by Emma Nichole
“Goddamnit, Piper, sit down. How did this even spiral this far out of control?”
“I suggest you enjoy the rest of your sushi and reflect on this conversation and maybe you can figure it out. Thank you for dinner. I really appreciate it. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”
She stomps out of the restaurant, leaving me alone and wondering what the fuck just went wrong.
Chapter 9
Piper
Was I within my rights to get up and leave?
Yes.
Did I overreact?
Probably.
Was he being a rude asshole?
Kind of.
But mostly, I was embarrassed. I still am.
I don’t take kindly to people making decisions for me and that’s exactly what he was trying to do. He wasn’t talking to me about it. He was telling me how it was going to be and that’s not cool. To be fair, my emotions and hormones are so confused right now, I’m not even sure I’m making sense. I cannot be held responsible for my actions or reactions.
I’ll call it the Nathanial Lennox Syndrome. Symptoms include: anger, frustration, unclear thinking, overreaction, aching body, and chills. Wetness and boosted libido likely.
I know, even as I sit on the subway train, heading home for the night, I shouldn’t have walked out. I should have calmly stated my opinion on the matter like an adult, but there is no turning back now. At least I’m not too proud to admit I’m way too stubborn to backpedal on this.
Plus, I kind of want to see how he reacts to this. Is it a game? Meh. I don’t think so. I call it curiosity.
My phone vibrates in my hand and I look down at it to see an incoming text from him.
I sigh heavily and contemplate not even opening it, but curiosity gets the better of me, and I do just that.
Asshole: I don’t know how this went so badly. I’m not sure you do either.
I type out many responses.
Fuck you, jerkoff.
Ha. That’s laughable.
Me neither, I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t have left.
But at the end of it all, I just close out the texting app and fire up my email, sending another to the Ask Ida account.
Ida,
Well, I’m not sure what just happened.
I stomped out of dinner with my boss after throwing a temper tantrum on him.
He was trying to make decisions for me, and that’s just not something I can ever be okay with.
But was it childish of me to just leave him like that?
He was telling me that HE was deciding how we proceed, rather than asking me what I wanted.
Please agree with me that he was an asshole so I can stop feeling so guilty.
I look sullen and sad in the middle of the subway at night, and we both know that’s asking for trouble.
Why is he making me crazy?
Piper.
By the time I am step into my apartment forty minutes later, my phone is buzzing with a reply to my email.
Piper,
Never let a man tell you what to do.
This is the twenty-first century. Unless he’s doing it in a kinky way, put him in his place.
Men tend to make us crazy, girl. That’s nothing new.
We just have to go along for the ride, because even though they make us contemplate playing for the other team day in and day out, we like having them around.
In my opinion, just talk to him. You want to or you wouldn’t be worrying about it, right?
Ida
Before I even finish reading her reply, another text message pops on my phone, this time from someone I didn’t really expect at all.
Ryan: I hope you had a great day. I’d like to take you to lunch on Friday. Are you in?
Ryan is a very nice man, and truly, I could see myself being friends with him, and what could lunch with a friend hurt?
Me: Sure. I’d like that. I take lunch at one.
Ryan: I’ll be there
We exchange a few more texts so he can get the address to our office, and the slight twinge of guilt starts to set in.
I think there may be part of me that hopes Nathanial gets jealous.
I toss my phone onto the nightstand and collapse onto my back on the bed with a heavy sigh. I run through a mental list in my head of all the reasons I shouldn’t want to do anything with him ever again.
He’s rude.
He’s arrogant.
He’s very mean sometimes to me, and the entire office.
But then I see him smile or watch him soften for a moment and I can see the man behind the CEO. That in and of itself is enough to keep me intrigued. I’m addicted to making him crack, making the façade disappear and the mask slip away.
I open the text message he sent to me and just stare at it.
Why do things have to be so annoyingly complicated?
Nathanial
Remember when I decided I wasn’t a stalker, even though I went to the same restaurant she was going to, on purpose, to see her on her date?
There is no explaining away the fact I just spent thirty minutes accessing her employee file on my laptop, found her address, and drove myself here to sit outside of her apartment until I can be sure she made it home safely.
Her apartment building is a three-story brick affair in Brooklyn, which leaves a lot to be desired on the outside, but I know that building owners go to great lengths to renovate the interior for rentals.
I watch each person closely that goes in and out of the building, and I have yet to see her. If I’ve done my math correctly, she would have already been here, so it’s possible I’ve missed her.
I check her address again and note she’s in apartment 301.
Third floor.
I look up and only one window on the third floor is illuminated by light, and the curtains are open, along with the shades.
The fire escape blocks my view just a bit, but I can see in enough to know that there is someone standing right there, looking out the window. A car making a turn onto her street moves in such a way that the headlights pass right over the window in question, and there is no denying that raven-colored hair.
