Sleeping With My Boss: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (A Dirty Office Romance) (30 page)

Chapter
Nine

Austin

I
scanned the Sydney news as I ate breakfast and was relieved to find that the
labor skirmish hadn't yet made it into the papers there. It gave me hope that a
compromise was still possible and that the construction of the new Marks Casino
and Hotel would stay on schedule.

I dressed carefully in the suit that
Andrew had brought up for me. I wanted to look professional, but not over the
top formal for my meeting with Daniel, and I wanted to be comfortable on the
flight to Sydney. It was asking a lot of suit, but Gucci had never let me down
before and it wasn't about to start today. The suit was a steel blue color with
narrow pants and a fitted jacket. Under it, I wore a shirt a few shades darker
and left the top three buttons open. I hated ties, so I avoided them whenever
possible. Besides, I knew that not wearing a tie would irritate Daniel and I
took every opportunity to do it.

I took one last look in the mirror and
smiled. I looked casual, but in charge, which was exactly the message I wanted
to send. I called down to the front desk and asked them to have the driver
bring my car around as I gulped the last bit of coffee in my cup and wondered
what kind of mood Daniel would be in.

Daniel Wentworth had been my father's
second in command, in much the same way that Bax was mine. Except where Bax was
a Harvard educated economist, Daniel was an old school thug in an expensive
suit and that meant he was far more dangerous. Daniel had done my father's
dirty work as he built his empire, and he'd been handsomely rewarded with
promotion after promotion until he was named the Vice President of Global
Operations shortly before my father died. It was widely assumed that Daniel was
next in line for CEO, but my father's will had upended all of that, leaving
everyone in shock when I was named head of Marks Enterprises.

No one had seen it coming, not least of
which Daniel. In fact, it was so out of the blue that I don't even think my
mother knew about the will before it was read. She and my father had had a long
contentious relationship spanning almost three decades. Despite the fact that
he was three decades her senior, refused to leave his wife, and had left my
mother alone and pregnant at twenty-three, she stayed faithful to him the
entire time he was alive. However, she also kept the secret of my lineage from
me and lied about who my father was. It took me years to forgive her for that.

My father, Austin Edward Marks – or Eddie,
as he was better known – was a tough old man who had worked hard to build the
empire he found himself heading at thirty-five. He was a kid who grew up in the
Bronx and understood the value of hard work, but he also had a knack for
predicting what would be the next big thing and the ability to charm even the
toughest businessmen. However, my father's "charm" was something that
needed backing up by guys like Daniel, and he wasn't shy about employing the
muscle it took to make a deal work. It took my father two decades to build
Marks Enterprises, but once he did, there was no turning back.

For as tough as Eddie was, he also had a
softer side. He loved his family and later, when I learned more about him from
the employees at various hotels and casinos, I learned that he had also loved
my mother a great deal, but had felt deeply guilty about the position he'd put
her in. I still didn't understand why, if he felt so guilty, he hadn't provided
for us during my childhood, but then there were a lot of things about my father
than didn't make sense.

Like why he had appointed me as CEO of
Marks Enterprises in his will.

At the age of eighty-five, my father had
unexpectedly dropped dead of a heart attack on one of his golf courses. He'd
just bogied the ninth hole and later his playing partner would claim that it
was because my father had simply wanted to avoid paying up on the bet they'd
made over who would win the round.

Two days after the funeral, the lawyer had
come to our apartment on Grove Street and sat down to tell us about the will.
He wasn't able to answer any questions about why my father had done what he'd
done, he'd only read the will and let us know that my mother would be the
beneficiary of a life insurance policy that would ensure she was taken care of
for the rest of her life, and that, after a two year period of training, I
would be installed as the new CEO of Marks Enterprises.

To say we were shocked was an
understatement.

