The Boss (36 page)

It was probably the only time I'd ever been
fucked beyond my capacity to speak or function. He helped me to my
feet and guided me on my shaking legs to the bedroom. He turned the
lights on, very low, and helped me out of my clothes, because I was
stumbling and clumsy trying to do it on my own. Then he left me for
a moment to go into the bathroom, and I collapsed in the bed, not
really meaning to fall asleep, but unable to stop myself, all the
same.

I don't know how long I slept, but when I
woke, the room was dark and Neil was lying beside me, snoring
softly. I smiled to myself and rolled over to snuggle him.

In his sleep, Neil wrapped an arm around me
and shifted his body against mine. One foot crept between mine,
hooking around my ankle.

My heart ached. I loved him. I loved him way
more than I should have. And I was pretty sure he loved me, too. We
hadn't said it yet, and that was nice; I didn't think I could
handle an "I love you," when "darling," had thrown me for a pretty
significant loop.

But that brought a whole other level of
anxiety. He hadn't said he loved me, and we weren't exactly dating,
no matter how much time we were spending together. I had meant to
talk to him about
Porteras
tonight, about the lukewarm
reception his changes had been receiving. Instead, I'd just gotten
fucknesia and forgotten about the whole thing. Was that for the
better? If I told him about my concerns with the magazine, would he
think I was being too pushy? Would he end things with me if I spoke
up? It seemed like a long shot that he might, but I was almost
unwilling to take the chance.

That strengthened my resolve. There was no
reason I should hold my tongue and not tell Neil something I felt
he needed to know, just because I was afraid of his disapproval. If
he did love me, then he would value my independent thought, right?
And if he didn't, would I really want to be with him?

Well, even if I did, I shouldn't. I decided
I'd mention my concerns over breakfast.

* * * *

"'Usually,
Porteras
is as thick as a Bible,'" I read aloud the next
morning, leaning over the kitchen island while Neil whisked eggs in
a ceramic bowl. He'd started cooking breakfast for us on mornings
after I'd slept over. It had become a pleasant little routine.
Except for maybe this morning. "'But the staggering volume of
advertising has been notably trimmed. Is this the decision of
Elwood and Stern,
Porteras
's new parent company, or a line
in the sand drawn by designers loyal to the toppled
de facto
fashion ruler, Gabriella Winters?'"

"We've made some changes, and people are
welcome to respond to them," Neil said mildly, pouring the
thoroughly beaten eggs into a hot frying pan on the stove. He was
wearing a t-shirt and sweats, the way he usually did in the
morning, and the kitchen towel thrown casually over his shoulder
made the ensemble oddly sexy.

"Yeah, but this isn't
people
, this is
an editorial in the
New York Times
," I pointed out, as
gently as possible.

"The digital edition," he nodded to my iPad.
"Hand me the peppers?"

I put my iPad down and reached for the
shallow dish with chopped green bell peppers in it. "Don't you
think maybe too many changes, too quickly... It's not going to
inspire confidence in readers who kind of worshipped Gabriella. And
what’s going to happen in January, with the new ban on all
designers who use animal products? I think you’re limiting a lot of
choices on behalf of the readers. That's all I'm saying."

"I don't want to talk about work, Sophie.
This is the rare occasion where I don't have to think about the
damned magazine at all." He was definitely irritated with me. I
wasn’t used to that, and I really didn’t like the sick feeling in
my gut that resulted.

But this was important to me, and I had made
a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to back down just to keep
him happy. "That damned magazine is my job, Neil. My only job. I
think I have a right to be concerned about it."

He turned, whipping the towel from his
shoulder to drop it on the counter. "Do you really think the
magazine is going to fail over one bad issue? There are growing
pains every time a company changes hands; it's the nature of
publishing."

"It's not going to be just one bad issue," I
argued. "Going entirely cruelty free severely limits the magazine's
ability to sell ad space, or to get designers to support us."

"And that doesn't really matter at all, does
it? Because in the end,
Porteras
is the most important
fashion magazine in America. In the world. If we decide no...
orange, for example, then orange falls out of favor," he explained
distractedly, turning back to flip the omelet.

