by Amelia Wilde
At least, it did before right now.
People are scurrying around in the suite, carrying cardboard boxes. The two men I saw in the hallway obviously dropped off some piece of furniture. The boss is moving in. What does that mean?
I’m still standing there when Jax Hunter himself steps into the hall.
He doesn’t see me. His attention is focused inside the main part of the suite. I see his mouth moving as he answers a question.
My entire body is suffused with heat—then ice-cold fear.
Basiqué has become a war zone.
13
Jax
I sense Cate’s presence the moment I step into the hallway, and I purposefully linger over telling one of my assistants where, specifically, I want her to display my family photos behind my desk. Let her see me. Let her get the full effect.
When I turn to face her, I see that she’s frozen in mid-step, her cheeks a vibrant shade of pink and her mouth half open in an expression that’s so inviting it takes every ounce of self-control I have in my body not to close the gap between us and take her face in my hands and…
“Mr. Hunter, when the movers get back up here, where do you want them to put the sofa?”
“By the windows, with the two chairs.”
By the time I look up from speaking to the assistant, Cate’s gone. Fleeing down the hall, probably. I wish I’d had the chance to watch her leave. I have plans for her, though, so I’m sure I’ll get another opportunity.
It’s early for me to be here, but I wanted to get all the setup started before Sarzó tried to stand in my way. Since the woman isn’t due to be in until 8:30, I’ve left plenty of time.
At 8:35 exactly, I leave my office suite and make my way down the hall to the twin suite at the opposite end.
The doors to Sarzó’s inner office are open, and Cate stands near the desk, notepad in hand, listening to her boss reel off a list of tasks for her to complete. Her face is completely neutral, even though Sarzó’s tone would have sent me over the edge a long time ago. Both women look up as I cross the carpeted floor and drop into the seat opposite Sarzó. “Hello, Ms. Sarzó. Cate.”
They haven’t taken their eyes off of me. A mild, detached confusion shows on both of their face, but bright red color comes to Cate’s cheeks.
“So, Mr. Hunter.” The editor-in-chief interrupts the silence, and I get the impression that Cate is the one who usually handles things like social conventions. Leave it to Sarzó to outsource that, too. “I see you’ve moved in down the hall.”
“Exactly as I detailed in my email. I thought we could take a few minutes this morning to discuss my role here at Basiqué.”
Sarzó lets out a laugh that walks the line between indulgent and irritated. “I read your messages carefully, Mr. Hunter, but I don’t see how you could become any more involved with Basiqué than you already are.”
Which is to say, not involved, aside from my money.
I flash her a smile that Sarzó can’t help but react to, even if it’s only to stiffen her back. “That’s exactly what I came here to clarify.”
“Should I step out?” Cate’s voice is even, but I can tell she’s struggling not to let her emotions show on her face. The fact that we’re so close to one another, the smooth scent of her in the air, has my cock rock-hard. There’s no way she can ignore the unspoken heat between us.
Sarzó waves the suggestion away. “No, Catherine. Mr. Hunter won’t be staying long.”
This woman is something else.
“You’re right. It’s a very busy morning, so I’ll get to the point. Last night, I made the executive decision to close Williams-Martin’s other print properties and focus all the resources on Basiqué.” Cate’s mouth falls open, but she stifles her gasp. “Despite the niche appeal of some of those publications, I’m not interested in keeping them running for the sake of sponsoring pet projects. I’m interested in making a profit. That’s why I’m going to be taking a more hands-on supervisory role.”
Sarzó leans forward and takes in a sharp breath, but I cut her off. “Of course, I’ll do my best not to interfere with your editorial decisions. But I will need daily updates on how this operation is being run.”
“Is this in lieu of the agreement we made on Monday?” Sarzó’s words are clipped, tight.
“No. You’ll still have two issues to prove to me that this is a worthwhile investment on my part. However, I will be monitoring the situation closely. That’s where Ms. Schaffer will come in.”
“Catherine?” Sarzó cocks her head to the side as if she’s hearing the name for the first time.
“Yes. I’d like you to make her available to me periodically throughout the day so that she can keep me apprised.”
“Absolutely not.” Sarzó’s tone is so firm that it takes me off-guard.
“Excuse me?”
“Catherine is not a common secretary. She manages all of my affairs. She doesn’t have time to be reporting back to you during the workday.”
I don’t let the flash of anger that spikes up in my chest show on my face. I own Sarzó’s magazine, and she thinks she can disregard my requests? It’s unbelievable on several levels. Maybe she’s more of an opponent than I’d thought.
Through all this, Cate has made no move to interrupt the conversation and interject with her own ideas. The way she stands, so perfectly still, so at attention, begs me to strip her clothes off and bend her over my bed, see how still she can stay while I fuck her, tease her, punish her…
“I’ll defer to your experience on this, Ms. Sarzó. Would you be open to a compromise? I’d like to be kept informed of the daily goings-on here. Could you spare Ms. Schaffer perhaps once a day, around 5:00? That should be sufficient time.”
