by Hannah Ford
“Agreed.”
“You will not refer to me as your boyfriend, either in public or private.” He glances up at me, gauging my reaction to this.
I frown, my stomach turning. “So this… I don’t know what that means. Does it mean you’ll be fucking other women?”
“No. Absolutely not. But like I said, I don’t want there to be any confusion.” His dark eyes are on mine, the meaning clear. This may be an exclusive relationship, and I might be living with him, but there will be no promises.
“Then I want something in return,” I say.
“Like?”
“I don’t want to be treated like I’m just another random employee.”
The waiter returns with my Splenda, two measly packets he probably had to scrounge up from some back room somewhere. Have rich people completely lost their taste for sugar?
“What does that mean?” Elijah asks. His fingers drum on the table in annoyance, his perfectly manicured fingers in contrast to how big and strong his hands are.
“I mean I want a way to see you if I’m a work. I don’t want to have to deal with Addison every time I need to talk to you.”
“Fine.” He sits up and makes a note on his pad. Then he takes out his phone, pulls up an app, and holds the screen to me. “Place your finger in the red square.”
I do as I’m told, watching until a green check mark appears on the screen.
“Your fingerprint has been added to the sensor in front of the double doors of my office. If you need to see me, press your finger and the doors will open.”
“Thank you.”
He nods. “Now we need to discuss sex.”
The words cause heat to rise on my cheeks. Sex. We’ve had sex. Yesterday at this time I was a virgin, and now I’m not. Flashes of last night burn through my brain -- his weight on top of me, the way he rocked his hips, his cock hitting deep inside of me, the intensity of my orgasm, the way he held me after, pushing my hair to the side so he could press his lips against the back of my neck.
I crave that kind of closeness again.
“What about it?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant, even though my skin feels warm and prickly.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it out to see a text from Hailey.
Finally! I haven’t heard from her ever since our fight yesterday, even though I’d texted her a couple times.
Did you have something to do with this? the text says. Attached is an email from Elijah’s office, alerting Hailey that she’s getting a thousand dollar bonus for designing the cover for the best-selling book of the year by a debut author.
Wow.
I hold my phone out and show Elijah the email. “Did you have anything to do with this?” I demand.
“With what?” He sounds impatient, like I’m stopping him from our super-important sex talk.
“With Hailey winning this contest.”
He sighs. “It’s not a contest. The bonus is based solely on sales. Congratulations to your friend, but I had nothing to do with it.”
I type this info back to Hailey and tell her that of course I would never try to influence Elijah into doing anything that would affect her career like that.
I set my phone down, not able to hide my pleasure at hearing from Hailey. I hope that she was reaching out not just because she really wanted to know if I had anything to do with her win, but in order to put out an olive branch after our fight.
“You seem pleased,” Elijah says, almost sounding annoyed as the waiter returns and sets our plates of food down in front of us.
“Of course I’m pleased. She’s my best friend.” I take a sip of juice. “I want the two of you to meet.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” He takes his napkin and spreads it across his lap, the gesture somehow elegant.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said, Ms. Bennett.”
I tamp down my annoyance.
“Back to the matter at hand,” Elijah says, as if the matter of him meeting Hailey is completely closed. I watch as he cuts into his steak, his cuff links glinting under the lights. His hands are strong and sure, and I look away quickly. I cut into my own steak, noting that it’s much more rare than what I would usually order.
I think about sending it back, but Elijah would probably have a coronary. This definitely isn’t the kind of place where you send back your steak.
“First, we need to discuss birth control,” Elijah says.
“I’m on the pill.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“There are other reasons to be on the pill that don’t include sex.” I have PCOS, and my gynecologist put me on the pill a couple of years ago. But I don’t mention this to Elijah, and he doesn’t ask.
Instead, he just nods and makes a note on his pad. “You will have sex with me whenever and wherever I request. You will be given a safe word to use. Do you know what a safe word is, Ms. Bennett?”
“Yes.” Of course I knew what a safe word was. I worked in romance publishing.
“Would you like to choose one?”
“Orange,” I say, my eyes landing on the juice.
He nods, as if the word is of little consequence, when in fact, it will be the most consequential word in our relationship. If I say the word, he will stop whatever it is he’s doing, no questions asked.
“Are you amenable when it comes to all kinds of sex?” Elijah asks me. He puts a piece of steak in his mouth and chews. The gesture is so primal that I feel my body starting to respond to his.
Jesus Christ. The man is eating steak and I can’t help thinking about fucking him. Am I becoming a sex addict after one time having sex? Is that even possible?
“You mean like positions?” I ask.
“I mean are you amenable to anal sex?”
I cough on a mouthful of orange juice. “I don’t… I mean, I’ve never thought about it.”
“Think about it now.”
His voice is low and melodious, and when he tells me to think about it, I do. I think about me bent over his desk, the way he would push into me, how dirty and intimate something like that would be. My breathing kicks up and I can tell I’m flushed.
