by C. J. Thomas
“Yeah, well, I’m paying for it now,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“If you need any help, just let me know.” She wiggled her fingers in a wave, then left. Just like everybody else did.
Everybody but me.
It was nobody’s fault but my own, and I knew it. I was the one who wanted to get ahead, even if arriving at my destination meant rubbing elbows with Reed Kingsley more than I already did. There wasn’t a person in management who knew more about the day-to-day running of the company than I did. I was in closer contact with our advertisers than he was, for sure. Without their money, the company would collapse.
Reed seemed to think everything happened magically. As long as we posted profits every quarter, he was happy. Sometimes I wondered if he just sat there playing with himself all day long.
What wasn’t my fault was the way I needed to work two or three times as hard as any man in the company to just barely fall short of their titles and salaries. I was well-paid, but still the lowest paid member of the management team.
And they were the ones strolling in whenever they felt like it, taking two-hour lunches, leaving for the day when the mood struck. My favorite had to be Friday afternoons in summer when my coworkers would walk out the door at noon with golf clubs slung over their shoulders and not come back until Monday.
Business meeting, they said. They weren’t fooling anyone.
Meanwhile, there I was. Bright, efficient, always willing to go the extra mile. Rare was the evening when I left my desk before seven o’clock—even the previous night, when I had plans with my friends. That almost never happened.
Work was my life.
I kept telling myself it would pay off, but with every passing year that left me sitting in the same windowless office, my hopes dimmed.
One good thing about having an office without windows was that it made working until dark easier to handle. Hours after everyone else had left, I pushed myself back from my desk with a groan, stretching my stiff muscles. I always tended to carry tension in my neck and shoulders, and winced as my fingers worked those areas.
I checked my phone—seven-thirty already? I winced again. Yet another long day. It wouldn’t stop once I got home, either. I would be answering emails and reviewing articles until nine, maybe ten o’clock. I just had to get out of my suit and into something more comfortable. Maybe do something involving a glass of wine, too. Or ice cream.
As happy as I was to be leaving for the day, I dragged my feet out of exhaustion as I went down the hall. It was depressing, being the only person left in the office. The silence was deafening.
During the day, the halls rang with the sound of conversation, ringing phones, fingers typing on keyboards, copy and fax machines. Without that background noise, I felt like I could’ve been in some post-apocalyptic nightmare. It gave me the chills.
I took the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. I didn’t even like standing in front of the empty reception desk.
When’s the weekend? I must have asked myself that a dozen times today. It was only Wednesday night. Two more days, then two days of relative freedom.
I’d work from home, as always, but I’d be in the comfort of my apartment, in my pajamas, with my friends going in and out.
They had lives, of course. Not everybody spent their free time with a laptop in front of their face.
I couldn’t seem to shake the depression that had settled in my bones, starting that morning. It might have been the beauty and sophistication of Aaron’s apartment that did it to me. When I looked around—even from the vantage point of his ridiculously comfortable bed with its Egyptian cotton sheets—I’d wondered about his life.
Was he satisfied? He certainly had the air of someone who was deeply satisfied with the way his life was going. He stood out in stark contrast to me, who hated just about everything my professional life had become—not to mention the way it leaked into my personal life . . . or lack thereof.
And for what? So Reed Kinsley could call me into his office to remind me who the boss was? What a loser.
I hailed a cab, grateful when one pulled up almost right away. My luck was looking up.
Now, if I just had Aaron’s number . . .
I bit my lip, stifling a giggle as I climbed into the cab. I didn’t need the driver thinking I was a lunatic. I gave him my address, as much as I wished I could give him Aaron’s.
What I wouldn’t give for a replay of last night.
That would be just the thing to relieve the stress and tension coursing throughout my body. My skin warmed at the memory of the hottest sex I’d ever had.
He was a god, plain and simple—what was better, he’d made me feel like a sex goddess. Every woman needs that in her life at least once.
Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
And that was how I wanted it, right?
I asked myself that question as I watched blocks of skyscrapers whizz past through the streaked window of the cab, their lights twinkling, making me wonder about the lives of the people inside. I’d gone into my night with Aaron knowing it would only be one night.
But that was decided well before we slept together. Before he showed me more pleasure than anybody ever had. I didn’t know I was capable of feeling that way, not before him.
To lose that seemed like a cruel joke.
Oh well. He didn’t want any part of my screwed-up life, anyway. I knew that had to be true, remembering the kind-but-distracted man I’d vented to that morning.
Ugh, he had to think I was a whiny little brat. Complaining about my job the way I did, what was I thinking? And judging from his digs, he wasn’t a filing clerk. I was likely the sort of employee he hated, which would have lowered me in his esteem.
Looking at it that way made it much easier to accept that I’d never see him again.
I was actually sort of relieved. It would be easier to get me through tonight.
