Entry-Level Mistress

by Sabrina Darby

  My words charged the air, laid out a challenge. We both understood where this was leading. There was no doubt the attraction was there. What I didn’t know was, would I gather up my clothes and be driven home in the wee hours of the morning, or would there be breakfast and normal, awkward, next-morning conversation? And why was I considering sleeping with a man I didn’t like? On the first date? When only half an hour earlier I had rejected the possibility.

  I had always believed that personality was part of attraction, but since I didn’t really know Daniel, had every reason to dislike him, I was coming around to the idea that attraction was a purely physical thing.

  • • •

  At the restaurant, he ordered a bottle of wine, made sure my glass stayed full. Watched me carefully as I grew more relaxed over the course of the meal, more aroused by the alcohol and him. Every part of my body came alive and I wanted to feel everything with my skin—the coolness of the silverware, the sleek wood of the chair beneath my thighs.

  The air was tense and electric yet somehow the conversation passed with nothing of import said. Instead we talked about safe topics like food, people and places. In Boston’s social scene, chefs were as much celebrities as musicians and actors, and of course, Daniel knew the restaurant’s creative director. I wasn’t a particular fan of molecular gastronomy, but nonetheless, I enjoyed the puffed mozzarella bites and the basil oil-injected grape tomatoes.

  “Well, truthfully,” I said, eventually answering his question from the day before, “working for you isn’t my first job. I’ve been painting murals for local businesses for a few years now. Between that and designing posters for musicians, I’ve managed to avoid the usual part-time jobs.”

  The waiter left the dessert plate on the table, with a spoon in front of each of us.

  “Why did you come to work for me?” His mouth pressed into a thin line, as if maybe he wanted to say more, or hadn’t even meant to say that. As if maybe Daniel Hartmann could be as impulsive as I clearly was. Maybe he simply didn’t want to get serious, to change the playful, flirtatious, charged atmosphere between us. Or maybe that was just me.

  “For Hartmann Enterprises, you mean?” I shrugged, choosing the vaguest of answers. “I should think anyone would jump at the chance for a position with growth, with an excellent entry-level salary and benefits.”

  “But why would Mark Anderson’s daughter?” Ah, there we were. I looked down at my plate. He’d clearly known all along.

  I looked up again, met his gaze head on.

  “I was wondering if that was why you’d asked me out.” I swallowed hard. Honesty time. There really was nothing else to say or do. “I was curious about you, but I never imagined … I should hate you. In some ways I do.”

  He laughed. I watched him closely, trying to decode the tone of the sound and the way his body seemed to contract. I’d learned to read emotion and symbolism in sculpture, but that didn’t help me understand. I watched him tap his finger against the leather seat of the booth as if the motion were the biggest mystery in the world.

  For me, he was the villain. He’d ruined my family, taken away our wealth. And yet, I found him compelling. I wanted to press my lips to his just to see how he tasted. Was that attraction purely because he was forbidden fruit?

  “If you were your own son, you could be innocent,” I said softly. “You and me sitting here? This could be Romeo and Juliet. But that’s not this story.”

  The ice cream slowly melted in its silver cup as I waited for him to say something. The air was thick between us. I wondered if he was as physically aware of me as I was of him. My body fairly brimmed with that awareness.

  “Daniel,” I whispered, needing him to say something. I watched the emotions that crossed his face—or, more accurately, the flicker into an absence of emotion as he hid everything from me.

  He straightened his spoon where it rested against the white tablecloth. Tension ramped up inside me.

  Finally, his lips parted.

  “I’ll take you home.”

  • • •

  I felt the loss keenly. This whole little romantic escapade, in which I played at the high drama of a soap opera, was going to be over before it had even really begun. I didn’t know why. Clearly he’d known who I was the whole time, so why now, now that that proverbial elephant in the room had been discussed, was he no longer interested? And how on earth was I supposed to take revenge against a man who wouldn’t even play the game? I clung to that desperate thought as I shivered on the sidewalk.

  June still had the last cool breeze of spring. Lacking the heat of his gaze, in the thin purple dress, I was trembling. I’d hand in my resignation Monday. Maybe even leave Boston as I’d always planned to. The fellowship didn’t start until August but there were myriad other opportunities.

  But only two hours earlier we’d been sitting so close in his car and I’d delved inside him, his body mine to touch this night, anything possible. Now, we stood silently, side by side, waiting for his car—as if he were an absolute stranger.

  Which he was.

  I stepped backward to rest against the wall and stumbled a bit in my heels. He steadied me quickly, as if he’d been watching me attentively rather than studiously ignoring me. I knew then that I was still a bit loose, languid from the wine, or his hands wouldn’t have felt like they were burning my skin.

  I leaned against the wall and looked up at him. Our eyes met and he stood motionless, his bare skin still on mine.

  “My curiosity has not been satisfied, Daniel,” I said, wondering at the words, at my voice sounding them, but I liked the effect. All that distance seemed to evaporate.

  He watched me with this wary expression and I wanted to see it turn to that other one, that subtle intensity, once more. Forget subtle, I wanted it all.

