Ruined Promises

by Stefanie Jenkins

  Fuck my life.

  Of course the mystery dream woman I haven’t been able to get out of my head since she disappeared from the bathroom at the club turns out to be my new events director. I’m Bentley Michael Harrington; of course I can keep this professional—I think?

  What a day. I kept my nose buried in my work all day, avoiding Ben the best I could. When I left the office at six, I noticed his light was still on. We were the only ones left in the office. I debated walking over to say good night but thought better of it. Maybe he was just staying late to learn about his new surroundings.

  When I arrive home, I find Brynn, Hadley, and Cal sitting at the island waiting for me.

  “Hey, what are you all doing here?” I ask as I flip off my heels and enjoy the feel of my feet on the hardwood floor.

  “Well, I live here, in case you forgot,” Hadley jokes with a smile plastered on her face. “But you texted 911, so I thought I would bring reinforcements.” She holds out her hands at Brynn and Cal in a “ta-da” fashion.

  Oh shit, that’s right. I forgot that I had shoved my phone in my purse and never checked messages all day.

  “Yeah, you can’t text 911 and then ignore us. I was ready to come over to your office to check on you.”

  “I’m sorry. It was a long day.”

  “Well, I brought plenty of wine.” Brynn holds up two bottles in front of her as Hadley walks over to the cabinet for the glasses. “And dinner to soak up the booze.”

  I finally get a whiff of the delicious aroma of the local Chinese takeout place down the street. My mouth waters at the thought of the chicken and broccoli.

  My eyes focus on Cal just as he looks up. “Yeah, well, I’m just here for the food, so feel free to ignore me.”

  “Callum,” Brynn scolds, and he holds his hands up innocently.

  “What? I’m just being honest.”

  Hadley walks over and hands me a glass of red wine before taking a sip of her own. “Now come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  The stress I had felt since this morning’s meeting rolled off my shoulders. These girls, and even Cal, have my back no matter what. That’s what these girls do. I had begun to believe that they were my soul mates and that I don’t need a man on my mind.

  Yet, there’s only been one man on my mind since Friday night. And now I’ve discovered that this man is utterly untouchable.

  Gathered around the coffee table, now covered with an assortment of Chinese takeout containers, fortune cookies, and opened bottles of wine, I enjoy the company of my best friend. In true tribe fashion, we get completely sidetracked from the topic at hand, aka me and my 911, as they talk about their days. I’m not necessarily looking forward to being the center of attention here, so I just go along with it.

  Hadley, who is currently sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, adjusts to sitting on her knees. “Okay, so explain the 911 text. Did you meet your new boss? Did you guys hit it off, okay?” she asks before shoving another piece of orange chicken in her mouth.

  So much for avoiding that subject.

  I swirl the cabernet sauvignon around in my wineglass, and my shoulders sag. “Oh yeah, I met him, all right, and we hit it off great,” I mutter softly, but loud enough for my friends to hear me before bringing the glass up to my lips and downing the rest of its contents.

  I savor the taste, begging for liquid courage to make it through this conversation, but if there is anyone who wouldn’t judge my epic poor life decisions, it would be these people.

  I close my eyes, and memories fill my head—from the satisfaction and warmth of his touch that night versus the coldness and panic I felt this morning.

  Here goes nothing. I take a deep breath as I feel their eyes burning a hole in my skin, waiting for me to explain.

  “I kind of slept with my boss,” I spit out before I chicken out.

  Of course, right as I confess, Cal is taking a sip of his beer, and his reaction is to spit out his drink, but he quickly recovers, reaching for the pile of napkins on the table to clean the mess he made.

  Hadley’s eyes meet mine as if she’s still trying to process what I just said. Her brows furrow, and she opens and closes her mouth multiple times before she finally finds the words.

  “How do you kinda sleep with your boss?”

  Unfazed by what I just said, Brynn continues to eat the food on her plate but retorts, “Was it just the tip? That’s pretty hot.” The rest of us turn to face her, and she just shrugs.

