by Mika Lane
The Promotion
A Reverse Harem Romance
MIka Lane
Headlands Publishing
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Copyright© 2018 by Mika Lane
Headlands Publishing
4200 Park Blvd. #244
Oakland, CA 94602
The Promotion is a work of fiction. Names, characters, (most) places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s creativity or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of quotations in a book review.
ISBN ebook 978-1-948369-08-4
ISBN print 978-1-948369-09-1
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Also by MIka Lane
Chapter 1
Maizy
DEAR EMPLOYEE:
As the end of this quarter approaches, that means it’s time for your annual performance review. Please complete the form attached, describing your top three accomplishments of the past year, and return it to your manager. He/she will contact you to discuss this in the next four weeks. And, as always, thank you for making our law firm one of the best in New York City…
Oh, boy. My favorite time of the year. The one where my boss had the opportunity to remind me of all the times that, in her eyes, I had failed her and would never, ever amount to much of anything, never mind get the promotion I was jonesing for.
How did I end up in a reality where someone else—someone I didn’t even like or respect—had so much control over my life?
It wasn’t obvious from the beginning what I’d signed up for when I’d joined the firm. From the start, she was nice as could be, interested in who I was, complimentary about the work I did, telling me she liked my dresses. Then, slowly, slowly the insults and jabs started. They were so tiny at first, I almost didn’t notice them. But when they escalated to full-on bitchery, well, then I had to admit I’d gotten on the wrong damn train.
The way it sneaked up on me was like that fable about the boiling frog. The water temperature increased too slowly to perceive any danger—the poor bastard didn’t realize he was burning up until it was too late.
Or something like that.
I guess everyone who worked and had a boss was in the same boat, at least to some extent. Vulnerable to the whims of someone else’s moods, personality, impulses. It was a total crapshoot, wasn’t it? You could get a good boss who gave a damn about you or some psycho who lived to destroy your soul.
And they say the white-collar world was civilized? I’d never seen people act more like disgusting beasts. Actual animals in the wild were kinder and more logical than some of the people I’d worked with.
But that wasn’t to say everyone I worked with was an asshole. Just a lot of them. And that was partly because I worked at a law firm. Everyone knew law firms attracted more than their share of dick heads. But in spite of that, I did have a couple work friends, thank god. We helped each other get through the weeks, as the weeks turned into years.
My buddy, Cato, was one of the firm’s junior partners. We started about the same time, and even though I was on the paralegal team and he was one of the attorneys, he never acted like he was better than me. Yeah, law firms have these insane hierarchies, with the lawyers at the top, as you might imagine. Then come the paralegals like me, and the admins who, if they were real assholes, picked on the poor slobs in the law library or mailroom.
I guess what it boils down to is that everyone has their bitch.
Who would the mailroom people pick on at the end of one of their bad days? Maybe they went home and kicked their dogs.
God, I hoped not.
Anyway, I didn’t have time to focus on that. I had a party to get to.
“Sparkle!” I hollered after I unlocked the front door to the apartment I shared with my sister.
Silence. Shit, I needed her to help me decide what to wear.
So I poked my head into her room where I found her sitting cross-legged on the floor, butt naked, wearing huge headphones, and chanting ommm. She’d finish one round, take a deep breath, and begin another ommm. In the corner of the room her pet rat, Cher, rustled around the newspaper lining in his cage.
Her eyes were closed, and she looked so damn peaceful that I wasn’t sure I should interrupt. But she could meditate any time. I, on the other hand, rarely had a social engagement with the sort of expectations that came with a party for my law firm’s fiftieth anniversary. This was the big time. And it was happening in two hours.
“Sparkle,” I called, as if she’d be able to hear me through her headphones.
Ommm…
C’mon, sis.
I walked up behind her and pulled off her headphones.
“What the hell!” she yelled. So much for meditative peacefulness.
“Spark, I have that work thing tonight. You’re helping me, right?”
“Oh, that’s right.” She stood up, her skinny little naked body toned and lithe from all the yoga classes she taught.
“Let’s go dig into your closet,” she said, heading toward my bedroom.
“Spark, put something on first.”
She looked down at herself with the same surprise as if I’d told her she was green.
“Oh, okay. Right.” She grabbed her purple plushy robe. It made her look like a tall, thin stuffed Barney.
“This is a big night, Spark,” I told her as she carefully applied my eyeshadow.
“Yeah?”
“Well, our annual reviews are coming up, and I’m hoping this is my year to be promoted to senior paralegal.”