It took a while for it all to sink in, but
once the initial shock had passed, I got pissed at my mother for lying to me
for so many years. I didn't speak to her for a week, but when the reality of
what I was going to have to do set in, I knew that I couldn't be isolated from
the one person who knew me best, so I walked downstairs to the kitchen and made
peace with her. And while she readily accepted my apology, she still didn't explain
what had happened between her and my father so many years before. I let it go
and hoped that eventually I'd be able to ferret out the whole story and
understand why my mother had remained loyal to my father for so many years.

I sighed as I slipped into the backseat of
the waiting car and snuck a peek at my phone. I had exactly one hour to wrap
this up and get on the plane to L.A. Meetings with Daniel were always
complicated by the fact that he felt the need to drag several of his men into
them. I preferred to meet one-on-one, but since he was from the old school, I
understood that he still felt like he needed protection. Though what he thought
a thirty-one-year-old like me was going to do to a guy in his late sixties was
beyond me. I just wanted to navigate the waters as carefully as possible and
escape unscathed.

Chapter
Ten

Emily

I
made it to the airport in plenty of time and met up with Trish in the lobby.
She was one of those women that got noticed no matter what she was wearing.
Tall and curvy with emerald green eyes that always looked like she was keeping
a secret, Trish was everything that I wasn't. In fact, I often preferred
standing next to her because it allowed me to disappear in her wake and move
about unseen.

It wasn't that I thought I was
unattractive, it's just that I'd grown up knowing that I was average. Average
looks, average grades, average life – it all inspired me to dream of bigger and
better things, but it never carried the weight of expectation that it did for
my friends who were prettier or smarter. My mother was supportive and kind, but
she never pushed me to excel or stand out, probably because she herself was
someone who had survived by being average.

She'd married my father the year after
they'd graduated from high school. By that time, my father, George Martin,
decided to join the Marines and my mother had accepted the fact that she would
be a military wife, constantly moving from one place to another, never really
setting down roots. She was seven months pregnant with me by the time my father
left for basic training and was grateful that he'd gotten to come home and meet
his newborn daughter before they shipped him overseas. She worried, but knew
that my father was a tough man who would do everything in his power to make it
back to his wife and infant daughter. Apparently, whatever my father was
capable of wasn't enough because he died during a fire-fight in Fallujah just
before my first birthday.

I don't remember the period after my
father's death at all, except for one clear picture I have of being lifted up
by my grandfather to place a small American flag on my father's casket. It
might be that I remember that because the newspaper printed a picture of me
doing it and my mother had it framed and hung it in the kitchen of our small
apartment, but I prefer to think that I actually remember it.

After my father died, my mother took a job
with a local real estate firm and worked as a secretary while she scrimped and
saved enough to be able to put me through college. We didn't have a lot, but
she always made sure we had enough to subscribe to
National Geographic
and every month when it arrived, she would cook
a special dinner and we'd sit down together and learn about all the places in
the world we'd never imagined existed. And, we'd dream about seeing them all.

One of my favorite weekend pastimes was to
take the old
National Geographic
magazines and cut out the pictures of all the places I wanted to visit and then
paste them into a spiral bound notebook my mother bought at the Dollar Store.
By the time I entered high school, I had compiled six travel books and was
actively looking for a job so that I could save the money necessary to be able
to actually visit the places I dreamed about.

One afternoon on my way home from school,
a cute boy from my English class pulled up beside me and asked me if I wanted a
ride home. Unable to believe that he was talking to me, I shook my head and
kept walking. He followed me until he realized that I wasn't going to speak and
then he parked the car and got out and walked beside me. He carried on an
entire conversation for the both of us as we walked back to the apartment
complex where my mother and I lived.

He didn't ask if I wanted him to come
upstairs, he just smiled and said, "Thanks for letting me walk you home,
Emily. It was really nice. I hope you'll let me do it again."

I silently nodded and he smiled, touched
the brim of his Yankees baseball cap, and turned to walk back to his car. It
occurred to me later that I didn't even know his name.

The next day in English, I turned around
to see him sitting behind me. He waved and smiled, but didn't make any
overtures. I figured that he didn't want the other kids in our class to know he
had talked to me, but after class he walked up with a big grin and said, 'Hi
Emily! Can I walk you home again?" in front of a group of the popular kids,
all of who stared at him in surprise.

