by R. J. Lewis
Sometimes…
Sometimes a shooting pain will tear through my mind, and I tense through it before it is followed by a burst of calmness.
I can hear Ruth telling me something.
Words here and there, too many gaps between them.
My darling boy…
You lost everything…
Start over, you will be nothing…
Reach your hand out…
Wait for…
I can’t help but feel it’s important.
What she said meant something to me.
And like a lost boy, I roam the estate. I walk the perimeters, I tread through the trees, and I walk and walk, until the sky darkens, and I’m standing atop a hill, lonely and sad…
I’m so fucking sad when I look up at the stars.
Fourteen
Ivy
West is pacing the office this morning.
It’s hard not to peer at him every few moments. He’s extra casual today, the buttons on his grey shirt undone, no tie, no suit jacket. His sleeves are rolled up, and just his bare forearms—all veiny and muscled—has me captivated.
I swallow, mouth dry as I try and type out an email, but I’ve made half a dozen mistakes in less than a minute because I’m distracted.
He walks around, hands in his pockets, thoughts blazing.
“You wanna settle down, Mr West?” I finally say. “You’re making me nervous with all that pacing.”
He pauses a step, glancing at me, and that look alone sends another shiver down my spine, and for once, it’s a different sort of shiver. There’s no fury or indifference in his gaze—it’s heavy with something else.
I can’t look at him long enough to figure him out.
That tension I mentioned? It’s never left and constantly lingers around us like air.
I drag my eyes back to the screen, pretending to write more, but I’m really typing, “shitshitshitshitshitlalalala” over and over again.
I’m very aware he’s walking again, this time in a straight line—to me. He stops on the other side of the desk, watching me.
My fingers pause on the keyboard. I look back at him, waiting with bated breath for him to say something. He doesn’t. He looks over my low-cleavage office shirt where keyhole is. He drags his tongue along his bottom lip, flicking his eyes back to mine. Then he turns away and resumes to pace.
I let out a quiet breath, feeling my nerves soar.
I delete my email and start again, hyperaware of West’s bizarre mood today. What the hell is going through his head?
He eventually moves around the desk, and my fingers falter on the keyboard as I feel the heat of him nearing.
I know he’s behind me. I sense his stare. He comes so close, his body brushes against the back of my chair. My skin tingles with awareness. I swallow again, trying to focus on my email—who the hell am I writing to? What day of the week is it?
His cologne fills the space like a cloud, but it’s not overwhelming. I want to turn to him; to see what he’s doing; to know why he’s so close and hovering there. If I could just get my lips to move and ask him, but that’s not going to happen. Because I like this anticipation, the not knowing.
It is sweet torture.
Then he moves away and takes a seat on the chair next to me. I glance at him furtively, tensing straight away when my eyes connect to his. His chair is turned in my direction. He’s got a pen in his hand and moving it between his fingers as he watches me, his face so solemn—so heavy with thought—it leaves me breathless.
What the hell is happening?
I’m suddenly wishing for his scathing jabs, for him to tell me what a useless tit I am, but West says nothing.
This is an interesting development.
He’s like this the entire day. Attentive to my presence, eyes on me more than not. He paces again, plays with his pen, comes dangerously close to me—at one point brushing his fingers along the top of my chair, lightly brushing the back of my neck, and just that touch alone makes my spine straighten with alertness.
He’s torturing me, I’m certain of it.
He enjoys this. He must, he must, because I can feel the energy brimming under his skin, can feel it multiply every time I go still, every time I shut my eyes to regain my composure after he’s come too close.
“Are you alright, Miss Montcalm?” he eventually asks, tentatively studying me.
I nod faintly. “I am…splendid. And you, Mr West?”
“Me?” he repeats, breathing slowly. “I am…enraptured.”
Enraptured—now that’s a word you use to ensnare a hopeful woman.
Disrupting us is the sound of a vacuum just outside the office door. Aidan’s head swivels in its direction, and he flashes me a curious look. “Were you ever planning on asking me if it was permissible to hire that cleaning mob?”
I run my fingers through my hair. “I didn’t think I needed your permission. I am your personal assistant.”
“We’ve established that.”
“I’m making sure the house remains in order.”
“I have a housekeeper.”
“She’s not a slave, Mr West.”
His stare deepens. “No, she certainly isn’t.”
“Then you know why I’ve called these guys over.”
He’s quiet for several moments. “I still need to allow it.”
I glance at him. “You need me to run it through with you even though I know you’re going to say yes?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I am your boss.”
I resist rolling my eyes and use his words. “We’ve established that.”
His eyes don’t stray from mine. “Have we?”
I fidget. “I mean, I think so. Unless you want to boss me around right now or something to prove it.”
He simply grunts in response. Grunts and still doesn’t bat his eyes away from me.
