“Don't be so quick to leave next time. I like to play when I wake up,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “I'm going to go change. Be ready to leave when I get back. I'm stopping for coffee after I drop you off at the Starbucks—do you want me to get you anything for the office?”
Jay shook her head, a little disoriented by the mercurial shift in topics. Unconsciously, her hand crept up to press against the cheek he'd bussed. “I'm . . . fine.”
“Good. Text me your clothing sizes before noon. American and European,” he added, throwing a salacious grin over his shoulder that made her blush. “I'm thinking silk and lace for you, Jay—Chantilly lace is my favorite. Look it up. You'll understand why.”
Jay bit back a response, glaring at the expanse of his departing back. She knew what Chantilly lace was. Shaking her head, she rinsed out her coffee cup and set it inside the top rack of the dishwasher. She put Nicholas's plate in there, too, feeling strangely crushed.
You know I didn't call you out here to talk.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Jay's strangely subdued mood followed her to the office. Not even the brisk walk over from Starbucks helped.
She sat down next to Annica, who had her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail and appeared very focused in her work. Jay tried to say “Good morning” but received only a tense smile in response, which was probably innocent but felt like a slight.
Meeting with Justine Varens.
Jay sighed and scheduled her afternoon meeting with Nicholas, opened all of the documents attached to the calendar invite, and began printing out the documents for her note-taking, pausing every now and then to sip at her Philz coffee, lightly sweetened, with added oat milk.
She tried to be cheerful and couldn't quite succeed, so she poured herself into the work instead. By the time she had finished reviewing all of Nicholas's potential acquisitions, she had several pages of copious notes. Nicholas seemed to be busy, too. he ended up fully booked for the day by late morning, with only a thin slice of time spared for lunch. She actually saw him leave for a couple of the meetings—he never looked her way.
This is exactly why you're not supposed to fuck your boss, she thought, watching him walk through the doors with an older man with graying hair and a kindly expression. One of the other executives, Jay thought, noting the cut of his expensive-looking suit. The man was laughing at something but Nicholas had one of those neutral half-smiles that could have meant anything.
He did look at her then and for a moment, his mouth twitched into a real smile.
God, she was fucking her boss. She was fucking everyone's boss. If anyone found out, she could lose her job. The thought filled her with shame and terror, and when Meghana from HR walked by and shot a friendly smile in her direction, Jay couldn't quite meet her gaze.
I am in so much trouble.
When it was time for her own lunch, she wandered into the kitchen and saw Stacey sitting with a brunette woman who seemed like she was in her early twenties.
“Hi, Jay,” said Stacey, waving. This time her skirt had rainbow squiggles on it. “I brought a friend. This is Gen from PR. When something good happens, they're cheerleaders with a megaphone. When something bad happens, they fit your problems with cement shoes and give them a dip in the ocean.”
“I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate,” said Gen, with a roll of her eyes. “We don't really make problems go away. We just make them smaller. Fun-sized.”
“Fun-sized problems sounds like a children's mathematics exercise,” said Stacey. “the kind you do with candy. How are you doing, Jay? Every time I walk by, you have your face pressed so close to the screen that it looks like you've been glued there. Is Mr. Beaucroft working you too hard?”
Don't. Think. About. That. “No,” said Jay, swallowing. “Everything's fine.”
“Well, if he hasn't yelled at you yet, it means you're golden. I hear he's a yeller.”
Oh my God. “He hasn't yelled at me.” Swallowing, she added hastily, “But I heard things weren't so great with Crystal. That's unfortunate.”
“Crystal was afraid of Mr. Beaucroft,” said Gen. “She said he made her very nervous. That was part of the reason their arguments were so public. Towards the end, she stopped attending meetings when he was there. It was also why she came in so late—she knew he came in early and wanted to spend as little time around him as possible. That's what she told me, anyway.”
That's weird. “I'm, uh, sorry to hear that things were so bad.”
“Gen and Crystal were friends,” said Stacey.
“Work friends,” Gen said quickly, as if to distance herself from the taint of the negligent employee. “We just got lunch once in a while. We never really connected—” She broke off.
Jay glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Nicholas sweep by in a flash of navy.
“Speak of the devil,” Stacey said dryly, watching him disappear around the corner. “He is intimidating, isn't he? I sometimes forget he's young enough to be my son.”
Nicholas came out of the kitchen with a bottle of water and a granola bar balanced in one hand. The other was slipped into the pocket of his blazer. Noticing he was being watched, he slowed. “Hello, Gen. Stacey.” Maybe she imagined the pause. “Jay.”
“Hi, Mr. B.,” Stacey said. “Want to join us?”
For a horrifying moment, Jay thought he would. She stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, which made him break out into another one of those slow smiles. “Thank you, but no. I can't. Jay,” he said, making her flinch to attention in her seat. “What's happening with my phone?”
“I—” Phone? His desk phone? “I set it to automatic before I left.”
“Automatic voice mail? Or automatic transfer?”
“Oh, shit—I mean, excuse me,” she said quickly to the two bemused women, before grabbing her things and retreating to her desk, stumbling a little in her haste.
