got sick for the fourth time at
work this morning, her boss insisted she go get checked out. She says she'll be
fine, but she's stuck in a hospital bed the next couple of days because the
doctor said she was not only dehydrated, but severely sleep deprived.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Do you still want to go? I
can't reschedule it, I'm afraid. At least, not for some time. You know how much
work there is to get done over the next few months, and there are no more
holidays or long weekends for a while.”

“I know,” she replied. “I told Meg I was going to stay
here with her, but she argued with me and insisted I go. So, I guess it’s just
you and me on the flight there. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to keep me busy, even
without Meg there.”

I did my best to remain calm and collected, but
inside, I could hardly wait to have Lilah all to myself on the plane. Even if
it was just for five hours. It was more time than I’d had with her combined in
three weeks.

“Okay, then. I'll send my driver over to pick you up.
Sorry again about Meghan. I hope she'll be all right.”

“She’ll be okay. I’m more concerned about the nurses
who will be taking care of her,” she joked. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

An hour later, we were in the air, just Lilah and me
on my plane. I had employed two private flight attendants for the trip, but
they had been given strict instructions to make themselves scarce unless called
for through the intercom system. They had been doing just that.

As the captain was preparing to take
off, Lilah
and I lounged in our large,
plush seats and talked about how the VIV perfume campaign was going and my
thoughts on opening an office in Europe.

“Would you like a drink to get this little vacation
started?” I asked.

“That sounds lovely,” she said with a smile.

So, I pressed the intercom button.

“What can I bring you, sir?” the flight attendant’s
voice echoed back.

“I'll have a scotch on the rocks,” I said. “Lilah?”

“A glass of wine. No preference. Just surprise me.”

“Coming right up, sir,” the flight attendant replied.

She arrived shortly with the glasses, and I selected a
movie to play on the big screen as we drank. By the time the movie had
finished, Lilah and I had not only finished our drinks, but finished her bottle
of wine and been through an entire bottle of champagne. I was pretty buzzed.
Buzzed enough that the filter on my mouth wasn’t working so great, and I asked
about Savage.

“Lilah,” I said, “I know it's probably not the right
time to talk about this, but… Look, I just have to ask. Savage: you're seeing
him, aren't you?”

A mischievous smile crept over her beautiful lips. “
He
thinks I am.”

I gave her an inquisitive look. “You’re going to have
to explain that one.”

“Look, I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark about
this, but yes, I have been seeing him. However, it’s not what it probably looks
like from the outside. I am actually on a fact-finding mission.”

I was taken aback. “A fact-finding mission?”

“Yep. I'm sure
he
's
behind the leaked
tweet
and the break-in.
And, I've gathered some insight that supports my thought process. I just need
the proof,” she explained.

I felt a surge of satisfaction spreading through me as
she talked.

“Maybe if we combine what you know with what my
private investigator has discovered, we'll can build a solid case against
Savage,” I said. “Please tell me you haven’t put yourself in any compromising
situations, Lilah. I would never forgi-”

“Asher! Of course not! I haven’t even let the sleaze
ball kiss me. He’s lucky I let him touch me at all.”

Relief set in. The last thing I wanted was for Savage
to know anything intimate about Lilah. I didn’t want to share that with anyone,
especially not him.

“I can't believe that you were doing this! You're…you're
something else, Ms. Maxwell. I never should have doubted you.”

“Doubted me? What exactly have you been doubting?” she
asked pointedly, putting me on the spot.

I was pretty quick though, even in my tipsy state.
“That you would even give the likes of Brendan Savage a second thought. I
really should have known you’d have a plan. How’d you get to be so resilient,
anyway?” I asked with a cheeky grin.

“Growing up in a family of boys, without a mother, and
being raised by a distant father. That's
how,
”
she replied. A sad look entered her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “You know I can sympathize, hell,
I can relate. You’re the only person I've ever told about my situation growing
up. Maybe I somehow knew you’d understand.”

“It wasn’t just my childhood,” she said. I was… I was
in love once. Madly in love.”

“Well that's a good thing, isn't it?”

“I suppose it could have been. But it wasn’t. And
heartbreak has a way of making you or breaking you. I didn’t have a choice but
to strengthen my resolve. It was that, or wither in a corner. In the end, love
turned out to be an awful thing.” Her eyes fell to the empty glass in her hand.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, I placed all of my trust in one man. I gave him
my heart, my soul. Everything. And then, one month before we were supposed to
be married, he destroyed me. Told me he'd found someone else. He left, and we
haven’t spoken since. It broke me; it broke me into
thousands of
pieces.