I nodded and that began a daily ritual of
him showing up wherever I was at the end of the day and asking if he could walk
me home. It took me two weeks to ask his name, even though by then I knew it.

"Tommy Warner," he replied as he
stuck out his hand for me to shake. "It's nice to meet you Emily
Martin."

"Hi, Tommy," I replied.
"It's really nice of you to walk me home."

If I live to be a hundred, I'll never
forget the look on Tommy's face the day I finally spoke. It was one of awe and
surprise, and when he finally spoke again, all he said was, "Thank
you."

"Yo! Princess! Can you hear me?"
Trish snapped her fingers across my face as she laughed and tugged at her cap.
"Emily Warner, where are you?"

"Huh?" I shook my head as I came
back to the lobby of the airport and then laughed a little as Trish huffed at
me. "I'm sorry, I was...thinking."

"You seem to do a lot of that these
days, Princess," she laughed. "You'd better get your head on straight
before we get into first class or else you're going to have a mess of trouble
on your hands. Those folks can be incredibly demanding!"

"Sorry, Trish," I said looking
down at the floor.

"Hey, no need to get all weepy on
me," she said in a concerned tone. "It's okay, I'm just trying to get
you to toughen up so that you can stay in first class with me!"

"I know." I looked up at her
with a grateful smile and shook my head.

"Things at home a little tough?"
she said softly.

"Yeah, just a little," I nodded.

"They always are," she said. And
then raised her voice as she wiggled her butt a little and sang, "That's
why I am a single lady!"

"You're crazy, you know that,
right?" I laughed. Trish was always good at lifting my spirits by doing
something outrageous. Granted, wiggling her butt in a nearly deserted lobby at
six in the morning wasn't highly outrageous, but the gesture was appreciated.

"C'mon, Princess," she said as
she pushed her cap up yet again. "We've got a flight to catch! Race
you!"

And with that, we set off race walking
toward the terminal where we'd catch our flight to L.A. It was going to be a
good day, after all.

Chapter
Eleven

Austin

I
knew the meeting was going to be trouble the minute I walked into the office
and saw Johanna, the receptionist, rolling her eyes as she pointed to the
conference room.

"They're in there," she said
with another eye roll. "I ordered coffee and pastries, but they wanted to
bring their own breakfast. Apparently food from Le Pain Quotidian isn't good
enough for them."

"It's okay, Johanna," I smiled.
"They're old school, you know, Brooklyn Bagels and such? It's hard for
them to jump on board with the new stuff."

"Le Pain is hardly new," she
scoffed.

"I know, but they're old guys,"
I smiled and waved toward the conference room.

"Rude old guys," she said
pointedly.

"What happened now?" I asked.

"The usual," she huffed.
"I've got an Ivy League degree, you know. Just because I also happen to
work hard to maintain a nice body doesn't mean they have the right to treat me
like a bimbo!"

"Crap, I'm sorry Johanna," I
apologized. It pissed me off when the older guys thought that the company was
still stuck in the
Mad Men
era of
sexism and gender privilege and treated women so disrespectfully, but I also
recognized that getting them out of their mindset probably exceeded my
abilities as a boss or even a salesman. They were men's men and I had to
carefully pick my battles, lest I lost the war.

I took a deep breath and then marched into
the conference room calling, "Good morning, gentlemen! It's good of you to
meet me this early!"

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the
king of the hill here on time!" Daniel boomed as he walked around from
where he stood at the head of the table and pumped my hand. "Gentlemen,
our boss has arrived!"

I winced a bit as I shook the hands of the
three men who had accompanied Daniel to the meeting, and then looked around and
asked, "Do you guys have everything you need?"

"Oh yes," Daniel said. "The
little cutie at the front desk tried to sell us on some kind of fancy schmancy
breakfast bread or something, but we set her straight, didn't we boys? Only
Brooklyn Bagels for us! Here, have one, boss!"

