The words hang in the air between us. Objectively, I knew that was what he thought about me. It was what lots of people would think if they knew I’d let him pay me off. It still hurts to hear it, however.
“We had sex twice, and then I realized that I thought we had a relationship, while you thought you had a convenient cum receptacle.”
I’d thought we were working on a future together. Dating my boss had given me pause, of course, but it had been true love, or so I’d thought. I’d been so stupid. The work dinners. The little accidental touches. The compliments and conversations. I’d fallen for it all and then I’d paid for it with my career and my self-respect. When I’d tried to break up with my boyfriend, I’d learned that he saw himself as my boss. My boss in the office. My boss in bed.
“If you don’t quit,” Carter says, “I’ll have a conversation with your new boss. I think he’ll be very interested to hear about our history.”
“It’s not like that,” I protest.
“It’s exactly like that.” He smirks. “You’re fucking your boss. Again. How much money do you think you’ll walk away with this time?”
Jax
It’s almost noon, which means Peony’s had the morning to think about the rings. I’m hoping I can convince her to sneak out for tacos. We have a good history with tacos, so it seems like the perfect lunch date to make my case. The receptionist grins at me when I ask if she’s seen Peony recently. We’re trying to be reasonably professional about our relationship, but people know. It was inevitable.
“I think Peony’s downstairs in the archives,” she says. “Also, your twelve thirty is here early.”
I’m meeting with a potential investor this afternoon, a guy named Carter Ren. I’ve worked with him once or twice in the past and he’s a big-time player at a venture capital firm in Palo Alto. His reputation for backing winners is solid, so I’m interested in bringing him onboard. Unless Peony wants to make a job change, it will be better if someone else finishes spearheading the changes I want to implement here at Hotly, and Ren seems like a good candidate.
Ren’s not waiting by the front desk, though, and the receptionist informs me that he’s wandering around the hallways “to get the vibe of the place.” He was starting in the basement, she adds.
The basement is where the archives and Peony are. Ren’s a businessman, and it’s not like Hotly is a dating service. But I don’t like it.
I feel as if I should go charging after him and either rip his head off or pee on a few walls to mark my territory. I can’t work here with Peony, not anymore, not given these caveman urges.
I storm down the stairwell and bang through the fire doors at the bottom. I have all the subtly of a rampaging dragon. I need to pull back and find my business face, but all I can think about is finding Peony. It’s been hours since I dropped her off, so I’m sure there are things that have happened since then that we should share with each other. She could say yes to my proposal.
When I turn the corner—I really need to move the archives to the top floor—I spot Ren. He’s wearing an expensive suit, one that he bespoke from my tailor in London. I’m not sure if that’s the ultimate kiss-up move or if he just recognizes excellence when he sees it. He’s had a few successful deals this year and his net worth is impressive. He likes to flaunt it, though.
Peony’s standing next to him. They’re so close that their shoes touch. In fact, he towers over her like some villain in a second-rate movie. She’s small and he’s not, so some of it is just simple biology, but there’s something that feels off about the two of them.
That is me overreacting. They don’t know each other.
Ren points to me. “Why don’t we ask Jax what he thinks?”
“Ask me about what?”
I focus on Peony. She’s twitchy, chewing on her lower lip. Something about Ren or her conversation with him is bothering her.
“We can talk about it tonight,” she says.
“All right. Tonight, then. It’s a date.” I brush a kiss over her cheek, ignoring her little indignant look. There’s no tongue, so I’m going to argue this in no way breaks our “no workplace nookie” rule. She doesn’t stick around to debate me, so Ren’s definitely upset her.
“Ren,” I snap when she’s disappeared into the archives, “you’re with me.”
I don’t know what he said to upset Peony, but I plan on finding out.
Ren falls into step next to me. “So how long have you been hitting that?”
Fuck bringing Ren on board. I stop just outside the conference room where we’re meeting with our legal representation. “You don’t say shit like that.”
“Come on, man. It’s not as if it’s a secret that you and Peony are doing it.” Ren makes an obscene gesture. Apparently, he believes I’m an ass and stupid. Punching him would be deeply satisfying, but I’m working on my long game.
“Peony is an employee here. She is entitled to your respect. In fact, no one should have to put up with having his or her sex life discussed at work. It is completely inappropriate.”
Peony would have Ren’s balls if she knew what he’d just said. There’s no amount of excuses that can convince her to put up with anyone’s bullshit. It’s one of the things I love about her. If I push her, she pushes back. She’d probably give me an endless amount of crap if she ever found out that I’d stepped in to defend her from a creep like Ren. She’d argue that she could take care of him by herself. I don’t disagree, but she has me. She can let me take the trash out for her sometimes.
I shove the conference room door open harder than is strictly necessary. Ren crowds in on my heels.
“Lake.” I tip my head at my lawyer. “There’s been a change in plans. Mr. Ren will not be joining us at Hotly, after all.”
Ren puffs up and starts cursing.