“But it also made me strong, stronger than I ever
imagined I could be. I took all of that emptiness I'd had growing up and mixed
it with the heartbreak, and I used that to focus my energy, my drive, my
motivation. I became fixated with work, with my career, and became absolutely
dedicated to it. And that's what got me where I am now.”

I nodded. “I'm sorry you had to go through that, Lilah.
Do you think…do you think you could ever open your heart again?”

“Maybe. One day. But so far, it seems the past is
always there, always waiting in the background to stir up the doubts. Isn't it
like that for you, as well?”

“It is, sometimes. And there's the shadow of my
father, and how he behaved. The terrible thing he did to my mother. But there
were other things. There was more.”

Tears began stinging my eyes and sadness tightened in
my throat.

“More?”
she
asked gently. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t need to feel like
you have to tell me. That’s personal and private.”

 
My gaze caught
hers and a jolt of something I couldn’t explain shot through me. “Lilah, I
trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone,” I replied, my voice hoarse.

She reached over and squeezed my hand. She didn’t say
a word. She didn’t have to. That one simple touch gave me all the courage I
needed to talk about my father—something I hadn’t done in years.

“My father wasn't just a drunk with a bad temper; he
was a womanizer, too. With his money and his good looks, it was easy for him.
While my mother was pregnant with me, he got another woman pregnant. He paid
her off, paid her to have an abortion and disappear. She didn't even have any
idea that he was already married, and that his wife was pregnant.”

“Wow.
He
sounds
like-”

“He is,” I assured her before she could even finish
the thought. Whatever her thought was, I had no doubt it was still too kind to
describe my father.

“He’s the reason I have never imagined I’d have children
of my own. That’s not the kind of bloodline I want to pass on.”

CHAPTER 33

Lilah

When we touched down in Hawaii, the sun was
shining
and the sea was a deep blue. The Big
Island was green against the ocean; it was as picturesque a setting as we could
have wished for. But my mind was in a different place. I was still trying to
digest just what had happened on the airplane.

One minute, Asher and I had been sipping on champagne,
watching a movie and the next, we'd been baring our souls to each other and
splaying out our deepest, darkest secrets. The things he went on to tell me
he’d struggled with were mind-boggling. It seemed nearly impossible that a
child wouldn’t have been scarred by the things Asher shared with me. Even if he
did have a stable parental figure in his life like his grandfather, he’d had
more than his share of demons to face.

In return, seeing him so vulnerable, I'd been more
open with him than I'd been with anyone ever. Period. Sharing my feelings, my
fears, my issues had never been something I was comfortable with. And maybe it
was the moment or the alcohol, or a combination of the two, but I laid it all
out. And in the aftermath of that, I had to wonder what was going on.

Maybe I was just caught up in the moment, but it felt
like more than that. A little voice in my head tried to convince me it was
fate, but I'd stopped believing in fate a long time ago—the day Jacob ripped my
heart to shreds.

Everything had felt like destiny falling into place
when I'd been with Jacob, it had all seemed like such a fairy-tale. And maybe
it had been, but it was more of the Grimm Brother’s version of a fairytale that
ended with someone having a stake driven through their gut.

No, after that, I'd thrown “destiny” into the trash,
along with love, joy, and a host of other happily-ever-after thought processes.
I'd become someone else after my heart had been broken. Someone colder, more
clinical, calculating, cynical. True, it had been great for my career, but was
life really all about a job? I'd forced myself to believe that it was; how else
could I have gotten over the heartbreak? I never thought I’d find anything, or
anyone, to unlock the person I used to be.

But when I
was with
Asher, all those negative feelings, all the doubt, anxiety, anger, bitterness–they
just evaporated into thin air. And it felt like the old me, the one who had
been hiding in this suit of armor for so long, had finally emerged bruised and
wounded, but intact. Intact, and full of a desire to love, to live, to
experience all the joy and wonder that was to be found in the world once more.

Yet also, the fear remained. Could I take that risk?

Despite the connection and opening up we'd shared in
the airplane, Asher hadn't pushed for anything more. He'd never mentioned
altering the original plan, even though Meg hadn’t been able to make it. We
would still stay in our separate resorts.