  “You said you were going to kiss me tonight.”

  “That was before.” His voice was low, almost a growl. I loved the animalistic sound of it.

  “I don’t think a single thing has changed, other than you know that I know that you know … ” I let my words drift off into that slanted smile.

  His right hand ran up my arm, sensation coursing through me in its wake, as did a triumphant surge of excitement. And then, in a gesture I’d only before read about, he cupped my face, his thumb tracing the outline of my jaw.

  “You’re right. I said I was going to kiss you.”

  It felt good to be held there by him, enveloped by his heat.

  My eyelashes flickered. I focused on the appetizing curve of his lower lip. Which was closer and closer.

  “So you did,” I said on a breath, just before … before I wasn’t thinking anymore.

  Soft. Hot. Curves, tongue, heat spreading. The wall and his arms were supporting me, and his body pressed more firmly against mine. I wanted to wrap my legs around him, feel him between my thighs. I wanted—

  I stumbled slightly at the sudden release, the chill breeze, the need to support my own weight.

  “The car’s here.” His voice was deep, gravelly, and when I looked at him, the expression in his eyes scorched me.

  He opened the door for me and I slid in, breathing in the scent of leather in the silence before he rounded the car and joined me inside. I scooted closer to him, lifted my face toward his. The touch of his lips was deliciously sharp, striking me deep, waking every inch of my skin. I drank him up like he was the glass of water I should have had with my wine. Delicious and endless and I wanted more.

  Then he broke away and gently held me back. “I’m still taking you back to your place.” I didn’t like that, but I did like the way the skin between his jaw and his shirt collar looked. I pushed his hands away and leaned forward to lick the place I wanted. “Emily, stop.”

  I moved an inch back, held his face in my hands and studied his eyes.

  “I didn’t start this.”

  “You applied for the job.”

  Startled, I laughed, scooted back to the other side of the car and fastened my
seat belt. He was right. And somehow, knowing that I’d started this gave me a sense of power. If I’d started it, then I could be the one to decide when it ended.

  “Believe me, Emily, as strange as the two of us together is, I want you. But we need to stop and think.” Amused, I watched him give his little speech. Either Daniel Hartmann was beyond adept at manipulation or he had more of a conscience than I knew. I preferred to believe the first, at least for now, or I’d have to agree with him. However, thinking—analyzing the insanity of my actions—was the last thing I wanted to do. Not when he was so close, when I could still taste him on my tongue— “Not complicate everything more than it already is. I’m a decade older than you.”

  “It showed in your kiss,” I said without thinking. He looked at me sharply and something fierce surged inside me. Gotcha. I lolled my head against the seat to slant a smile. “It means you were good, Hartmann.”

  Chapter 4

  On Sunday, I discovered Daniel Hartmann wasn’t much of a muse. In fact, my mind had been so disquieted that I could find no order, no joy, in the sculptural work I’d stopped a week earlier. I cleaned the apartment instead, which had Leanna howling in laughter.

  Even worse, Daniel didn’t call. Hadn’t said a word since he’d left me at the door to my building, his gaze a heated promise. If I were really interested in him, if there weren’t any of this other history between us, I wouldn’t put up with his somewhat boorish ways. So what if it was slightly hot that he had assumed I would go out with him? That kind of confidence could also be interpreted as chauvinism.

  But there was this history. And maybe even the fact that he was dangerous to me made him the slightest bit more attractive. Not that he needed any help in that department. The guy was blessed with more than his fair share of good looks.

  When my mother called, I struggled to keep my lies to those of omission, guiding the conversation to safe topics, like art, her gardening, or gossip about all of her friends and her friends’ children. Even hearing her voice, having to obfuscate the details of my life, brought my actions into high relief. I found ways to justify my choices, to justify the kisses and the desire for more. I played with the idea of pinching myself, waking up and quitting. Walking away before I went deeper down a path that was certain to bring nothing but disaster.

  But in the end I went to work on Monday because I didn’t know what else to do. In reality, as much as I found the office position surreal and, perhaps, slightly like selling out, the paycheck I would receive on Friday was very welcome. It was more money than I would have made all summer doing odd jobs. Art was not particularly lucrative unless one was famous. Even the fellowship offered only a meager stipend. However, being a Fellow at the Barrows Farm would provide a stepping-stone to major grants and entrée into the bureaucratic art world. If I wanted to play that game.

  As much as I found the vibrancy of street art and the indie art movement invigorating—freeing and enticing in a bohemian sort of way—I wasn’t ready for any doors to be closed. I wanted choices.

  The fellowship offered me those choices.

  Surprisingly, sitting in my little cubicle at Hartmann Enterprises, erasing green pixels around a woman’s leg, offered me options as well. And not just the option to jump into Hartmann’s bed.

  Actually, I wasn’t entirely certain that particular one still existed. As much as I’d managed to entice him into kissing me, he’d seemed … unnerved. I didn’t know what that meant.