Fuck, it’s good to be the boss.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jax
THE END CATCHES me by surprise. It’s like I was enjoying the best movie ever and suddenly it’s over in the middle of a scene, the lights go up, and I’m told to get the fuck out of the theater.
It starts when Lake texts me while I’m on my way back to the cottage. Now that I’ve disposed of Ren’s Hotly aspirations, I’m in a hurry to see my girl and find out what’s wrong. I have a bag of takeout in one hand and a dozen lavender roses in the other because those are Peony’s favorite, even though I’ve argued her name should make her a fan of her Paeonia namesake.
Look at this. Lake’s shared a link to a popular gossip site.
This is the kind of shit my friends text back and forth, but so far Lake has never sent me funny YouTube links or cat pictures. She generally limits her communications to heart-stoppingly large invoices or dire messages that require equally unpleasant responses from me.
The website Lake sends me to is the kind that posts celebrity gossip. They’ve got a couple of paparazzi who like to dig up crap on Silicon Valley types. Liam’s sex parties are a popular topic, but that doesn’t seem to be in play on their main page. I scroll down, looking for whatever’s set Lake off. I’m just about to blast off a text asking WTF when I find it.
It’s just accurate enough, as these things go, that we’re not going to be able to get a take-down order. The writer gleefully announces that yet another Silicon Valley billionaire has bitten the marital bullet thanks to his shenanigans at a notorious sex party. There are a few photos of Peony and me together, along with a copy of our marriage certificate, and the writer has named us both, just in case his audience can’t decipher who is who in the photo.
Peony hasn’t exactly been open about her past, although I know she’s almost pathological about maintaining her privacy. I have to pry personal details out of her. So I’m not expecting the second paragraph in the article—the one that goes on to speculate that Mrs. Valentine neé Harding is particularly talented at parting her bosse
s from their money and that perhaps our union is something less than a love—or lust—match. There’s a bunch of partially blacked-out documents from a lawsuit that Peony apparently brought against a guy a few years ago. I read them, check my texts, and come to a couple of conclusions:
1. Peony successfully sued her former boss for sexual harassment.
2. That boss was Carter Ren.
3. He settled with her for a hundred K.
4. She had Bob Martin in the perfect position to sue.
5. And now she has me.
I skim the website again, hoping I’ve misunderstood. It’s possible that someone’s made all of this up, but it’s more likely there’s some truth and a whole lot of carefully spun elaboration. I can’t do anything, however, until I’ve had a chance to speak with Peony.
By the time I turn onto our block, I’ve come up with a dozen possible explanations. I don’t know which one is true, but one of them has to be. Except that when I reach the cottage, Peony is standing on the porch, looking hunted. There’s a guy all up in her face, and I see red.
I toss the takeout and the flowers to the side and charge in, fists flying. The guy hollers, swinging back, and for a few seconds it’s mayhem. My knuckles collide with his jaw and then his nose. There’s a satisfying crunch, some blood, and a whole lot of cursing. Peony’s trying to pull me off the guy—who has zero business being on my property—while the guy yells questions at me and tries to dodge my fists. I can practically feel Lake having an aneurysm.
I suck in a breath. Step back. I haven’t pummeled the shit out of anyone since I used to earn money fighting in illegal fight rings.
I turn to Peony. “WTF is going on, Peony?”
Fuck. That didn’t come out as sensitive and supportive as I meant it to be and the expression on Peony’s face confirms that I’m an abject failure in the communications department.
The guy I’ve been hitting picks this moment to ask if I have any comment on the allegations that my wife set me up for a very lucrative payday.
“No comment,” I bark.
Peony’s got her back against the wall and looks as if she’d like to add becoming one with the woodwork to her list of impossible things to believe in.
A few more punches may be thrown because I am not a fucking saint, not even close, and today has sucked. After dealing with Carter Ren, I have zero restraint left. I only get in half a dozen hits before Peony peels herself off the wall and starts tugging on my arm again. I don’t want to hurt her, so I back off.
“Get off my property.” My face must look sufficiently scary because reporter dude is almost airborne in his haste to get gone. He practically flies out of my yard.
Unfortunately, it’s not a big lot, so this just means he stands in the street eight feet away from my front door. I suspect that if we get on the bike, he’s just going to follow us, so I swallow my rage. I need a better plan than beating the shit out of him, as tempting as that is.
Peony’s key sticks out of the lock; the guy must have surprised her on her way home. I finish the job she started and open the door. The clicking sound from the street warns me that the reporter is now taking pictures of our home. I’m really not okay with that.
“Get inside.” I try to put myself between Peony and the reporter, but she’s glued to the wall.
“I need to go.”
“Inside, Firefly. We can sort this out.”
The fucking clicking of the camera is driving me nuts and I need to find out what Lake’s take on all of this is. Peony looks at the street, clearly weighing the odds of making it past the reporter to safety. Of course she’s not going to ask me for help. I’m just her pretty penis and her husband.