CHAPTER 7
Aaron
“Jeanine? Will you clear my schedule, please?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Bello. Everything all right?”
“Just fine, thanks. I’ll take lunch in, too. Just order something from the usual place.” I hung up the phone, intent on only one thing: Finding out as much as I could about Kenzie Olson and her work with Reed Kingsley.
I hated even the thought of Kenzie working for somebody like him. I didn’t know the girl from a hole in the ground, but even I could tell she was too good for a piece of shit like him.
I could imagine that everything she said about him was true, and then some. It was all too easy to imagine him taking advantage of her. Men like him didn’t know a good thing when they had it in the palm of their hand.
Not that I thought he had Kenzie there—I couldn’t imagine her being in the palm of anybody’s hand. She was too smart, too strong. Even without my help, she would eventually find a way out of that hellhole.
I intended to speed the process up a bit. And when I did, she’d thank me for it.
Still, I needed to make sure she was a real asset to him first. If she was just the lackey he treated her as, it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much when I stole her away from him.
That was my ultimate goal: Getting her out of there and into my office.
Then I would have to be sure he knew she was with me. That wouldn’t be too difficult, since if she was half as good as I already thought she was, I would love showing her off to the world.
Instead of doing a quick internet search for her this time, I entered her name in the search bar of the website for Madison Media Group. Dozens of articles came up and I read through every single one.
She charmed me, plain and simple. Writing like hers needed to be placed front and center. She had a way of pulling the reader in with a simple turn of phrase.
I wondered if she wasn’t too good even for my company—we weren’t exactly turning heads in the world of publishing. I hadn’t even gotten my feet wet yet. Would she be interested in coming in on the ground floor?
“I can help you with that, Mr. Bello.” I handed the work over to Jeanine, who put everything together while I searched for more of Kenzie’s work. I found articles from way back when she must have worked as a freelancer, and added them to the pile of work, too.
“Who is this girl?” I shot Jeanine a warning look—she knew better than to ask questions like that. I didn’t mix the professional with the personal.
She got the message, ducking her head. I reminded myself to conduct the rest of my research on my own.
Going back to her earliest article for Madison Media Group, it looked as though Kenzie had been working for Reed for five years. Right around the time he bought the company, in fact.
My blood boiled at the thought. Little had she known the backstabbing asshole she was going to work for.
What else did she tell me about her job? I thought back to the little speech she’d made in bed. She’d told me about her interactions with the advertisers. I knew advertisers were the life-blood of any publication.
I went through the site, picking out the high-ticket brand names and making a few phone calls. Each time I did, I asked for the advertising department.
“I’d like to do a little work with Madison Media Group, and I was wondering who I should contact at their offices in order to set up advertising through their publications.”
Each and every time, one name came up: Kenzie Olson. I would ask about her. How easy is it to work with her? Did any of them ever work with the higher-ups?
Invariably, every one of them sang Kenzie’s praises. She was the greatest thing since sliced bread. One of the women I spoke to went so far as to say she’d recommend dropping her company’s ads with Madison Media Group if Kenzie ever left.
I put that little tidbit in my back pocket, wondering how many of the others felt the same.
So Kenzie was just as big a player as she’d described herself—bigger, really, if she was not only doing the day-to-day work of keeping their online publication running but also keeping the revenue flowing in. I smiled with satisfaction on finding that she was nothing less than an asset, one which I could make work to my purposes.
I started my search through Kenzie’s social media accounts. I didn’t feel the slightest twinge of conscience as I went through her profiles. After all, in our modern day and age, prospective employers were expected to review potential candidates’ online presence. I didn’t see the point, frankly, so I normally left that task to Jeanine.
In Kenzie’s case, I wanted to know more about her as a person, not just as a job prospect.
There she was, on her Facebook page. It was marked public, meaning anybody could go through it. I made a mental note to have a talk with her about online security.
One of her girlfriends had taken a picture of the four of them in the club the night before. I smiled slightly, thinking it could have been captioned Before. They were all fresh, sober, smiling brightly. I remembered seeing the one girl, the redhead, grinding on the floor like she was some sort of exotic dancer. That was just before the little blonde had gotten Kenzie’s attention.
My cock stirred at the memory of how sexy she’d looked.
I scrolled down, reminding myself to stay focused. There she was in what I guessed was her apartment. Two of the girls from the club were with her, standing in front of a Christmas tree. They must have been her roommates. And the three of them lived in that dinky little place? I shook my head.
More pictures of her, this time on the beach. A modest bathing suit, but I soon saw why when I came across a photo of her between two older people who I guessed were her parents. Then another of her burying a guy in the sand.
I would have gotten jealous had the resemblance between them not been so blatant. They could have been twins.
So she had a close relationship with her family. Somehow I wasn’t surprised. The photos were taken in South Carolina. Was that where she was originally from?
