by SR Jones
“Yes, him,” I say, sounding prim and irritated.
I hate the thought of all these women salivating over a man who until a couple of days ago was my secret crush.
“What about him? Don’t tell me you fancy him because, honey, I think we all do. Although, Vanessa probably wouldn’t; she likes those preppy types. Rich Oxbridge students with floppy hair. Ugh, what is it with her and those young Conservatives she always falls for?”
“I don’t know,” I snap, impatient now. “Do you want to know or what?”
“Okay, chill, bitch.” She laughs. “Please, doth tell.”
“You know the two guys I went back with the other night? The ones we’re always seeing at the club? I think Vanessa might have screwed one of their mates?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, the guy I hooked up with took me to this huge house; I mean massive. Like millionaire shit, right? We had … horribly bad sex, and the next morning I woke up alone. I went downstairs, and our new boss found me in his kitchen. Michael, the guy Vanessa has fancied for ages, is our new boss’ son!”
“What?” Suzy practically shrieks. “Michael? Our Michael? From Studio?” She’s talking about one of the clubs our crowd frequents. “The one who is smart and, well, he’s kind of preppy if you ask me. He can’t be that hunk of muscle’s son? No way! Oh my God, and you fucked someone in his house. You’re in so much shit.”
“It gets worse,” I say with a groan. “He found me swigging orange juice out of the carton in his kitchen, like some sort of savage. Then he gave me a lift back to Camden. He was so horrible about me and assumed I’d had sex with his stepson. I got mad, and when I got out of the car, I leaned in and told him his stepson was shit in bed, and then, I left him with the parting shot, like father, like son.”
I hide my head in my hands as the horror at the situation I find myself in washes over me all over again. “Oh, yeah, and I kicked his car, which is a Merc that I’m pretty sure costs about a hundred thousand, give or take, and I kicked it hard enough to mark his door. Before I stormed off, like a child.”
“Oh my God. Fuck.” Suzy is shaking her head when I look up. “You’re so getting fired.”
“I know.” I shake my head too. “Which means I can’t afford rent, and so I lose my apartment, and I’m going to end up living back at my grandparents.”
I can’t do that to them. I love them both to bits, and living with them is no hardship, but the worry they’d feel over me getting fired and the financial toll would be a burden I don’t want them to have. My grandpa is sick, and he shouldn’t have to deal with my crap. He’s literally the only man who’s been there for me through my life. The only one. He has always been a gentle, kind guiding force. Sadly, because Mum was such a screw up, I didn’t see as much of them as I’d have liked when I was younger, as she’d always forget to take me when it was planned for me to stay. Every Wednesday, though, without fail, my grandad would meet me outside the school gates and give me a pound for sweets, take me to the local shop, and then we’d go for a walk as we shared the sweets between us. Those afternoons were the highlight of my week.
“Bitch, listen to me, you’ve got to grovel. Go in there when he calls you in to talk and beg.” Suzy brings me back to the moment. “Say you’re sorry, tell him … tell him you weren’t in your right mind because your fiancé cheated on you. Go full-on sob story. In fact, make yourself cry.”
“I can’t just make myself cry,” I tell her. “Although, to be honest, the way I’m feeling, crying might be easy.”
“Cassie?” A slim woman with a hard face who could be anywhere from mid-thirties to mid-fifties approaches my desk.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Silvanov will see you now.”
Oh shit.
Suzy makes an odd strangled sound, and I realize the cow is laughing at me. Some friend. I’m genuinely terrified, and the best she can do is laugh?
I nod at the stern woman standing by my desk, as I attempt to swallow down my terror.
“Knock on the boardroom door when you’re ready; he’s expecting you. Would you like a coffee?”
I shake my head. “No thanks.” I’ll throw it up if I take one sip, I know it.
Suzy watches me the whole time, her face a picture as with shaking hands I send a few documents to the printer. Hoping that if I show how good I am at my job, he’ll spare me.
“What the fuck are you going to say to him?”
