Jessica buried the embarrassing heat of her face in her hands. She’d confessed her fantasies. God. She’d sounded like a besotted teenage girl instead of a thirty-five-year-old woman.
She sucked in a breath. He’d never make her controller now. Not after he knew how she’d been salivating over him for years. Her career at West Coast had just gone up in smoke. And she’d lit the match. Idiot.
When she rose, her legs felt wobbly, and she was reminded again of how perfect his touch was. Ruby had been lying to Bradley. No one could compare to Clay.
She peaked out the door. His office door was closed, the building silent. She didn’t have to check the lock to know he was gone. After washing her hands, she patted cold water on her face. Her cheeks were still flushed with color, her lips just-kissed plump. At that moment, she didn’t need makeup. All she needed was sex with Clay.
Just sex? She could have an affair with her boss. She could even do an excellent job as controller while she was screwing him on the side. She could separate sex and work.
But she couldn’t separate how she felt about Clay. Sex wasn’t the same as it was with Vince. Clay made her heart swell with need. She wanted to burrow inside him, sleep in his arms, wake up beside him, come home to him.
On Wednesday morning, she could have lived without it. She hadn’t known his intimate desires, his touch, his taste, or how his skin felt beneath her fingers. She hadn’t known how good he could make her feel in so many more ways than just sex.
Wednesday was a lifetime ago.
Now, she hated that he was going home to Ruby, a woman who didn’t deserve him.
Chapter Eight
Ruby admitted that she’d royally fucked up. But it wasn’t all her fault. She would explain to him how she didn’t understand what he wanted because he gave off mixed signals.
She’d waited all morning and all afternoon for him to return, and by four o’clock, she was going a little insane.
Bradley had called. She’d sent him to voicemail. He had to figure his own way out of the mess.
Her nerves getting to her, she’d resorted to eating cheese and salsa because there was nothing else in the house. Cheese would make her thighs lumpy, but salsa was good for you, all those tomatoes.
The front door opened, and her heart threatened to beat right out of her chest. Seated on the couch, she could see Clay through the open fireplace. She set aside the cheese plate. The clink of ceramic on the coffee table got his attention. His face was so serious. Not a smile, not a glimmer of hope. He stepped down into the living room, stopped beside the firepit, then eased down on the wide stone ledge surrounding it.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I had a beer.” He’d been gone so long, he could have had a six-pack, but he didn’t appear drunk.
“Can I explain?” she asked, sounding suitably plaintive.
“You don’t have to explain.” His voice was flat. The sound of it made her nerves jump even more.
“But I need to.”
He didn’t say anything, not to tell her shut-up, nor to go on.
But she could explain it. “I don’t understand what you want. Like, if I tell you I’m going out with a girlfriend when really I’m going to meet a man, you’re all hot and bothered when I get home, sniffing to see if I smell like come, and if I do, you get wild. But it’s still breaking your rule about not telling you I’m going on a date.”
“You’re right,” he said expressionlessly. “That’s a rule I don’t mind if you break.”
“But it’s not okay to break the rule about sex with a coworker or sex at the house.” She spread her hands. “How am I supposed to know which rules I can’t break?”
“I don’t have an answer,” he said.
She gaped, starting to feel put-out. He’d made her into the bad guy for no good reason. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Do you always tell them I’m not a good lover?”
She almost sagged with relief. So that’s what it was about, his ego. “It depends on the man. Sometimes they need building up.”
“So you tear me down to do it.” His voice was like the flat edge of a knife: it didn’t hurt, but all he had to do was turn it and it would slice right through her.
“It’s not about you,” she said. “It’s about them.”
“I realize that.”
She felt the knife edge turning on her and wasn’t sure how to stop it. “You’ve always liked what we’ve done.”
“Why Bradley? Why my office?”
She thought better of shrugging. “I don’t know. It just happened.”
She realized her mistake when his features sharpened and his jaw tensed. She’d needed something Clay wasn’t giving her anymore. She couldn’t say that, of course, but she should turn it around on him. “I thought you were bored with me.”
“Then you should have told me you wanted to play a different game.”
“I’m sorry. I will next time.”
“The rules were about safety.”
“Uh, yes.” But she hadn’t been unsafe.
“You tell me about a date so that I know where you are and if something goes wrong, I can come to you.”
She wanted to roll her eyes. He was so cautious. “That’s true, but—”
“We don’t jeopardize our jobs.”
“It was stupid, I know.”
“And we don’t do it in the house because the boys could come over.”
Jesus. They were at their mother’s. They came to Clay every other weekend. The older one had just gotten his license, but it wasn’t like Dad’s house for a surprise visit would be his first destination. Clay worried about everything. And for nothing.
But Ruby wasn’t going to point out the fallacies in his argument. “I would have heard them come in.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Of course.” Not really. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to be so quiet. It didn’t matter, though, she’d wanted him to know eventually. When he got into bed and smelled sex on the sheets.
“So you knew I was watching.”
“It made me hot.” It had when he clapped. The orgasm would have gone on and on if Bradley hadn’t freaked. What a twerp. He was definitely a mistake.
