The Boss (13 page)

But why would that matter? I shook myself out
of my funk. "Okay, don't laugh. But he wants to do some domination
and submission type stuff with me."

Her eyes grew wide. "Oh my god, why would I
laugh at that? It sounds hot! Are you gonna do it?"

"Yeah. I'll try anything once. And at least I
know he can make it worth my while." I snickered to myself.

"Look at you, all sexually confident." Holli
grinned, showing her perfect white teeth. "So, how does this work,
do you like, get dressed up in leather and beat the shit out of
him, or - "

She caught me mid-swallow from my water
bottle. I almost choked.

"How can you take something awesome and make
it sound so unsexy? But no. He's into being the boss."

"Doesn't he get enough of that all day long?"
She shook her head. "Look, whatever you want to do. I don't think I
could let someone tie me up."

We finished our workout and I headed back to
the apartment to shower and get ready for work. Holli just hit the
showers at the gym, and would head to her shoot. I would never
appropriately disguise my envy that she had a job where it was not
only acceptable, but also preferred, for her to show up looking as
ratty and unpolished as possible. Today, she would be posing for
American Apparel, so the comfy clothes she'd be wearing all day
just added insult to injury.

Hey, you're the one who injured
yourself
, I reminded myself as I slipped my keys into my purse
and left the apartment for work. I really had overdone it, and not
on the elliptical. My inner thighs ached; my voice was hoarse from
enthusiastic overuse, and even my feet hurt from the constant
curling of my toes. It felt wonderfully wrong to strut into work
the morning after fucking your boss, still sore in your muscles and
other parts.

I practically ran to catch the train, and
hurried up to the office. I was later than usual, but I so did not
want to arrive after Neil. I didn't want him to think I was going
to take advantage of him by shaving time off my work day in trade
for sex. Lucky for me, he was actually behind schedule.

I put my coat away and placed the ipad on his
desk, then stopped to dash off a quick message in the note app.

Thank you for the wonderful night. May I have
my panties back, please? I may or may not be wearing any right
now.

I smiled to myself. I totally was wearing
panties under my green pencil skirt, but he didn't have to know
that.

"Excuse me?"

My head snapped up, and I closed the iPad
cover guiltily. "Hi, can I help you?"

The woman standing in the doorway was
basically cool on legs. She wore matte black leather pants, an
artfully faded t-shirt for a band I'd never listened to but whose
name I'd heard everywhere, and a gold fringe necklace. Her skin was
light brown and flawless, and she wore a nude lip gloss to offset
the dramatic look of her heavily lined eyes. She smiled, and she
had the friendliest, warmest smile I'd seen on anyone whose last
name wasn't Osmond. "Hi, human resources sent me up. I have an
eight o'clock interview?"

"Yes, of course." I motioned for her to
follow me back to my desk. I spoke over my shoulder. "I'm sorry,
Mr. Elwood is running late this morning -"

"No, I'm not." Neil's voice held a note of
surprise. He stepped from behind the partition that sectioned off
the coffee counter. He raised his eyebrows as he sipped from a
plain black mug.

I turned to the woman. "Can I get you
anything? Coffee? Water? Soda?"

"No, thanks." She pushed her dark, straight
hair over her shoulder and stuck out her hand for Neil. "I'm Deja
Williams."

"Neil Elwood." He shook her hand and gestured
toward his office. "If you don't mind, I'm going to have my
assistant, Sophie, sit in on the interview. She's been here longer
than I have, and knows better than I do what it will take to
replace her."

I followed them into the office, trying to
mentally control the embarrassed flush creeping up my neck. How
could I have missed that he'd already arrived? I hadn't wanted to
be late, and on top of it, how was it going to look to our
interviewee?
Don't try too hard, she's not going to be that
difficult to replace.
That’s how it was going to look.

Neil paused beside the desk and flipped open
the cover on the iPad. My note still illuminated the screen. I saw
the corner of his mouth twitch as he read it, and it took all my
willpower not to smirk.

