by Lia Lee
I unlocked the office door with the key Rodney had given me–the key I hadn’t needed to use yet. He must have been running late. I knew it couldn’t be easy being a single father, and he wouldn’t always be able to stick to his routine.
I knew what Tommy could be like. Sometimes, he was just being obtuse for no reason at all, especially lately when he seemed to be angry about everything.
When I reached my desk, I found a note.
Took a personal day. –Rodney
I looked around, wondering how he had managed to put a handwritten note on my desk when he wasn’t in the office. He must have written it between Friday evening and this morning, coming into the office specifically to leave it on my desk. Rodney and I were the only two people with the key for the office, besides the cleaning lady, and I somehow doubted that Rodney would ask the custodian to deliver the note to me.
I sat down behind my desk, feeling oddly empty. Why was Rodney trying to avoid me? We had agreed that our sex on Friday evening had been the last time. We had known where we were headed. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t have picked up the phone and told me he was taking a personal day himself.
The phone rang, and I answered it with the standard, “Mr. Jones’s office.” I took a message after explaining that Rodney wasn’t in the office. The phone rang the moment I filed the note, and I had to go through the process another two times before I could sit back and think about what was happening again.
I sifted through my emotions, trying to decide what I was feeling. I was disappointed and a little hurt, but mostly, I was irritated with Rodney. Yes, sleeping together had changed our relationship. It had driven a wedge between us in some ways, but it had made us extremely close in others. I knew our relationship was in a tough spot at the moment. Neither of us knew exactly where we stood, and I realized I hadn’t made it easier on him.
But we had known each other my whole life. Rodney had relied on me to help him with Tommy for years. Our relationship might have become sexual in the past couple of days, but it had always been a close relationship, albeit in other ways.
I didn’t understand why he couldn’t have picked up the phone and spoken to me about not coming in to work today. I didn’t understand why he chose the coward’s way out and left a note like a teenager who was too shy to do something face to face. It irritated me because I had thought I was worth more than that. I’d thought our relationship–even when it hadn’t been romantic or sexual at all–warranted more than a note left on a desk.
If he had called me and told me how he felt, I would have understood. It would have been a better way to deal with it. Okay, so, I hadn’t exactly respected his wishes when he’d said he didn’t want to fuck again after the first time. But I had known his hesitation wasn’t about me and him, but about everything else that was in the way. Like my dad and my age and my job.
I had tried to seduce him because I had known it was what he wanted. I hadn’t been wrong. Again, Friday night had proven that. If I had thought at any point that he didn’t want me, I would have backed off.
It hurt that Rodney didn’t know that about me, that he didn’t feel like he could speak to me about it. I had thought there was more between us than that. I had thought we were on the same level, both adults, able to openly discuss something when it bothered us.
The phone rang again. I took a deep breath and forced a smile so that I wouldn’t sound as irritated as I felt. I wouldn’t let Rodney get me down. If he thought the note would get to me, I would prove him wrong.
I didn’t think it had been his intention to get to me at all, though. I had a feeling the only person Rodney had thought about when he’d written the note was himself.
By lunch time, I had stewed about the whole situation enough that I was downright pissed off. I had waited the whole morning, hoping Rodney would call me, despite his note and despite his obvious attempt to avoid me. He didn’t call, and the more time passed, the more irritated I became.
After I returned from lunch, having gone out to get away from the office and the empty desk on the other side of the glass partition, I decided something had to give. I would be the bigger person. I would pick up the phone and do what Rodney didn’t have the courage to do.
The phone rang. While I waited for Rodney to answer, I prepared a little speech in my head. I wanted him to know that his actions were completely unnecessary, that if he wanted me to know something, he could pick up the phone or tell me face to face. I knew it wasn’t my place as his secretary to tell him how to act, but this was between me and him as people, not as employer and employee. And if we could be straightforward with each other when it came to sex, we could be straightforward about other things that mattered, too.
The call rolled over to voicemail when Rodney didn’t answer. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, to assume he wasn’t near his phone, but I knew Rodney. If he wasn’t at the office, he would be married to his phone so he wouldn’t miss any business calls. Which could only mean that he didn’t want to speak to me.
Like a child, Rodney was avoiding me.
When the voicemail message finished and I had to speak after the tone, I didn’t give him a piece of my mind the way I had been prepared to. I wouldn’t be a coward and leave him a message about my feelings. Instead, I would wait until I could speak to him directly.
“Rodney, hi,” I said into the phone instead. “It’s Danielle. I got your note this morning. I’ve taken care of calls and emails, but I’m checking in to see if there’s anything specific you need me to do. Let me know.”
I hung up. I stared at the phone once I did. I had so much I’d wanted to say to him, but I would stick to my guns. I would be the bigger man, and I would say it directly to him when we spoke.
Not five minutes later, my phone beeped with a text. I opened it.
Keep doing what you’re doing. Take messages and let them know I’m not in the office today. R.
