No choice. I had to set my computer back on the conference table, the ring on my finger flashing out a multi-carat message to my supposed colleagues as they filed out, barely glancing at me. Special privileges, it said, not to mention going to get nailed hard on this table. Or maybe that was just the message I got.
You want to talk about tokens? You want to talk about nerves?
Hemi waited until Henry left, closing the door softly behind him. Then he just looked at me. I was standing, one hand on a chair back for support, because I was feeling a little dizzy. He was still sitting at the head of the table, still as stone in his black suit, all powerful shoulders and strong thighs, hard expression and hard muscle.
Motionless. Waiting.
“I know,” I finally said. “I was here to take minutes.”
“Oh,” he said, “is that why.”
“But you asked me for my opinion,” I said. “You shouldn’t ask if you don’t want to hear.”
“No,” he said, and my heart just about stopped. “No,” he said again, “it was good, what you said.”
“Oh.” My knees were trembling some now.
“Take off your dress,” he said.
My mouth opened, and I didn’t move.
“Now,” he said.
“I…” I started to say, and stopped. Everybody else would be in the elevators. Talking about the meeting. Talking about me.
“Hope,” he said gently, “do I have to tell you what will happen to you if you don’t do what I say?”
All I wanted was to do exactly that. He was pure dark power, and I couldn’t resist him.
“No,” I finally said.
He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me as if I hadn’t spoken.
I was more than shaking now. I was weak. But I picked up my laptop and said, “You’re driving, and I’m drawing the line. That’s our agreement. Well, I’m drawing it now. No. I have no credibility. I need it. I’ll see you at seven.”
And I walked out.
I wanted to go straight back to my cube and have everybody see me do it, thirty seconds after they got downstairs themselves. Unfortunately, I was forced to change my plans.
The wait for the elevator was endless. I kept expecting Hemi to appear behind me and…what? Drag me back into the conference room? Sling me over his shoulder, carry me back in there, dump me onto the table, and rip my dress off? He’d looked fierce enough to do just that.
Too bad. It was time to discover if my “no” meant “convince me” to him, or if it really meant “no.” If he truly loved me, if we were going to work, “no” had to mean “no” every single time, no matter how much he wanted it, no matter how mad he was, no matter how wrong he thought I was. We had a power imbalance already the size of the Grand Canyon. If we didn’t have respect, we had nothing.
I waited, then waited some more, so tense I was nearly vibrating, until the elevator doors finally opened with a musical ding and I stepped inside.
He hadn’t come. He was letting me go. He got it.
The relief was worse than the tension. I punched the button for 52, leaned against the mirrored wall, tried not to shake, and failed. My stomach roiled, I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, and I actually got faint.
Stop it, I told my bleached face in the mirror, the knuckles that shone white where my hand gripped the silver railing. Calm down. But I couldn’t. For one awful moment, when the elevator dropped and my stomach dropped with it, I thought I was going to throw up, or pass out, or both.
Note One. You are a professional. Unfortunately, the thought couldn’t make it past the waves of nausea and faintness. The doors opened, and I stumbled out on my too-high, too-slim heels and turned blindly in the direction of the ladies’ room.
I made it inside and into the farthest, biggest cubicle, latched the door, set my laptop down in the midst of the germs, grabbed for a seat protector and threw it onto the toilet seat, then sank down, dropped my head between my knees, and waited it out.
How do you spell “overreaction?”
After a couple minutes, when the blackness had receded, I sat up, pulled a wad of toilet paper off the roll, wiped my damp face with it, and tried to gear myself up to go back out there. People who wanted to be professionals, who were aiming to be members of the team, didn’t hide in the bathroom after every confrontation like little girls who’d been sent to the principal’s office.
Just one more minute, though, until I stopped shaking and my stomach settled down. One more minute.
One minute too long. I heard the outer door open, and then the voices.
