by Amelia Wilde
“Come in,” he says from the other side of the door, his voice muffled by the thick, dark glass.
It’s even quieter inside the sanctuary he’s created for himself. Since Wednesday I haven’t seen him outside it unless he’s coming or going, but I can’t imagine that he spends his days sitting here, waiting for 5:00.
He’s writing something in a leather-bound journal of some kind, and it takes several moments after I sit down for him to look up. When he does, his eyes light up. His gaze is fiery even if his mouth remains in a neutral line.
“I’ve got my notes from the day, Mr. Hunter. Is there anywhere in particular you’d like me to begin?”
“Let’s get to the meat of it, Ms. Schaffer,” he says, leaning forward. “Has there been progress on the major features?”
“Sandra finished with approvals for the Prada showcase, and the lineup for the menswear section has also been given final approvals.” I look down at my notes, but his eyes never leave my face. Every time I glance up, his look of pure longing and lust sucks a little more of my breath away. I continue down through my notes.
It takes five minutes to give him all the information I have.
At the end, I lapse into silence, looking across the desk into his blue eyes. They’re still locked on my face. He is clearly not thinking about the inner workings of Basiqué.
It pisses me off. What right does he have to take up my time like this?
“Does this even matter to you?” I say, not bothering to keep the frustration from my voice.
He only looks a little shocked. “Does what matter to me?”
“Basiqué. Are you actually concerned with the day-to-day here? How is that going to help you decide if you’re going to close down the magazine or not?” I hate how shrill my voice sounds, but I can’t help myself. The past three days have been a hundred times more exhausting than the entire past year. It’s awful to be so close to Jax and not touch him, even though I know I can’t. I just can’t.
Jax studies me from across the desk, his mouth pressed into a thin line, and all at once I feel a rush of fear and regret. What if my outburst is what makes the decision for him? He can’t be that volatile, can he?
“You’re out of line, Ms. Schaffer.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I choke out the words. “I know. I’m sorry.” I clutch the papers in my hands, my palms slick. “Was there anything…anything else you wanted to know?”
“Yes.” His voice is so smooth, so sultry, that it tears me in two. I want to listen to him talk all day. And I want to run from the room. “Are you always this high-strung? Always so confrontational?”
The question stings. “No,” I say, a couple of tears pricking in the corners of my eyes. My voice is much softer than I intended it to be. “No, I’m not. I’m usually—” I have to look away. “This is a very demanding job, and I need it to work out.”
“How so?”
“I can’t—” Talking about it without crying will be impossible. “Getting to a stable place is—it’s everything to me. If I can survive working with her for another year, maybe two, it’ll be my ticket to any job I want in the city. I’ve put—” My breath is coming hard and fast. “I’ve put so much into this job over the past year. So much. If the magazine goes under, it’ll all be for nothing.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Why?” The question barely makes it out of my mouth.
“Ms. Schaffer, you’re so motivated it makes the Energizer bunny look lazy. Why don’t you think any business on the island wouldn’t hire you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Because Ms. Sarzó’s opinion has so much influence?”
“Yes.”
This is the truth that I almost never admit out loud, to anyone. If I falter, disappoint Sandra, she could put an end to my career in this industry. It’s happened before.
Jax looks like he wants to ask more, but instead he folds his hands together on top of the desk.
“Would you like to know what I think?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I think you need some…release.”
The way the final word curls off his tongue sends shivers down my spine, straight to the throbbing space between my legs.
“That’s not—we can’t talk about—”
He slaps both hands down on the surface of the desk and I jump. “We can talk about whatever I want to talk about. This is my publication, remember?”
A part of me is screaming that this is sexual harassment of some kind, that it’s not right for him to speak to me this way in the office.
But most of me responds instantly to his dominating tone, leaning into it, heating up.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize unless I ask you to.” He switches so easily to another mode. I saw a glimpse of it in the car on Tuesday night but I was too timid to respond to it then, too overtaken by the champagne and the party.
“All right.”
“As I was saying, it’s clear to me that you need a way to release some of your nervous energy.” As he speaks, he stands and comes around the desk, then kneels next to my chair so he can whisper into my ear. “I can assist you with that.”
“You can?” The heat of his breath on the sensitive spot just below my earlobe is driving me wild.
“Of course. You didn’t think I came here just to micromanage your boss, did you?”
I can’t speak. I shake my head.
“You’re right. I didn’t. I came here because there’s something about you, Ms. Schaffer, something about you that makes me want to do all kinds of filthy things to you.”
This is on another level. My entire body stiffens, but he places his hand on mine and strokes gently.
“Let’s make an arrangement.”
I match his whispered tone. “What kind of arrangement?”
“You give yourself to me, completely, for thirty minutes, every day at 5:00. And I’ll make it worth your time.”
Goose bumps cover my skin from my head to my toes.
He’s not finished.