He notices and gives me a grin. “So you’re open to it, then?”
“Yes.” I take a bite of my steak and a sip of my juice, trying to appear nonchalant, like it’s perfectly normal to be sitting in a fancy restaurant talking about anal sex. “But I want a night out. Me, you, Hailey, and Will. I want my friends to get to know you.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “It’s inappropriate for me to be cohorting with my employees, Ms. Bennett.”
“I think you’ve passed the point of being inappropriate with your employees, Mr. Armstrong,” I volley back, and I see his lips press together. He leans back in his chair, pressing his fingertips together.
“Fine. One night out.”
“Agreed.” I take a bite of the steak, and it’s so tender and buttery it practically melts in my mouth. “Oh! And I want to be able to go for runs outside without you having me followed or freaking out about it.”
“No.”
“It’s non-negotiable.”
“You’re right,” he says, returning to his steak. “It’s not. You will run on the treadmill in the gym upstairs at my penthouse. Otherwise, until we figure out who has been harassing you, you will not venture outside without me.”
I can tell from his tone, from the way his hand reaches under the table and squeezes my knee that he’s serious. Our eyes meet over the table, his gaze intense, his lips slightly parted, and I flash back again to last night, what it felt like to have him starting at me like that when he pushed into me, making me his.
The way he’s staring at me now -- the expression on his face is one of ownership, making it clear that if I talk back, he won’t be responsible for what he does to me. His hand on my knee is a reminder of what he’s capable of.
“Which brings me to the next point, your personal safety. Yo
u will agree to tell me about anything – and I mean anything Ms. Bennett – that happens to you that is strange or out of the ordinary. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not joking. If you fight me on that point, if you talk back to me or try to push back on me, the consequences will be dire.”
He’s staring at me again, causing my skin to prickle. His dark eyes, that strong jaw, the slash of his brow. He’s just so sexy and commanding.
“Fine,” I say. “I agree to it.”
“I will draw up an official contract for both of our signatures,” he says, putting the legal pad away. “Unless you have any other points you’d like to add?”
I think about it. “No.” I fiddle with the handle of my coffee cup. “I didn’t realize this would be so official, so … I don’t know, meticulous.”
“Everything about me is meticulous, Ms. Bennett.”
And the way he says it makes me feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface when it comes to Elijah Bennett and his need to be a control freak.
When I get to work, there’s a certain kind of energy permeating the air. But this time, it’s not one of gossipy excitement, the way it was yesterday, when my computer was vandalized.
No, now the energy is dark, almost like a woolen blanket has been thrown over everything. Everyone is quiet, sitting at their desks and working. No one’s standing by anyone’s desk, giggling or chatting. No one’s walking around with an open box of doughnuts, offering them to anyone who needs a sugar rush.
I frown and sit down at my desk, fire up my new computer. I scan through my emails – a bunch of office memos, some emails from agents….and another one from Will’s stalker.
My chest tightens.
But before I can read it, I see another one right under it from Katherine Armstrong.
Jesus.
How did Elijah’s mom get my work email? Do I have a stalker now like Will does? I imagine Katherine hiding in the bushes outside of the building, binoculars raised to her eyes as she waits for me to walk out. Then I think about how she tracked me down at my apartment, and realize that the reality isn’t that far off.
I take a deep breath and open the email.
Abigail,
Thank you for having breakfast with me. I’m sorry I left so abruptly. As you can probably imagine, this is a very strange situation, which is complicated by the fact that I am hoping to bring a date to Ryan’s wedding, which I know Eli will not approve of. I was wondering if perhaps we could get together to discuss this further. Let me know what times and dates work for you.
Sincerely,
Katherine
Jesus. What the hell am I supposed to do about this now? I can’t meet with her without Elijah knowing about it, not now, after he’s made it clear that it’s unacceptable.
And yet some part of me wants to make a good impression on his mother. It’s weird, but I kind of like her. She seems harmless. I think about her revelation of her saying she’s going to bring a date to Ryan’s wedding, and remember how she was swiping away on Tinder like it was nothing.
I imagine her showing up at the wedding with some totally inappropriate Tinder date, someone twenty years younger than her maybe, some crazy skateboarder who still lives with his mother and has no job, or even worse, some thirty-year-old finance bro who will pat Eli on the back and say things like ‘bombass’ and ‘sick’.
I close out Katherine’s email, deciding to deal with it later. I answer some emails from agents and authors, one with a question about a deal point, one from an author who needs help with a revision.
The whole time, the office is way more quiet than normal. It’s unnerving, and so finally, I get up and walk over to Olivia’s cubicle. She’s got her headphones in, and it takes me a second to get her attention.
“Sorry,” I say, after I put my hand on her shoulder and she jumps. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I was just working on a manuscript. I know technically we’re not supposed to be working on manuscripts at work, but all my other stuff is done. I have a production meeting at twelve, but other than that, I’m caught up on everything else. Even my emails.”