“I don’t know. How about, your son’s not really a terrible lay. I only said that in anger. Or I didn’t sleep with your son and only pretended to because you pissed me off? Or please don’t fire me. I need the job. I’m normally not a drunken whore-bag who drinks out of cartons. I was letting off steam because my slut fiancé dumped me after screwing half the office behind my back and now has a new girlfriend?”
She winces. “You are not a whore-bag. Don’t slut shame yourself, girl, or I’ll come over there and beat some sense into you. As for the sex in his house situation… On second thought, I wouldn’t even go there, babe. How can you? What the hell can you say? Honestly, don’t mention it is my advice. Maybe act as if you’ve never seen him before. Pretend it’s not you. If all else fails, just start crying. Men cannot handle it when women cry, particularly young pretty ones. Cry and pout. Put those damn blow job lips to good use. Thank God you wore that lipstick today. You pout with that on, and he’ll be too busy thinking dirty thoughts to be pissed.”
I stare at her as if she’s grown another head. “Yeah, that’s a good plan. Pretend it’s not me. That won’t make me look fucking crazy or anything. Then try to sexy-cry, which isn’t even a thing.”
“Sexy-crying is a thing. I’ve done it. You let a few tears slide down your cheeks, you pout, and you look all helpless. Men love helpless women, especially men like him.”
“How do you know what he loves?” I shoot back as I shuffle my papers. She knows nothing about him.
I do.
I know how he takes his coffee, that he reads great literature, and loves dogs. Not that I’m about to tell her any of that. My time getting to know Konstantin when he came into the coffee shop while I still worked there is a secret I prize too much to tarnish with the oxygen of sharing it.
“Wish me luck.”
“Break a leg,” she says. Laughing some more. “In fact, that might be a good get out clause.”
Bitch. But it makes me smile.
I grab the papers I’ve printed off and walk unsteadily down the corridor to the boardroom.
I knock once.
“Come in,” Konstantin replies. His gravelly voice is as sexy now as it had been when I first heard it back when he ordered a latte to-go.
Most disturbing to me in this clusterfuck I find myself in is that I kind of agree with Suzy. It might be worth losing my job for a night with Konstantin. I’ve never wanted a man so much in my life.
I bet he’s got a dark side, a sensual dark side. Despite my lack of experience with such things, the idea appeals to me. On a few occasions, I tried to spice things up with Tim. I asked him to spank me, but he was half-hearted and kept giggling. Then I asked him to pull my hair, I love how it feels and do it to myself often enough, but he flat out refused.
The one time he tied me up, he kissed me all over gently for hours, and I was so bored I almost fell asleep. I wanted him to bite me, nip me, spank me, and leave marks. I don’t mean anything horrific, I’m not a masochist who wants to be covered in welts, but I’d have loved if Tim had used a firm hand in bed, but he never did. Or rather, the few times he tried, it felt like the obvious role play that it was. And a half-hearted one at that. I might not want to be hurt, but deep down in the dark night of my soul, I crave being dominated. Konstantin dominates everyone around him simply by standing there doing nothing. It makes my panties wet.
I take a breath and walk into the room to find Konstantin sitting at the head of the huge boardroom table, the seat to the left of him pulled out and angled to one side. Ready for me. C
rap. My legs wobble as I near him, my heart hammering.
Who is this stupid, nervy, pathetic girl? And what has she done with the competent old me?
“Well, we meet again,” he says with that smirk as I sit.
So we’re going there? We’re doing this, confronting the elephant in the room. I half thought he’d ignore it, pretend never to have seen me before.
“I’m sorry.” The words are out before I can stop them.
Shit, the guy is probably about to sack me. I look at him and swallow hard as his stormy blue-gray gaze meets mine. His lashes are long and curled. Softness in a hard face is how I’ve always thought of them. I want to touch his jaw, to see if it feels as sharp as it looks. I want to climb onto his lap and have him hold me and tell me it will all be okay.
He’s so big, and it gives the illusion of him being a safe harbor in a storm. He looks like somewhere I can moor up for the night until the dawn.
It’s a lie—he is the stormy sea. And if I let him, he’ll smash me to pieces on his jagged rocks.
He's not protection; he's danger in a suit and pretty tie.