“Wonderful.” Cold, brittle tones chipped from ice. “We’re all going to be here until eight every night for the next month, not to mention being the laughingstock of the Paris show, just because the CEO’s who-me little Mary Sue thinks the world should be all rainbows and unicorns, and he’s doing his thinking with his big brown dick.”
If you’re guessing that was Maggie, you’re guessing right. I heard some laughter, too. A little shocked, a little gleeful, and from more than one person. What, they were having a party out there?
Great. What a position. I hadn’t needed to hear that. I didn’t need any more reason to hate Maggie, or any more confirmation of how unwelcome I was. And I was feeling sick again.
“To be fair.” That was Gabrielle, her voice cool, not laughing. “It wasn’t her idea, it was his. And you can say ‘big dick,’ if you have to go there. Don’t say ‘brown,’ though, or I’m going to have no choice but to bitch-slap you.”
Not everybody was horrible, then. Good. Time to go.
Unfortunately, they weren’t finished. “Sorry,” Maggie said, though it didn’t exactly sound sincere. “I don’t see him like that.”
“Like what?” Gabrielle asked, her tone more glacial than ever.
“Whatever,” Maggie said. “That’s how you get to be a trophy wife, though, I guess. Sit in his meetings, agree with everything he says, and tell him how brilliant his instincts are, when everybody in the room who actually has a clue and a track record is telling you the opposite.”
“No, I think how you get the ring is by letting him do you in the ass over the table after the meeting.” I recognized the voice of Victoria, Maggie’s BFF, who hadn’t been in the meeting but had clearly been brought up to speed. There was some slightly shocked laughter at that, and Victoria mewed, “Ooh, Hemi, it hurts. I’m so tiny and fragile, I can’t take it.”
“After the blow job,” a familiar voice, but one I couldn’t place, put in. “’Hope, could you wait a minute, please? And get on your knees so I can shove my dick down your throat?’” While I was still reacting to that one, she added in her normal tone, “But you’ll want to tone it down, Maggie. I noticed it in there, and I’ll bet little Hope did, too. Don’t let that sweet act fool you. She got Martine fired, you know.”
“She didn’t get fired,” Maggie said. “She quit. She got a better offer.”
“That was the party line, sure,” the voice went on. “But she told me what really happened. Hemi made her hire Hope, and when she expected Hope to do her job, Hope went whining to Hemi, and he turned around and fired Martine for it. That’s why Simon’s terrified to ask her to do anything now, and why we all have to pick up her slack. Hope had no degree, no experience, and no skills at all except whatever’s got Hemi whipped like that. She was ridiculous at the job from the beginning, Martine said. She was slow, she made so many mistakes it wasn’t funny, and she didn’t even come in half the time, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing Martine could do once Hope decided she had to go. So be careful. And,” she added, “don’t tell anybody I told you. Martine swore me to secrecy. She was afraid Hemi would hear if she talked, and he’s got a long reach.”
“You’re doing a great job with that,” Gabrielle drawled. “Big ups on keeping her secret.”
“I’m telling you because you need to know,” the voice countered. “Everybody got the picture today. He is thinking with his dick, and
if you want to keep your jobs, you’d better remember that and start sucking up to Hope. Today she’s in that meeting, telling him to redo the whole launch. Who knows where she’ll be next week? Who knows what she’s telling him right now?”
“Once her mouth’s not full anymore,” Victoria said with a snigger.
“Whatever,” Gabrielle said. “I’m out of here.”
I’d been sitting there, holding my breath, nearly paralyzed with shock. And then, suddenly…I wasn’t. I’d had enough. I flushed the toilet just to give them that first horrified moment of realization, picked my laptop up off the floor, and stepped out of the cubicle.
Four women. Maggie, Victoria, Gabrielle, who’d been halfway out the door but had evidently turned back, and the most vicious one, the woman who’d given the presentation. Cherise. All of them frozen in shock except Gabrielle. “Well, hi there,” she said, a slow, satisfied smile appearing on her face.
“Hello.” I set my laptop down on the counter and washed my hands, taking my time. Soap, and scrubbing, and rinsing. They weren’t chasing me out.