As if to show me, she opens her screen and brings up her inbox. Like I care what she’s doing – technically she’s right that we’re not supposed to be working on editing at work unless we have everything else done, but no one really cares.
“Okay,” I say, not sure why she cares if I know she’s working or not. “Anyway, I just wanted to know why everyone is so quiet here this morning.”
She looks at me, her eyebrows knitting together. “You really don’t know?”
I shake my head.
“Elijah didn’t tell you?”
I try not to twitch. Is that what my co-workers think? That Elijah and I are so intertwined that I know everything that is going on at Armstrong Media?
When I don’t say anything, Olivia lowers her voice. “Lucy got fired this morning.”
“What?”
Olivia nods, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She’s wearing red lip gloss and too much dark eye makeup, which makes everything she says seem super dramatic.
“She was called in early and brought up to Elijah’s office. He fired her, and security escorted her out.”
My hands tighten into fists, fury burning through me. He must have fired her before we met for breakfast. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“Do you know why she was fired?” I ask.
Olivia shakes her head. “Everyone’s been trying to text her, but she’s not answering. I have no clue what happened.”
But I do, I think, and head for the elevator that will take me to the fortieth floor.
Chapter 5
ELIJAH
Abigail barges into my office like a tornado, her cheeks flushed, her hair tousled around her shoulders.
I’m in the middle of a conference call with the head of our new office in China, but I have to hang up on them, because behind Abigail comes Addison, who’s missing a shoe and yelling at Abigail to slow down.
“What the hell is going on here?” I demand as I slam down the phone.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Armstrong,” Addison says. “There must have been a malfunction in the software. She was able to open the door.”
Ahh. The sensor. I’d programmed it to receive Abigail’s fingerprint as soon as I’d had the chance. I hadn’t anticipated she’d be using it so soon.
“Anyway, I tried to tell her to stop, but she tripped me.” Addison points down to her shoe and the rip in her stockings.
“I didn’t trip you,” Abigail says, rolling her eyes. “You were trying to catch up with me, and I accidentally stepped on your foot.” She turns to me, her blue eyes blazing.
“Thank you, Addison,” I say. “From now on, please know that Ms. Bennett will have free access to my office.”
Addison’s face crinkles with annoyance, with then morphs to understanding clouded with judgment. “Sure, Mr. Armstrong.”
She shuts the door, and I make a mental note to fire her as soon as I’m done dealing with Abigail.
“You fired Lucy Bastille?” Abigail demands.
“Yes. Now that I have you here is tonight open for the dinner with your friends?” If I’m going to be forced to hang out with Abigail’s friends, I might as well get it over with.
“You can’t just go around firing people!” she says, ignoring my question.
“Actually, Abigail, I can. I am the head of the company, which means I can fire anyone my cold little heart desires.” I sit back down at my desk and open my computer, sending a quick email to the head of the China office, letting him know I will call him back as soon as I’m able.
Abigail walks over and slams my laptop shut.
I gape at her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We need to talk about this, Elijah.” Her disobedience, along with her using my first name instead of ‘Mr. Arm
strong’ or ‘Sir’ immediately gives me the urge to reach for my belt.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You can’t just fire someone because I don’t like them. It’s going to make everyone here hate me, not to mention that people are going to talk. This is my career.” She crosses her arms over the gray sweater dress she’s wearing. The damn thing is thick and cumbersome, but somehow even covered up, she still looks like walking sin.
The fabric hugs her breasts, the material hitting right above her knee, showing off her long legs, toned from her running. I think about the lingerie I picked out for her, the list I sent to Le Perla, the bras and panties left for her with the things that had been brought over from her apartment. I wonder what she’s wearing underneath.
My head is spinning, my cock being its normal traitorous self by swelling with blood.
“Hello!” she says. “Are you listening to me?”
“Your disobedience is quite upsetting to me, Ms. Bennett.” I get up and go to lock the door, and I see her courage falter just a bit. “You came in here with a concern, Ms. Bennett, and it may have been one that is valid, but it’s one you agreed not to fight me on this morning.”
I approach her from behind, placing my hands on her shoulders, brushing back her tangle of curls and leaning down so she can feel my breath on the back of her neck.
“I didn’t agree to you making me the subject of gossip,” she says. “And I didn’t agree that you could just fire someone I don’t like.”
“That’s true.” My hands snake down her body, over those delicious curves, and it’s all I can do not to pull up her dress, push her panties to the side, pull my cock out and slide into that tight little cunt.
But she’s been bad.
And she needs to learn that when you’re bad, there are consequences.
“But you agreed to the fact that your safety is paramount.” My hands slide over the plump globes of her ass, my nails digging into her skin through the material of her dress.
I can feel the tension radiating off her body as she tries to reconcile these two sides of her herself, the side that is pissed at me, and the side that has agreed to be my submissive.