The Boss (30 page)

"Oh! I've heard of them." I beamed at her.
"You guys do some really cool work."

“I'm glad you like it.” Emma nodded. "Now,
Sophie... what grade are you in?"

"Emma..." The warning tone in Neil's voice
didn't go unnoticed by either of us. I'd hated to listen to my
friends fight with their parents in front of me, and this was
eerily reminiscent of that exact scenario. It really creeped me
out.

"Oh, dad, I'm only teasing. She knows
that."

I was one hundred percent certain she was not
joking.

She continued, “I have to break the ice a
little. This is a rather disturbing morning all around, isn’t it?"
Emma leaned on her elbows and fixed me with a reasonable facsimile
of polite interest. “So, how did you two meet?”

Was this a trick? What did I say? I highly
doubted Neil had discussed past one-night stands with his daughter,
but we didn’t really have a cover story in place for something like
this.

"Sophie and I met a few years ago," Neil
answered for me. "We recently reconnected."

"So I heard." Emma paused with her bagel
halfway to her mouth. "You know, if you need me to stay somewhere
else this week, I can. Michael’s, or Elizabeth's - "

"That won't be necessary. And I would
appreciate it if you would not mention this to Elizabeth, should
you see her during this visit." There was a tick in Neil’s jaw when
he spoke his ex’s name. In the brief mentions he’d made of her to
me, he hadn’t sounded quite so irritated. Was Neil’s daughter close
with his ex-wife? Or soon to be ex. Was the divorce final? Should I
have figured that out first? I mean, it didn't matter if he was
legally married, the relationship was over, right?

Oh my gosh, no wonder Emma had taken such an
immediate dislike to me. If she was close to her stepmother, of
course she would be offended when her father seemingly moved on so
quickly. That Neil and I didn’t have a serious relationship didn’t
matter; Emma didn’t know the details, she had only heard the world
“girlfriend.”

"Don't worry," Emma said lightly, not even
looking up at Neil as she delivered her next barb. "I'm not going
to tell her you have a woman staying over within days of her moving
out. It would destroy her."

I wished I had a super power that allowed me
snuff myself out like a match and reignite somewhere else.

"I'm sorry, this... this is too weird. I'm
going to go." I shook my head and stood, trapped between the wall
and Neil, hoping fervently that he would move and just let me
escape.

He did, thank god. "Let me walk you out," he
said, sliding from his seat and shooting his daughter a very terse
look. I had been on the receiving end of just such an expression
many times from my mother.

I didn’t take any of it personally. All of
this, absolutely every single bit of it, was between Emma and her
father. It had nothing to do with me. I was just a convenient
catalyst.

"I'm sorry, this was a total disaster," Neil
said as he followed me to the bedroom.

"It's okay." I collected up the D&G dress
from his closet and carefully folded it into my overnight bag. "I
would probably be pretty grossed out to find my mom with a guy my
age."

That was the worst possible thing I could
have said. Neil looked like I'd slapped him. "Grossed out?"

"
You
don't gross me out," I stated
firmly. I went to him and stood on my tiptoes to put my arms around
his neck. He hesitated a moment, clearly wanting to be grumpy with
me, but he couldn't resist my patiently upturned mouth. His lips
brushed mine and his arms tightened around my back briefly.

"But think about it from Emma's perspective,"
I said quietly when I stepped out of his embrace. "You have
parents. You must have been uncomfortable with the idea of them
having a sex life.”

"I fear it may be a little more complicated
than that." Neil sat down on the sofa. He glanced up at me, guilt
in his eyes. "Emma isn't happy about my divorce. She grew quite
fond of Elizabeth. Emma was one of the bridesmaids, actually."

"I kind of guessed that she was Team
Elizabeth." I went to his side and sat down, my hands on my knees.
It was a good thing Neil and I weren’t serious, because I couldn’t
imagine Emma ever putting on a bridesmaid dress for me. Not after
the introduction we’d had. "Maybe the 'girlfriend' thing just
surprised her. I know it shocked the hell out of me."

"Sorry about that." He gave me a sheepish
sideways glance. "I never thought we'd have to explain our
relationship to anyone. Secrecy has kept us in a bit of a bubble
this whole time. The only person in my life who knew about you was
Rudy. I was unprepared, and I didn't want to tell my daughter that
you're the woman I'm casually fucking."