Tilda sweeps through the room soon after and delivers another tray of fresh fruit for us. I stick my fork into a piece of kiwi and munch on it, trying not to give West any obvious sort of attention. He paces the room again, heavy in thought, hands buried in his pockets. I sneak glances in his direction, eyeing his long legs. His physique is impressive. He’s a dominating man, overwhelms a room simply with his presence, and those eyes—those fucking eyes feel like hot weights in your chest when they’re pinned on you.
“You ever been a personal assistant before, Miss Montcalm?” he questions me suddenly.
I look up from my screen, feeling my heart skip a beat. “I have…an extensive job history.”
His lips flicker up. “Right. Tell me about it then.”
My shoulders stiffen. “Why?”
“I’d like to know.”
“I mean, why now? It’s just—I’m busy.”
“I’m curious.” He pauses his pacing to face me. “I’d like to know more about you.”
“About my professional life?”
“Just…your life in general.”
I search my mind, trying hard to find something even remotely interesting about myself. Is it sad nothing jumps out at me? That my existence has been so empty of any real meaning up until I met this man? That it was a rinse and repeat of work and loneliness and scraping by?
I frown, admitting, “There’s nothing worth knowing.”
It’s a bad admission because it’s not necessarily going to win this man over, but it’s the fucking truth.
“Don’t give me that,” he argues, shaking his head. “That’s not an acceptable response.”
“What would be?”
“You have any siblings?”
“No.”
“Friends?”
I pause. “A few.”
“Close ones?”
“One very close one.”
“Were you out of a job when you took this one?”
“Well, no...”
He quirks a brow. “Why’d you drop everything to come out here?”
“I wante
d to get away. This job is an opportunity to start over again.”
He looks me over, appearing curious when he says, “You left your relationships behind to start over again in this old estate as my personal assistant?”
“I did.”
“And how’s this working out for you?”
I don’t immediately reply. “What part exactly?”
“The part where you spend most of your days sitting next to me.”
He’s taken a real interest in figuring me out all of a sudden. He keeps staring at me, waiting for a response. I nervously run my tongue over my bottom lip. “It’s not what I expected, Mr West.”
“What did you expect?”
For you to remember everything. For you to fall madly in love with me.
No, no, I can’t be so heavy.
So I jokingly say, “I expected you to live up to your asshole reputation.”
His brows shoot up. “Expected? So, it’s not working out?”
“I mean, you’re pretty cruel when you want to be but…the Asshole of the East? Totally an exaggeration.”
His eyes light up, and his mouth curves into a delicious smile. “You’re saying I have room for improvement.”
I give him a look. “Be honest, you’re taking it easy on me, aren’t you?”
Now he won’t look directly at me. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you want to be nice to me.”
He chuckles lightly. “Perhaps you’re so unbelievably hopeless, I spend most of my time trying to pick my jaw off the ground when I should be punishing you.”
I feign dismay. “And here I thought we were finally adapting to one another.”
“Adapting.” He says that word with a flare of his nostrils. “In what reality could we ever become so familiar with one another? You’re like a hurricane when you’re pissed—”
“And you’re like an Ice Age that never thawed—”
“And you think we would have adapted by now?”
I bite my cheek to stop from laughing. “A fool’s hope.”
“Precisely.”
“So, we are doomed.”
“Yes.”
“Who will give up first?”
“I don’t give up, Miss Montcalm.” The look he gives me travels all the way to the pit of my belly, warming me.
I lick my lips again. “That’s a problem, Mr West, because neither do I.”
His expression is the lightest I’ve seen it yet. It’s boyish and bright, like he isn’t walking around with a heavy weight tied to his back. He glances at me occasionally, and I meet his eye at times. My body tightens when he finally returns to his chair and sits down next to me.
Still looking at me.
My cheeks flush from his attention. I turn away, for once unsure of what I’m supposed to do. I’m flustered, brows furrowed as I click through my screen and then scan the desk, searching for something to do.
“Out of useless jobs to complete?” he wonders then, catching on to my desperate attempt at distraction.
“It’s nearly the end of the day, anyway,” I say, tapping my fingernails along the desk, continuing to look away.
“I don’t pay you to sit idle.”
I twist around to face him, even though it takes considerable effort to look into those deep brown eyes. “What do you want me to do for you, Mr West?”
“What do I want you to do,” he repeats, voice heavy. “The answer to that wouldn’t be appropriate in this setting.”
God.
I’m warm, too warm. “I think…it wouldn’t be so wrong to be unprofessional every once in a while.”
His eyes glow. “What sort of boss would overstep the very boundaries he implemented in his own office?”
I lick my dry lips. “A very naughty one, Mr West.”
His lips curve up, but his eyes remain tentative on mine. “Would you like me to be naughty, Ivy?”
My core pulses at the look he gives me. Fuck.
I let out a few breaths, scrambling for a response. All I can manage is a weak but brutally honest, “Yes.”