"But you don't just say, 'no orange.' You
feature the designers who aren't using orange in their collection."
How could he not get this? "If you say, 'no fur, no leather, no
animal testing,' you're ruling out such a huge chunk of advertisers
and designers. You're basically telling some of the biggest, most
important companies in the world that they're not welcome at
Porteras
anymore."

"And they aren't. New designers and cosmetics
companies will step in to fill their places. This could be a
revolution. A welcome one, I think."

I tried a different tactic. "What does Rudy
think?"

His non-answer told me everything I needed to
know. The pan clattered onto the cold back burner. "Rudy is a
genius when it comes to fashion, no one would argue otherwise. But
he doesn't know the first thing about publishing."

"So, he thinks it's insane, too?" I shook my
head. "Do you listen to anyone? Or do you just pay them huge
amounts of money and then ignore their opinions?"

Neil picked up a stalk of green onion and
slapped it on the cutting board in exasperation. "This isn't a
conversation I'm willing to have with you, Sophie."

"Why? Because I'm just a lowly beauty
editor?" I snapped.

"
Assistant
beauty editor," he reminded
me tersely as he chopped the onion.

Oh no, he did not.

"Fine." I turned to stalk away. The hell I
was going to take that from him. Behind me, he swore under his
breath. I heard the knife clatter to the countertop. He caught up
with me and put himself between me and the door. I hate when people
do that. If I weren't so fucking rational, I would have just
knocked him down. Damn my logical calm.

He put one hand on my shoulder to stop me,
and he was cautiously gentle as he did it. "Are you really going to
storm out of here just because we got into a silly little
argument?"

"Yes!" I shrugged off his arm. "And it's not
silly. This is my job! This is my career. I have to be able to
support myself, and I can't do that if the magazine goes down in
flames because you wouldn't listen to anyone."

"I listen to people," he argued, and when he
gestured with his hands, droplets of red splashed across the front
of his t-shirt. "I listen to - "

"You're bleeding!" I was immediately grateful
for the lack of omelet in my stomach. I could not handle blood. Not
mine, not someone else's. The very sight of it freaked me out.

"What?" he frowned at me, exasperated further
at my interruption. Then he spotted the blood running down him arm.
"I barely nicked myself."

"Are you arguing with yourself for bleeding?
Really?" I raced for the counter and grabbed the towel. "You can be
so fucking obnoxious."

"Will you stop sniping and help me?"

"Okay, hang on." I swallowed my squeamish
fear and reached for his hand. "I swear to god, if you get even a
drop of blood on me, I'm going to puke."

"Here." He snatched the towel and wrapped it
around his hand. "I could have sworn I just barely nicked
myself."

I suddenly felt lightheaded. The room blacked
out around the edges, and everything in the center got fuzzy. My
stomach gurgled, and I tasted bile at the back of my throat. "Whoa.
I really don't feel good."

The plan was to stagger to the island and
throw up in the bar sink, but I ended up just sitting on the floor
and leaning my back against the cooler door with my eyes shut. Neil
hurried over, as if he would try and catch me, but I waived him
off. "Seriously, if you get blood on me - " I felt a dicey burp
well up in my throat, and I turned my head.

"You really are going to be sick, aren't you?
Over a little bit of blood?" Now he laughed softly, and I wasn't
impressed.

"I'm sorry, I think blood should stay inside
of a person," I snapped. "Besides, now that you're not dying, I'm
mad at you again."

"I very well could be dying," he argued.
"This thing is gushing, I hope I don't need stitches."

I made an only-slightly exaggerated retching
noise.

"Sorry." He laid his non-bloody hand on my
knee. "I hate that the decisions I'm making at work are troubling
you. I hope you know that if anything ever did happen, I would find
a way to make it up to you."

I thought of the "& Stern" part of his
company's name, and the gossip Jake had passed along in the car. I
didn't like the idea of a similar arrangement. "But that's not what
I want. You're not obligated to make sure I succeed in life just
because we had sex."