Her phone buzzed. Relax. My phone is fine.
You are such a JERK. Are there really two buttons or did you make that up?
There really are two buttons. You pressed the right one. Also, I'm out of coffee.
I'm about to pour it over your head.
You know I'd just send you out to buy me a new shirt. Jay glanced up in irritation at the sound of hushed laughter and caught a glimpse of Nicholas smiling at his phone. I'd enjoy that.
Jay marched up the stairs with what she hoped was a grim expression. He swung around to face her, grabbing his mug by the top and setting it at the edge of his desk.
When she brought it back, newly full, he smiled at her. “Thank you, Ms. Varens.”
“You're welcome,” she said, just barely level, before spinning on her heel and walking away.
She could feel his eyes on her and wondered if this was how he was planning on destroying her. The slow perishing of her soul through a death of a thousand cuts. He hadn't exactly denied her accusations when she'd asked him if he was looking for revenge. She just hadn't thought he'd try to get it by toying with her emotions.
Maybe she'd hurt him more than she'd realized. Maybe she really had broken his heart.
What he didn't seem to understand was that he had also broken hers.
At her desk, her pile of documents was waiting to be organized for the meeting with Nicholas. She reached for the top sheet of paper just as the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Finally,” said a familiar voice. “Now you listen to me. My name is Danielle Beaucroft, and I have been waiting and waiting to be put through to an actual human being at this criminal front of yours. If you don't connect me to Nicholas Beaucroft immediately, you'll be hearing from my lawyer.”
“Mom?”
“Don't you talk back to m—Justine? Baby, is that you? My goodness, I almost didn't recognize the sound of your voice. It sounds so deep on the phone. What on Earth are you doing, answering Nicholas's phones?” she demanded suspiciously.
“I work for him.” Because you sold me out. You p
awned me like a diamond. Only, if her mother had pawned her diamonds, she might not be in this situation. “Mom, what are you doing, telling people you have a lawyer when you don't? You could get in big trouble—”
She stopped abruptly, remembering where she was, shooting a wary glance at Annica.
“Shh, not on the phone. Where are you, Justine? Are you in Los Angeles? You haven't been responding to any of my texts and I have no idea what's going on with our situation.”
“Our situation,” Jay repeated, with slight emphasis.
Her mother let out a breath. “Never mind. Actually, it's so helpful that you're here now. Put me through to Nicholas, baby. I need to have words with Nicholas.”
“He doesn't want to talk to you.”
“What does that even mean?” her mother demanded. “Who do you think you are?”
“I think I'm an administrative assistant,” said Jay, letting some of the anger that had been boiling up over the last couple days seep into her voice, “speaking to someone my boss really doesn't want to be talking to. I'm also thinking that right now, I really don't care for your tone.”
“Tone? I am your mother. And his stepmother, whether he wants me to be or not. And I will speak to you in whatever tone I want, whether you want me to or not, because I am not going to stand for any more of this playing house. Put me through to Nicholas right now, or I swear to God, Justine, I am going to c—”
Jay hung up the phone.
Annica glanced over, frowning. “Why does your mother want to talk to Mr. Beaucroft?”
“Um. Ex-business partner.” The phone immediately lit up again and this time, Jay blocked the number. If her mother wanted to call Beaucroft Assets, she could do it from a payphone.
Standing up to her mother felt good. So good, that it scared her a little. The adrenaline from that interaction made her so jittery that she ended up taking a break to go walk a few paces around the office outside.
By the time her meeting with Nicholas rolled around, she could barely stay upright in the chair. Her mother was an exhaustive force and she was still tired from her late night and early rise. She leaned back against the padding, all but sinking into the fabric holding the files in her lap as she read down the list while he threw each of the discards into the trash.
“Why even have me print these out?” She slid Element Just across the table to him. “If you're going to throw them in the trash, I mean. It seems like a waste of paper.”
“I never told you to print anything. There's a notes function on the document I sent you. You can even tag me in the comments.” He lobbed the paper over his shoulder without even looking to check if he'd made it. It landed right in the basket. “I thought you liked the theatrics of it.”
Jay shook her head slowly.
Nicholas let his hand drop, slumping in the chair in a way that made her wonder if it was meant to be a mockery of her own posture. “Who were you speaking to on the phone earlier?”
“Why?”
“You looked upset.”
“It was my mother.”
“I see.” Nicholas folded his arms behind his neck. “And how is the former Mrs. Beaucroft?”
“Angry,” said Jay. “Threatening to sue with a lawyer she doesn't have.”
“Unwise of her,” he said. “I assume she was dealt with appropriately.”
“I hung up on her and blocked her number.”
“Good,” he said, with surprising vehemence. “That woman always thought she had you under her thumb. I suppose that's one good thing about you leaving. She would have destroyed you if you had stayed, the way she tried to destroy everything else.”
“She wasn't the only one,” said Jay unthinkingly.
Nicholas glanced up at her, with a strangely intense expression that left his face looking frozen. Then it disappeared entirely, and she could no longer tell what he was thinking at all.
But his eyes—his eyes were a wasteland, a glimpse into her own personal hell.