“Oh, right. That’s so cool.”
“Yeah. I’d get paid more, I’d get more responsibility, and maybe even could work for a different attorney than the bitch I currently am trapped under. So tonight, I plan to impress.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said. “Take a look in the mirror.”
Wow. I barely recognized myself.
“Sure you don’t want some glittery false eyelashes?” she offered.
“Thanks, Spark. But this is a law firm party, not Burning Man.”
Before I entered the fancy ballroom for our fancy party, I took a quick sec to make sure there was no lipstick on my teeth. And, glancing around to make sure no one would see, I also re-adjusted the girls to make sure I had a little—but not too much—cleavage showing. Attractive, but not too attractive. That seemed to be the way it worked at a law firm.
I entered the party with a big smile on my face, as if I did things like this all the time. Like I was some sort of movie star whom people would be thrilled to se
e walk through the door. Camera-ready, as they say.
But in reality, all that happened were a few heads turned my way, and then turned right back to the other heads they were clustered with.
Fuckers.
I didn’t let that deter me. I might be a mid-level paralegal who’d only attended a crummy state college, but I was going to be somebody people respected. And admired. And wanted to party with.
I made my way toward the bar, always the safe first stop at any party, while my eyes scanned the crowd for my buddy Cato. We’d agreed to meet there and help each other suffer through any indignities. I ordered a gin and tonic—a work party seemed a bit too formal for a beer—and walked over to the group Cato was chatting with.
They were all drinking beer.
Anyway, when I got close enough, I inched my way into the circle, lightly rubbing my arm against Cato to let him know I was there and to make room for me.
“Maizy!” he exclaimed like he’d never been so glad to see someone. Cato was great that way, always knowing just how to make someone feel special.
“Hi, everyone,” I said, continuing to beam my bright smile. “What a party!” I looked around the room in awe. What an actress.
“Does everyone know Maizy?” Cato asked. “She’s one of our top paralegals. We’re very lucky to have her.” Shit. I’d have to buy him lunch for that.
“Oh, Cato, that’s so nice of you,” I gushed.
The others in the group nodded at me, murmuring a few hellos, before they turned back to their lawyer talk. There were a couple glances at my cleavage, though.
Ugh. Was I showing too much?
Oh, no. My boss was heading right for me.
“Maizy,” she said, touching my arm. As if she liked me. Which I was pretty sure she didn’t.
“Eva! Wow, I love your dress.” It was a nice dress. Probably cost a thousand dollars, unlike mine, which came from the sale rack at Ann Taylor.
“Let’s walk, shall we?” she asked, leading me away from the safety blanket that was Cato. Did she really want to hang out with me? Maybe she had something important to talk about and realized what an excellent confidante I would be.
I was finally getting the recognition I deserved.
As Eva steered me through the crowd, she occasionally nodded and shook the hand of another guest. She didn’t bother to introduce me, which I would have found insulting if I hadn’t believed she and I were about to have a real, personal conversation.
When we were far enough from the other partygoers that no one could hear us, she looked at me with that cat smile, the one where I never knew if she was going to compliment my work or tear it to shreds. It was quite a skill to keep someone on the brink of a panic attack. I wondered where she’d become so practiced.
“Maizy, you look so pretty tonight. All that…eyeshadow. It’s so…glittery.”
“Oh, thanks, Eva, my sister helped me—”
“Right,” she interrupted before I could tell her about Sparkle’s awesome makeup skills. “Maizy, have you noticed some of the partners’ wives here tonight have not been exactly…um, friendly?”
Of course I had. Did she think I was freaking blind? But the old bitches were always like that.
“Oh, well yeah. But they’re never friendly to me. It’s the funniest thing,” I babbled.
“Maizy, did it occur to you to wonder why these women are not friendly to you? And why, at an event like this, the men aren’t that friendly to you either?”
I finally realized she’d not pulled me aside for a friendly conversation, but something more sinister. I waited for her to sink her fangs into me and to inject just enough venom to leave me doubting myself for the next decade of my life.
Because I knew it was coming.
“I’m sharing this with you because your review is coming up, and I know you’re hoping for that promotion to senior paralegal.”
Oh, god. What was she getting at?
“Um, right,” I said, forcing some steadiness into my voice.
“Maizy,” she said, looking around again to make sure no one could hear us, “it’s because you’re single that people aren’t friendly to you.”