I nudged his knee with mine. "It sounds like
she'd be more comfortable hearing that, than thinking you were in a
relationship."

"And I didn't want to hurt you," he added,
looking into my eyes. "You mean more to me than just casual
sex."

My newly in-love heart squeezed super hard at
that, and I had to give myself a split-second mental toughness
talk: I was not, under any circumstances, going to scream out,
“I-love-you-lets-go-to-Las-Vegas-and-get-married-right-now!”

The best thing I could do was make a joke out
of it.

"The sex is pretty fantastic, though." I
leaned against him, rocking him slightly to the side, and he
laughed.

"Next weekend?" he asked hopefully.

"Um... yeah." I felt a weird pang at the
thought that I wouldn't see him until then. "Do you have a really
busy week?"

"Not particularly, but with Emma here..." he
grimaced. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine." It wasn't. I wasn't fine
with it at all. I was jealous and bitter, and I felt shitty because
I knew I had no right to be. Neil was Emma's dad, and if he were
the kind of guy who would give his kid the brush off - no matter
how old the kid was - I wouldn't have had any interest in him,
anyway. "I love that you have a good relationship with your
daughter. At least, most of the time. You're both really
lucky."

“Do you want to go home in the car?” he
asked.

I shook my head. “Call me old fashioned, but
I kind of enjoy the so-called ‘walk of shame.’ It’s really more a
‘walk of pride because I got some.’”

“That you did,” he agreed.

He walked me to the elevator, waited for it
to arrive, and gave me a thoroughly sweet kiss. And I let it be
sweet. Because it was foolish to fight what I was feeling. He
obviously cared for me, he’d said as much. But we were both happy
with what we had. We didn't need to pretend it was anything more or
less than it was. The elevator dinged, and I stepped out of his
arms. Frowning, I reached up to brush my fingers over a smudge on
his neck.

"What is it?"

Oh man. Now I really felt bad. "I think I
gave you a little hickey last night."

He clapped his hand over his neck, and he was
actually blushing. "Bloody hell, woman, I have to go back in there
and have breakfast with my child!"

Grinning, he leaned down for one last kiss,
and I gave him a quick peck before I darted into the elevator. We
could drag the goodbye out all day, and I knew it was because
neither of us wanted to be apart.

I felt amazing. I felt like the Grinch must
have felt when his heart grew three sizes.

Except, when I stepped out of the building
and onto Fifth avenue, I missed Neil already.

Crap. I really had fallen for him, and
hard.

* * * *

I was glad to have
taken the train, instead of Neil's offer of a car home. It gave me
time to think about the morning in a neutral space.

Neil's daughter was an animal advocate. All
of the changes to the beauty department suddenly made sense. And
the cuts to Jake's story. Was this something Emma was asking Neil
to do? He had to know it was a bad idea.

I considered what I knew of Emma. It wasn't a
lot, beyond the fact that she was Neil's daughter, and she would
now hate me for the rest of my life. I dropped my head in my hands,
grateful that this train car was mostly empty. Listening to the
tinny noise from other people's headphones or being stared at by
some creepy dude who was trying to see under my clothes would not
have helped my mental state at all.

So, Emma was big time into animals. Which
meant she probably hated the fashion industry altogether. After
all, it wasn't exactly like designers and cosmetic companies were
falling all over themselves to protect animals. And now Emma's
father owned
Porteras.
How much influence did she have over
him?

I had no idea how a father/daughter
relationship worked. My own dad had cut out when I was a year old.
He'd picked me up for visits now and then until I was about six,
but it wasn't until I was a teenager that I'd realized the driving
force behind those daddy-daughter days had been my mother's desire
for them to happen. He'd come to my high school graduation, given
me a card with twenty bucks in it, and then gone back home to his
wife and other children, whose names I couldn't quite remember.
That had been the last time I'd seen him. It seemed completely
unlikely to me that if I woke up tomorrow caring deeply about
animals, he might alter his personal - and professional - behavior
in any way to honor my convictions. Clearly, that wasn't the case
with Emma and Neil.