“Ah…” Victoria said. “We were just messing around, you know. Joke.”
Maggie didn’t say anything, just looked like she wanted to slap me, but Cherise said, still cool, “You have to admit, you screwed us all over in that meeting. You have no idea how many hours I spent on that presentation. Just letting off steam, that’s all.”
I looked at them wide-eyed like the innocent, who-me little Mary Sue I was, grabbed for a paper towel, and asked, “Sorry? When was that?”
“Nice job showing your class, ladies,” Gabrielle said. “An apology might work better, you know? And what they’re trying to say,” she told me, “is that they’re not happy about all of them except you betting wrong today.”
“Speak for yourself,” Maggie snapped, clearly too rattled and much too angry for prudence. “Good job sucking up, though, Gabrielle. Way to go. And may I just add that the way I was raised, you announce your presence if other people are having a private conversation. It’s called eavesdropping.”
“Oh?” I asked. “Were you having a private conversation? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” Then I dropped my paper towel in the trash and hit the door.
I was still shaky, and I still felt a little sick, but at least I didn’t feel unprofessional anymore.
It was all in the comparison.
I didn’t stop at my cube. I went straight to Henry’s office. Even though it felt like an hour, barely ten minutes had passed since the meeting had ended, and I wanted him to know that I was downstairs, and that I’d been downstairs for a while.
I tapped at his door and told him, when he looked up, “I’m doing those minutes for you, assuming you still want them after the shift in priorities.”
His gaze was blue steel. “I still want them.”
I hesitated a moment, then said, “I realize you told me I shouldn’t talk, and that I did.”
He sighed and said, “Come in.” When I did, he said, “Sit,” and when I did that, he said, “The only thing that matters is the right result. That’s why you have debate. That’s why you have meetings, contrary to popular belief. They’re not just to waste everybody’s time. They’re about putting the information and the opinions out there so the person in charge—the one with the best judgment, you hope—can make a decision. Do I wish Hemi hadn’t chosen this year to take a vacation, and that we’d had that debate a month ago? Of course I do. I wish I still had all my hair, too. But we’ve had it now. It’s done.”
“That’s great,” I felt emboldened to say, “except when you don’t think it’s the right result.”
He didn’t smile. He said, “The right result is the one that makes the most money, and Hemi has a nose for money like nobody in this business. Why do you think I’m still in this job? It’s not for the relaxed atmosphere.”
“Well, not today, anyway.”
“Get used to it,” he said. “It’s not going to change. And starting on Monday, you’re going to work for Cherise Clairmont. She’s going to need more help if she’s going to be starting from scratch.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I said over the thud that was my heart sinking to the bottom of my chest. “She doesn’t exactly love me. Maybe I could work with Gabrielle instead.”
“News flash,” he said. “I don’t care about your feelings. Nobody loves me except my grandkids, and only because they’re too young to realize what an SOB I am. I do my job anyway. I expect you to do yours, or go find another one. I don’t babysit. Cherise needs help, and that’s where you’re going, or you can stay with Simon and quit whining about what he gives you to do. Maybe you’ll be good enough to think it over and tell me which you’d prefer. For now, get out of here and type up those minutes. I sent you a couple more things I need done after that, and time’s a-wasting. You want to work? Then go get busy.”
Rock, meet hard place.
Hope
I thought about canceling with Nathan, but I didn’t.
To begin with, I’d told Hemi about it the evening before, he’d worked hard to be reasonable, and especially after the events of today, I didn’t want to give up that ground.
I’d cheated a little, of course. I’d brought it up while I’d had my hand on his bare chest and my legs tangled with his, during those peaceful few minutes before sleep. In the wee hours of the night, to be exact, after he’d finally slid into bed beside me after another late-night session in his home office. When I’d woken and turned to him, and he’d made such slow, tender love to me that he’d nearly brought tears to my eyes. When he’d loved me like I was his glass of warm milk, his sweet treat before bedtime.