  “Okay, on that note, I think I’m going to slip out to get to my date and leave the girl talk to you guys.”

  “Wait, you have a date, yet you ate dinner here with us,” Hadley questions.

  Cal rises from his seat, taking his plate and empty bottle with him to the kitchen. “It’s only drinks with the chick from the coffee shop. Plus, when do I ever turn down food?”

  He comes back and leans down, kissing Brynn on the cheek. “I’ll see you at home. Text me when you’re about to leave.” She nods. I can’t decide if that’s sweet or weird that he wants her to text him while on a date.

  “Hadley, thanks for the beer.” He then turns to me. “Lexi, umm, congrats on banging your boss.”

  I hide in my hands, completely mortified while the girls bust out laughing.

  I don’t pull my hands from my face until I hear the click of the front door.

  “Okay, we will talk about you two later…” Hadley teases Brynn about her relationship or, well, lack of with Cal. “But right now, we are going to get back to little miss slut over here.”

  Brynn and Hadley both turn to face me again.

  I refill my glass and take a large swig before pulling my feet under me on the couch.

  “Okay, remember the guy from the other night at Eiffel Park?”

  “You mean the one which I quote, ‘fucked me into next week with an orgasm to end all orgasms’?” Hadley chuckles.

  I nod and pull a pillow into my lap as if it’ll hide me. I seriously feel like I want to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment while I watch the dots connect and the light bulbs go off in my besties’ heads. As if they both realize at once—sometimes I feel like we all share a brain, not to mention the same menstrual cycles—they speak simultaneously.

  “Holy fuck!”

  “Lexi!”

  “Wait. Wait. Hold up,” Hadley chimes in. “Didn’t you recognize the name?”

  I shake my head before I run my hand through my hair nervously. “No, when Mr. Jennings spoke with us about the sale, all he said was Mr. Harrington was our new boss and that he was excited to start.”

  “I mean, Harrington isn’t exactly a common name,” Brynn says, reaching for the wine bottle to refill her glass.

  I bite my lip. “Yeah, well, I’m sure I may have questioned it had he introduced himself as Bentley Harrington or said that he was the new owner of Maritime Media. But he just introduced himself as ‘Ben.’”

  “She was too busy focusing on his cock to catch his last name,” Hadley says jokingly, and I reach behind me for the pillow and throw it at her head, but she shifts at the last minute.

  “What happened? I mean, like how did you find out? How did you react?” Brynn asks as she leans her elbows onto her knee.

  I let out a nervous laugh as I replay this morning in my head. “I’m sure it wouldn’t have been so bad had I not figured it out in the morning staff meeting in front of the entire staff.”

  A burst of laughter erupts and fills the room. I’m so glad my friends find my life so amusing. “It’s not funny, bitches!” Yeah, sure, I would be laughing had any of them encountered this same situation, but because it’s me, it’s different.

  “You’re right; it’s fucking hilarious,” Hadley says through the tears running down her face. Seriously? Of all the people, I thought she would have been the most sympathetic. She had witnessed the aftermath of our night together and how much it had messed with my head.

  I throw my head in my hands, covering my face
. “It was mortifying. I couldn’t focus on anything he said. Every time I tried to listen to what he was saying, I remember the sound of his voice as he took my body and made me come harder than anyone ever has. Oh my God! This is finally my chance to start fresh without the memory of Dominic being held over my head, and I fucked it all up.” I know it sounds crazy, but I do feel that I can’t think of this place without thinking of Dominic since I met him on my first day on the job.

  Brynn clears her throat and holds up her pointer finger in the air. “Actually, it was your boss you fucked, not the job.” I wish I had another pillow to throw, so instead, I roll my eyes. I reach the table and snag an egg roll out of the container and take a bite. Eating my feelings sounds like a much better idea.

  “And then to top it off, after the meeting, he called me to his office.” I want to sink further into the couch.