And, even though part of me wanted to speak up and
tell him that I would love to spend the entire vacation by his side, I hadn’t
said a word. What I wanted and what I needed weren’t the same thing.

So, we rode to my resort in relative silence, stealing
heated glances. I could almost taste the desire passing between us with every
look. When the car pulled into the resort I was staying at, Asher helped me out
of the back seat and said goodbye with an unexpected kiss on my cheek and
instructions to call him if I needed anything. I smiled politely and waved
goodbye as the limo disappeared down the long driveway. I was on my own.

I checked in to the resort, then went to my suite and
unpacked my bags. Despite the luxuriousness of my surroundings and the beauty
of the secluded cottage Asher had booked for me with its palm trees, private
beach, and swimming pool, I was feeling a little down.

“Come on, Lilah!” I said to myself in the mirror.
“You're at a
five-star
resort in
paradise, with five days of luxury and relaxation ahead of you, and you're
feeling sorry for yourself? Snap out of it!”

But I was struggling. I was—as much as I hated to
admit it—missing Asher. Just like I had been for weeks. Having Meg with me
would have kept me distracted, but without her, my thoughts kept drifting to
him.

However, he seemed to have resigned himself to the
fact that he and I couldn't be together, and he was perfectly justified in
doing so. After all, I'd done everything I possibly could to push him away with
my insecurities and lack of faith in relationships.

He deserved better than that. If he found someone who
could offer him a solid relationship, he deserved her. It was selfish of me to
want him, while simultaneously telling him that we simply couldn't be together.

I stared long and hard at myself in the mirror.
“Damnit, Lilah. If you want him, you should be with him. You can’t expect him
to keep burning a candle for something you keep telling him will never happen.”

I needed another drink. I went over to the phone next
to my bed and ordered a pitcher of Long Island iced tea. It was just what I
needed to get this Hawaiian holiday started.

Ten minutes later, an island native in a grass skirt
knocked on my door and delivered my liquid distraction. I asked her what
activities she could recommend for the afternoon; I needed something I could
concentrate on, something that would take my mind off of Asher.

She suggested snorkeling, which sounded like a pretty
decent idea to me. I called the activities desk and signed up for a session
later that afternoon, then went out
onto
the beach to sip on my Long Island iced tea and tried not to wonder about what
Asher was doing.

***

After a fantastic afternoon of snorkeling and the jet
skiing that the snorkeling guide had talked me into, my head was clearer than
it had been in weeks. I joined some of the other snorkelers for a hearty dinner
by the main pool and returned to my cottage feeling full and content.

No matter how much I didn’t want to, I wondered how
Asher was doing and hoped he was trying to have some fun, too. He’d been more
stressed by work-related issues than I had been. After all, it was his company
and he stood to lose the most had things not panned out in our favor.

As I walked through the front door of the cottage, I
made a beeline for the hot tub I’d been thinking about since before dinner.
After all the water activities of the day, I was tired and knew I’d used
muscles that didn’t normally get so much of a workout. The hot tub was not only
perfect for relaxation, but my muscles would thank me in the morning.

I ordered another cocktail, then started the tub up
while I waited for the drink to arrive. There was a large screen television in
the bathroom, so I started scrolling through the list of movies to watch in the
hot-tub with my soon-to-arrive delicious cocktail. It was exactly what I needed
to wind down and lull me into oblivion.

The cocktail arrived just in time and I was about to
strip down when my phone rang. I'd already called Meghan earlier to check on
her. My first thought was that Ed might be calling to make sure I’d arrived
safely. But when I picked up the phone, it wasn’t Ed. It was a Face Time video
call…from Brendan. I hesitated, not sure if I was up for talking with him, but
decided to get it out of the way.

“Hello,” I answered, turning
on
the video.

“Well, hey there, sexy,” he chimed, grinning his usual
Cheshire
cat
grin.

I tilted my head a bit at the sound of his voice. He
was slurring his words. And judging from the stupid look plastered on his face,
he was drunk. I’d been around him once before when he’d had a few too many to
drink and knew that when Brendan was drunk, he was even chattier than usual. I immediately
knew that I was looking at a prime opportunity to capitalize on his loose lips
and maybe sink a few ships in the process.

“Well, h
i,
yourself, Brendan. How are you?”

“I'm good. I'm great, actually! Yeah, just fantastic!”
He held a beer up in the air to show me. “See?”