So, he had been with his phone if he could respond this quickly. I had expected to be angry about it. Instead, I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. I felt let down and disappointed. I had hoped he would be better than this, that he would handle it better. Until now, I had put him on some sort of pedestal, seeing him as an Adonis, and I had seen myself as the damsel in distress. Things were changing. I was starting to see another side of him.
Everyone had flaws. I knew that. I hadn’t wanted to see them, of course. I had grown up with Rodney being the unreachable man, the very fabric of my fantasies. It turned out he was just a man. And sometimes, an asshole of a man at that.
I was upset that I hadn’t meant more to him than a text, that he hadn’t even been able to answer my call when I had gone out of my way to speak to him. Maybe he had known I would speak about more than work if he answered, but that wasn’t the point.
What bothered me the most was that I had no idea what his problem was. We had agreed we wouldn’t have sex again. We had agreed we couldn’t keep playing this game. When we had been able to fuck like adults and agree on something like that as adults, why couldn’t we handle everything else as adults?
I was getting seriously angry. The more I thought about it, the fewer reasons I could see for Rodney to be so difficult about this. I had done nothing wrong, nothing more than he had done. I hadn’t fucked alone, after all. But Rodney was acting like I was the problem, and I didn’t appreciate it.
I may have been the one to open my legs in the office on Friday, but Rodney had been the one to take charge. God, had he taken charge. So, he had no right to be like this about it. No more than I would have had the right to be so childish about it.
I struggled to do my work for the rest of the day. I struggled to sound kind and upbeat over the phone, and I struggled to be in the office until it was time to go home when I felt I was only wasting my time doing something that Rodney could easily have set up an answering machine to do. That was all I was now. A glorified answering machine.
When it was finally time to leav
e, I packed up my things and slung my bag over my shoulder. I switched off the lights and closed up the office. I walked to the elevator alone and waited until the doors opened.
“Hold it,” someone said. A man was jogging toward the elevator. He had light brown hair and brown eyes. “Thanks.”
He stepped into the elevator with me, looking me up and down once before standing next to me. I knew I looked good, but I felt it didn’t matter now. We rode to the lobby in silence, and I was painfully aware of how this man next to me wasn’t Rodney, how strained it was in the elevator compared to how comfortable or sexually charged it always was with Rodney.
Was this how it was going to be now?
Chapter Fifteen
Rodney
By Wednesday, I knew I had to get back to the office. One personal day had turned into two. I hadn’t had what it took to face Danielle, not so soon after what we had done. I wasn’t sure what scared me more: that we had fucked, or that I wanted it to keep happening. I didn’t know how I felt about it all, and it made it difficult for me to face Danielle.
She seemed to know exactly what she wanted, and her confidence and defiance was intimidating in this situation. So, like a coward, I hid out at home. I had told everyone who asked that I had come down with a bug that I didn’t want to spread to everyone in the office. They had bought it, of course, but I couldn’t stay away for another day, no matter how much I wanted to.
They needed my guidance at the office. The development team needed my input and my opinions. The investors wanted another meeting, and I had to show face at some point. It wasn’t only about keeping things together behind the scenes. I needed to start making public announcements about the release of the new program. In short, I had a lot of admin I couldn’t avoid, just because of what had happened between me and Danielle. It would become a nightmare of epic proportions if I kept his up.
The silver lining of taking time off from work was that I had spent time with Tommy for a change. It wasn’t something I was able to do often, and it had made me realize how important it was that I made time for him. He wasn’t a toddler that only needed physical care anymore. He needed a relationship with me, and I owed it to him to give him what he needed. When Chrissy had died, I had drowned myself in work, running away from the tragedy. Somewhere, it had changed from running away from my sorrow, to running away from Tommy.
And that was wrong.
I was grateful that underneath everything that had gone wrong in my life the past couple of weeks, one thing had gone right. I had managed to reconnect with my son again. It made me feel like there was hope for me as a parent, at least, even if I wasn’t sure if there was hope for me as a friend, as a boss, or as a businessman.
I put on a suit on Wednesday morning, dropped Tommy off at school, and headed to the office, ready to face the music. It would have to happen at some point.
I had gotten emails from Danielle on Monday and Tuesday, giving me an update on how things had gone in the office while I had been absent. There had been nothing more from her than the facts, and I was glad she hadn’t made anything more of the tension between us.
I had felt the need to leave that note, going into the office on Sunday especially to put it there, because I hadn’t been able to talk to her. I knew that if I called her, she would have drawn me in again. Just hearing her voice would have been the end of me. I felt something for her, and no matter how I rationalized it, she was my downfall, my weakness. I had feared that if I so much as spoke to her, I would have fallen down that rabbit hole and thought about things I shouldn’t.
If we kept going like this, I could lose everything. My best friend, my company, and my reputation. I couldn’t afford that. If anyone found out I was fucking my secretary, who happened to be half my age, it would be over for me.