  Brynn straightens up. “Please tell me he bent you over his desk and took you right there.”

  I sigh. “No.” But damnit if the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I wanted him to take me on his desk, on the couch on the far wall—hell, I even thought about him having me pressed up against the window. Maybe if that were the case, I would have come home in a better mood.

  “The complete opposite, unfortunately.” I hide behind my glass as I take a sip.

  “Oh my God! He fired you?” Hadley stands in an outrage, spilling a little of her wine.

  I nearly choke on my wine at her enthusiasm.

  “Slow your roll, girlfriend. No, he didn’t fire me, although I think I’d rather he had done that, then I wouldn’t have to be there every day.” I exhale. “No, he said that we needed to forget what had happened between us. That it was a mistake.”

  “Whoa, what,” the girls shout in unison. “He said that?”

  I recall our conversation and nibble on my bottom lip. “Well, no, he never used that word, but he did mumble something after I said it. Maybe he was just confirming it.” It was me who called it that. Of course, that is the furthest thing from the truth. Here it was, the best sex of my life, and it turned into a total clusterfuck. I bite back the emotion, but when both of my best friends come barreling toward me, pulling into their arms, I let loose. The tears begin to fall. “It was just supposed to be a one-night stand; I don’t know why I’m this messed up over his words.”

  Hadley brushes the hair out of my face and cups my cheeks in her hands. “Because you’re human. You feel with your heart.”

  My friends let me cry it out. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the emotions following the best sex of my life that has me a complete mess. Hadley eventually pulls away from our group hug and stands, taking the bottle of wine from the coffee table with her. I hold Brynn’s hand while resting my head on her shoulder. Oh, this should be good.

  “This is the new and improved Lexi Baker. You are a badass bitch. And fuck him.” She spits out the last part a little harsher than I think she planned.

  “She already did,” Brynn adds with a fake cough in her hand.

  “Touché.” Hadley points to her on the couch with the bottle and laughs. “But no, fuck him in the nonliteral sense. I mean, unless he wants to take you on his desk, then yes, definitely go for it because that’s hot as hell.” She does a little twerk that I think in her mind is supposed to represent me bent over a desk.

  I chuckle and take the glass that’s handed to me. “No, go in there tomorrow and show him why you are the best damn events director and look damn good doing it.”

  She holds the bottle up and uses the other hand to raise, ensuring that we stand from the couch. We all clink our glasses and take a drink. Hadley takes a relatively larger sip straight from the bottle.

  “I love you guys so much.” How lucky am I to have these people in my life?

  Clearing my throat, I take a seat back on the couch and cross my legs under me. “Okay, now that we’ve aired my dirty laundry on a damn Monday, let’s talk about something else.”

  “Ooo, like how fine Mr. Murphy was looking tonight? Seriously, Brynn, why aren’t you banging him?” Hadley smirks.

  Brynn throws her head back on the couch, groaning. “Because we’re just friends,” she admits for what feels like the millionth time. But are we seriously the only ones that see how hot their chemistry is? I feel like “we’re just friends” are famous last words.

  We spend the rest of the evening laughing and chatting before Brynn leaves, and Hadley heads to her room for bed.

  I throw the leftover food containers in the fridge and the empty wine bottles on the counter before making my way to my bedroom. Stripping off my clothes, I climb into bed and wonder what’s in store for me tomorrow. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I’m supposed to kick ass and love my job, not be consumed with thoughts of the man who now signs my paycheck. I can do this—I can remember that Bentley Harrington is just my boss and not the sex on the stick I had gotten off to the thought of all weekend.

  I finally push thoughts of our one night together out of my head and pray I have the strength to get through this.

  I noticed the light on in her office well past close of business. There was no way I was leaving her in this building alone. Once when I went back to the kitchen, I passed her office and thought about stopping in to check in with her, but as I glanced through her open door, I saw her focused on reading papers on her desk, chewing on the tip of her pen, and my mind went somewhere it shouldn’t have.