I cringed as he held out a bagel the size
of my hand which was loaded with cream cheese, onions, smoked salmon, capers,
and who knows what else. I shook my head. "Thanks, but I ate at the
hotel."

"Aw, c'mon, what are you, a breakfast
pussy?" he boomed as he held out the plate. I could tell that if I didn't
give in on the bagel, the rest of the meeting wasn't going to go well at all.
Give a little and then take a lot – a technique I’d learned from my mentor
Jason Ruston.

I forced a laugh as I accepted the plate and
then took a bite of the loaded bagel. In any other context, it would have been
delicious, but here and now, it just tasted bitter. I washed it down with a sip
of strong coffee knowing that I would appreciate the caffeine later when I had
to drag myself through a long flight.

"So, what can I do for you this fine
morning, Daniel?" I asked trying to get right to business so that I
wouldn't miss my flight.

"Ah, look at him, boys, just like his
old man! All business!" He crowed as he looked around the room at the
bobbing heads of his yes men.

"Seriously, though, I have to catch
that flight to Sydney in an hour, so I want to make sure I can take care of
everything you need," I said.

"That's good, Austin." Daniel's
eyes narrowed as he spoke and I knew this wasn't going to be good. "Fix
the problem with the Sydney crew. We don't need any disturbances on that
project."

"That's my intention," I nodded.
"How can I make things better for you?"

"For me? How can you make things
better for me?" Daniel laughed. "You're always such a giver! Just
like your old man!"

The constant references to my father were
beginning to annoy me because I knew they were designed to dig at my authority,
rather than complement my leadership strategy. I wanted to know what he wanted
and then I wanted to get the hell out of there and get on the plane.

"Daniel, let's cut to the
chase," I said, indicating goodwill with another bite from the bagel.
"What do you want?"

"What I want, sonny boy," he
said seriously. "What I want is the ability to open two new European
casinos this year: one in Paris and one in Berlin. And, I want all of the
expenses approved without all the hassle. I want to have them up and running by
this time next year."

"Daniel, that's asking an awful lot
to open not one, but two large casinos in major European cities," I began.

"Don't bullshit me, sonny," he
growled as his eyes narrowed. "I've been in this business longer than
you've been alive and I know what it takes to get a casino up and running. I
also know that Berlin is ripe for the picking given the fact that there are
only two very small casinos within the city limits. I want to build there and
create a large Marks Hotel and Casino, and I want to do it soon."

"Daniel, I know you're enthusiastic
about staring new projects, but that's going to take some work to secure
permits from the authorities in Berlin, and you know how Germans are about
their buildings," I said wondering what it was he really wanted.

"Oh bullshit, everyone has their
price, and once they name it, we can pay and get started," he said, waving
his hand in a dismissive manner.

"I think you know that it's a little
more complicated than that," I said warily.

"Austin, I'm not going to say this
again," he said in a menacing tone as he rested his elbows on the table
and leaned forward in a pose that was a poor attempt at replicating Marlon
Brando's godfather persona. "I want what I want. Get the permits, approve
the funds, and let me build a casino in Berlin by this time next year."

"Or else what?" I asked.

"I can assure you that you do not
want to know the answer to that particular question," Daniel said as he
gave me a smile that did not reach his eyes.

I stared him back at him for a long time
without looking away, and then said, "I'll get the finance guys to take a
look at it and if it seems like a sound business proposition, I'll get the
permits and you can start hiring the crews."

Daniel gave me a reptilian smile as he
said, "I knew you'd see things my way. I told the boys that you would,
didn't I boys?"

I looked around the room and saw necks
exposed as heads bobbed in agreement, and I knew that navigating this
particular trap would be tricky. I took one more bite of the bitter bagel and
then asked, "Anything else?"

When no one answered, I got to my feet and
held out a hand. "Good to see you, Daniel, as always."

"Oh bullshit, sonny boy," he
responded with a laugh as he grabbed my hand and shook it hard.

I let go and walked out of the room, never
turning my back on the vipers behind me.