When we’d finished and were quiet, resting together, I said into the dark, “I’m going to have a drink with Nathan after work tomorrow. So you know.”
“Are you, now. And Karen will be off making popcorn, eh. Reckon I’d better take you out to dinner afterwards, then, or I’ll be all alone, and wouldn’t that be a pity.” His voice was a deep, slow rumble, his hand stroking down my back, finding the sensitive spot at the base of my spine and drawing slow circles there. That could nearly bring me to orgasm all by itself once I was all the way wound up, and he knew it. Right now, as satisfied as I was, it just felt delicious, like licking rich dark-chocolate ice cream off the cone and feeling it melt on your tongue, all sweet, sensual pleasure.
“Mm,” I said, letting myself feel every bone-melting shiver. “You’d better do that, I guess. If you think you have time for me.”
“I’ll make time.” He moved on down to stroke my bottom, my upper thighs, his hand so sure on me. “Seven o’clock do you? Where will you be?”
“O’Doul’s.” I pressed my lips to his chest, warm skin over hard muscle. “Thank you, sweetheart. I love you.”
I’d never called him that, I realized as soon as I said it, and I stiffened momentarily, but he didn’t say a word. He sure didn’t stop holding me, so I closed my eyes, snuggled closer to his radiant warmth, and in another minute, fell asleep, because if I was his security blanket, he was mine, too.
Of course, that had been then, this was now, and he hadn’t even sent me a text after I’d walked out on him this afternoon. I didn’t know if he’d show up at seven, or what I’d get when he did.
And if you think that might have excited me a little…well, color me guilty. I’d been right to say no, and I reserved the right to say no. You bet I did. That didn’t mean I wasn’t imagining the consequences of having said no, or that the tingles weren’t hitting me like sharp little shocks at the suggestions my naughty brain conjured up in answer to that interesting question.
The dirty truth was that it was more for Hemi than for Nathan that, at five-thirty on that endless afternoon, after a final check-in call with Karen, I stopped in the ladies’ room, site of my most recent disaster, did some hasty freshening up, dabbed on a little more perfume, and headed down to the lobby.
Nathan was leaning against one of the po
lished granite walls when I showed up, a dark, casually elegant figure typing on his phone with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his dark, handsome face.
“Hey,” I said when I reached him and he still hadn’t noticed me.
He looked up, his expression clearing a bit, and said, “Hey.”
Well, that was a great start. I said, “OK, what? Job got you down?” I resisted the idea that it was awkwardness with me. He’d worked with me for nine months, we were friends, and surely Nathan wouldn’t treat me differently now.
Of course he wouldn’t. It was probably about the job, just like it always was with Hemi. Nathan had been promoted to full-fledged Publicity Associate a few months earlier, a much-deserved jump. Despite his laid-back attitude, he had a knack for the work like nobody I’d ever seen, and I could tell he enjoyed it.
“Ha,” he said. “The job? I should be asking you about that, from what I hear.”
“Oh. News gets around, I see.”
“Well, yeah. If you’re going to post your political manifesto to the entire marketing department and torpedo their whole campaign, not to mention the interesting aftermath? That would tend to happen.”
“What interesting aftermath?” The Mean Girls had talked about what they’d said in the ladies’ room? Surely not. Talk about torpedoing. You didn’t have to know Hemi well at all to know how that would have gone over with him. He got mad if somebody looked at me wrong.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Being kept after school to bang erasers?”
I sighed and didn’t blush. “Oh. That. I wasn’t kept after school. I cannot believe people. Let’s go. I’ll tell you about it, if you want to hear. Except that you already have.”
“I could hear it again from the horse’s mouth. Beats talking about me.”
Really? That was odd. At that moment, though, I spotted Gabrielle coming out of the elevator. I hesitated, torn, before I put a hand on Nathan’s arm. “Hang on one sec, will you?” I waited until Gabrielle had caught up to us, then said, “Hey. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you. Do you know Nathan Forrest?”
Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) Page 23