I lower my gaze and hate myself for submitting, but it's as natural as breathing around him.
Needing to get this out and make my apology, I sigh and pull myself together.
“I truly am sorry. I never should have said what I did about your son … stepson. It wasn’t true anyway. I mean, not that he’s good in bed, or bad in bed. I don’t know. I didn’t sleep with him.” I finally close my mouth and want to cut my tongue out and feed it to the rats. Why am I so stupid?
“I know you didn’t sleep with him, Cassie,” he says, surprising me. He smiles, and it’s the distant one he gave the whole room earlier.
I prefer his arrogant smirk. The smirk is real. This is practiced. His I’m a nice guy, really smile, when deep down he’s anything but.
“Well, it wasn’t professional, and I’m sorry.”
He cocks one dark blade of a brow. “Why would you have been professional? You didn’t know I had bought the firm where you work. I was the guy from the coffee shop and your lift home to avoid the walk of shame, right?” The way he says right holds a challenge, but one I don’t understand.
“So we can pretend it never happened?” I ask. Hopeful on the one hand we can, wishing on the other he’ll say no, we can’t forget it because he’s going to admit to the simmering attraction.
One I’m beginning to believe he feels too. There were moments when I worked in the coffee shop I would think he flirted or I had caught him looking at me, when I convince myself he liked me, but I always talked myself out of it. Now, though, something about the way he looks at me tells me he does, and maybe doesn’t want to. It’s as if he half wants to never see me again, and half wants to devour me. Like he can’t make his mind up.
My mind is already made up. I’m already in too deep with my full-on schoolgirl crush.
“Yeah, I’ll pretend I never saw you dressed up as a jailbait stripper, and you pretend you’ve never seen me before today. We can act completely normal.” He laughs.
I’m side-tracked by his words about my outfit. That again! It was't that bad! What is his issue?
“You know, my clothes the other night were pretty much normal attire for clubbing, right? Nothing overtly trashy about them.”
The smirk is back. “Maybe I need to go clubbing if those places are full of girls who look like you.”
“Oh, they’re full of much hotter girls than me,” I say. I’m one hundred percent not fishing, simply being truthful.
“I doubt that.” He seems to snap out of whatever he’s pondering and clears his throat. “Anyway. We should discuss the company. I have a few questions to ask, and if there’s anything you don’t want to answer, feel free to say; this is completely off the record. I don’t want to hear about individuals or anything of such a nature. Simply the things you feel work well and those you don’t.”
I nod, pushing away all lewd thoughts of clambering into his lap and letting his big hands push my skirt up, instead forcing my professional brain to take over.
We talk for about twenty minutes, and then Konstantin nods and shuffles his papers. He’s made the odd note in a slanted neat hand, and he closes his organizer. I stare at it. It’s got Montblanc on the front in a graffiti font, and I know how much Montblanc stuff costs. So now I know he’s also the kind of man who drops hundreds of pounds on a personal organizer. I file it away with the other Konstantin facts I hoard.
“Thank you, Cassie. This has been helpful. And so you know, your job is secure. You won’t be affected by any reshuffles, but keep that to yourself.”
I love hearing him saying that. I want my job to be secure, but I don’t want to get any special treatment. Instead of keeping my thoughts to myself, I stupidly open my big mouth. “Thanks. That means a lot, but I don’t want any special treatment because you know me. Or because of what happened the other day?”
He turns to me, his face puzzled. “I don’t understand?”
“Erm, I mean, it’s only that … after you gave me the lift, I don’t want any special treatment. It’s not fair.” Shut up, my brain is screaming, but my stupid mouth doesn’t know when to stop.
“What happened between us? I didn’t think anything had happened between us. I gave you a lift; you gave me a lot of cheek and fucked up my car. Why would I give you special treatment for being a spoiled, rude brat, jailbait?”
Ugh, I hate him calling me that. Hate the condescending way he says it as if I’m some whore for wearing clothes of the sort most young women wear. Where does he get off with the judgmental tone? A man like him judging me?