His eyes met mine for only a second then his
full attention turned to Deja Williams, who sat in the chair across
from him.

I haven't quite gotten over the cultural
conditioning that makes us view other women as competition. It's an
ugly truth, but there it is. Deja should have been my kryptonite.
She was cool and beautiful and funny. She answered every question
sincerely, but with a warm, safe humor. She was perfect. According
to all my usual math, I should have hated her instantly.

But it was impossible. When Neil asked about
where she'd started in the industry, her answer was, "My plan
originally was to work up from the mail room at
Rock
Monthly
, become a staff writer eventually. Then I realized
writing really wasn’t for me." She told us what she liked about her
last boss: "Margot wasn't too specific, but we were on the same
wave length, and I always made sure I got her what she was looking
for.”

To top the perfection sundae, Deja had to
leave her current job due to her boss stepping down as
Editor-in-Chief of
Rock Monthly
. She didn’t just want the
position I was vacating, she needed it, and she was capable of
doing a good job.

Even if I didn’t stay at
Porteras
, I
wanted to know the job I’d done for two years was taken care of.
She was absolutely the right person to do that. I was convinced of
it.

I think Neil was, too, though he played it
cool. "So tell me, if you were working your way up, why would you
want to take another position as somebody’s assistant?"

Deja shrugged. "I'm good at it. Look, I
believe I should play to my strengths. If I'm the best at what I
do, I'm going to do that, even if it’s in a supporting role."

Then I understood what it was about her I
liked so much. She was like Holli's long lost sister or something.
They both had the same no- nonsense attitude, couched in a likable
personality.

Neil asked her a few more questions, then
Deja shook our hands and I showed her out.

"How do you think it went?" she asked me
bluntly as we stepped into reception.

"If it were up to me, you'd be in." Maybe I
shouldn't have said that. I'd overstepped my bounds. It was only
fair to warn her, "I'm not sure how many other candidates he's
interviewing, though. I'll try to put in a good word."

"Thanks." She beamed her wide, mega-friendly
smile at me, and we shook hands again, because I didn't know what
else to do.

When I came back into the office, Neil had
just gotten himself another cup of coffee, and I frowned at him.
"Are you trying to put me out of a job?"

"Hmm?" He glanced down at the mug in his
hand. "Don't be foolish. If I'm up and about I can get the
occasional cup for myself. What did you think of her?"

I nodded, determined to come up with an
answer that wouldn't seem like I was pushing too hard in any
particular direction. After all, I didn't have to work with her,
not for long, anyway. And while I knew my job pretty well where
Gabriella was concerned, I still had no idea how to be the right
assistant for Neil. But when I opened my mouth, what came out was,
"You have to hire her."

He looked surprised at that. "You liked
her?"

"Didn't you?" Was he crazy? She was amazing.
"I really think she's going to be the right person for the job.
She'll fit in with the people here, but she's not as uptight as the
people here. And she has experience."

"You're lobbying fairly hard for her," Neil
said with a small smile. "Does this mean you're taking the position
in the beauty department?"

"I..." I frowned. I hadn't given him an
answer yet, and he'd interviewed my replacement? Then again, he'd
been planning on replacing me, anyway. "Was this all to force me
into making a decision?”

"No, it wasn't. I swear." He headed to his
office, and I followed him. "You said you didn’t want to be my
assistant, and I agreed, it would be inappropriate. Why, did you
make a decision?"

I leaned against the door frame and cross my
arms. "Yes. I'll take the job."

"Good." He turned on the iPad and lifted it
up, tapping my note on the screen. "The answer to this request, by
the way, is no. And take off the ones you have on."

Oh my god
. Could I do that? I looked
over my shoulder at the glass wall in the outer office. Beyond, in
the lobby, Ivanka was talking into her headset, and the elevator
doors had just opened.

“Not here,” he said, the corners of his mouth
twitching as he suppressed a grin. “Go back to your desk and do it.
I’m not going to take them from you. I’m not starting some demented
collection. I just like the thought of it.”