“Everything between us will take place in this office, during our scheduled meetings. Forget the party—that was just an impulse we both surrendered to. From here on out, there are no strings. No attachments. One month, and it’s over.”
The timeframe coincides perfectly with the release of the second issue.
The truth—the ugly, shameful truth that I’ll never admit to out loud—is that I’m starting to crack under the stress of being so goddamn perfect every day, in every way. But something has to give.
It might as well be my insistence on staying far away from Jax Hunter. My track record on that has been less than stellar anyway.
So I don’t hesitate.
“Okay,” I breathe, my hands tightening on the arms of the chair. “One month.”
“Are you entirely sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’ll begin tomorrow.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jax
I don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking when I kneel down next to the most beautiful woman ever to walk the earth and tell her that she’s going to spend half an hour every day as my personal property for the next month. Sex with my employees has always been forbidden, for a thousand reasons, not the least of which is because I refuse to have that kind of tension on the job.
I started shooting holes in that personal standard the moment I invited her to that party.
And I see something in her—something jittery, something uncontrollable, something totally at odds with the collected super-assistant who met me head-on when I strolled into her office on Monday. Who the fuck knows? Maybe that was all for show, and this is the woman behind the mask.
I don’t think it is.
There’s something weighing on her. Can it just be Sarzó’s unceasing demands? The way she acts would be reason enough for most people to quit inside of a week. Cate has been here for at least a year.
>
There must be more to it.
Why do you care so much, Hunter? I ask myself in a jeering tone.
Why do I care? When push comes to shove, I’m going to leave Cate behind. She’s too intoxicating, too thrilling—and that makes her too dangerous to let her into my life in any real sense. She seems like a decent enough girl, but let any woman get too close and you won’t be calling the shots.
I can’t have that.
It was my stepmother’s fault, at least partially, that my dad set up his piece-of-shit scheme to take all of that money. He could never say no to her, and now he’s doing fifteen years in a minimum-security prison upstate. By the time he gets out, he’ll be almost seventy years old.
I still won’t want to look at his face.
That’s the kind of bullshit I can’t set myself up for under any circumstances.
Not even with Catherine Schaffer.
It doesn’t matter that breathing in her scent turns my heart into a jackhammer in my chest. It doesn’t matter that the sight of her turns me on so much it hurts. It doesn’t matter that I want to fuck her in every possible position, every day, until I die.
Those ridiculous feelings tell me exactly why a future between us is impossible.
That’s why it’s so infuriating, this primal need I have to be near her, to touch her, to kiss her.
That’s why our new arrangement is so convenient.
Such a win-win, for both of us.
I’ll get her off, loosen up those shoulders, take her to some places I can guarantee she’s never been, and she’ll reward me with everything I want.
I was an idiot to think that one date would be enough.
No.
I need to take her. To have her. To get my fill before I turn her loose.
It just works out that she needs something from me, too.
She hasn’t been gone for ten minutes when I realize I’m lacking a crucial piece of information: her cell phone number.
How the hell do I not have that?
I could just look it up in the company directory—I have access to all of Basiqué’s files on my computer—but why do that when her voice is only a phone call away?
She answers before the end of the first ring. Cate’s standards for her own work are impossibly high, if this is how she approaches shit like phone calls—and I think it is.
“Catherine Schaffer,” she says, her tone level and professional. I almost miss the hitch in ‘Schaffer.’ My name on the screen does something to her.
“I’m going to need your phone number, Ms. Schaffer.”
“My desk line is—”
“Your personal cell.”
“Oh,” she says softly. “For…?” The way the sentence trails off tells me she might be feeling a little buyer’s remorse over agreeing to our arrangement so quickly. I bet it felt good, to relax the death grip she has on her life right now, but if the obsessive energy that radiates off her at all times is any indication, she’s already coiled tightly around her to-do list for the rest of the evening.
“I’ll need to send you instructions for our meetings. I assume you won’t be at Basiqué all weekend.”
“No, I won’t.” I hear a single, steadying breath come over the receiver. “What kind of instructions?”
God, this woman is a fucking dream. She might not know it yet, but she wants me to take control for this thirty minutes, totally and completely. The longing in her voice gives her away. Even if she’s torn about her loyalty to Sarzó, I don’t think she’ll be able to resist me.
“Any instructions I deem necessary. And you’ll follow them.”
I’m going out on a limb. The first time I used this tone with her, she pressed her shoulder up against the door of my Aston Martin and stopped speaking to me. If she withdraws right now, I’m not going to force her.
“I will.” It’s not a question. It’s an admission.
“Your number, Cate.”
She rattles off the number, and then her voice becomes louder, brighter. “Thank you, Mr. Hunter. I’ll schedule that for Monday.” Sarzó must have come back into the room.
“Don’t be late,” I say into the phone, then set the receiver gently into its cradle.
I have some work to do before tomorrow.
