All Work and No Play... (In Bed with the Boss 3)

by Julie Cohen

  ‘But you’ve never taken it before.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to put it into some semblance of order. ‘I’ve got the big meeting with Giovanni Franco and his team, but that’s not until after lunch. Besides, if anybody needs to get in touch with me, they can always ring—oh.’

  She spotted the empty space where her phone had been, and remembered it had been on the floor, off the hook, since she’d knocked it off in her search for birth control.

  ‘They can ring my mobile,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘So you can spend more time here in bed with me,’ Jonny said, and wrapped his arm around her bare waist.

  She melted. She couldn’t help it. It was as if her body had an automatic ‘plaster yourself all over Jonny’ button and he’d just pushed it. She lay back in his arms and let him curl her up into his warmth.

  She expected him to kiss her again, but instead he caressed her face. His hands were big and masculine, yet sensitive, and a mere touch of her cheek made her close her eyes in pleasure for a moment. When she opened them again, he was gazing intently into her eyes.

  ‘You remember last night when I said I was through pretending to be your boyfriend?’ he said.

  She thought back. She’d been a little distracted by all his glorious nakedness and all the orgasms and such, but she did remember him saying something like that.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘It was a stupid thing to do anyway. And it bothered you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘The reason I’m not going to pretend any more is because I intend to be your boyfriend for real. I’m not going to fool around and say that I’m your friend who you happen to be having sex with. Because I don’t feel like that, Jane. I love you.’

  Her heart and stomach and mind leapt, and her body actually startled in his arms, with a feeling that was nearly joy, nearly fulfilment, nearly like flying.

  And then, just as quickly, she fell back to earth. Her heart thumped painfully, her stomach sank so that she felt as if she might be sick.

  ‘We can take it slowly,’ he was saying to her. ‘I know you’ve just finished with an engagement and I’m living up north for the next little while at least, until I make sure the hotel isn’t in trouble any more. But I love you, Jane, and I’ve loved you for years, and I’m tired of trying to hide it.’

  Oh … he’d never hidden it.

  She stared, frozen, into his eyes and she knew that he had been looking at her this way from the very first moment she’d seen him again. The warmth wasn’t just friendship, not merely the way Jonny was. It was because he loved her.

  It was like the photographs of his parents on his mother’s wall. Something open, honest, and true. Something with expectations of for ever.

  And Jonny was watching her, wanting her to say something back to him.

  ‘I—’ I don’t know how to give you for ever.

  She bit her lip, and swallowed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jonny, can we talk about this later?’ she said. ‘I just remembered I never finished the slides for my presentation this afternoon.’

  ‘Slides,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I was working on them when you—when we talked online.’ She slipped out of his arms and sat up. Her robe was in the wardrobe, across the room. Her underwear drawer was closer. As quickly as she could, she bolted out of bed and to her chest of drawers, and got a pair of knickers and a bra on. She felt Jonny’s eyes on her the entire time.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, crossing to her wardrobe, then winced as she realised the word she’d used. ‘I mean, I’m a little stressed out about work. I don’t usually—’

  ‘Go in late. I know. But I thought you agreed you deserved some time off every now and then.’

  ‘I do.’ She pulled out a suit and a blouse, without checking to see if they matched, and began to put them on. She hadn’t showered, but, right at this moment, getting covered up seemed more important than getting clean.

  ‘And I had a wonderful time last night, Jonny. It’s just that I’m not only late, but I’m unprepared. So I need to go in and get it sorted out.’

  She glanced at him, sitting up in her bed. His feelings about her were naked on his face. So were sadness and disappointment.

  Her stomach twisted and she felt even more sick.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jonny, I know you want to talk, but let’s talk later, okay?’ She escaped into the bathroom before she could hear what he had to say.

  But the bathroom wasn’t any escape. The floor was littered with her clothes, and his; the bath was still full of water, now cold and flat; the whole room was full of drunken memories of their touching, their kissing, their laughing.

  Their making love. For Jonny, in the truest sense.

  She hurried to wash her face, brush her teeth, pin up her hair, and to swipe on some make-up, and then she went from the frying-pan into the fire because, although the bathroom was full of reminders of Jonny, the bedroom was full of him.

  She was talking even before she entirely entered the room. ‘Were you planning to go back to Cumbria today, or will you stay a little longer? I’ll probably have to work through lunch, but we can do dinner, if you like.’

  ‘Jane.’ He was out of bed, and he intercepted her halfway across the room. Of course he was still nude, still warm from bed, still smelling of Jonny and bubble bath and the sex they’d shared, and she smelled like that too. She was going to smell like that at work.

  She bit her lip, caught between present pain and future embarrassment.

  Jonny put one hand on her shoulder, one hand on her face. ‘I meant what I said. I don’t mind taking it slowly. If it were up to me, I’d blazon it from the rooftops. But I can wait for you, if I need to.’ He smiled wryly, something that was just as sexy as his naked body. ‘I’ve been waiting for you since I was about nine years old, a little while longer won’t hurt. Much.’

  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt much. Until he discovered what she was really like, who she really was. She nodded and stepped back from him.