  As soon as I saw the light flick off in her office, I waited thirty minutes to make sure I didn’t run into her in the parking lot and give it away that I was only here to make sure she was okay. Plus, I may have done something stupid like call the whole “keeping it professional” thing off since it was after hours and convince her to come back to my place for round two and three…and four.

  The drive to the luxury three-story town house I recently purchased is easy. The traffic is light being so much later in the evening. I pull my blacked-out BMW M4 into the garage. I may not like to flaunt my money around often, but I do love my toys. The sleekness of the black on black spells luxury, elegance, and of course, speed. What can I say? I’m a man. Resting my head on the back of the headrest, I scrape my hands down my face, exhaling. What a fucking day.

  I exit the car and close the garage as I make my way into the house. I hear soft moans as I walk up the stairs to the next level. Seriously, Asher? For fuck’s sake. I don’t even need to enter the room to know that Asher has brought another one of his conquests back home. At least he could have taken her to his room.

  When I reach the top of the stairs to the landing, I spy from the corner of my eye my brother with his head buried between the legs of the next notch on his belt. Who knows her name? I’m sure as hell Asher doesn’t either. I choose not to make my presence known because I don’t need to make the situation more awkward. I also make a mental note to have it professionally cleaned—actually, no, to order a new couch for the living room. I make my way down the hall to my home office. The minibar is calling my name. I pour myself a glass of Macallan 12 and take a seat at my desk.

  The liquid goes smoothly down my throat. I browse the internet to pass the time, and the liquid courage has convinced me to google one Alexis Baker, age 25, Willow Creek, New York. Pictures from various events with Maritime Media appear on the screen. I scroll through the images and notice the same group of girls that were with her at the club. Any photo where she’s posing with a guy, I quickly forward to the next image. In most photos, she is smiling from ear to ear. That smile is enough to make any man fall to their knees. It’s the candids from work events that have me most captivated. She is so focused and driven, and it shows in her work.

  I’m not sure how long I spend in my office when a yawn creeps up on me. I turn the computer monitor off and drain the rest of my tumbler. Before I can exit the office and make my way to my bed, the door to my office flings open.

  “What the fuck are you doing up still?” My brother strolls in wearing just low-hang
ing sweatpants and takes a sip from a beer bottle before plopping on the couch across from the desk.

  I lean back in my chair, annoyed that bedtime has been delayed, but also relieved because that means I’m delaying the inevitable. I know that no matter what rules I put in place for Lexi and me, it does not apply to my dreams.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was because I sought out refuge in here when I arrived home after a long first day only to find you dining out on your flavor of the week. Or is it the flavor of the day?” He shrugs off my remarks and doesn’t deny it. One of these days, his actions will have consequences. I won’t always be there to clean up his messes.

  “Yeah, whatever, Dad.” That stings deep, and he knows it. I run my palm along the memorial tattoo hidden with the ink on my arm. Our parents died when Asher was only ten, and I was almost finished my business degree. Our parents were en route to a fundraiser for one of the charity groups our mother was a part of when their small plane went down somewhere over the Appalachian Mountains.

  I was not about to allow my brother to go into the system, so I stepped up as his guardian. Balancing finishing my degree and raising a hell-ridden teenage boy was more challenging than it looks in the movies, but somehow I prevailed. It wasn’t easy. The sleepless nights and emotional breakdowns were endless, and that wasn’t even adding my college course load and needing to make sure I secured a job to support us. Not to mention my ex-girlfriend, Kandace, who left me because she wasn’t ready to be anyone’s guardian at twenty.

  “One, don’t call me that. I may have suffered through your teenage years, making sacrifices to provide you with the best life possible after what we went through, but I’m serious, Asher. You’re fucking twenty-five, what the fuck are you doing with your life?”

  “I’m sorry I’m not as perfect as you,” he spits back before taking a long drag from his bottle.