  Only, he wasn’t the man I’d thought he’d be. The Daniel Hartmann I had expected was ruthless and uncompromising. He would have thrown me out the minute he’d learned of my existence. Or he wouldn’t have shown any hesitation about having an affair. But the real life Hartmann was complicated. Perhaps he was demanding and overconfident, expected to get his own way, but ruthless seemed a poor adjective to describe a man who advised me to think twice about getting involved with him.

  Maybe he’d brought my father down all those years ago by mistake.

  I nearly snorted out loud. A handwritten note congratulating my dad on his new reputation as a criminal? Mistake?

  A few years ago, in a rebellious phase and angry at my father, I’d thrown it all at him, asked him what kind of horrible person was he that someone would want to hurt him.

  The fight had changed from being about the second piercing on my right ear to something far more serious.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong, Emmy,” my dad had said. “Grief can warp a man, and I think Drew’s son … I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  From everything I knew, Daniel had taken his father’s place in the company just to destroy my father. The endeavor had taken him three years of careful planning. What sort of man focused on revenge for three years? And at the end of it, although financially both Daniel and my father had been ruined, it had only been the Anderson name that was dragged through the mud.

  Despite his plea of not guilty to fraud, my father had spent five years in jail. I had gone back to Tucson.

  I shouldn’t have anything to do with Daniel. I shouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. Overwhelmed by hormones, I might have convinced myself on Saturday night that it was fine to have a fling with him, but now was the cold light of day. Or the cool bluish-white of the fluorescent office light. I should be handing in my resignation.

  My purse vibrated against my foot. Once.

  I erased another pixel. It wouldn’t be him and if I grabbed my phone to check, I would be guilty of the worst sort of dating crime, looking desperate. Most likely it was Leanna, or even my dad since I’d been avoiding his phone calls.

  My purse vibrated again. Once.

  I glanced at the time. Only ten-fifteen. If it was Daniel and he wanted to talk to me, he could very well call the office phone. Although, as I didn’t have a direct line, anyone could pick up. Of course he wouldn’t do that. Right, he was texting so that he wouldn’t interrupt my work either.

  If it was him.

  Rolling my eyes at my mental gymnastics, I leaned down and reached into the bottomless pit of artfully cracked pink leather—it was one thing to wear sweater sets but I liked my purses—and searched for the phone, which buzzed again in my hand as I held it. Once.

  I flipped it open.

  Emily.

  My office at noon.

  We need to talk.

  How did that take three text messages?

  I fidgeted in my seat, thinking about being alone with him again. Or just near him. We didn’t need to talk. We needed to continue where we’d left off on Saturday. Although if it was talking he wanted … I started to type a reply when the phone buzzed in my hand. I pressed next.

  I’ll order in Greek.

  I narrowed my eyes. Next.

  Bring a file or something.

  I barely stopped myself from slamming the phone down on the table. The cliché of my life was getting worse and worse. I was actually supposed to bring work to pretend that this “meeting” was strictly business? As if that would fool anyone. As if it weren’t already strange that the boss took the new hire out for lunch.

  Back to pixels. Delete, delete, delete.

  Until 11:59 a.m., when, just as I stood up, stretching and breathing deeply to calm the nervous flutters of anticipation, James swung by the cubicle asking if I wanted to grab sandwiches with him.

  I stared at him. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? No, sorry. I have a date with Mr. Hartmann. Again.

  “I, um, I have some files to drop off,” I said, struggling not to look away.

  He got a strange look on his face and stared at the floor. As if he heard the subtext beneath my words, knew exactly where I had to drop those files off.

  “It’s a sexist world,” he muttered before he looked at me. “Listen. It’s not my place to tell you how to lead your life, Emily, but getting involved with the boss?”

  I didn’t bother to pretend.

  “Like you said, James, not your place.” I cut him off, all too
aware that other people were listening. I grabbed my bag and the fake “file” and swung away. He was right though; if I were invested in this corporate life thing, if it weren’t just a game, then what I was doing was totally wrong.

  Of course, it was a game. Even if the rules were still being defined.

  • • •

  I stepped out of the elevator and into the spacious hallway of the thirty-second floor, which was decorated with artwork that could easily have hung in the Museum of Fine Arts just a mile away. Large frosted glass double doors stood open before me, and beyond I could see the empty outer office. Until I stepped in, and found a thin woman in her fifties with pale, grayish blonde hair standing by the left wall, sliding sunglasses onto her head.

  I stepped in a bit further.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Hartmann.”

  The woman glanced at me impassively.

  “I’m Emily Anderson,” I added.

  Without the slightest change of expression, she strode over and opened the second set of glass doors, which were tinted just slightly darker than the last.

  “Mr. Hartmann asked for you to wait in his office until he returns.”

  Warily, I stood on the threshold of the empty office. I looked back at the woman, who seemed about to leave me there—to leave the entire floor completely—to go to lunch.

  “Thank you,” I said, but she was already walking into an elevator. I stood there and stared. Blinked at the emptiness. The phone on her desk rang before stopping abruptly. A red light flashed on the phone bank. Turning around again, I let the glass door close behind me and stepped fully into Hartmann’s private office.

  It was strange being in the man’s space without him around. Almost invasive. But clearly he had known I would be in here alone while he was off somewhere else. Making me wait.