I looked him up—yes, I did, ashamed as I am to admit it—as soon as I got to my desk after the meeting. I nipped to the ladies and did some intense googling. He wasn’t that hard to find mention of. It turns out, he’s someone the media have talked about now and again, normally in relation to the women he’s shagging. He doesn’t seem to have any social media accounts. No Facebook. No Instagram. No Twitter. And he himself also doesn’t seem to do much publicity wise; except for a couple of dry business interviews. My god, though, he picks women who hog the headlines, and on a couple of occasions, he’s been mentioned alongside them as their date. Only six months ago, he was cavorting with not one, but two models. He’s a slut, yet he acts like I’m the one in the wrong.
My temper flares. I’m a good girl. Always have been, and where has it got me? Dumped by my fiancé. Humiliated in front of my whole workplace. Broke. And now, treated as if I’ve committed a crime for wearing a sexy outfit by the world’s biggest hypocrite.
“You know, for a man who dates a lot of models, you seem to have an issue with any woman who dresses in remotely sexy clothes.” As soon as the words are out, I regret them. Shit, I’ve just let on that I looked him up. Way to go, Cassie.
His eyes narrow. “How do you know who I date?”
I sigh. “It’s online. Not a lot, but there’s info showing you as the new amor of two different models in the space of six months, so I don’t get why you’re angry at me for wearing a perfectly normal outfit.”
He says nothing, but his face tightens as he watches me.
“I’m not rude either. Not normally, anyway, but you’re … very trying. I try hard to be nice to people.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do, Cassie. Too hard.”
What does that even mean? Where does he get off with this attitude? This man drives me crazy.
“I don’t purposefully hurt others. I don’t buy up companies and asset strip them and fire people.”
Oh, holy shit!
I need to get out of this room before I really do lose my job. I’ve always had a temper, but normally I keep it well in check. Even Tim cheating on me didn’t bring it out to this degree. Why does Konstantin drive me so crazy?
“You think I’m the bad guy, do you?” he sneers. “And you’re Snow White? Well, jailbait, if you’re so squeaky clean, how come you nearly lost your pla
ce at university for being involved in a hacking project.”
I feel the color drain from my face as he watches me.
“What? You think I didn’t read your file? You looked me up, and I looked you up. Don’t worry, jailbait, it’s not a black mark. In fact, it’s one of the reasons you’re keeping your job, which we’ll discuss later. But cut the holier than thou crap; it’s fucking irritating.”
Why are my hacking skills a reason for me to keep my job? We don’t do anything like that here.
“Now run along, jailbait. I’m done with you … for now.”
Tears sting my eyes at his dismissive, sneering words. I don’t think I’ve met a bigger bastard, and to think I thought he had some humanity.
“I hardly think I look like jailbait now. Do you?” I stand and put a hand on my hip. Challenging. I won’t let him make me cry and run away, tail between my legs. “I’d also appreciate it if you don’t call me that anymore. It’s not professional.” I expect him to have the grace to look ashamed, or even apologize. He does neither.
Instead, he splays his thickly muscular thighs a bit wider, puts his hands behind his head, and leans back as he slowly rakes his gaze the length of my body, from my head to my feet and back again.
Every single place his gaze touches burns. My whole being is on fire from nothing more than a look.
“I think you look like a young, barely out of college girl, dressing up as a businesswoman, and pretending she’s got her shit sorted when, really, she’s anything but. I think once you get past your outer shell, you’re terrified, and angry, and you’re trying to hide both because you don’t even know what you’re angry at. I think you try to be good, and kind, and nice, but there’s a part of you that wants to be oh so bad.”
Oh my God, it’s as if he’s seen inside my soul. I am terrified, and not only today with him sitting here, judging me, but every day. Terrified deep down, that one day, I’ll lose my marbles and end up like Mum, unable to cope. It’s why I stamp down that bad side and try to be good, organized, kind, and just normal. I’m terrified I’ll end up all alone, because ultimately everyone leaves. Or that I’ll lose this job I’ve fought so hard to keep, and then end up broke and living off the state, like Mum did. It’s probably why I got engaged so young, and to a man I realize now I didn’t even love.