His Banana

by Penelope Bloom

  William and I had always played off each other's personalities well. He pushed me to take more risks than I would with the business, and I helped reign him in when he was too reckless.

  I pushed my chair back in at my desk and drained the last of my water.

  My stomach gurgled at the thought of the banana I had waiting for me. My diet had very little sugar in it, and over time, bananas had come to be the highlight of my culinary life. I knew it was ridiculous, which was why I would never admit it to anyone. But the banana I had before lunch was often the best part of my day. William said the employees who were afraid of me had learned to stay out of the break room if the banana was still there. The ones who were looking to kiss my ass would wait around it like it was bait.

  The office was clean and modern in design. William and I paid an interior designer to put the look together and spared no expense. Having a clean, pleasing design was more than a luxury, it was a business model. We didn't just want our competition to think we were top of the line in every respect, we wanted our employees to feel it too. People worked differently when they thought they were at the top and wanted to stay there.

  The break room was a glass rectangle overlooking an indoor courtyard area covered in just about every flower we could find that would survive indoors.

  Each floor of the building had about eighty employees working at any given time, and I always had been quick to remember faces and names.

  So when I didn’t recognize the girl wearing a navy pencil-skirt and white blouse, I knew she was one of the interns. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and she had missed a lock of hair that was catching the air from the overhead vent, flapping lazily and drawing my eye. She was pretty, with expressive, hazel eyes, a mouth that looked accustomed to mischievous grins and quick turns of phrase, and a body that she clearly took care of.

  None of that mattered though. What mattered was the object in her hand.

  The half-eaten object in her hand with my name written on it in sharpie. Only the neatly written “BRU” was visible before the peeled back flaps of the banana obscured the rest.

  There were four other people in the break room, all of whom saw what was in her hand and had moved themselves to the farthest corners of the room. They were watching her like she was holding a grenade with the pin pulled, all while making efforts to casually slip out of the room before the explosion they knew was about to come.

  The girl noticed me then.

  Her eyes widened slightly and she sucked in a gasp, which seemed to lodge part of the banana in her throat. She started coughing and half-choking.

  I saw red. She must be an intern, and she had the fucking nerve to touch my banana? To eat it? So when I moved to her side and slapped her back to help her dislodge whatever was stuck in her throat, I patted her with a little more force than I intended.

  She grunted, coughed, and swallowed. Her cheeks ignited with a splotchy red as she looked me up and down, plopping herself in a chair by the large table at the center of the room to catch her breath.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked once she seemed to be fully recovered from choking on my banana. My throat was tight with rage and indignation. She was a small injection of chaos into my life, a sabotage of my routine. All my natural impulses were practically screaming for me to eliminate her from my life as fast as possible like a healthy body would attack a virus.

  “You’re Bruce Chamberson,” she said.

  The half-eaten banana was sitting beside her. I drew her attention to my finger before flicking the peel over the banana so she could read the full name written on the side.

  Her mouth fell open. “I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Chamberson. I just forgot my lunch and I didn’t see your name when I grabbed it. I thought it was complimentary, or—”

  “A complimentary banana?” I asked dryly. “You thought Galleon Enterprises supplied its employees with a single, solitary banana?”

  She paused, swallowed, and then shook her head. “Oh God,” she said, sinking into her chair like all the air was seeping out of her. “Something tells me I’m not going to get the internship after this.”

  “Something tells you wrong. You’re hired. Your first job every day will be to buy me a banana and bring it to my office, no later than 10:30.” I made sure not to let surprise touch my features, even though it was spiking through me. What the fuck was I doing? She was attractive, and not in the way I could just notice off-handedly. She made something stir up inside me. I hadn’t felt any ounce of sexual desire since I ended things with Valerie, but this intern was quickly changing that. I didn’t just feel a curiosity about how good she’d look with that skirt hiked up to her hips, I wanted to know if she was quiet or loud in bed, if she’d dig her fingernails into my back or if she would lay herself out for me like a prize to be claimed. Yet at the same time, I wanted to eject her from my life as fast as humanly possible. She was everything I’d been trying to avoid. Everything I didn’t want.

  Her eyebrows drew down in confusion. “I’m hired?” she asked.

  I pushed down all my doubts. I told her she was hired in front of everyone in the break room, and I wasn’t about to look like I’d lost my shit in front of them. I had to own it. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself. If I liked you, I would send you packing. You’re going to wish you never touched my banana, Intern. I promise you that.”

  3

  Natasha

  I let the water run over me in the shower, not caring that it was hot enough to sting. It was something to distract me from my latest blunder, which might well be the biggest of my life. I wanted to prove myself to Hank so badly, and now I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to even get a sniff of anything juicy on Bruce Chamberson. Getting hired in the first place was admittedly a big hurdle I hadn’t been sure I’d overcome, but the way it happened couldn’t have gone any worse.

