Fuck, some kind of crazy intervention.
I rolled my eyes, not bothering to hide my frustration. “I already got that part.”
They all had matching looks that said they didn’t believe my front for a minute. Preston’s frown deepened. “Eli, don’t be an ass.”
Reece gave Preston the “you’re not helping” look and turned his focus back on me. “You’ve been miserable.”
“I’m fine.”
Okay, so maybe I’d said that sentence a lot over the past week, but I wasn’t going to back down from it. I might not be fine yet, but I knew I would be eventually. Everything was just mixed up in my head, and I had to get past it first.
“Bullshit.” Houston’s stern voice made me shift in my seat. I wasn’t turned on, but something about his voice had the sub inside of me rolling over and begging for attention.
Needy little bastard.
Houston shook his head. “You’re fully dressed in a real adult outfit and haven’t even tried to crash the site in a week.”
I looked down, a little offended. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.”
Maybe I was a bit boring today, but every guy needed a casual day once in a while. If my version of casual happened to be slacks and a button-down shirt, there was nothing to be ashamed of about it. “I look good.”
“You look like a banker on casual Friday.” Reece flicked his eyes at Preston. “You’re dressed nicer than Preston.”
Preston finally cracked a smile, but it quickly faded. “Your casual Friday outfit a few weeks ago was to show up almost naked. Now you look like you could go to lunch with those stockbrokers down the street who walk past the office too many times on their lunch break.”
I fought to keep a straight face, but inside I was almost smiling. He was right. But the little finance guys were funny, so I didn’t mind the comparison. “The stockbrokers are cute. And that was a bet. I had to show up in panties.”
They were getting ridiculous. “Besides, since when is being nicely dressed and functional at work a crime? Even around here.” Trying to push the discussion of the bet away, I headed toward safer topics. “Preston, you said the other day that you were tired of me dressing down all the time and not getting anything done.”
I waved my hand at the computer and then down my body. “I addressed both of those complaints, and now you’re worried because I listened to what you said? Lord.”
“Yes.” Preston spoke, but all three men nodded like those little dolls that were stuck on car dashboards.
Closing my eyes, I didn’t have to fake frustration. Jesus, I couldn’t please any of them.
“Just the fact that you tried to please him by changing your behavior is enough to make us think you need help.” Reece’s voice was filled with concern, and I fought the urge to look at him as he continued. “I heard the story about what you did last time Preston lost it and told you to function like a real adult from three different people this week. You’ve got most of the company so freaked out they don’t want to come to work.”
“Fuck, you just can’t please some people.”
“That!” Houston’s voice made me jump and glance at him. “Since when do you do anything to please other people?”
“I was trying to make things easier around here. Like I was asked to do.” Fuck. “Just find someone else to bother, I have work to do.”
Reece waved a hand, gesturing toward the screen. “You’ve been staring at it for hours, and you haven’t even turned the page in the last thirty minutes. You also haven’t written a blog post in days, and you haven’t wanted to do any shoots lately. You haven’t even posted any selfies or pictures that you took yourself. It can’t keep going on like this.”
“I’m only required to post a few times a month. We don’t make any of the guys blog more often than that.” I found myself rolling my eyes. “You can’t bitch because I’m following company guidelines.”
“Yes, we can.” Preston gave me a pointed look. “You take pride in never following directions.”
I was too tired for their drama. “I’m going to go home, and you guys can be all overbearing and nuts on someone else.”
Reaching for the computer, I stopped when I felt Preston’s hand on my shoulder. The words came out soft and meaningful. “You have to talk to us, Eli. You wanted him gone from day one, but now that he’s not here, you’re miserable.”
I shrugged. “So I’m fickle.”
“You know that’s not the point.” Reece was trying to be nice, but Houston was frustrated because his voice came out rough and almost angry.
“You liked the guy but didn’t want to like him, so you tried to make his life miserable.” Houston folded his arms over his chest and gave me a look like I was a misbehaving child. “Well, you won. He’s gone.”
That had me sitting up in the chair, swiveling to stare at him. “What? That’s insane.” That wasn’t how it had been at all.
“Which part?” Houston rolled his eyes.
“All of it. He was an ass first.” It had not been my fault.
Preston sighed. “We knew he might be. We had that discussion before he came for the interview. That’s why I sent you all the articles on him.”
“Articles?” I was drawing a blank.
“Fuck, Eli. Didn’t you read any of it?” When I gave Preston a confused look, his anger started to rise. “I sent you an email with almost a dozen blogs and stories about what his ex had done to him. It had the pictures that we like in it. Is this ringing a bell?”
The pictures did. “The pictures were why we hired him. They were much better than any of the other stuff he sent.”
Preston sighed, like I was more than he could handle. “Did you read anything else or did you just look at the pictures?”
“I saw that they were of his ex, and then I think I just looked at the photos. That was what we were hiring him for.” I shrugged. “Besides, you hire everyone. Why would I need to read up on him?”