Jay bounced out of her seat, even though the meeting hadn't officially ended. She could feel his gaze boring into back as she left. If looks could kill, she'd have a knife in her chest.
It kind of felt like she had one there, anyway.
Chapter Twenty
2017
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Jay kept thinking of that look in Nicholas's eyes when she had talked back to him in his office. She wished she had held on to bright shards of her riotous anger, keeping them close, but they sliced indiscriminately, and sometimes it was just far less painful to give in.
You're not the wronged party, she thought. Why don't you get that?
She had gone back to her desk on leaden feet and sat unseeingly before her computer until it was time to leave and her anger had cooled into hard, icy crystals of fear.
On the silent car ride home, Jay had looked at his hands on the wheel, trying not to think about what they might feel like holding her down in anger.
He could hurt me so easily, she thought. I wouldn't be able to stop him.
She hadn't been able to stop him before.
Are you going to make me chase you?
Nicholas glanced briefly at her before disappearing into his room. Not the look of a man in the mood for a chase, but he had fooled her before that way before.
Jay had a restless night, and woke up at 4:30 again, alone and ill-rested with a churning gut. When he came down at 5:00, he said hello to her, eating his sprinkled toast at the counter, half-dressed, while she answered in monosyllables and tried, with mixed success, not to look at him.
Work had been uneventful. Appointments, lunch with Gen and Stacey, a brief trip out for coffee with Obi. Her mother sent her a series of angry texts, all of which she deleted and ignored, as if they didn't leave her shaken. When Nicholas came to collect her in the kitchen, things seemed almost exactly the same as they had been, only now there was an undertone of restraint in his actions that she might have called guarded if they had come from any other man.
He'd ordered dinner again, since they still hadn't been shopping. It was Thai food this time. Pad Thai for him, red curry for her. He'd remembered the coconut milk substitution; she could see the little sharpie “V” on her box, for vegan. She ate the food, feeling his eyes on her. It was very good, in the way that cheap takeout could sometimes be good—greasy, with a little too much spice. Pools of hot oil were forming on the surface in golden bubbles. She could feel it coating her tongue, sticking in her throat along with her doubts.
Every time she felt herself weakening, she made herself remember the photograph and the way he had savored her panic when it had felt like she had been about to fall apart.
“How do you like it?” Nicholas wrapped the vermicelli noodles around his fork, capping it off with a piece of chicken and a few bean sprouts. His words were so at odds with the thoughts in her head that she stared at him blankly as he went on, “I've never been here before.”
“Oh.” Jay swallowed her mouthful. “It's good,” she said hesitantly. “A little spicy.” It couldn't compare to the incredible food she'd enjoyed in the city with her friends, but she didn't say that. The other afternoon had been a painful lesson on the dangers of being too candid.
“Any plans this evening?”
What a strange question. “No,” she said slowly, sipping the last mouthful of curry. “I was just going to read for a while. It's been a long week.”
“Am I overworking you?”
That startled her into looking at him again. He was studying her over his wineglass in that disconcerting way of his that made it seem like he saw so much more than he did.
“No,” she said, putting her hands in her lap. “The work is fine.”
“Good.” He set down his wineglass. “Because I'd like you to come to my room tonight.”
Jay had the distinct feeling that she'd just been manipulated. “Your room,” she repeated.
“Yes.” Nicholas shot her a measuring glance before stabbing a few more piec
es of chicken. “Wear something slutty,” he said casually. “I want you to look like you want it.”
Jay choked on her Thai iced tea, groping for her napkin. Slutty? The crude and callous words seemed to have been calculated to drum up a reaction from her and she was furious with herself for giving him one. “I don't own anything like that.” She patted her lips with the napkin. “Wearing those kinds of clothes makes me uncomfortable.”
“I'm sure you can come up with something. You're nothing if not resourceful. The work you do for me is proof of your ability to innovate.” He gestured at her empty bowl. “Don't worry about cleaning up when you're finished. I'll take care of the dishes.”
I want those snowy white wings of yours.
Jay set her napkin on the table with a shaking hand and walked away, painfully aware of his eyes on her back. Wear something slutty. She went into her room, feeling like she'd been socked in the stomach. Is he trying to hurt me?
Maybe this was punishment for talking back to him. He could be vicious.
She ended up settling on pajamas—sleep shorts and one of the camisoles she wore under her sweaters. They were the most revealing clothes she'd brought.
When she dragged herself into his bedroom her heart had already started to pound, and she was a little horrified to find him still dressed in his jeans and shirtsleeves.
Nicholas turned and looked her over and at the look in his eyes, she nearly ran. The only thing that stopped her was the thought of him running after her and dragging her back in—a thought that was not as terrifying as it should have been.
“That's the best you could do?”
“I don't know what you expected,” Jay blurted, folding her arms.
When he crossed the room to her, she managed to hold herself still when he pulled her in for a kiss. The gentleness of it was terrifying; each soft touch suggested a passion scarce-denied that left her feeling dizzied. “I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, and those words scared her more than the kiss, because it meant he planned something that might make her think he would.
Quid Pro Quo: A dark stepbrother romance Page 23