There are things I’ll need if I’m going to push Cate to her limits.
Chapter Sixteen
Cate
Jax’s silence over the weekend is excruciating.
I spend most of Saturday in the office, checking and double-checking the schedule for next week. Bee tries to video chat twice. I decline both calls and feel wretched about it both times. But I know that if she sees my face, she’ll know I’m barely holding it together.
Every time my phone buzzes I leap to see who it is, even though I know it’s only incoming email.
He could be emailing you, I tell myself in a reasonable tone.
If he’d wanted to email me, he wouldn’t have asked for my phone number.
But Jax says nothing. No instructions. Not even a hello, for two agonizing days. Despite the strange departure of that party on the Fourth of July, he’s sticking to his rules: everything is going to be strictly contained to our daily meetings in his office.
It’s late Sunday night when a message comes in.
At the short buzz that indicates a text my heart skips a beat, and I steel myself for the disproportionate disappointment of finding out that it’s Bee sending me a pregnancy update instead of Jax.
That thought fills me with shame. My sister is pregnant with twins. There’s no reason I should be dodging her. What if the message had been from her, telling me that they were born? Could I be any more of a work- and Jax-obsessed bitch?
But it’s not a message from Bee. It’s from Jax.
Save this number to your contacts as ‘Hunter’.
I do as he says—even though he can’t see me—then tap out a reply. Should I send a screenshot to prove it?
No. Too much.
Saved.
Good girl.
My breath catches in my throat. The phrase sends a bolt of pleasure straight down the back of my neck, down the length of my spine, and lands between my legs.
Can I be that starved for attention and praise?
I can.
I grip my phone, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard, for another full minute, but there’s no obvious reply. Just when I’m beginning to think I’ll have to send something, anything, the icon indicating that he’s typing pops up just above my thumbs.
For our meeting tomorrow, you’ll be wearing red panties.
My heart beats a little faster. Instantly, I’m taking a mental inventory of my dresser drawer. I have exactly one pair that will work, and they’re skimpy, all lace, something Bee bought me a few years ago as a joke. She knows that beneath all the brand-name pieces, I’m a stickler for comfort next to the skin, which explains my extensive collection of non-red panties that can be worn without lines showing through.
I borrow a lot from the Closet—all the department heads do—but Sandra prefers my wardrobe to be mainly in shades of black, black, black aside from a few statement pieces. It’s not a dress code she’s ever been explicit about, but all it took was a few well-placed comments about the “overwhelming brightness” of a couple of my outfits for me to take the hint and adjust.
Needless to say, red panties have not been high on my priority list.
Will the ones I have be good enough?
There’s no time to shop before work, and my lunch break is barely long enough to get to the ground floor of the building, much less to the nearest Victoria’s Secret.
“Stop,” I say out loud, standing up from my couch and pushing my hair back into a loose ponytail. “You’re being a crazy person. Your panties are good enough.”
Hearing those words come out of my own mouth sends me into a fit of giggles.
I laugh so hard that I cry, and when I’m done I fall heavily onto my bed, suddenly feeling very sober and seri
ous.
When I got promoted to Sandra’s lead assistant a year ago, I moved into my own one-bedroom apartment. Having a roommate was too much of a hassle, and I knew that if I was going to handle the stress of the job, I needed a peaceful place to come home to. For a while, I spent my late nights and weekends making improvements to the space, decorating it carefully, arranging it precisely.
Now I’m wondering if having someone here at the end of the day—not a man even, not a lover—would be better than spending every night alone. Things might be better if someone other than my cleaning lady set foot over the threshold every week.
You know they would only be a distraction.
I’m so exhausted, so on edge despite the giddy laughter, that the thought takes hold more strongly than it should.
Would it? Would it be a distraction to have someone to talk to aside from Sandra and a few of the girls in the office? When was the last time I met them in the cafeteria for lunch? How long has it been since I decided eating at my desk was my only option?
Too long.
But before I can fully convince myself that easing up on my work would probably be the best idea health-wise, the memory of my father’s face after he found out he was being forced into early retirement with not enough money saved in the bank flickers into my mind in full color.
After that, it’s easy to push away my worries about lunch dates and roommates.
I’ll have plenty of time for those things later.
Will you? Really? asks the voice from the back of my mind.
I start to formulate an argument, but the heaviness of my eyelids make it impossible to stay awake long enough to see it through.
The only thing to do now is rest…and make it to 5:00 tomorrow.
Chapter Seventeen
Jax
When Cate knocks softly at my office door, right on time at 5:00, my cock is already hard. The anticipation has dogged me all day. It’s been impossible to concentrate on anything.
I don’t make it a habit to be in my office at Basiqué all day. For one thing, I have far too many business matters to attend to, far too many money management plans to guide, to do that, as much as I’d love to hang around waiting for Cate to find some excuse to visit my office before 5:00.