Sarzó leans back in her seat and removes her reading glasses. Not once does she look at Cate to gauge her reaction. Cate’s feelings are entirely irrelevant in this exchange. It’s impossible to know what the editor is thinking, but my guess is, she’s weighing the cost of allowing Cate to meet with me once a day against the benefit of being on my good side, now that I’m paying her salary.
“Very well. But you should be aware that Catherine will not be available to you for more than thirty minutes. Our workday doesn’t end at 5:00. It ends when I say it ends.”
“Perfect.” I rise from the chair and extend my hand first to Sarzó, then to Cate. When our skin touches it’s like a bolt of lightning, a surge of electricity, and for an instant the entire office disappears around me. All I see is her face, her full lips, her gorgeous eyes.
Snap out of it.
Not a second too soon, I drop her hand and nod my goodbyes.
I’m not even to the door when Sarzó starts listing off more things for Cate to do.
I’m starting to see why Cate is so uptight about her work. It must demand everything she has to give.
Don’t worry, I think to myself. She’ll have more to give. For you.
14
Cate
By Friday, I’m completely rattled by Jax’s presence in the office.
He comes and goes when he pleases, but he’s always there at 5:00, when I walk down the hall to meet with him about the things we’ve done that day.
I’m about to go to our third meeting, but my head is pounding. I can’t get my heart to stop hammering in my chest.
Every meeting is torture. Sitting across from him, wanting to touch him, wanting to kiss him, wanting to bite him—and knowing all the time that Sandra is watching the clock. She agreed to these meetings, but she hates them. Every day at 4:30 she adds more confirmations, more scheduling, to my list, and when I get back from Jax’s office at 5:30, she’s inevitably irritated that I haven’t done them all yet.
So I’m scrambling to send out the last few emails when the clock on my computer screen ticks over to 4:59.
I’m outside Jax’s door at 5:00 sharp. I pull it open and step into the silence. He works without a secretary, and by Wednesday afternoon he’d had the clear glass
doors leading to his inner office replaced by opaque ones.
Raising my hand to the metal detailing on the door, I knock softly, three times, and wait.
“Come in,” he says from the other side of the door, his voice muffled by the thick, dark glass.
It’s even quieter inside the sanctuary he’s created for himself. Since Wednesday I haven’t seen him outside it unless he’s coming or going, but I can’t imagine that he spends his days sitting here, waiting for 5:00.
He’s writing something in a leather-bound journal of some kind, and it takes several moments after I sit down for him to look up. When he does, his eyes light up. His gaze is fiery even if his mouth remains in a neutral line.
“I’ve got my notes from the day, Mr. Hunter. Is there anywhere in particular you’d like me to begin?”
“Let’s get to the meat of it, Ms. Schaffer,” he says, leaning forward. “Has there been progress on the major features?”
“Sandra finished with approvals for the Prada showcase, and the lineup for the menswear section has also been given final approvals.” I look down at my notes, but his eyes never leave my face. Every time I glance up, his look of pure longing and lust sucks a little more of my breath away. I continue down through my notes.
It takes five minutes to give him all the information I have.
At the end, I lapse into silence, looking across the desk into his blue eyes. They’re still locked on my face. He is clearly not thinking about the inner workings of Basiqué.
It pisses me off. What right does he have to take up my time like this?
“Does this even matter to you?” I say, not bothering to keep the frustration from my voice.
He only looks a little shocked. “Does what matter to me?”
“Basiqué. Are you concerned with the day-to-day here? How is that going to help you decide if you’re going to close down the magazine or not?” I hate how shrill my voice sounds, but I can’t help myself. The past three days have been a hundred times more exhausting than the entire past year. It’s awful to be so close to Jax and not touch him, even though I know I can’t. I can’t.
Jax studies me from across the desk, his mouth pressed into a thin line, and all at once I feel a rush of fear and regret. What if my outburst is what makes the decision for him? He can’t be that volatile, can he?
“You’re out of line, Ms. Schaffer.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I choke out the words. “I know. I’m sorry.” I clutch the papers in my hands, my palms slick. “Was there anything…anything else you wanted to know?”
“Yes.” His voice is so smooth, so sultry, that it tears me in two. I want to listen to him talk all day. And I want to run from the room. “Are you always this high-strung? Always so confrontational?”
The question stings. “No,” I say, a couple of tears pricking in the corners of my eyes. My voice is much softer than I intended it to be. “No, I’m not. I’m usually—” I look away. “This is a very demanding job, and I need it to work out.”
“How so?”
“I can’t—” Talking about it without crying will be impossible. “Getting to a stable place is—it’s everything to me. If I can survive working with her for another year, maybe two, it’ll be my ticket to any job I want in the city. I’ve put—” My breath is coming hard and fast. “I’ve put so much into this job over the past year. So much. If the magazine goes under, it’ll all be for nothing.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Why?” The question barely makes it out of my mouth.