  ‘Let’s have dinner. I need to go now, Jonny.’ She kissed him swiftly on the cheek. ‘Help yourself to whatever you can find in the flat. There’s an extra key in the cabinet with the glasses if you need to go out and come back. I’ll ring you later, all right?’

  And she fled.

  Jonny prowled around the flat. Without a couch, there wasn’t any place comfortable to rest, except for the bath, the bed, and the desk chair. And all of them held too many memories right now, of Jane confiding in him, Jane touching him, Jane telling him what she wanted and blowing his mind.

  And none of those memories quite blocked out the reality of Jane hearing that he loved her and immediately running a mile.

  She’d suggested dinner. He snorted, walking from the window to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water and back again to the window. What good was dinner going to do? As if it were their first date again. No, not even that: as if it were a business meeting. They could have dinner and he just bet that Jane would spend the entire evening talking about subjects unrelated to the two of them, avoiding facing their relationship as she had this morning.

  Or else, she’d be as she had been on their actual first date, and grab him to have wild sex with her before they actually got to dinner. He knew which one he’d prefer, but even the second option didn’t give him what he really needed.

  Which was her. Not her presence, not her body, but her.

  He slammed his water on the nearest table, hard enough to splash some of it out of the glass.

  What did she want? She didn’t want Gary, he understood that now. She didn’t want the fake relationship they’d been putting on. But she didn’t want a real relationship, either.

  ‘So what the hell am I supposed to do?’ he asked the view of London.

  He heard the familiar ringing of his mobile phone, and his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. He grabbed it off the desk where h
e’d left it and he was so sure it was Jane he didn’t even bother to check the number on the screen before he pressed the button and said, ‘Jane?’

  ‘Dude, you are totally lovesick.’

  ‘Thom.’ He didn’t succeed in hiding his disappointment. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Well, that depends what standpoint you’re judging from. I had an awesome weekend.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said automatically, leaning against the window frame and looking out at London again. The day was overcast, about as grey as he felt.

  ‘No, more than good. Awesome. I’ve had nearly enough sex to last me till the next leap year. And then on Sunday, Amy’s kid Stacy came back from her dad’s and we went to the London Aquarium. I tell you, I’ve never seen a kid who liked jellyfish that much.’

  Jonny dragged himself away from his own frustration enough to think about what Thom was saying. ‘Does this mean you’re not so bothered about Amy being a mother?’

  ‘Well, in theory, yeah. I mean, it’s not like I ever set out to be somebody’s dad or anything. But in practice, she’s an excellent kid. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. And watching Amy with her—you know, it’s sort of incredible.’

  ‘Is this your way of telling me that you and Amy might be something more than sex friends?’

  ‘Dude. I will plead the Fifth Amendment on account of the fact that the information may be personally incriminating. But I will say that I’m glad I decided to grow the London business for the next year or two.’

  ‘Good.’ Jonny smiled.

  ‘Yeah, that’s the good standpoint. From the other standpoint, it’s all going tits-up. What does Jane say?’

  He stood up straight. ‘What does Jane say about what?’

  ‘Oh. I thought you’d have talked to her. According to Amy, strange things are afoot at Pearce Grey and your girlfriend is in the middle of it.’

  The minute Jane stepped inside the door she knew something wasn’t right.

  At first she thought it was because of her, as if her time with Jonny had transformed her perspective of the world so hugely that even her office seemed to be a whole different world. The familiar tube journey had seemed strange, too; she was unable to focus on the easy, everyday actions such as swiping her pass on the sensor at the barrier or threading her way through commuters coming off the train she wanted to board. The train had stopped once between stations and whereas normally she wouldn’t even register the short delay, using the time to think through a work issue in her head, this time she shifted in her seat and tapped her feet and hands, feeling as though the stalled movement was stopping her from getting on, from moving away from Jonny and what he had said to her and all the doubts and fears that his declaration had caused.

  And the joy. Sitting in the stopped train, forced by stillness to examine her own feelings, she had to admit that for an unguarded moment, hearing that Jonathan Cole loved her had made her the happiest she had ever felt.

  That revelation had made the journey seem even more surreal, even after the train got going again.

  And now Pearce Grey was quiet. Much quieter than usual on a Monday morning. The few people who were sitting at desks in the big open-plan workspace swivelled their heads toward her as soon as she walked in, and she could have sworn she heard a sharp intake of breath from someone. Hasan, who had his ear to a telephone but wasn’t speaking, jumped out of his chair.

  Before Hasan could get to her, the door to the boardroom opened and Gary practically ran out. She’d never seen him look so frantic and upset. Not even when he’d been breaking up with her.

  ‘Jane!’ he cried. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘At home,’ she answered. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Giovanni Franco rescheduled the meeting for this morning. Didn’t you get any of our messages?’

  ‘What messages?’ She glanced at the glass wall of the boardroom. Most of the team were there, and not only the team from the design firm, but Giovanni Franco himself. She recognised him from the back of his silver-haired head.

  ‘We’ve been trying to get in touch with you since last night. Your phones are off.’

  She remembered her landline, buzzing a dial tone next to her bed while she and Jonny had got on with more interesting things.