“You make me insane sometimes.” Preston leaned against the wall and closed his eyes like he was trying not to throw something at me.
He was always calm and collected until I pushed him too far. It was starting to look like we’d gotten to too far already. Preston took a deep breath but didn’t look at me. “Roman’s ex blasted his personal life all over the internet.”
Preston took a moment, then continued. “The guy posted the pictures and talked about the BDSM side of their relationship, but he made it sound close enough to abuse that it freaked people out. It was all consensual spankings and things; I checked it out thoroughly.”
Finally looking up, Preston waited to see if I was still listening. “The guy did it on purpose to get the attention of some kind of reality show or something stupid like that, but it tore Roman’s business apart. From the other stuff I saw, it looked like the ex cleaned out their money and then skipped town. I sent you all those articles so you would know why he was a bit rough around the edges and why greeting him like a brat, very much like his ex, wouldn’t work with him.”
Oh.
There was a reason I wasn’t in charge of hiring.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Okay, so maybe I was deflecting, but Preston really should have said something.
“I did! I told you several times to read through everything I’d sent.”
“But you didn’t say why!” If he’d have said specifically why, then I would have gone through the articles. In my defense, I’d been busy with family and school, and the new photographer had been at the bottom of my to-do list.
Preston’s head fell back again. “God, Eli.”
Reece’s calm voice interrupted us. “I know you and Roman didn’t hit it off. You were you and he was freaked out by a sub that might have reminded him of his ex. But why did everything keep going so badly? You two just got worse, not friendlier. And none of this explains why you’re so upset that he’s gone.”
I wasn’t sure if he was fishing or if he already knew the
answer, but I wasn’t going to share what had happened. It turned out, however, that I didn’t have to. Preston had that pleasure.
“They had sex in the studio right before you were hired. Instead of that clearing the air and them talking, they were both morons.” Preston’s matter-of-fact answer made me cringe.
“That’s private.”
“Not when you two morons have a porn shoot in the middle of the building when it’s not empty.” Preston refused to back down. “A shoot to get some additional shots is one thing, but the sounds coming from downstairs said you two were doing more than taking pictures. At least the kinds of pictures we post on the site.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to play it off, but I could feel my cheeks heating up. “Why were you even in the building? No one was using the apartments that night.”
The building had been intended to be trendy studio apartments, but the builder went under before they got more than a few done. When we’d purchased the place, we’d left the apartments on the third floor with the idea that employees could use them when they needed a place to stay. Sometimes they were full, but most of the time, it was just an employee who was between apartments or whose place was being renovated.
“I’d worked later than I’d intended and was too tired to drive home. I didn’t exactly get a good night’s sleep, though, thanks to you two.” He shook his head. “No sex at work. We’ve had that rule since day one.”
Oops.
“We didn’t have sex.” Not all the way.
“That was not a regular shoot, so don’t even try to lie.”
That made me bristle. “I’m not lying. It was technically not sex.”
“Well, whatever you guys did made things worse. And at that point, I wasn’t sure if I could even fire the guy.”
When I gave Preston another blank stare, he shook his head. “Sexual harassment lawsuit. I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure it out.”
“He touched me first.”
“For god’s sake, Eli.” Preston’s frustration was starting to rise again. “Between the comments you made, the way you behaved, and the panties bet, no court in the world would find in our favor.”
Oh.
Preston kept going. “Roman was angry and hurting when he got here and everything I let happen made it worse. And did you know he didn’t even get a talk about why we make new employees sit through a shoot? For some reason, he thought that was just special torture for him and completely inappropriate.”
“Shit, Eli. He probably thought you guys were nuts. I almost didn’t take the job until you explained why you’d had me see a shoot.” Reece’s voice was shocked. “And if you started off trying to get a response out of him, then he would have had a reason to fight back.”
“I got a response, alright. He thought I was a whore who wasn’t worth the time of day to him.”
“Can you blame him?” Houston finally broke in. “He’s a Dom, not a robot. He’d been hurt by someone he trusted and shared very personal things with. Then Roman gets to a new job, and there’s what he thinks is the same type of guy front and center. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t seeing everything. You never gave him a chance to see the real you.”
“I was called more foul things by that man than anyone I’ve ever met outside the company. These walls were where I felt safe, and he came in with his attitude and judgment, and I was expected to sit back and be nice? Bullshit.” Maybe I should have read those articles, but I wasn’t going to pretend to be someone else because he had baggage and an attitude. “He shouldn’t have taken the job.”
“He probably needed the money.”
“Maybe, but that’s not the point. I don’t have to change my life to make someone else happy. My business, not his. If he was uncomfortable, he should have said something and walked away. Maybe we could have talked it out right then. But with the attitude and the anger, what did he expect me to do? Was I supposed to back off and be this sweet little thing that would make him happy? Hell, even letting him take control didn’t make him happy.”
And that was probably oversharing, but I was past caring.