“Ms. Schaffer, you’re so motivated it makes the Energizer bunny look lazy. Why don’t you think any business on the island wouldn’t hire you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Because Ms. Sarzó’s opinion has so much influence?”
“Yes.”
This is the truth that I almost never admit out loud, to anyone. If I falter, disappoint Sandra, she could put an end to my career in this industry. It’s happened before.
Jax looks like he wants to ask more, but instead he folds his hands together on top of the desk.
“Would you like to know what I think?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I think you need some…release.”
The way the final word curls off his tongue sends shivers down my spine, straight to the throbbing space between my legs.
“That’s not—we can’t talk about—”
He slaps both hands down on the surface of the desk and I jump. “We can talk about whatever I want to talk about. This is my publication, remember?”
I respond instantly to his dominating tone, leaning into it, heating up.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize unless I ask you to.” He switches so easily to another mode. I saw a glimpse of it in the car on Tuesday night but I was too timid to respond to it then, too overtaken by the champagne and the party.
“All right.”
“As I was saying, it’s clear to me that you need a way to release some of your nervous energy.” As he speaks, he stands and comes around the desk, then kneels next to my chair so he can whisper into my ear. “I can assist you with that.”
“You can?” The heat of his breath on the sensitive spot below my earlobe is driving me wild.
“Of course. You didn’t think I came here to micromanage your boss, did you?”
I can’t speak. I shake my head.
“You’re right. I didn’t. I came here because there’s something about you, Ms. Schaffer, something about you that makes me want to do all kinds of filthy things to you.”
This is on another level. My entire body stiffens, but he places his hand on mine and strokes gently.
“Let’s make an arrangement.”
I match his whispered tone. “What kind of arrangement?”
“You give yourself to me, completely, for thirty minutes, every day at 5:00. And I’ll make it worth your time.”
Goosebumps cover my skin from my head to my toes.
He’s not finished.
“Everything between us will take place in this office, during our scheduled meetings. Forget the party—that was an impulse we both surrendered to. From here on out, there are no strings. No attachments. One month, and it’s over.”
The timeframe coincides perfectly with the release of the second issue.
The truth—the ugly, shameful truth that I’ll never admit to out loud—is that I’m starting to crack under the stress of being so perfect every day, in every way. But something has to give.
It might as well be my insistence on staying far away from Jax Hunter. My track record on that has been less than stellar anyway.
So I don’t hesitate.
“Okay,” I breathe, my hands tightening on the arms of the chair. “One month.”
“Are you entirely sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’ll begin tomorrow.”
15
Jax
I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking when I kneel next to the most beautiful woman ever to walk the earth and tell her that she’s going to spend half an hour every day as my personal property for the next month. Sex with my employees has always been forbidden, for a thousand reasons, not the least of which is because I refuse to have that kind of tension on the job.
I started shooting holes in that personal standard the moment I invited her to that party.
And I see something in her—something jittery, something uncontrollable, something totally at odds with the collected super-assistant who met me head-on when I strolled into her office on Monday. Who knows? Maybe that was all for show, and this is the woman behind the mask.
I don’t think it is.
There’s something weighing on her. Can it be Sarzó’s unceasing demands? The way she acts would be reason enough for most people to quit inside of a week. Cate has been here for at least a year.
There must be more to it.
Why do you care so much
, Hunter? I ask myself in a jeering tone.
Why do I care? When push comes to shove, I’m going to leave Cate behind. She’s too intoxicating, too thrilling—and that makes her too dangerous to let her into my life in any real sense. She seems like a decent enough girl, but let any woman get too close and you won’t be calling the shots.
I can’t have that.
It was my stepmother’s fault, at least partially, that my dad set up his piece-of-shit scheme to take all that money. He could never say no to her, and now he’s doing fifteen years in a minimum-security prison upstate. By the time he gets out, he’ll be almost seventy years old.
I still won’t want to look at his face.
That’s the kind of bullshit I can’t set myself up for under any circumstances.
Not even with Catherine Schaffer.
It doesn’t matter that breathing in her scent turns my heart into a jackhammer in my chest. It doesn’t matter that the sight of her turns me on so much it hurts. It doesn’t matter that I want to fuck her in every possible position, every day, until I die.
Those ridiculous feelings tell me exactly why a future between us is impossible.
That’s why it’s so infuriating, this primal need to be near her, to touch her, to kiss her.
That’s why our new arrangement is so convenient.
Such a win-win, for both of us.
I’ll get her off, loosen up those shoulders, take her to some places I can guarantee she’s never been, and she’ll reward me with everything I want.
I was an idiot to think that one date would be enough.
No.
I need to take her. To have her. To get my fill before I turn her loose.
It works out that she needs something from me, too.
She hasn’t been gone for ten minutes when I realize I’m lacking a crucial piece of information: her cell phone number.
How the hell do I not have that?
I could look it up in the company directory—I have access to all of Basiqué’s files on my computer—but why do that when her voice is only a phone call away?