  ‘My mobile should be working,’ she said, and put her hand in her bag to pull it out.

  It was off.

  And then she remembered—she’d turned it off on Sunday, before she and Jonny had gone on their walking and tree-climbing and kissing expedition. And she’d been too distracted by Jonny to think about turning it back on again.

  ‘I sent you about twenty emails,’ Hasan said from beside her.

  She hadn’t looked at those, either, because even though her computer had been switched on, she’d been too busy talking sexual fantasies to notice any incoming mail.

  She’d felt sick all morning, but now her stomach felt as if it were scrambling to escape from her body any way it could, preferably through her feet.

  ‘When did the meeting start?’ she asked, her voice barely audible.

  ‘At nine,’ said Gary. ‘Franco’s PA rang me yesterday to reschedule it. I had to book an earlier flight from Milan to get back here in time to warn everyone.’

  Everyone except for her.

  She swallowed, and then adopted a brisk tone. ‘Well, I’m here now.’ She began walking towards the boardroom. ‘How has it gone so far?’

  ‘Terrible.’ Gary was speaking quietly, so the people in the boardroom couldn’t hear. ‘You’ve got all the mockups. Amy’s been in since six or so and she’s cobbled together what she could, and it’s good, but not as good as it should have been.’

  Guilt stabbed through her. It wasn’t just her mistake; this made everyone on the team look bad. And they didn’t deserve it.

  ‘Anyway, I’m sure it will be all right if you go in and give him your presentation. Giovanni Franco is just about spitting nails, but you’re bound to impress him.’

  Jane stopped. ‘But I didn’t finish my presentation.’

  Gary’s eyes just about bugged out of his head. It wasn’t an attractive look. ‘You always finish your presentations days before they’re due.’

  ‘I didn’t this time. I thought—’

  They had reached the boardroom by this time. It was very quiet in there. Quiet enough so that the team, and Franco’s team, and Franco himself, might have heard her conversation with Gary.

  Through the door and the glass wall, she could see Amy, looking flustered and upset, with her laptop and a projector and her sketches for the campaign. Jane hated to think about what kind of morning she had had, trying desperately to find childcare for Stacy and put together a presentation because Jane herself had dropped the ball.

  A chair scraped slowly back in the silence, and Giovanni Franco rose and turned to face Jane. She had met him before, but she’d never seen him looking like this, like a thundercloud personified.

  ‘Ms Miller,’ he said. His voice was shattered-glass anger. ‘How nice of you to join us. I didn’t think it unreasonable that you would turn up for your own client meeting, prepared for your client.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mr Franco. I didn’t get the message that you had changed it, and I believed it was this afternoon. If you’d like to look at what I do have for you—’

  He held up a hand. ‘Don’t bother. I thought, when I commissioned Pearce Grey, that you were a professional organisation. But the treatment I’ve received this morning has proven otherwise. I’ve wasted two hours here and seen nothing of value.’

  ‘Mr Franco, we are a professional organisation. And the campaign we have designed for you is absolutely stunning. Our team has produced work that I’m very proud of. Let me show you what I have, and we can set up another meeting to go through this in more detail.’

  ‘This was the meeting I had arranged, Ms Miller. And your team has not impressed me.’ He waved his hand at her dismissively and made to walk past her through the door. />
  Her guts stopped trying to escape from her body. Instead, they hit her with a rush of adrenaline, a hot punch of anger.

  ‘Mr Franco,’ she said, her voice loud and clear and strong, ‘I’m sorry you are disappointed and I apologise for my role in that. But my team are outstanding and if you are not happy, it’s purely because you moved the goalposts at the last minute. They have been working day and night to get your campaign ready for you today, even though we normally don’t hold meetings such as this without the partners present, because you requested it. The account manager, Mr Kaplan, rearranged his holiday weekend in order to accommodate your wishes. And my art director has gone beyond the call of duty to get her materials ready to present to you several hours before you asked for them.’

  ‘Which is no less than I’d expect,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Your business is important to us. But you changed the meeting time on Sunday afternoon, Mr Franco. A time most people want to spend with their family or loved ones. My team worked extremely hard for you, and they deserve a little bit of time for themselves without having their mobile phones constantly turned on in case you want to tell them to jump higher.’

  She stopped, out of words. The silence was absolute.

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Franco, slowly. ‘Thank you for instructing me on business practices. I can see that our organisations’ policies are not compatible, Ms Miller. It’s a pity that after all your extremely hard work, I shan’t be requiring your campaign after all.’

  This time he did sweep by her. Jane watched, dumbly, as his team followed him out through the door. Not one of them looked her in the eye.

  All at once, her adrenaline and her anger deserted her. She gripped the side of the door to support her boneless body.

  She’d just single-handedly lost her company this and every future Giovanni Franco campaign.

  Jane turned around before she could see what the people in the boardroom, and the entire company, thought of her. Blindly, she groped past the desks and chairs across the open-plan office to the fire-escape door, opposite to the direction the designer and his minions had just taken. Then she was in the bare staircase, down a short flight of stairs into an alley at the back of the building.