The puppy under the Christmas tree was my
first clue that she might be a little spoiled.

But Emma had seemed so antagonistic toward
Neil. Because of the divorce? Was he trying to make up for her
disappointment in losing a stepmother? Making unwise business
decisions didn't seem to be the best way to handle that.

By the time I got to the apartment, my brain
was spinning. I was so caught up in my speculation that Neil was
trying to buy his daughter's love by running
Porteras
into
the ground - and my guilt over the fact that I was speculating
anything about Neil's relationship with his daughter at all - that
when I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I didn't bat an eye to
find Deja standing in the kitchen in nothing but a t-shirt.

"Oh. Hey." She looked super embarrassed, and
I waved her reaction off.

"Don't worry, literally the same thing just
happened to me." I hung up my coat. "Well, not literally. Wait...
you're out of context."

"Yeah." She drew out the word with a comical
grimace, her eyes sparkling.

Holli emerged from her room, wrapped in her
sexy, short black satin robe. The back had an amazing art nouveau
peacock embroidered on it, and I had massive wardrobe envy on the
rare occasion that I saw it. Holli reserved it almost exclusively
for wowing overnight guests.

"Hey there. I thought you weren't supposed to
be back until tonight," she said, heading to the kitchen sink. She
filled the coffee pot with water while she waited for my
answer.

"I wasn't." It was totally inappropriate for
me to be angry with Emma for spoiling my Sunday. But I couldn't
keep the bitterness out of my tone. Hey, I'm only human. "His
daughter dropped by. It did not go well."

"Oh god. How 'not well'?" Holli's nervous
gaze darted to Deja. "I mean, if you can tell us."

There were millions of men in New York, so I
figured I was safe so long as I didn't name names. "Um, she heard
me and her father having loud, aggressive sex. That 'not
well.'"

"That'll screw a kid up," Deja noted with a
lift of her eyebrows.

"No, she's an adult," I answered before I
thought to stop myself. Okay, there was more than one rich
middle-aged man in New York City I could be involved with.

Deja nodded. "Ah. And would she happen to be
a condescending blonde who can't keep her travel itinerary current
with her father's personal secretary? Because I got a very terse
email from one of those about fifteen minutes ago."

I opened my mouth to say something, but all I
could really do was gape at her.

"Hey, your secret is safe with me." She
looked from me to Holli and back again with a kind of
deer-in-the-headlights expression. "I figured it out on my first
day at the office. I don't care who you have sex with. And I
definitely prefer it if my boss is getting laid. I find it makes my
job a lot easier."

"You can't tell anyone," I warned.

"Never." Deja crossed her heart, then did a
full-body shiver. "I'm sorry you have to deal with the ice maiden,
though."

I didn't feel comfortable responding to a
slam against Neil’s daughter. Even if I kind of agreed with the
description. I changed the subject. “You know, Deja, this whole
pantsless thing kind of ruins your super cool rock-chick image from
the office."

"Yeah, um. I wasn't really planning on
staying over but..." Deja looked like she physically couldn't help
smiling at Holli. The long, sweet moment that they held each
other's gazes made me feel like a definite interloper, so I headed
toward my room to give them privacy.

"I'll get out of your hair. I think I'm going
to try and catch up on the sleep I didn't get." That was as close
to a salacious remark as I could summon at the moment, but I had to
give them something.

In my room, I grabbed my laptop off my
nightstand. I opened Chrome and paused, my fingers hovering over
the keys.

I'm really not a fan of the whole "Google
your romantic interest" trend that has become so commonplace, but I
wanted answers about the situation. Granted, I wasn't about to find
results for, "Does Neil Elwood get along with his daughter and if
so, why would she want to tank my job?" but I hated feeling so
damned impotent and in the dark.

Fuck it.

I typed "Neil Elwood" in the browser's
address bar, and braced myself for results.

Can I just say how weird it is to be dating
someone who has a Wikipedia page devoted to him? I clicked the link
and looked over my shoulder, like someone was going to be standing
there, waiting to catch me. I read the bold top line, and my guts
churned.
Neil Charles Leif Elwood, MBE (born 24 March 1964).
Okay. He's a fucking knight apparently. That's heavy.