“How will you know if I’ve done it or not?”
The tip of my tongue darted out to touch my upper lip as I smiled
at him.

“You never know, Sophie. I might check.”

The outer office door opened, and Rudy came
in, headed straight for Neil’s office. Neil gestured to the chair
in front of his desk and greeted him with, “Did you hear from Carol
this morning?”

“I did, and it isn’t good news. They want to
drop February from a two page ad to a single, and they said they
would get back to us about March.”

Neil raised an eyebrow at me. “You have a
project you need to finish, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I chirped, and left to do as he’d
ordered.

Neil was right. There was no way I could be
his assistant. We would never get anything done.

Chapter Eight

The next day, about
a half hour after my usual lunchtime, Neil called me into his
office. He'd had sushi delivered from some swanky catering place.
My stomach had been growling all morning, and I wondered if our
"friends" provision would cover me snatching and eating his entire
lunch. At quarter to noon, he'd dumped a huge stack of letters on
my desk and said, "I really need these to go out today. Could you
possibly take a later lunch and get them done now?"

"Not a problem," I had assured him. Inwardly,
I'd thought some very uncharitable things about my boss.

When he summoned me in after the delivery guy
had painstakingly unpacked and plated his lunch, I realized why
he'd delayed me.

His entire desk was cleared off, and he sat
in his high-backed black chair, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, no
tie as usual. A feast of sushi rolls and sashimi, more than one
person could reasonably eat, had been laid in delicate dishes on
the top of the desk. My mouth watered. I tried to convince myself
it was because Neil looked so good today - he totally did - but it
was mostly to do with the food.

"Close the door behind you, and hit the
lock."

The tone of his voice instantly diverted my
thoughts from my empty stomach to my empty... someplace else. I
locked the door and took a second to pause and collect myself
before turning to face him.

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked, gesturing
with his chopsticks.

I shook my head. "No, someone asked me not to
go to lunch until one-thirty," I reminded him.

He winked at me. "Well, now you see my
sinister motive. Sit down."

I put my hand on the back of the chair across
from him, and he said, "No, not there."

I hesitated, unsure of what he wanted. Was I
supposed to sit in his lap and eat sushi? The idea wasn't
unappealing, but it was a little cliché. "Is this some weird Don
Draper thing?"

He scoffed. "You should know me well enough
by now to have more faith in me." He moved aside a square black
plate with a truly intimidating arrangement of sliced rolls and
patted the desktop. "Up you go."

I looked down. I was wearing an ivory lace
skater dress, not exactly the length made for sitting on desks
demurely. But I had a feeling he wasn't aiming for demure. I edged
past him and hopped up, careful not to sit on or put an errant hand
in one of the other plates. I primly crossed my ankles and gazed
down at him expectantly. "What do you mean, I should know you well
enough by now? We only met officially on Monday. Now it's
Friday."

"I think we packed quite a lot of getting to
know each other into our night together." He slipped his hand
between my knees and pushed my legs apart. "Open."

I took a shaky breath. Beneath the dress, I
wore lacy crème-colored panties. I hadn't been on a purposeful
seduction mission; I just liked to match my underwear to my
outerwear sometimes. But the panties were awfully thin, and awfully
skimpy. If I spread my legs, he was definitely going to get more
than the standard panty flash.

"What happened to not screwing around at the
office?" I asked, allowing him to slowly part my thighs.

"I don't believe I ever said we wouldn't
screw around in the office. I said we’d have to be discreet about
it." His big hands rested on my inner thighs, and I gasped as he
pushed them wider apart, putting me on total display. "I also don't
believe I said we were going to screw around now."

"Explain to me how this isn't screwing
around." I bit my lip to stop a moan as his fingertips skimmed over
the sheer material of my panties.

Abruptly, he pulled his hands away and
reached for the plate he'd moved. He settled it on the desk between
my spread thighs and picked up his chopsticks again. Then he smiled
up at me as though absolutely nothing were amiss, suppressing what
would undoubtedly have been the cockiest grin in the history of
maleness. "We're eating lunch."