"I didn't think I was," he said, a little
defensively. "But I wouldn't let someone I care about suffer from
my mistakes. There's such a thing as being too independent, you
know. I didn't get where I am entirely on my own steam. Every
successful person I know had help somewhere along the way.”

I didn't respond. I couldn't think of
anything to say. And it was remarkably difficult to not admire him
a little for admitting that, which wasn't terribly helpful when I
wanted to stay angry.

"Nothing is going to happen to
Porteras
," he said firmly. "But if it did, I would help you
find another job."

"And I wouldn't be able to take a hand up
from you. It wouldn't feel right." I shook my head. "I don't want
people to think I'm with you because of who you are, or the money
you have. And I don't want anyone thinking that any measure of
success I might ever have is because I slept with you. I want to
get by on my own merit, okay?"

"I know." He smiled reluctantly. "It's a very
admirable quality."

"Then why argue with me? I mean, I suppose I
can understand you not wanting to talk about business with me.
After all, I'm sitting here saying, 'no special treatment because
I'm fucking you,' but I'm wanting you to listen to me about how to
run the company. I guess that's not terribly fair." God, I hated
when my own parameters for something came back to bite me. I had to
pick, one way or the other, and I realized I wanted Neil to respect
this boundary more than I wanted to try and give him my take on how
Porteras
should be run. "But I don't want anything from you.
I just want you."

"I know. And it’s rare that someone comes
into my life solely under that pretense." He looped his uninjured
arm around my shoulders, gave me a tight squeeze, and kissed my
forehead. "I suppose that's why I love you so much."

Chapter
Eighteen

Have you ever seen
a nature documentary where a lizard will stand near something
similarly colored and freeze out of pure fight-or-flight instinct?
That's how Neil looked about half a second after he said he loved
me.

I had the strangest thought that this might
be the moment everything fell apart between us. That he hadn't
meant to say it - okay, he
obviously
hadn't meant to say it
- and now he couldn't figure out how to take it back, so he would
be horrified and call everything off.

Before he could think too much about it, I
asked, "Do you?"

"I, um." He looked pretty green around the
gills, like I had a few moments before, I’m sure. "What I meant to
say..." He wet his lips, made a sort of pained grimace, laughed,
and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger
as though he'd just gotten the world's worst headache. "I had
planned to say that in a much different way. When I wasn't bleeding
through a kitchen towel, for one."

I took his hand and slowly unwrapped it,
steeling myself against the nausea that gripped me. The bleeding
had finally slowed, though the cloth was alarmingly saturated.
"Look. It's not even that bad. Just a little scratch."

"Oh?" His voice cracked like a teenager's. It
was kind of adorable. "Good god, here I thought I'd severed an
artery."

I gently closed his fingers and pressed the
towel back into place, trying hard to ignore how freaked out I was
by all the blood. "I love you, too."

He looked over at me with a fleeting smile.
"I'm relieved. I didn't say it because I expected anything from
you. I knew what you wanted from this relationship from the very
beginning, and I'm not trying to push - "

"I know, I..." Wasn't telling someone you
loved them supposed to feel good? This felt like getting punched in
the chest.

He studied my face, waiting for something. I
could see the longing for reassurance in his eyes, and I hated
myself that I couldn't give him what he needed.

"I must admit, I was hoping that some day,
not today, of course, but some day I would tell you that I loved
you, and you would... respond differently." He tried to laugh. It
was a miserable try. He stood and went to the sink, dropping the
bloody towel into it and rinsing his hands.

"I can't help how I responded, sorry." God,
now I felt like an asshole. "I'm afraid."

"What are you afraid of?"

"If we're in love... doesn't that change
everything we have?" I really wished we could go back to ten
minutes ago, even though we had been fighting. At least then I knew
where we stood with each other. I got to my feet, but I kept my
distance. "Doesn't that mean we have to start spending all our
extra time together and watch the same shows together and
coordinate our schedules? Christ, I don't know, would I have to
have holiday dinners with you and your daughter? Would I have to
tell my mom about you? She’s seven years younger than you. She is
not going to take this well! This was all so much easier when it
was just about the sex - "