I was nervous to see Danielle in person. If I had bitten the bullet and gotten it over with on Monday, I wouldn’t have been so stressed about it now, but there it was. I went in to the office later than usual so I could avoid being in the same elevator as her.
When I arrived at my office, the door was unlocked, and Danielle sat at her desk, typing something on her laptop. She glanced up at me. She didn’t flash me a brilliant smile, and she didn’t look surprised to see me. Her lips were pursed together, and her green eyes, usually brilliant, were neutral.
Maybe she had gotten the memo. Maybe she had finally taken the hint.
My eyes slid down her body as I walked past–I couldn’t help myself with her– and I realized she was wearing a tight little outfit, something that she had used to seduce me before. It was a body suit that would pass for a women’s dress shirt if it weren’t for how low her blouse was buttoned and how much of her cleavage I could see.
I didn’t doubt that she only wore it like that in here with me. If she walked to the ladies’ room or the coffee station or the copy machine, she would button it up. It was only for me that she was being inappropriate. But it had to stop. I had to talk to her about it. She couldn’t keep doing this. It wasn’t only about her attitude toward me, it was about how she dressed in a corporate office. She couldn’t act like this and not think there would be repercussions. Any other man would have fired her for her behavior ages ago.
Then again, any other employer wouldn’t have fantasized about her, fucked her, and encouraged her to break the rules the way I had. Still, something had to be said.
I picked up my phone and called her into my office. She wasn’t staring at me the way she had in the beginning, so waving at her to get her attention now would take too long.
She walked into my office. When she stood before me, I had to look her up and down again. She may have dressed inappropriately for the office, but God, she looked good. The outfit traced her curves beautifully, and I flashed on what she had looked like naked, standing in the middle of my room, letting me study and explore her body as much as I’d wanted to. Her perfume was in my nostrils, and it reminded me of the sex we’d had right here on my desk. I would never be able to look at my desk the same way or see my office as a place of work alone. Danielle would forever have a space here in my memory.
“You wanted to see me?” Danielle asked after I was silent for too long.
I shoved the thought of her naked body, her touch, her smell, and her taste out of my mind. She was smiling at me, a little smugly and a little too confidently. It was this defiance that I found so attractive, but it couldn’t carry on.
“Yes, I want to talk to you about how you dress around the office,” I said. “It’s not professional. Consider this your first verbal warning. If you keep dressing like this, I’m going to have to inform HR, and you’ll be brought under review.”
Danielle’s smile faded. She frowned slightly.
“That’s not fair,” she said.
“Why not? We have rules around here. You’re not exempt from them just because I know your father.”
Danielle’s eyes tightened. “Really? You didn’t seem to mind how I dressed when you were fucking me on your desk.”
Her words hit me like physical punches. I shook my head, ignoring her comment about what had been acceptable when we’d been fucking. She was right, and I had no defense against that.
“I’m your boss, Danielle. When I tell you that you’re doing something out of line, it will do you good to take note of it.”
She was angry now. I had never seen her angry before, and I had to admit, I was surprised. I had always known she had fire in her, but seeing it firsthand was a different story. I should have known that it would only make her more spectacular.
“So, that’s what this has come to?” she asked. “You take what you want, and once you decide you’re done with me, then we’ll pretend like nothing happened?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have an answer. What was I going to say to her? That I didn’t want her to dress seductively becau
se I didn’t know how to stop fantasizing about her? That I was being hard on her now because I was scared my feelings for her would jeopardize everything I had built from the ground up? I couldn’t admit any of that to her.
“I’m sorry I have to do this, Danielle,” I said. “But rules are rules, and this is how it’s going to have to be. I’m not singling you out. I have the same policy for everyone in the office.”
“Yeah, you’re not singling me out now,” Danielle snapped. “But you did before. So, that makes this thing you’re doing that much worse. I thought you were bigger than this. Better.”
Her words stung. Like any woman, Danielle knew just how to nail my ego. But she had a right to be angry. I was being a dick, and I knew it. But I didn’t know how else to handle it.
“Like I said, this is a warning,” I said. “If you fix it now, it doesn’t have to go further than this.”
Danielle glared at me, and for a moment, we were caught in a staring contest. I was the first to break eye contact, and I looked at my desk. I told myself it was because my mind was on whatever I had to focus on next for work, not because I had lost the staring contest and deferred to her dominance. We weren’t animals, after all.
“That will be all,” I said, dismissing her.
“Yes, I imagine it will,” Danielle answered, turning on her heel and marching to her desk.
I didn’t look up at all until I knew she was seated. I considered drawing the blinds between us so that I didn’t have to worry about being caught staring at her at all.
I felt terrible about what I had done. I knew that I was just as responsible for this situation as she was. I hadn’t told her not to act this way. In fact, I had encouraged it. I had enjoyed it, and I’d wanted her to keep doing it. Now that I couldn’t handle it, I expected her to change, threatening to punish her for the very thing I had encouraged her to do. I felt like a complete asshole for it, but I had to do it. There was no way around it. I had to put my foot down and take back control of the situation.