Sabrina was growing miffed. These people were her coworkers, and while they developed some kind of friendship by working—and sleeping—together, that didn’t mean they had license to comment on how she ran her life.
“I’m only going to say this once,” she said calmly, and lifted the plastic tumbler that contained an iced raspberry tai chi tea to her lips for a little sip before picking off a chunk of double chocolate chunk cookie and tossing it in her mouth and speaking around it. “Having sex with you doesn’t give you permission to comment on my life or how I choose to run it.”
William scowled. “We’ve expressed our desire and intent for this to be a relationship.”
“And I accept that and support it,” she offered. “But that still doesn’t give you permission to enter my life and start treating me like a child who needs to be managed. I manage me.”
She couldn’t be any more final if she pounded her fist on the desk and shouted it.
“We’re concerned, that’s all.” Oliver, ever the soft-spoken peacemaker, appeared laid-back and casual, with his hands folded over his stomach and his right ankle propped on his left knee, but his expression was tight, belying that easygoing demeanor.
“Don’t be.” Sabrina wasn’t about to welcome their overbearing concern, because it meant that she was giving up control, and the last person she intended to do that for was a man. Any man. It didn’t matter if, if the tables were turned, she’d be sitting where they were saying the same things.
“That’s not possible.” Conner wasn’t budging, as his stony expression indicated. He was staring her down, not missing a single detail.
Sabrina knew what he must be seeing. The bloodshot eyes, the sloppy bun she’d pulled her hair into somewhere between proposals, and the disorganized mess she’d made of her desk because she had been bouncing between thoughts all day and kept losing things.
“We don’t want you to give up control of your life. We’re not interested in controlling you at all,” William assured her.
“We just want you to accept help when you need help,” Oliver followed up.
“And you clearly need it,” Conner said sternly, which continued to ruffle her feathers. He sat forward in his chair and leaned into his elbows, which were propped on his knees. “It’s getting late. The work day is nearly done and you’ve been at it all day. Whatever you have left to do can be addressed in the morning, after a good night’s rest. Humor us.”
Humor them? Sabrina didn’t want to humor anyone. She wanted to knock out her work so she could clear the slate and have a fresh start tomorrow with less to worry about.
But even as she thought it, she was aware of the increasing lethargy pressing down on her. She had, at least, another few hours ahead of her in order to finish up here, and it wasn’t something she was looking forward to. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she had the energy to spare. If she was being entirely forthright, she knew if she pressed on and forced herself to finish, she’d probably make some mistakes that she’d have to go back later to fix, and it could all be avoided if she followed their directive and went home now and got some much-needed rest.
She just didn’t want to admit that they were right.
“You know we’re right,” Conner said smugly, irritating her even more. Did he always have to be such a hard-nosed ballbuster? It occurred to her that with his strong personality, Conner was the one who clearly took the lead in business transactions, and he was probably used to winning. He was viewing her as a business transaction, and right now, he felt like he’d just won.
She wanted nothing more than to call his bluff and tell him to take a hike so she could finish her work, but…he was right, she thought reluctantly.
Was there any use arguing? Was she that set on saving face that she couldn’t admit defeat?
Angry with herself and the whole situation, Sabrina threw her hands into the air and let them drop back down to slam on her desk, the sound obscene in the otherwise quiet room. The men didn’t even flinch. They just sat back and observed her calmly, as if they’d expected the little burst of emotion.
Gritting her teeth, Sabrina said, “Fine, I’ll finish this up tomorrow. I wasn’t really feeling it anyway.” That last bit was said more for her benefit, as if voicing it returned some of the power she felt like she had lost in their negotiation.
Their answering smiles didn’t help matters. It only made her want to punch them each in the face a few times to drive home her irritation.
“We’ll see you home,” Conner announced as he rose to stand, and William and Oliver followed.
Sabrina held up her hand, her head shaking back and forth. “That’s where I draw the line.”
“Come again?” William appeared confused.
“That’s one thing I will not be doing,” Sabrina muttered as she balled up her food wrappers and tossed them into the waste bin. “I don’t want or need an escort home. I know the way.”
“‘Brina…”
She wasn’t too happy about Conner’s drawn-out disapproval. “I already conceded on one thing. I won’t on this. I’m going home alone.”
The last thing she wanted was to be surrounded by three faces that she was currently mad at and be unable to get away from them easily. She wanted to go home and stew in her anger and disbelief that she’d just allowed three men to tell her what to do. She wanted to curse their names and their existence to her heart’s content before she eventually caved into forgiveness, because she would get around to it…eventually. She just wasn’t ready to do that yet. Right now, she wanted to be angry; she wanted to hate their stupid, smug, handsome, sexy faces until she came to grips with the power struggle and was able to let it go.
Tomorrow, she would be fine and they could get back on track to business and pleasure. Today she wanted nothing to do with any of them.
“Are you sure?” Oliver asked, clearly hurt by her decision to cut them out of her day.
It was almost enough for her to reconsider…but Sabrina couldn’t. As much as she loved Oliver’s sweetness and wanted to cuddle and be cuddled by him, she had to do this, if only to drive home a point: she was a strong, independent woman who would not be controlled by anyone.