The pen he’s been spinning in his fingers stops. He grips it in his hand tightly, gazing over my body now. “I will be very candid with you, Miss Montcalm, and it might be too forward for your liking. But I’ll tell you, if that’s what you’d truly like, the moment we finish.”
I’m suddenly hanging by his every word, fisting my hand to stop myself from trembling. I glance at the clock.
“Four more minutes and I can answer you,” he says, reading my thoughts. “Four minutes, Miss Montcalm, before you’re simply Ivy to me.”
My breaths thin now as I finally will another glance at him. He’s still turned in my direction, still staring at me with heavy lidded eyes.
My gaze trails his form, at the broadness of his shoulders, those sleeves tight around his biceps. His forearms are still bare, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, his hair messier than it was this morning.
Would it be wrong to admit that this form of Aidan—in all his assholery, moodiness, suit-loose-hair-messy form—is so wildly sexy to me? I can’t help the shred of guilt that realization gives me. Like I shouldn’t be feeling that way.
I peek at him again, my body still, my lips parted—
Time’s up.
He settles the pen down on the desk and stands up. He walks slowly to me, stopping behind my chair. His cologne cloaks me, warms me. I break out in light sweat as I feel him bend over me, his face almost flush against the side of mine.
I’m looking down at a spot on the desk, holding my breath as he runs his lips along my cheekbone. It’s featherlight, faint as air, but my senses are on fire. My heart is speeding in my chest in anticipation.
I don’t think he will be as naughty as he used to be, surely not.
He’s too much of an asshole for that—
“What I want you to do, Ivy Montcalm,” he whispers in my ear, cutting through the silence, “is bend your pert little ass over the desk so that I may lift this barely there skirt over your hips and have it pressed against my stiff cock. What I want—what I crave—is to hear your moans fill the air as I fuck you like a savage in my office.”
I…
I am speechless.
My mouth is dry as I sit still, unable to shake myself out of this state of awe he’s just put me in. He pulls away then and I watch him as he rounds the desk and picks up a glass of water. He downs it in one gulp and slams it down. He pauses for a moment, his eyes meeting mine. Every inch of me is tingling as he stares deeply at me. I wonder if he will say more—if he’ll act on it, or maybe I will, and now I want what he wants.
I want it badly.
West’s mouth is parted, but he doesn’t speak a word. He looks away first and pads out of the office.
Work is over.
And I feel…unfulfilled.
*
When I left the office, every inch of me burning like a walking flame, I knew straightaway I needed to cool off. That was…that was intense. How does one come back from that? I don’t know how I’ll be sitting next to him tomorrow without combusting.
I take another dip in the river with Alex while another party rages on in the house. Much to my dismay, a few partygoers have discovered our little sacred area and are too partaking in water activities. In other words, it’s a bunch of half-naked chicks splashing water at Alex and then giggling like schoolgirls when he flashes them a smile.
I try to block them out as they yammer away.
I roamed the house for a while before coming here, hoping to catch Aidan. Like usual, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Any idea where your older brother is?” One of them asks him, mirroring my curiosity.
“Kicking around,” he vaguely responds as he floats around me.
“Greg told Monica that Michael saw Gerard get shoved into a bush in the front yard by Aidan West a few parties ago. They had a spat or something and I guess Gerard was getting too close to Aidan’s race car or something like that.”
She nods. “Uh-huh, out front. It was mega intense.”
Alex smirks at me, muttering quietly, “It was mega intense, Ivy.”
I glance at him, stifling my laughter. “He’s got a race car here?”
“He’s got a bunch of collectibles in the garage.”
I haven’t explored the front yard. I know there’s a huge separate garage. It looks like it was built recently, but I never put any thought into it.
I wonder if that’s where Aidan goes.
Alex reads me. “It’s locked up tight,” he says. “You’d never get into it.”
“So how did Gavin get to his race car?”
“Gerard,” the girl corrects me. “And it was parked out front with all the other cars.”
Alex swims closer to me and runs his hands through his hair, slicking it back. The girls squeal at him, but he ignores them as he says to me, “He’s still driving.”
I frown, catching what he means.
Aidan behind the wheel of a car—especially a race car—spells disaster.
And here I am swimming when I should be making sure that doesn’t happen. I’m a fool. Self-absorbed fool. I wade out of the water and Alex is quick to follow.
“You should stay here,” I tell him, slipping into my flip-flops. “I’m just gonna walk around.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You really don’t need to do that.”
“I want to,” he stresses, appearing eager.
I tilt my head at the sad girls eyeing him. He rolls his eyes. “They’ll be around when we’re done,” he says cockily.
I give him a half-smile, relenting. “Okay.”
We walk around the house and to the front yard where tons of cars are parked. There are a few people milling about here, too, and I shake my head, furious I can’t explore a single place without bumping into someone.
“They’re friends of friends of friends,” Alex explains just then when he catches me glaring at beer bottles strewn in the front garden. I certainly don’t make it easy on the cleaning crew—no wonder they’re out of breath at the end of a long day here.