The Boss (4 page)

Or, I could take a hot bath and drink more
wine.

Look, I don't want to sound like a walking
cliché here, but sometimes, the bath and wine are totally
necessary.

The apartment I share with Holli is amazing.
A two-bedroom walk up on Canal, one of the major selling points was
the big living room window and access to the building's rooftop
garden. The walls in the kitchen and living room were butter
yellow, the floors gleaming dark wood. The bedrooms were the size
of shoeboxes, but it was still an amazing place, especially
compared to our dorm room at NYU. But the bathtub is the reason I
will never, ever move. In fact, when I do, I will probably try to
stuff it into my suitcase and take it with me.

It's an antique, high-back, claw-foot tub
with gleaming white porcelain enamel on the inside and burnished
copper on the outside. There's a curtain around it and a shower
hose, so you can hop in and get clean quick, but today, I was
planning to spend some quality time in there.

I turned on the taps and adjusted the
temperature to just above scalding. What can I say? I like to get
lobsterfied. I added way too much bubble bath and a touch of
skin-softening oil then headed to the freezer to get another bottle
of chilled white wine.

Holli was putting on her coat. "I'll see you
later!"

"Don't go to that place you got sick from
last time," I advised her, and locked the door behind her. Then my
wine and I headed into the steamy bathroom. To fulfill the
stereotype that was my coping mechanism, I lit the sandalwood
candles on the small tray table beside the tub, and pulled up some
music on my phone.

While Lana Del Rey warbled a dirge-like
appeal about singing the blues getting old, I sank into the
blissfully hot water and leaned my head back on the cool
porcelain.

As I languidly swirled my toes in the hot
water, the awfulness of the office that morning melted away. So
what if I lost my job? I had enough savings put aside that I could
pay my half of the rent and bills for a few months. If that didn’t
last, I had amassed plenty of designer handbags and clothes on the
job. I could easily keep myself in consignment shop money if I
needed to. Nice stuff was, well, nice, but not necessary. I'd sell
it all if I had to.

Maybe Neil won't fire you
, I reminded
myself.
Yeah, you gave him a shock, but he seems like a decent
guy
.

No. Decent guys did not fuck someone
senseless and then steal their plane ticket.

Of course, that guilt might motivate him to
keep me at the company.
Or a well-timed threat might...

I dismissed that one almost as quickly as I'd
thought of it. No way would I blackmail someone. It just wasn't in
my character. Besides, I had no idea how many lives something like
that would impact. He might be in a relationship. He might have a
family. What he’d done to me six years ago was jerkish in the
extreme, but he’d left me enough money that I could have gotten to
Tokyo if I’d wanted to. And while he’d been presumptuous and rude
and controlling and horrible without knowing a thing about my life
or my reasons for running away, it wasn’t worth it to sacrifice my
own morals and potentially destroy lives to keep a job.

It was petty of me, in light of the very
serious situation I was in, but I really couldn't get over the fact
that he didn't remember me. I'd spent six long, frustrating years
trying to find someone who excited me half as much as he had. I'd
be lying if I said I hadn't imagined him doing the same thing,
never able to forget me. The worst part of it was that he still got
to me. Just thinking about him brought prickles out all over my
skin. It always had, and probably would even after he fired me. It
was incredibly unfair.

I didn't want Neil. I wanted Leif, the
charming English stranger in the airport. I still wanted him, and
probably would forever.

My body throbbed, like it always did when I
remembered that night. I pressed my thighs together for just a
second before I slipped my hand between them.

"
What do you want?
" he asked me in my
memory, his lips brushing my ear as he pressed me against the wall
of that hotel room. My answer was always pathetically embarrassing
in hindsight. I'd only had sex with two other people before him,
and it hadn't been anything to write home about. I'd thought of the
kinkiest thing I could imagine, and shyly stammered, "
Um... you
could... spank me? Maybe?
"

Cringe-worthy, I know, but I couldn't change
the past. My fingers rolled over my flesh beneath the steaming
water, and I sighed, my eyes drifting closed.