  The worst part was how hard it had been to keep from breaking into immature giggles every time he talked about “his banana.” It was beyond ridiculous. The guy looked like a supermodel with ice for blood. His eyebrows seemed naturally drawn, eyes slightly narrowed at all times, like he hoped he could glare hard enough to make you evaporate into a cloud of vapor. My knees nearly buckled when he walked into the break room. I had done my due diligence as far as google stalking went, of course, but pictures didn’t do him justice. He was tall in the perfect kind of way. Not lanky and almost freakishly like an NBA player, but with perfect proportions and a larger-than-life, ultra-masculine kind of way. He had just enough muscle to show through his neatly tailored suit. I hadn’t looked into his brother yet, but they were supposedly twins, as hard as that was to believe. I hadn’t been asked to gather dirt on William Chamberson, just Bruce. William was a bridge I’d cross when I got there.

  But Bruce… He was a bridge I wasn’t sure I wanted to get off, no matter how much it felt like it might twist at any moment and send me plunging to my death.

  And his face. God. If he hadn’t been so busy glaring a hole straight through me, I probably would’ve just spilled into a hot mess of a puddle at his feet. My survival instinct was the only thing that kept my mouth working. He had a jawline sharp enough to cut yourself on, eyes like blue, burning coals, and a mouth far too sensual and kissable for someone who seemed so stiff.

  He was like an angry robot. Amendment. An angry sex robot. The kind that looked so good you didn’t care if it only beeped and buzzed at you.

  I let out a long, dramatic sigh and rinsed the last of the conditioner from my hair before drying off and starting my routine to get ready. I needed to be on time. It was my first day at Galleon Enterprises, and something in my gut told me there was no room for mistakes or tardiness with a man like Bruce Chamberson. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the glint of life in his eyes when he told me I’d regret ever touching his banana. He was joking with me, even as he threatened me, and I couldn’t reconcile that fact with the idea that he was an emotionless robot, no matter how hard I tried.

  Th
ere was more to him than meets the eye, that much was for certain.

  I was late. I’d done everything in my power to be on time, including planning on catching the train that should’ve had me at Galleon with thirty minutes to spare. I’d even shooed Braeden out of my apartment the night before and texted my parents to help ensure he wouldn’t end up back at my place in a few hours. Of course, I hadn’t budgeted time for the explosive diarrhea my French bulldog, Charlie, decided to have all over the apartment. He was a nervous pooper, and he was also extremely empathetic. I guess he picked up on my nerves and cluster-bombed the apartment as a kind of canine act of solidarity.

  When I came out of the elevator on the top floor of Galleon, I was seven minutes late. By my standards, it wasn’t that bad. Bruce was standing outside the elevator with a furious look on his face that told me his standards were more precise than my own.

  “You’re late,” he said. His voice was flat, emotionless.

  “I’m sorry, my dog—”

  “I’m not interested in your excuses. The time will be docked from your pay.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’m an intern. I’m not getting paid.”

  His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed.

  Whoops. Somebody doesn’t like being corrected.

  “My office. Now.”

  He stormed off, leaving me no choice but to follow him with a sinking feeling in my stomach. My stupid mouth got me into hot water with Bruce when I ate his banana, and from the looks of his rigid posture and quick pace, my mouth wasn’t done writing checks it couldn’t cash. An ill-advised, dirty little seed of fantasy had been planted in my brain sometime between the banana and this morning, and I kept having to suppress images of Bruce locking me in his office so he could bend me over his knee and spank me. It was ridiculous. I wasn’t even into that kind of stuff. Granted, if you played the game of describing my solitary sexual experience with a movie title, you’d win by picking Fast and Furious. Although, it’d fit better if the movie had been called Fast and Underwhelming, but I doubted anyone in Hollywood would greenlight that.

  I fought the urge to put my hands up to shield my eyes as I was led through his office. I was pulled over once for speeding when I used to drive, and I remember the feeling of mortification as people passed by, peeking in my window with gloating expressions. Glad it was you, sucker, was written all over their faces back then, just like it was now.

  This was worse. A lot worse. It wasn’t just my pride being dragged through the mud as I trailed behind Bruce like a sad, scolded puppy. It was the potential of impressing Hank. Everybody here was a possible source, and the more they saw me as a joke, the less likely I would be to learn anything useful from them.

  Assuming I wasn’t fired, I was going to be working here for the next few weeks. Months, even. However long it took to find dirt on Bruce. And frankly, I was getting hungrier for dirt by the minute. I didn’t just want to know if he was the captain of a corrupt ship, though. I wanted to know why he was trying so hard to convince everybody he had the personality of a wet blanket. I also wanted to know why anyone at Business Insights even suspected Bruce was up to something suspicious. He certainly didn't seem to fit the mold of the shady businessman at first glance.

  He closed the door to his office and walked to the blinds, pulling the string so we were completely alone.

  “I don’t need to remind you how important it is to be on time, correct?” he asked, leaving me to stand as he moved to his desk and started pulling out a small box, envelopes, and a piece of paper that he set on his desk in front of me.

  Oh, God. This is the part in my fantasy where he pulls out a whip, and I tell him I'm not into all that kind of jazz, but he bends me over anyway. And he tells me I've been a naughty, naughty girl.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could stop being an idiot for just a fraction of a second for once. “Very important,” I gulped. “It won’t happen again. Probably. You never know when lightning will strike, and all that. But I’ll try my hardest to be on time every day from now on.”