“I do see. I also see that you've had a little to
drink, haven't you?” I said with a flirtatious smile. All the while, I was
inching closer to my laptop where I could subtly turn on the video recording
function and record this entire call just in case I managed to get him to talk.

“How did you know? Are you a- a mind reader?” he
asked.

“Maybe I am,” I replied with a cheeky grin. “Or, maybe
it has something to do with the beer you just showed me.”

“Smart and beautiful,” he slurred. “Hey, what are you
doing tonight?” Obviously, he had no idea I was in Hawaii. “Where are you, that
doesn't l- look like your apartment?”

“Now who’s the smart one? I'm at a friend's place.”

“Ohhh. A, uh, a
boy
friend
or a
girl
friend
, huh?” He looked at me with squinted,
curious eyes.

“
Girl
friend
,
from college. Say, your beer looks empty. Why don't you get another one? I've
got a drink here, we can drink together.”

“Well, why don't I just come p-pick you up, instead?
Then we can g-go to my place and d-drink together in p-person.”

“Not just yet, but maybe later. Let's do this first,
then I'll think about coming to your place.”

He smiled. “Okay.”

He put his phone
down
and I heard him stumbling off, presumably to get another drink. While he was
gone, I used the opportunity to set my laptop's
camera
up in a position
so I could record the conversation more clearly.

“There we go, w-where's yours?” he asked when he
returned.

I held up my cocktail and smiled. “Right here. So,
what's new?” I asked, taking a sip of my drink.

“Oh, not m-much. Just some b-boring business stuff.
What about with Lilah?”

“Oh, things are great! Work is outstanding. Our new
campaign at Sinclair is just killing it!” I knew I had to rub our success from
the nearly devastating tweet debacle in his face to get the information I
needed from him, so I continued.

“We are kicking ass and taking names. Of course, I
wasn’t so sure that was gonna be the case. That little act of sabotage someone
tried to pull—it almost sank the company.
Almost
.”
I watched his eyes light up immediately.

“Wait, it did?” he asked, suddenly very interested.

“Yeah. I have to admit, whoever leaked tweet, and then
contacted that blogger… It was kind of genius. And, the way he waited while we
thought the hype had died down before he delivered the last blow that made the
whole thing go viral. Absolutely brilliant, that plan was.

“Hell, it must have been some sort of James Bond
mastermind, and oh my God, James Bond turns me on. Seriously, I'm getting hot
just thinking about it. I wish I knew the guy. I have a thing for brilliant
men.” I winked seductively and took a swig from my cocktail.

“All it took was a little bribe,” he spit out with a
smug grin. “A little bribe to Asher's secretary. Hell, if he
wasn't
such a stingy bastard, maybe that bitch
wouldn't have taken the twenty grand I gave her to leak the tweet. And the
blogger, well, that sap cost way less than that. She's an angry, bitter little
woman…or man, whatever she calls herself. Himself. I don't know. But that one,
it only cost me less than a thousand dollars, can you believe it?

“And, of course, the break-in… Well, I did f-feel like
James Bond when I did that. Yeah, or maybe more like Tom Cruise in
Mission Impossible
. Or Jason Bourne,” he
eyed me with what I’m sure he
meant
to be a seductive stare. It was not. “Does that turn you on, Lilah? Does
it?”
 

My facial expression hardened, and my voice became
cool as ice.

“Are you telling me that
you
are the one who broke into The Sinclair Agency?” I asked,
wanting a point blank confession.

He nodded his head and his smile widened. “Yep. I am.
You like that, d-don’t you? You’re a naughty girl!” he exclaimed with a grin.

“No, actually I don’t like it, Brendan. What I do like
is that you just confessed your crimes. Oh, and did I mention, I recorded it
all? Yeah. I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Savage.”

His face became red with wrath.

“You
bitch!
I'll kill you, I'll-”

“Oh, and you can now add threats to the list. Goodbye,
Brendan,” I said coldly, and with
that
I
cut off the call and immediately blocked his number. I checked the video
recording to make sure it had recorded what I needed and smiled when I realized
I’d gotten it all.

This was big—no, this was
huge
. Asher needed to
know right away.

With trembling fingers, I dialed his number and told
him that I needed to see him right away. He didn’t even question why, said he’d
be over as soon as he could.

He arrived at my cottage half an hour later, and I
could see that he had been in a rush. My heart fired up when I saw him, especially
knowing he’d rushed over without question. The scent of whiskey was fairly
heavy on his breath, so it was likely he’d dropped what he was doing.