“That’s because you screwed that one up royally. I came down to check on the noise and arrived just in time for the dramatic ending.” Preston rolled his eyes dramatically. “You got up after whatever you’d done and made it sound like you were more worried about the mess you guys had made and what I would think than about him. Duh.”
Oh.
“Hey, I was pretty lost. When I found my bearings, I was tangled in panties that were entirely too dirty to go back in the collection, and the first thing that occurred to me was that we couldn’t post the pictures on the site, they were too hot. Then he lost his marbles.”
“He thought you only cared about the pictures and stuff and not him.” Preston was looking at me like I was an idiot.
Okay, looking back on it, maybe I could see what Preston was saying. “Roman should have said something.”
Reece broke in. “You two scream at each other, you don’t communicate.”
So maybe he had a point too.
“He’s gone, and the drama is over. It’s not like we were dating.” One jerk-off session did not make a relationship.
“But you wanted one. That’s the problem. You two felt strongly about one another, and the only way you’d let it out was with anger. But now that the anger is gone, all you have left are the softer emotions you were denying.” Houston’s quiet words made me want to throw something at him.
“It’s over.” We all needed to see that and move on. “There’s nothing left to pick up and try to put back together. Hell, there wasn’t anything there to begin with.” As much as I hated to admit it, that was the truth.
“He hates brats and anybody he considers an attention whore, and I’m not willing to change for anyone.” No man was worth that. “I’ve lived that lie, and I won’t go back to it.”
Then, knowing there was nothing else to say, I got up and walked away. I wasn’t going to change for a man who hated everything I loved about myself.
Chapter 11
Roman
“Unfortunately, there is no way to get around it.” I’d tried to figure out one. But every path led me back to the same point.
Calling Eli.
I’d thought about finding a new model and trying to capture the same feeling in the photographs, but I knew that wouldn’t work. With a client, I could talk to them about their husband or boyfriend, or hell, even the guy they wanted to meet someday. But with a model who wasn’t into the lifestyle and was just there to have his picture taken, I didn’t think it would work.
I needed pictures of someone who would draw people in, and who would make them want to have the same experience. Eli was hot, but not so incredible he looked like some unattainable model, and he radiated a sensuality in the photos that people would envy.
Finding another way to go about it had taken days, but in the end, I’d kept coming back to Eli. I’d searched through photos I’d taken over the years, but none were quite right. Most of the shots were too vanilla and too obviously staged.
As I’d gone through countless boudoir-style photos online, the ones that looked more natural were the best. Like the photos with Eli, they needed to be well planned out, but not look awkward and fake. Eli’s were perfect because his response held nothing artificial. Nothing acted or disingenuous, just Eli lost in passion.
I wasn’t sure I could recreate that magic with a stranger.
Sure, I knew the photos of customers would turn out good, and the more I thought about it, the more confident I became about how it would work. But the pictures that pulled them in and convinced them to trust me had to be perfect.
Perfect meant Eli.
Doing my best to resist the urge to curse him under my breath, I stopped pacing in my small apartment and went for the stack of papers on the table. Digging through copies of schedules and new hire paperwork that had never gotten put away, I found the list of phone numbers I’d b
een given.
There it was.
Just after lunch on a Sunday probably wasn’t a bad time to call. Pushing aside the angry voice about what he might have been doing late the previous night, I picked up my phone and started dialing. It rang long enough that I thought it would go to voicemail, but right before I was ready to hang up, I heard him answer.
His voice was a little out of breath and tired. “Hello?”
One quick mental shove and I spoke, trying to keep my voice as businesslike as possible. “This is Roman Landry. I have a quick question for you about the photos that we took.”
There was a long pause before Eli finally spoke. “Yes, what about them?”
The fact that he hadn’t hung up screaming at me gave me a boost of confidence. We could handle it like adults. “Some of the photos we shot were not suitable for the site, so I didn’t send those to the company. However, I would like to get permission from you to use them in another project I’m working on.”
“I’m not—” His angry voice cut off abruptly. “I apologize, please continue.”
Unsure about what he’d been starting to say, I ignored it and continued in the blandest tone I could muster. “I am going to be taking boudoir-style photos of individuals and couples in the lifestyle, and I would like to use some of your photos in my portfolio. But considering the nature of the pictures, I wanted to obtain your permission first.”
There was another long pause before Eli finally began talking. “How would you be using them? I have my reasons for not putting my face all over the internet, and it’s not because I’m ashamed of what I’m doing, if that’s what you think.”
Biting back an angry retort that wouldn’t get me what I wanted, I took a deep breath. “I realize that. There are a lot of people who have similar concerns. Some, where your face is obscured or could be easily cropped out, would be put on the main page of my website, but any photos that show your identity would be strictly for private clients who are trying to decide what kind of shoot they’re comfortable doing.”
“So the anonymous pictures go on the site and the more personal stuff where I could be recognized would be, what…on there too, just behind a password?” Eli clearly didn’t like that idea, but I was just shocked he hadn’t hung up.
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