My tinted windows ensure she won’t know that it’s me, and I’ve opted to drive a car she’s never seen at the office before, giving me complete anonymity.
I don’t want to scare her.
I just needed to know she was safe.
Because apparently, one taste of a vixen you’ve been enthralled with for months makes you a complete and total fucking lunatic.
Piper Kingston is special. She always has been.
Before I even began working at Lennox for my father, after he decided to step down, I’d heard so many things from my mother about his incredible admin Piper. About how she was the kindest spitfire who would do anything for anyone, and to top it off, she was damn good at her job.
It wasn’t until my first day in the office, after my father took the last of his things out, did I see how fucking special she actually was.
She was wearing a simple, casual maxi dress. It was black and grazed the tops of her toes. She had a white cardigan on over that, her black hair was smoothed into a ponytail, and she had this small, rose necklace on that lay perfectly on her chest.
I wanted her immediately, and when I realized she was fiery underneath all that beauty, pushing her buttons became a favorite pastime of mine.
I’d ask her to do things I knew weren’t her favorite, or force her to take the long way around certain tasks just so I could see her chest puff up in frustration, and if I was lucky, she’d feel brazen enough to sneak a retort in here and there. That was my favorite.
I think it’s my demented obsession with her attitude that was the nail in the coffin when I decided to track her down to her apartment tonight. I want to see her. Plain and simple. I can’t get enough of her. Not anymore.
I sneak another peek up to her window and can see she is still standing there, only this time… it looks like her eyes are
trained directly at me.
Piper
Holy fucking shit.
There is no one around here who would be driving a car like that. This is a sensible car or no car at all type of area.
No one on this side of the city would be driving a Tesla. This screams Nathanial Lennox or a very well-off drug dealer with a knack for green energy. Not the soldier on the street. The Kingpin who pays the man, who pays the soldier, that’s who would be in a car like that.
Even with that knowledge in the back of my mind, I know, deep in my bones, it’s not anyone like that.
It’s him.
Why the hell is he here? How does he even know where I live? I should be horrified by this, livid in fact, but I’m not. I’m excited. A shiver of anticipation Dr. Frank-N-Furter would be proud of glides up my spine.
I pull my cell phone from the table and open the text message he sent me earlier and pound out a reply.
Me: Are you outside of my apartment right now?
I watch as the read receipt pops below my message and the three blinking dots appear then disappear not once, but twice.
Then they never reappear at all. Instead my phone lights up and vibrates, indicating he is calling me.
“Shit,” I say to myself as I contemplate answering at all. What if it isn’t him and I’ve made myself look like a complete and total psychopath?
Ida’s words play in my head.
Only one way to find out.
I slide my finger across my phone and answer the call.
“Hello?” My voice sinks into something sultry, and honestly, I want to roll my eyes at myself.
“Piper.”
That one, singular word coming from those lips is enough to make me shiver where I stand.
Christ, hormones, get it together. The man is potentially casing your house.
“Are you outside of my apartment?” I ask again. Making it clear that if he is, I’m annoyed about it.
“You left late at night, without a ride of any kind. You didn’t answer my text and it would have been in poor taste of me as your boss, and as a man, to not ensure you made it home safely.” His tone is so matter-of-fact, for the briefest of moments; it almost makes sense to me.
Almost.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now? You came to my house? Why? Don’t you see how insane that sounds?” I begin pacing my living room, staying in front of the window so I can have a clear line of sight to his car across the street.
“Like I said, I wanted to make sure you made it home safely since you didn’t respond to my attempt to reach out, and after the conversation we had, you left without a clear head and you’d had a drink.”
I sigh heavily, “This is crazy.”
“Most things you want are.”
I look back out at the car. “Roll down your window. Let me see that it’s really you.”
He pauses for a moment and I can hear rustling over the phone before the electric whirring of a window being lowered, and sure enough, the window in the car I’m staring at descends, revealing his much too handsome face.
“Proof enough?”
“Stay right there. I’m going to come down. I have something to say.”
“It’s late. I can come to the door…”
“No,” I interrupt him. I don’t trust us alone like that. “No, it’s okay. I’ll come to you. Be right there.”
I kill the call before he can argue any further.
I pull my hair into a high ponytail and slip on a pair of flip-flops. I check myself in the mirror to see if I look okay enough to actually go down.
I’m in a pair of pink cotton pajama shorts and a white racerback tank top. Thankfully, I already have a bra on so I don’t have to finagle one of those on right now and I can head on down.
The air is still warm, thankfully, when I step out of the door and make my way toward his still down window.
He watches me closely with each step, surveying me from my toes to my head.
“I’ve never seen you outside of your work clothes before,” I hear him say when I finally halt at the side of the car.