She picked up her clutch from the top drawer of her desk and stood, ignoring the swimmy feeling in her head brought on by sheer exhaustion. That would teach her to stay up past her bedtime reading. “I’ll see you boys tomorrow. Good day.”
With a lifted chin, she breezed past them with energy she didn’t feel, and walked out the door, leaving them to sit and ponder her exit and reach whatever conclusions they reached. Frankly, she didn’t give a damn.
Chapter Sixteen
“I think it’s sweet.”
Sabrina was flabbergasted. “Jan! How could you agree with them?” Sabrina had called her friend the moment she’d stepped inside her apartment door and, the moment she heard her voice on the other end, launched into a twenty-minute rant about how unbelievable and outrageous the whole encounter with the Hargreaves had been. The audacity! The nerve of them to assume they had that right!
“What do you want me to say?” Janet asked, clearly confused. “I’ve known you forever, and I know how you get. Sometimes you run yourself into the ground for that job.”
Sabrina scoffed. She did not. She knew her limits.
“Yeah, yeah, you know your limits. You can handle yourself. Blah, blah blah,” Janet mocked, having heard the spiel enough times to predict it. “Look, you know that saying ‘work smarter not harder’? That’s where you’re at right now. And you know damn well you could have had that shit done today if you’d been in the right frame of mind, but you weren’t, so you were busting your ass on stuff that should have been a breeze any other day. So…work smarter! Those guys saw what you were doing and they pointed it out, and that’s what you’re really mad about. Not that they care about your well-being, but that they showed you your weakness, and you resented it.”
Sabrina wanted to argue. In fact, she had a jumble o
f words ready at the tip of her tongue, but none of them made any sense, because Janet was right. She did resent them. She wanted to be superwoman at everything she did, and she hated it when she came up short.
So the person she was really mad at was…herself.
“You’re right.” Sabrina sighed.
“I know I am.”
Shaking her head, Sabrina didn’t know how to continue arguing with her friend, and frankly, she didn’t want to. Besides, she was right. She’d just admitted it, so it couldn’t be taken back, even though it would likely give her an even bigger head than she already had. Ha!
With a private smile, Sabrina decided to just let it go. It had been her plan all along anyway. She would stew, complain, and complain some more, and then she would shelve it and move on. Guess it was time to put that last part into practice.
“Anyway, how was your day?”
Janet sighed down the line. “Work is work. Can’t complain.”
Or she could, but she chose not to. Janet enjoyed her job as much as Sabrina did, and on most days, there wasn’t a lot to say because they were in their happy zone, satisfied with life. But like today, there was always a day when that didn’t hold quite so true. That was when they turned to each other and vented all of their grievances until they felt purged of negativity and ready to face another day.
“Yeah…”
“So…” There was a hint of curiosity in Janet’s voice, and the by the sound of it, Sabrina knew what was coming next. “Have you, ya know…wocka-wocka’d yet?”
“Wocka what?” Sabrina burst into laughter. Let it never be said the woman didn’t have a way with words.
“You know…tossed the ol’ hot dog down the hallway. Brought the plane in for a landing? Come on, ‘Bree, work with me here!”
Sabrina was doubled over in laughter, unable to catch her breath long enough to utter a single word. Oh, she knew what Janet was getting at, but half the fun was hearing her beat around the bush to get there.
“Oh my God…you can’t…even…say it,” she wheezed out.
Janet’s response was predictably huffy. “I can, but I choose not to. It’s called having class!” Call it what she wanted, but Janet was slowly giving way to her own laughter. Apparently, it was contagious.
“How are you even dating anyone?” Sabrina asked as she wiped tears from her eyes. “You talk like my grandma!”
“Hey, them’s fighting words!”
“Then why don’t you come over and try it,” Sabrina taunted, knowing she would never do any such thing. They rarely got together during the week, both of their schedules too demanding. The weekends weren’t much better, which left them grabbing for time together in the interim, hence the spontaneous dinner the previous week.
Janet issued an indignant sniff. “Whatever. You know tonight is pizza night. You don’t mess with tradition.”
Ah yes, pizza night. Janet had one cheat night a week, too, and she always ordered a pizza and indulged in old Patrick Swayze movies. On those nights, it would take a forklift to pry her away from the couch.
“So…” Janet continued. “Has anything happened yet or not? You’re the only one dating right now, so I’m living vicariously through you. It’s basically your civic duty to tell me everything.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. She wanted to spill everything, but she also, for the first time in their friendship, wanted to keep her private life…well, private. For some reason, sharing the details of her sex life with Conner, William, and Oliver felt wrong. She didn’t feel right about ironing out the size of their cocks or the way they kissed her with a deep and titillating passion that still curled her toes just thinking about it, or that the way their eyes smoldered when she looked into them in the midst of making love made her feel like the most attractive and desirable woman in the world. Call her crazy, but she wanted to keep it all for herself.
Still, she couldn’t leave Janet hanging entirely. Clearing her throat, she offered, “Yes, we hooked up.”
Janet squee’d so loud, Sabrina’s eardrum tensed. “Oh my God, when?”
“Last Friday.”