“Huh?” I wasn’t usually that inarticulate with my boss, but at that moment, the words were just not coming.
“You see, you’re young and beautiful, and dare I say, sexy? The wives don’t particularly like their husbands around someone like you. And the men feel like they have to steer clear.”
I swallowed hard, a sip of my gin and tonic having done nothing to help the strangled sensation in my throat.
“If you really want to move up in the firm…”
She waited, it seemed to make sure I was listening carefully, so I nodded like a bobble-head.
“You need to have a husband.”
Wha…?
Did she really say what I thought she did?
“Or, at least a fiancé,” she added quickly. “You see, at a conservative firm like ours, young women like…you…are a threat to some people. And unfortunately, those are the people who carry a lot of weight.”
“S…so I…um…would have a more successful career if I had a boyfriend?”
She pursed her lips while she looked at me, which I didn’t know was possible with all the Botox it was rumored she got. “Not just a boyfriend, Maizy. A fiancé or even better, a husband.”
She waved across the room at some woman and put her hand back on my arm.
“I’m so glad we got to have this talk, Maizy. Please do think about what I said.” And she was off, floating across the room to talk to someone undoubtedly more important than me.
And who probably had a fiancé. Or even a husband.
Chapter 2
Anson
I came up out of the subway at 59th Street and Columbus Circle and headed over to my brother and sister-in-law’s place for another of their insufferable dinner parties. I usually managed to avoid them with any number of lame excuses they’d accept, but tonight was different. Eva, my brother’s wife, would not let me off the hook.
She had someone from her firm she wanted me to meet. And Eva got what Eva wanted.
So to protest in my best passive-aggressive fashion, I was not only twenty minutes late but also arrived empty-handed—no wine, no flowers, no nothing. I hoped they wouldn’t tell my mother, who’d kill me for my rudeness.
The last time Eva tried to set me up with someone, it had been worse than disastrous. The woman was nice enough, even a good time. She’d come home with me after our first date, which I thought was a nice bonus. Boy, did that blow up in my face.
You see, I didn’t call her again. Yeah, she slept with me and all, but in New York, there are tons of beautiful women. You hardly ever go out with anyone for a second time. My bad.
A couple days after our date, she started calling me. And I guess, as a dick move on my part, I ignored her messages. That’s when they started coming in more frequently. And that’s when I realized I was in trouble.
My date told Eva and her husband—my brother—that I’d fucked her and never called her again.
Who does that?
And boy, was I in the doghouse with them for a while. But it was actually a sort of blessing. It meant Eva was off my back.
After that, she’d given up on me for a good year or two. But it didn’t last. Like the true matchmaking addict that she was, she slowly fell back into it, like a repeat offender.
No more sleeping with blind dates though, I told myself, no matter how aggressively they might grab my crotch during the cab ride home. You just don’t know who might turn out to be a psycho these days. Or tell your family about your man-whore tendencies.
I took a deep breath before walking up the steps to Eva and Todd’s building. God, please don’t let this one be a weirdo.
“Ans, buddy, great to see you,” Todd said, giving me the male one-armed hug that guys did.
“Yo,” I said in a whisper while we were still in the foyer. “Is it bad? Is she a freak? D
ude, I gotta know. I can’t take another psycho.”
Todd burst out laughing, like the dick brother that he was. When the drama went down with the blind date from a couple years ago, he actually told my parents, if you can believe that.
Yes, even my parents found out I’d fucked a girl on the first date and then not called her. As you might imagine, I avoided them for a while, too.
“Dude, there’s nothing to worry about. C’mon.” He took a step back and looked at me, head cocked. He jiggled the ice cubes in whatever amber liquid he was drinking and pulled me into the living room.
“Get me one of what you’re drinking, or I’ll kill you,” I hissed.
Eva came swanning from across the room. That’s what she did—swanned. I’m not sure that was a real word or one I’d made up, but she floated toward me with her neck arched high and her arms spread in preparation for the world’s most dramatic hug.
Which was weird because she basically hated me.
“My little brother, Anson,” she purred. She took me in her giant wingspan and whispered in my ear, “You better not screw this one up.”
She pulled back and looked at me with this beatific smile. I glanced around to see if anyone else knew what a devil she was, but she had them all fooled, it seemed.
She took my hand in her scratchy, bony one, and pulled me into the room. I scanned the place as subtly as possible, trying to determine who was to be my not-so-discreet fix-up. Before I could make a full assessment, she’d plopped me in front of the woman whom I guessed was to be my date.