Clay stood, and she realized she’d once again said something wrong.
“We need a break, Ruby.”
There was a sudden roaring in her ears, as if she’d fallen under the wheels of a freight train. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he stated flatly, “that I’m going to a hotel for a few nights so we can both think about the situation.”
She jumped up, knocking her shin on the coffee table. “I’m sorry, Clay. I understand now. I won’t do it again. I didn’t realize how much the rules meant to you.” It was true. She didn’t think he’d care. He let her fuck anyone she wanted. He gave her all the freedom she asked for. She hadn’t understood that he would actually draw a line she wasn’t supposed to cross.
He reached into his back pocket, then tossed something onto the coffee table. The condom she’d given him this morning. “I almost used this today.”
“But you didn’t.” If he had, she would have lived with it, but she was glad he hadn’t.
“You don’t get it.”
“I said you could. To pay me back.”
He looked at her for so long, her skin started to itch. Then finally, he said, “I don’t want to pay you back. I don’t want us to be about tit for tat.”
“Then what do you want? Because I really don’t know.” It was the first honest thing she’d said. She might not be honest with anyone else, but at least she was with herself. Lies weren’t such a bad thing. Sometimes they were necessary.
He closed his eyes for five seconds, an interminable amount of time in which she saw her pretty little world crumbling. “I don’t know, Ruby. If I did, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
Then he went into their bedroom and packed a bag.
Ten minutes la
ter, after the echo of the front door closing and his car engine had faded into the sounds of lawn mowers and children shouting, she slumped down on the couch. The cheese and salsa she’d consumed threatened to rise up again. If he kicked her out, she had nowhere to go.
“Everything will be all right,” she whispered. “The boys are coming next weekend. He’ll have to come back home then.”
* * * * *
“Did you hear? Bradley quit.”
The Monday morning rumors were rampant in the West Coast hallways. Being a manager, Jessica didn’t listen to gossip—it was unprofessional—and discouraged it in her employees. But this tidbit, she couldn’t ignore. She gleaned every fact from every source. And there were a lot of sources.
“He didn’t even give notice.”
“Just packed up his stuff and left.”
“He said this place sucked.”
“Are you sure he didn’t actually get fired?”
That’s what Jessica wanted to know. Funny thing, Ruby had called in sick today. Did Clay have anything to do with all this?
In the end, Jessica couldn’t help herself; she went straight to the horse’s mouth, Bradley’s manager, popping into his office next door. “Is it true?”
Greg Stevens lifted his head out of his hands and stared at her morosely. With short blond hair, pale blue eyes, and cherubic cheeks, he was very Scandinavian. His characteristic smile was absent this morning.
“I’m going to kill him,” he muttered. His desk was a clutter of folders and binders that had begun to migrate to the round meeting table in the corner by the window. The computer keyboard was buried somewhere beneath the mess, his inbox stacked twelve inches high, and three of the file drawers on his credenza were open as if he’d recently torn through them.
“Guess it’s true then,” she sympathized. Finance and budgeting was a two-man department. Greg had lost fifty percent of his workforce. “What happened?” It had to have been Clay.
“I swear that kid must have been in at the crack of dawn.” Greg shook his head. “He cleaned out his cubicle and shoved a resignation letter under my door.”
Jessica wanted to be controller. She felt she was more qualified. Greg was intimate with the workings of every department, but he didn’t have the equity background, fixed asset knowledge, or payroll expertise that she did. Still, having his only employee quit on him was a raw deal.
“Did he say why?”
Greg laughed without the least bit of humor in it. “He wrote that he was quitting due to a hostile work environment.” He slapped both hands to his chest and jutted his head at her. “Do I look hostile?”
“Not in the least.” In fact, Greg had bent over backward making excuses for Bradley’s crappy work product. That was another strike against him as controller. Employees needed to have expectations put on them, and there had to be consequences if they didn’t perform.
Greg simply continued shaking his head. “I called him, but his phone went to voicemail. I hope he’s all right.”
Trust Greg to worry about the guy. He’s a complete asshole, and most likely he quit because he was afraid Clay was going to fire him. But she commiserated. “I’m sure he’s fine. Did you fill out a requisition for a new financial analyst?”
He nodded. “Thank God he didn’t do this in the middle of the budget process.”
Greg had probably done the majority of the work anyway. “If you need any help on the quarter-end analysis, let me know.”
He waved his thanks.
She stood for a moment outside her office door. It was chicken not to check in with Clay as well. She’d done nothing else but think about what happened between them on Saturday. What did it mean? How would it change things? Her worst thought was that he’d pretend it hadn’t happened.
But facing him? Well, that was going to take a bit of courage, too. If she didn’t want to clean out her desk, leave her resignation under his door, and slither away like Bradley had done, she was going to have to suck it up.
Chapter Nine
Leaning back in his chair, Clay was reading a sheaf of papers. Jessica’s heart rolled over in her chest. She’d always found him attractive, but now it made her ache to look at him. It was good, it was bad. She almost wished she’d never seen Ruby, never begged Clay to touch her. Fantasy was so much easier.