  “Yes. You will. Because I’m going to make something abundantly clear to you, Natasha Flores.”

  I ignored the way my skin prickled with warmth to hear him say my name. I guessed he had looked at the resume I submitted, because my name never came up during the banana incident or afterwards.

  “I am not a nice man. You’re not here because I want to become friends with you, or to fuck you,” he added casually, as if it was a perfectly reasonable assumption he needed to clear off the table. “You’re here because I don’t like you, and I’m going to enjoy making you quit.”

  “I can really be charming if you give me a chance,” I said through a throat so tight I was surprised my voice wasn’t a shrill whistle. Even though he just explicitly said he wasn’t trying to sleep with me, hearing the idea come out of his mouth seemed to make the fantasy bouncing around in my head grow even more clear. It wasn’t a romantic fantasy. It was purely physical, and I would’ve challenged any woman to not look at Bruce Chamberson without having some ill-advised thoughts. It meant nothing. It was just chemicals and hormones.

  He looked me up and down, eyes not lingering in any of the places they were supposed to. “Tell me then, Intern. How exactly do you plan to charm me? Is it with your work ethic? Your tendency to take things that belong to other people and put them in your mouth? Or is it that you think you’ll seduce me?”

  I straightened. I couldn’t pin him down. One minute, I thought he was cold and empty on the inside. The next, I was absolutely sure he was teasing me. What was more, I was sure he was enjoying it.

  “I didn’t realize robots had the capacity to be seduced,” I said. “You’re sure there’s not just a lever I can pull in your back-panel?”

  There was nothing robotic in the glare he fixed on me. I regretted talking back immediately, but there was no taking away my words. They hung in the silence between us, dangling there for me to watch with cringing helplessness.

  “You are an aberration,” he said simply, ignoring my jab. “My ability to deal with aberrations is part of what makes me so good at my job.”

  “I find that offensive. I think.”

  “Good. You were supposed to. Now,” he said sharply, as if our discussion had come to a neat and orderly resolution. “This is your work phone.” He handed me a cell phone that appeared to already be set up. “Your password is ‘BANANA,’ and no, you can’t change it. That phone is as much mine as it is yours, so think carefully if you plan to use it for any sexting.”

  He was messing with me now. I knew he was. Every time I started to really think there was nothing in that gorgeous head of his except whirring machinery and circuits, he let a little humanity seep through, and I absolutely hated how interested it was making me. I was a journalist, after all, and I wasn’t sure I had encountered a mystery quite as compelling as Bruce Chamberson. My leading theory? He was actually a normal guy, but he held himself back around everyone. I just needed to find out if the real Bruce only slipped out when he was around me, or if he was bad at holding it in around everyone.

  “And these?” I asked, pointing to the envelopes and the paper.

  He flipped open the flap on one of the envelopes to show me a laminated bag full of credit cards, some sort of instruction manual, and a set of car keys. The other bag contained a passport that somehow had my face on it, even though I definitely hadn’t ever gotten myself a passport.

  “These are some of the tools you’ll need to perform your duties as my intern. Keys to the company car, which you’ll use to act as my personal driver. Credit cards for business functions, dinners with clients, or outings sponsored by Galleon. You’ll be required to attend all of those, by the way. And the phone is so I can reach you at any hour, day or night. You’ll always have it on. I’m the only one with the number. It’s my direct line to you.”

  I felt my nostrils flare, which only happened when I was the kind of mad where you start thinking about your forehead
as a weapon instead of just the inside of your palm. Being sexy as sin didn’t give him a license to treat me like a slave. “You realize the normal duties for an intern are more like running copies, sitting in on meetings, or making coffee runs for everyone, right?” I had to clamp my mouth shut from saying I did have another job. Technically, I did. I’d need time to write down and organize anything I learned here and prepare it for the piece I’d eventually write. From the sounds of things, he didn’t plan on giving me any free time, which wasn’t going to make my life easy.

  “I don’t care what’s normal. I never have. This is an exceptional company run by exceptional people. If you are going to be part of it in any capacity, I expect you to work as tirelessly as the rest of us.”

  “Let me guess. The fact that I’m still not getting paid has no bearing on any of these superhuman expectations, right?”

  “Good. You’re learning. Maybe there’s some hope for you, after all.”

  4

  Bruce

  The intern’s first day was an exercise in self-control for me. Every impulse in my body was screaming to get rid of her. She was a walking disaster. She spilled coffee on my shirt, which forced me to use one of my spare outfits. Frankly, I wasn’t even confident that a single spare outfit would be enough with this woman rampaging around in my life. She dented the company car when she was pulling it out of the parking garage because she swerved to avoid ‘a huge grasshopper,’ even though I’d lived in New York City for most of my life and never once seen a grasshopper. To top it all off, the banana she brought for me wasn’t ripe enough.

  It wasn’t even lunch yet, and the intern had introduced more chaos into my life than I’d experienced in the past year. My blood pressure was spiked and I was seriously starting to question my motives for keeping her around.