He'd smiled, and I couldn't tell if he was
making fun of me or not, I still couldn't, even in my own fantasy.
"
If that's what you want.
"

I could smell his cologne, see him
unbuttoning the sleeves of his gray-blue chamois shirt. He'd been
wearing a faded David Bowie tour shirt beneath it. It was like he'd
sprung fully-formed from my eighteen-year-old fantasies, the hot
History teacher who just couldn't help himself.

That thought opened my eyes. Man, had my
daddy issues been that bad?

Does it matter now?
I asked myself, my
fingers resuming their busy work beneath the bubbles. I took a
shuddering, shaking breath. I could practically feel the crisp
white duvet beneath my cheek as I relived lying across his lap,
clad only in my cotton thong. I'd wished for black lace back then,
but only because I hadn't realized the almost painful eroticism of
white cotton to men.

"
Have you ever done this before?
" he'd
asked softly, his palm making slow circles over my backside.

I'd shaken my head, feeling embarrassed by my
request and by how wet I'd already been, how incredibly aroused
he'd made me during the cab ride over, and in the elevator,
and...

I shifted my legs, slipping down further in
the water. Oh, we'd discussed the rules back then, but I didn't
need rules in my bathtub. My blood pounded, remembering that first
hard smack; the shocking sound of it echoing off the walls, the
stinging pain that had taken a moment to really set in. He'd
soothed it nearly away with the same hand that had delivered the
blow, then another had landed, and another. Each time, I’d worried
I wouldn't be able to take the next.
Would he think I was silly
or stupid for calling the game off?

His long fingers had skated beneath my thong,
pulling it up tighter against my aching pussy before slipping it
down to my knees. Then another hard slap to my ass, and his fingers
were inside me, two of them, roughly plunging in and pulling out. I
had been so ready, wetter than I'd ever been, my mind consumed with
a steady chorus of pleas to just get on with it and fuck me,
already. Maybe if I had known how long he would make me wait, I
would have given up. But I'd taken every shocking contact between
his hand and my backside, until my skin had been aflame and I was
sure I wouldn't be able to sit down on the long flight the next
morning.

The tight, hot spiral I was so familiar with
now gripped my pelvis, and I picked up the pace, remembering how
slow and measured his breathing had seemed in contrast to my
desperate panting. He'd spread my own juices around my folds,
stroking up, circling the untried opening between my cheeks. I'd
pushed up on my elbows, about to protest out of modesty more than
distaste, when another searing blow landed. In its wake the tip of
his thumb slipped into my ass, and I hadn't been of a mind to argue
with him anymore.

I remember one desperate cry,
"
Please!
" and I echoed it to myself now, twisting closer and
closer to the edge. He'd made me come then, his thumb in my ass,
two fingers in my grasping cunt, the other two working over my hard
clit until I'd exploded. Just like I exploded in the tub, my legs
quivering and jerking, bath water sloshing onto the floor.

"Fuck." My other arm was over my head,
mimicking the arch of the tub, and I covered my eyes for just a
moment, to get my breath. That night had been incredible, but now I
had to rescue the hardwood floor, and I'd just jilled-off to a
fantasy about my new boss. I might have felt better for a few
seconds, but now I felt considerably worse. And I still had to face
him the next day.

Chapter Three

The next morning, I
got up, forced myself out of bed, and promised myself that no
matter what happened, I would not jump from anything taller than
two feet today.

I dressed like I was going into battle, in
black, high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and a sleek, structured,
rust-colored jacket over a white blouse. I donned dark wood bangles
like armor and did up my eyes in shades of tarnished silver. The
contouring, my god, the contouring. I wore my brown hair in
careless waves – the type of careless only someone who'd spent an
hour and a half on her hair alone could achieve. And when I strode
from the bathroom in a cloud of fragranced body lotion, Holli
actually dropped the gallon of ice cream she was eating directly
from for breakfast.

"Holy mother of cheekbones," she muttered as
she licked her spoon clean. "Are you going to work looking like
that?"

"Pff." I looped a skinny cashmere scarf
around my neck. "I'm going networking like this. I figure I'll be
fired by nine-thirty, I can at least go drop off some résumés."