“What! And you’re only now telling me?”
“It wasn’t that important to tell.” Sabrina shrugged.
“So it sucked? That figures.” Janet sounded disappointed. “Three men and none of them know how to work it. That’s a shame.”
Well, now, Sabrina couldn’t just let her friend think the worst of them, could she? “Actually, it was pretty fantastic.”
“You bitch,” Janet hissed. “Are you telling me you had hot, good sex with three men and you were just going to hide it from me? You wouldn’t have even said anything if I hadn’t asked, would you?”
“Probably not.” Definitely not.
There was a long pause that made Sabrina nervous. When Janet was thinking, there was no telling what conclusions she would reach.
“Wait. Are you…like…falling for them?”
“What! No!” Sabrina couldn’t believe she would even suggest it. She was in no way falling for anyone, much less the Hargreaves. “We’re just having fun.”
“Is that right?”
“Why do you sound suspicious?” Sabrina didn’t think anything about what she’d said was remotely suspicious.
“Because I am! When have you ever not shared every gritty detail with me, good or bad?”
Sabrina thought back to every male encounter she’d had in the time she’d known Janet, and she couldn’t come up with a single one that didn’t result in her revealing everything. They’d spend hours gushing over details, and when things eventually went south and those relationships ended, they spent hours picking them apart in the most negative light they could conjure up to help ease hurt feelings.
There would be none of that this time, and, she supposed, that was a reason for alarm in Janet’s book. If the roles were reversed, Sabrina supposed she would be taken aback too.
“It just…doesn’t feel right this time.”
“Hmmm…”
“What?” Sabrina’s mood switched over to mild annoyance.
“I think you got a case of the feels, my dear.” There was a smile in her voice, amusement that rubbed Sabrina the wrong way.
She didn’t have feels for anything. Unless irritation mixed with raging desire counted. “I don’t. It just doesn’t feel appropriate this time.”
“Because you have the feels!” Janet insisted. “Come on, admit it. You don’t want to share anything because you’re protecting them and what you are building together…because you have feelings for them.”
Sabrina wanted to deny it, but every time she opened her mouth to do just that, she couldn’t form words. Was she falling for Conner? William? Oliver?
Oliver was the most logical one that she would fall for, assuming she was falling for anyone. He was so sweet and gentle and caring. Who wouldn’t catch feelings for someone like that?
But then there was William. She knew the least about him, but there was definitely an attraction there, and he was assertive, as well as caring and respectful of her wants and needs.
And finally there was Conner. She had the most interaction with him, especially since she’d had him one-on-one from the start. That in itself came with a connection that bound them together tighter than the other two brothers. But he was abrasive at times, and even kind of arrogant, but he also possessed some of those softer qualities she liked in his brothers.
So where did that leave her?
She didn’t really know. In a way, she supposed she did like them. Otherwise, she wouldn’t think about them as often as she did, or in the ways that she did. And she certainly wouldn’t be so affected by them like she was, to the point of distraction. Furthermore, maybe Janet was right, and she was protecting what little they had together…because she liked them. More than a surface-level kind of like. She was interested in having much more, she realized, as she sat there staring out the window but not seeing the view.
In a conundrum…
<
br /> “Jan…I think you may be right.”
“Twice in one night,” her friend mused. “The sky must be falling.”
They snickered together. “If I really am falling for these guys, I’m in trouble.” Sabrina was thinking out loud, but she needed her friend to help her sort out her feelings and make sense of them.
“Yes, you are. One man is trouble enough to deal with. Three? Well, that’s triple the problems. If you get together together, you’ll have to watch three men for tramps circling around your property like vultures, and you’ll have three times the headaches when it comes to dealing with finances and all of life’s intricacies. But, and this is a big but, you’ll also have three times the fantastic, kinky sex.” If they were standing in front of each other, Sabrina knew Janet would be winking and grinning like a loon. “Well, while it lasts. Before they get bored and lazy. Probably fat too.”
“I can’t decide if you’re the best or worst friend a girl could have,” Sabrina lamented. Janet had a knack for building her up and tearing her down at the same time. But she knew if push came to shove, she was the best friend a person could ask for.
“So…I just wanted to say, I’m excited for you,” Janet said, her mood shifting to supportive. “I can’t imagine juggling that handful, or having the guts to, and I won’t lie when I say I’m nervous about how it will turn out for you, but I’m hoping great. You deserve to be happy.”
Sabrina cringed and scrubbed a hand over her forehead. “Even if it’s with three men?”
“One man, two men, three men, four…What’s the difference? If they make you happy, that’s all that matters.”
“So you don’t think it’s crazy that I’m with three men?” Because that was a big concern of hers. Sabrina had heard of polyamorous relationships, of course, but they were always cast in such a bad light. Look at the sister wives type shows, for example. People watched like they were zoo animals, but they condemned them for living any way other than the one society deemed “normal.” Hell, even Sabrina felt that way. But being in that position now, even though it felt completely different from her side of things, she could now understand that to take that stance would make her a hypocrite. After all, love was love, right? As long as they weren’t hurting anyone, why did anyone care?
Indecent Proposal: A Reverse Harem Romance Page 11