She knocked on the doorjamb. He laid down the papers. “Jessica, come in.”
She managed a few steps inside without tripping or otherwise looking like a lovesick idiot. “I heard about Bradley, and I’ve told Greg I can help out on any of the quarter-end analysis.”
“I’m sure Greg appreciated that. Close the door and have a seat.”
She could feel her blood pulsing in her fingertips. “Sure.” She took the chair opposite, then wondered why the hell she was being reticent. “Did you fire him?”
He snorted, shook his head. “He left on his own.” Then he laughed. “At least I don’t have to call him out in a duel for my girlfriend’s honor.”
Ruby didn’t have any honor. “He was scared you would, so he made a preemptive strike to avoid having to say he got fired on his resume.” Not that anyone actually admitted they got fired. You claimed a difference of opinion, disparity in management style, downsizing.
“I want to apologize for Saturday,” he said.
She swallowed. On Saturday, she’d come in fresh from sex with another man, the scent of come all over her, exactly what pushed Clay’s buttons. What happened hadn’t been about her, but about the timing. It was inevitable that he’d regret it, but it hurt anyway.
She wasn’t, however, going to show any weakness. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“I do. First Ruby put you through the wringer, then I messed with you. It wasn’t fair.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Messed with her. The euphemism belittled what had happened between them.
His features were handsome yet expressionless as he went on. “I hope we can continue our working relationship without letting this get in the way. You’re excellent at your job.”
“Of course. Not to worry.” She stood abruptly. If he said one more thing, she’d have to scream. “I better get out there and see how I can help Greg.”
Rushing to the door, she was half afraid he’d call her back so he could grind her down a little more. Thank God he didn’t. In the restroom, she checked her face, her eyes. Her makeup was fine, and she didn’t appear devastated. No one would know Clay had just crushed her. Her blazer was crisp, her blouse buttoned to the neck, her skirt circumspect.
Ruby Williams would never wear such staid business attire. Her tops were tight and low-cut, her skirts short and formfitting. Damn Ruby. Jessica knew she had to stop comparing herself to Ruby, stop wanting what Ruby had, whether the woman deserved it or not.
And she had to stop hiding in the ladies’ room, dammit.
* * * * *
“You’re down another worker bee, Clay. Where are we on the new controller?” Holt Montgomery was seated at the head of the board room conference table, and the Monday afternoon executive staff meeting in full swing. In his early fifties, Holt had a pair of gray eyes that penetrated through even the thickest cloud of smoke anyone blew at him. Though the companies had changed, Clay had worked with him for almost twenty years, and there was a healthy mutual respect between them.
They’d had reports from David Farris, manufacturing, Ward Restin, R&D, and Neal Thomas from business development, then had come Clay’s finance report, to be followed by Spencer Benedict in marketing and sales. For his part, Clay had already covered the cash forecast and the Q2 budget. Now they were down to the minutia.
“I’m staying on plan,” he said, “interviewing outside candidates and making the final decision by the start of next week.” Standard operating procedure, you always interviewed outside as well as inside.
Holt shook his head. “In the meantime, you’re spending too much time managing the whole accounting group.”
“Jess
ica Murphy is doing a good job keeping everything in line.”
Holt raised one eyebrow. “Then promote her. Our management flowchart is top heavy in male versus female headcount anyway.”
Holt had been in favor of Greg Stevens until today, but Clay didn’t call him on it, especially when Holt had a point. He wouldn’t have called himself wishy-washy, but he was definitely being indecisive about Jessica, though she was the best choice.
Or she would have been before Saturday.
The April sun was shining through the open blinds, and Clay felt like he was sitting in the hot seat. The coffee, which had made before lunch, smelled acrid. Ruby was out today. No fresh coffee for the meeting.
“Why’d Bradley quit anyway?” David Farris wanted to know. As VP of manufacturing, he’d worked extensively with Bradley and Greg on the five-year forecast, an amazing feat considering the man’s wife had been dying of cancer. She’d passed on just before Christmas. At least his two kids had been home from college at the time. Farris had been a military man, serving in Desert Storm, and despite the fact that he’d been out of the service for over fifteen years, he still had that military bearing. He hadn’t displayed an ounce of emotion, yet fresh streaks of gray had appeared in his sandy hair, and his eyes were bleak.
“He was fine last week during our meeting,” David went on. “Are we in for a lawsuit?”
Farris was referring to the hostile work environment. Clay quickly dispelled any worries about that. “No. I’ve got Human Resources reviewing the details. Palmer never reported a problem. The only incidents recorded in his file regarded his tardiness.” In addition to the fact that the accusation was crap, Clay was sure Palmer wouldn’t push the issue for fear of his after-hours activities on company property coming to light.
“Fine,” Holt said, sounding bored. “Take care of the controller business. Let’s move on.” He pointed to Spence. “Marketing report.”
Revenge Sex: A West Coast Hotwifing Novel, Book 1 Page 6