"You're taking this really well." Holli
picked up her bucket of ice cream. "Should I be prepared for the
inevitable fall out?"

"There isn't going to be any inevitable fall
out," I stated firmly. And I meant that. I'd done my moping around,
but rather than let myself become a victim to a situation that was
totally out of my hands, I would exert control over whatever
aspects I could. I’d leave my current job gracefully and
professionally, and try to get another as soon as possible.

"Mmhm." Holli nodded as she shuffled to the
couch. "Just remember, Mr. Cheeba and I will be right here waiting
if you change your mind."

I made sure I was out the door before she
could light up. I didn't want to smell like weed at seven in the
morning.

I got my coffee and my breakfast at my usual
stop. It didn’t take the usual amount of time, though, which I
really appreciated. The last thing I wanted was to be late to my
firing. I caught an earlier train than normal, too. At least
something was going to go right today.

The building’s lobby was still pretty empty
when I negotiated the revolving door and flashed my badge at
security. I got an elevator with no wait –
epic!
– and when
I got to the office, I’d even beat Ivanka, the receptionist. No one
ever got to work before she did. I suspected she lived under the
desk.

I punched the time clock via my desktop
computer and started on the totally not fun task of transferring
all my personal files to an external hard drive. I’d also clear my
internet history and wipe out my contacts list. I wasn’t going to
leave a scrap of help for the new regime. At quarter after eight, I
checked my phone. No messages from Neil.

Gosh, he really wasn't anything like
Gabriella. By now, the sky would have already been falling, and
crises would be raining down on us.

Whoever had covered for me had emailed me
Neil's schedule for the week, and a list of things that had to be
done this morning. That surprised me, considering I had planned on
being fired and figured he was planning the same thing. Must have
been an oversight.

One of the glass double-doors pushed open,
and Neil entered, in a long, black wool coat that he shrugged off
the moment he stepped inside.

I jumped up to take it from him, totally out
of habit. I'd been hanging up guests' coats in the office for
years; it would have felt deeply unnatural to refrain from taking
his.

"Good morning, Sophie." His tone was totally
fake and even, at odds with the uncomfortable way he tried and
failed to maintain eye contact as he said it.

"Good morning," I replied, and I fixed my
eyes right on him, feeling a mean little thrill of satisfaction.
That's right. I'm refusing to acknowledge the awkwardness of
this situation. What are you gonna do about it?
"Coffee, black,
two sugars?"

"Yes, thank you." He recovered impressively,
adopting exactly the same strategy I had chosen to use: denial.
"And if you could set the thermostat to around sixty-five, if it's
not too much trouble? It's a bit warm in here."

"Certainly." I smiled my easiest,
closed-mouth work smile, all the while sing-songing in my head,
I’ve seen you naked, I’ve seen you naked.
He headed for his
office, and I opened the coat closet and retrieved one of the
gleaming wood hangers.

"Sophie."

I stopped and turned. He stood in front of
his door, watching me. I had won our little standoff. He was going
to bring up what had happened yesterday. I guess I could have
gloated over my tiny victory, but instead I just felt really,
really sick to my stomach.

His expression was an apology written in
human facial features. Something passed between us; an energy so
full of weight and promise that it made the air heavy. My body went
entirely still without my willing it to, but I wasn't tense. All at
once, we were the lovers in that hotel room again, and the
intervening events evaporated into ether.

And in that moment of perfect trust, when we
could have broached the difficult history we had made between us,
Rudy Ainsworth strode through the door and confidently deposited
his coat across my desk. "Morning, Neil. Ready to save this
magazine?"

Before I go any further, I should really
explain Rudy Ainsworth. He was the kind of person who, through
nothing extraordinary about his appearance, manner, or dress,
commanded all the attention in a room the moment he stepped into
it. He was short, slightly round, and had beautiful dark skin, but
he wasn't super good-looking, just average. He wore tweed blazers
and patterned plaid shirts with bow ties without looking like a
hipster or a nerd, even with the thick black-framed reading glasses
he sometimes wore. He was totally plain, but he exuded something
that drew everyone to him like a magnet.