I looked at her About Me section. Yes, she’d been born and raised in Charleston. I thought back to her voice and didn’t remember a trace of an accent.
Judging from the sorts of memes she shared with her friends, she enjoyed animals, literary quotes, and popular TV shows. What an interesting creature she was.
There was a photo of her with the little blonde girl at a juice shop. Post-spinning green juice, the caption read. So she worked out. Not surprising. Then a photo of her digging into an obscenely large slice of cheesecake. Life is about balance, she’d captioned that one. I smiled at her sense of self-awareness.
I was pleased by the lack of silly drunk pictures. No duck-face selfies, no photos featuring her and her girlfriends with their drinks raised high in the air. Nothing to even suggest she drank too much or had any other unattractive vices.
From what she’d shown me of herself, I didn’t think she was that type—still, it was easy to show a stranger the face you wanted them to see.
I shuddered when I remembered the way my ex had fooled me for years, right up to the point where I carried an engagement ring in my pocket, just waiting for the right moment. Thank God that moment had never come and I’d gotten wind of her double life before popping the question.
I shook my head, clearing the memory. It had been a long time ago and it wasn’t worth going over again.
There was Kenzie’s smiling face, reminding me that there were still genuinely decent people in the world. Everything about her only made me like her more. I felt the same when I went through her tweets, though the number of Game of Thrones-related tweets made me wonder if she had much of a life. I knew to stay away from her on Sunday nights, if her timeline was any indication.
One thing I noticed was the lack of work-related tweets or Facebook updates. A good sign. Too many people made the mistake of going online and venting about their job. A stupid, stupid mistake. She was too smart for that. I should have known I wouldn’t find anything.
I stretched, standing for a minute to work the kinks out of my back. I rarely spent an entire day seated behind my desk—normally I’d be going from office to office, getting updates on various projects, running up and down the stairs.
I wasn’t the type of CEO to sit and wait for people to come to me. I much preferred going to them. It helped me keep an eye on the rest of the company, too. They never knew when I was coming, so they didn’t fuck around.
I was hard on them, but I was fair. Because they didn’t fuck around, it made my employees that much more efficient. If they were finished with their work for the day, they could go home without a dock in pay. It was an incentive for my team to work harder, faster, while producing top-quality results.
And it kept us ahead of the pack in terms of productivity. Projections had us a month ahead of schedule on the fall line.
I checked in with Jeanine, who brought in my lunch along with a dozen phone messages. None of them were as important as what I was working on. “Make sure the office at the end of the hall is ready for occupancy.”
Jeanine’s eyebrows shot up, though to her credit she kept her mouth shut. Instead of asking why, she pulled a pen from the back of her head, where it had been stuck inside her ponytail, and made a note on the pad of paper she was almost never without. She knew better than to enter my office unprepared.
“And when would you like that ready by?”
“Tomorrow.” Her eyes widened, but again she didn’t question me. She didn’t need to. Jeanine was smart enough to put two and two together.
She hurried out and I heard her pick up the phone to start making calls before the door had even swung shut.
I sat back, lacing my fingers behind my head as I had earlier in the day. After hours of research and thinking the plan through, I knew it was the right thing to do—in fact, it would benefit me in the end since Kenzie was obviously a hell of an employee. Somebody a dick like Reed would never appreciate.
>
I thought I knew just the way to convince her to switch teams, too. It wouldn’t do any good for her to know the history between us. She might decide to drop me like a bad habit on top of turning me down. So I couldn’t come right out and tell her why it was important she work for me.
Instead, I had to convince her in other ways.
Or maybe I would make up her mind for her. I remembered Don Corleone in The Godfather. I would make her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and maybe fix the odds in my favor by making it impossible for Reed to keep her on staff any longer. Once Reed knew she was with me, he would know why.
I almost laughed out loud when I imagined his reaction. It would definitely be enough to send his blood pressure shooting through the roof. Maybe his beady little eyes would spring out of his head, too.
An added bonus.
First thing first, though: Wooing Kenzie. I had just the perfect idea in mind.
CHAPTER 8
Kenzie
I sighed in relief when I made it to the front door of my apartment. Sliding my key into the lock was always something I looked forward to after a shit storm of a day.
The moment I opened the door and saw the looks on my roommates’ faces, I knew something was up. They stood side-by-side in front of the kitchen table, visible from the front door. The open floor plan gave the illusion of space in an otherwise rather cramped apartment.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, looking from one to the other. Chloe and Chandra looked like they were ready to burst, and when Emery came out of the bathroom, I was more convinced than ever that they had something up their collective sleeves. “What are you doing here?” I asked Emery.
She giggled. “Chloe called and asked me to come over after work.”
“Why?” I looked around. “What are we doing? Girls’ Night, Part Two? I have a few things to finish up, but if we’re staying in it shouldn’t be a problem.”