“Well, now you have.” I cross my arms over my chest, acutely aware of the fact that the gesture makes my breasts far more prominent.
“And now I have.” He releases a sharp breath. “Piper, I’m not sure what happened at the restaurant, but I think there was some kind of misunderstanding.”
“It wasn’t so much a misunderstanding as it was me being stubborn.”
“You? Stubborn? Could have fooled me.” A smile breaks over his face, which I happily return. “Piper, maybe dinner wasn’t the appropriate place to have a conversation like that. I should have suggested somewhere that was a bit more private so we could speak openly.”
“That would have been nice, but even more than that, I’m sorry for stomping out like a child,” I say with a twist of reluctance. I don’t like admitting when I’m wrong.
“I do have questions about that actually…” he tells me.
“I don’t think the middle of the street in Brooklyn after midnight is the place to ask those questions, Mr. Lennox. This needs to be a private discussion after we’ve both had some time to think.”
“Then wait for me after business hours tomorrow. Once everyone leaves, we can talk in my office without the fear of curious eyes. We’ll square everything away and decide what to do from here forward. Because, obviously, I can’t seem to shake whatever this is,” he admits in a near whisper.
“I mean, that became more than obvious when you stalked me all the way to my apartment,” I tease.
He strokes his strong, beard-covered jawline and a smile crests those lips of his, like he had a secret thought he wants to share but thinks better of it.
“Go on inside, get some sleep. It’s late,” he says.
“Telling me what to do again? Don’t you ever learn?” I bite my lip as I smile.
“Habits, Ms. Kingston.”
“Mmm hmm.” I take a step back from the window, hoping if I put physical distance between us, it’ll stop me from wanting to literally jump through the window and kiss him senseless. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Nathanial.”
“Goodnight, Piper. Sleep tight.”
He stays parked exactly where he is until I’m safely inside of my building, and only then does he pull away, driving off into the night.
And I’m left standing here, a total ball of confusion and lust.
***
Ida,
How can I even describe with words what is going on right now? After our disaster of a dinner that you already know about, he showed up at my apartment!! He didn’t even call or text to tell me he was here. Hell, I didn’t even know he knew where I lived! There is something scary but also kind of hot about the fact he sought me out. He said he wanted to make sure I was home safe, since I didn’t respond to his text. Is that stalkerish or romantic? I’ve read so many romance novels that I don’t even know anymore. We are going to talk tomorrow after work about whatever this… pull… is between us. I need a drink.
P.
***
P,
If you weren’t scared of the fact he came to your apartment to check on you, I’d go with romantic. It’s all about intention in the grand scheme. The man clearly doesn’t want to hurt you. He drove, in the city no less, to make sure you were safe, and he wasn’t even getting laid. That, sister, sounds like a keeper to me. Have the conversation with him. Be real and be honest. And if you decide you do want to practice the horizontal mambo with him, go for it! You only live once.
Ida
Chapter 10
Nathanial
I’ve always prided myself on being able to keep my emotions in check. I’m generally cool, calm, and collected to the outside world, and I release my stress in private ways. Usually with a workout, a drink, and a fuck.
But there is no way I’m able to hide the pure rage and jealousy I feel when I see that fucker Ryan dropping Piper off in our lobby after her lunch h
our. Especially after being so busy the last few days, that she and I have barely spoken to one another.
I am fresh off a lunch meeting myself, when I step through the elevator doors and the wide glass doors slide open, welcoming me into our crisp, white reception area.
Piper must feel me as I feel her, because she glances over her shoulder and clocks me with her eyes instantly. The beautiful orbs go wide.
“Well, well, well. Fancy seeing you here, Robbie, was it?” I clap Ryan on the shoulder twice.
“Uh, it’s Ryan, actually,” he says. “Nice place you’ve got here, Lennox.”
“Ah yes, Ryan. That’s it. I couldn’t remember which average R name you had. I almost said Ryan. So close.”
Am I being a petty asshole? Absolutely. But it feels good and I’m all for chasing what feels good.
“Ryan took me to get some lunch, since I was neck deep in work and needed a break,” Piper chimes in. “Today has been stressful, and I wasn’t going to even leave my desk.”
I watch closely as he places his hand on the small of her back, and all I can imagine is ripping that hand off and beating him with it. I have an unearned sense of ownership over Piper and this man is completely trying to piss all over her. Fuck that.
“Breaks are required in our office, Piper, so you would have had one regardless, but lucky you that Sir Ryan was able to swoop in, right?”
“Nah, I’m the lucky one.” Ryan adds in before looking at his watch. “Damn. I’ve got to get going.”
“That’s a shame. I was so enjoying this conversation,” I say with obvious snark.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll be back sometime. That is, if Piper will have me.”