Once she’s finally inside, I slam the door shut and lock it. The lock’s more symbolic than anything—I don’t think the paparazzo is dumb enough to commit home invasion in my present mood—but I don’t want the outside world to interrupt us.
“What the fuck is going on? Do you know that guy? Are you okay?” I start toward Peony, but she practically sprints across the cottage, putting the kitchen counter between us.
“Do you really want to talk about this?”
“Yeah, I do,” I growl. I push my phone at her across the counter. “My lawyer’s blowing my phone up telling me to check online because somebody’s posted shit about us and then I come home and find that guy harassing you. I can’t even kill him because then I’d be locked up in San Quentin rather than anywhere that would actually be helpful. So, yeah. If you know something, I’d like to hear it.”
I stalk over to the windows to check out the situation. I’ve never gotten around to buying curtains, so the paparazzo has a clear shot inside. We might as well be having our discussion on the front porch. Fuck. I stalk around the kitchen counter and Peony’s eyes grow wide.
I hate that I make her nervous, but I don’t know how to fix that right now. Instead, I sit on the kitchen floor. Loss of dignity aside, we should be safe from prying lenses down here.
God knows what our stalker buddy thinks is happening.
Peony’s staring at me as if I’ve lost it.
“Long-range lens. No curtains.”
She mutters a curse and plops down on the floor next to me. I’d rather hold her in my lap and wrap my arms around her, but the expression on her face tells me that she’s not looking for that kind of support right now. Even if she might need it.
Peony closes her eyes and leans back against the cupboard. She looks exhausted and I wonder how long that asshole out there was bothering her. We can’t stay here—that’s clear. I text Lake back and tell her she’d better make goddamned sure none of the pictures the photographer across the street is snapping ever see the light of day.
I’m not the legal expert, but I have my doubts that he can photograph me inside my house without consequences. I skip calling the police and make a quick call instead to a security service I’ve used before. They promise to send a team out to pick us up and drive us somewhere more secure, and then there’s nothing left to do but confront the elephant in the room.
I look over at Peony. “Did you sue your former boss for sexual harassment?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t open her eyes.
“And that was a different boss at Liam’s sex party?”
“Yes, but—”
“And now I’m your boss.”
She nods silently.
I wait for her to explain all this to me, but she doesn’t add anything more. Two yeses and a head nod aren’t going to do it for me. I need to understand what happened between her and Ren so I can... I don’t know what. Fix it? Move past it? She doesn’t tell me what she wants or what she needs. She doesn’t tell me a goddamned thing, including the truth.
“You walked away with a hundred K from Ren?”
“Yes. He didn’t want to take it to court, so he settled.”
Peony
Jax closes his eyes, rubbing his hands on his thighs. I know he’d never hurt me, but he’s still worked up from the fight on the front porch. Tension radiates from his big body and I’m not sure if I want to talk this out or run.
After a long moment, he opens his eyes and looks at me. “We’re married. I trusted you. And yet it looks like I was your biggest payday.”
“I didn’t know you were rich. I certainly didn’t know our little game would backfire and we’d end up married for real. We were supposed to be playing.” I stare at my hands in my lap, trying to figure out what I should do next. If I get up and leave, will the guy outside follow me?
“Were you planning on telling me?” he asks, his voice calm.
I could lie to him, but I’m so tired of not speaking up. “I don’t know.”
“Explain it to me,” he says.
“I had a temp job working in his office as his executive assistant. He was flattering, smart, successful. I thought he wa
s cute. He was my boss, though, so I didn’t want to hop into a relationship with him. But he pursued me and he was charming and sweet and... I fell for it. He said he wanted to be in a relationship with me, that he could see the two of us getting married, making a home together, maybe having a kid or two someday.”
I was young and Carter seemed like a generous, doting white knight who wanted to swoop in and carry me off to a fantasy life. I don’t say this, though, because there’s no point. Jax and I both know how rescue fantasies play out.
“So we started dating on the down low,” I continue. “And we didn’t tell anybody at work that we were now a couple. We made plans for our future and Carter was talking about a Christmas engagement, and then things starting changing between us.”
At first I’d thought it was me. That I wasn’t sexy enough, uninhibited enough, creative enough in bed. Carter had started making suggestions, and I’d tried. God, I’d tried. “He said and did some things that made me realize he didn’t respect me and that I was pretty much just a convenient booty call. Our relationship was one-sided. It was all me trying to be his partner and his girlfriend, working on our future. I had it out with him when he told me to do something in bed that I didn’t want to do. He said I could pretend to like it and it would be fine. And then he wouldn’t stop coming onto me at work. He said I’d already given him permission and that it was just a game, a boss and the secretary fantasy.”
“He’s lucky you didn’t kill him,” Jax says tightly. “Why the fuck did you go back after the first time? What were you thinking?”
“I had bills. It was a good job. I—” Don’t know. Because sometimes when you’re scared and your life has been turned upside down and you’re having to question everything you believed before, you make decisions that you question later.
Jax mutters a curse. “You took his goddamned money, Peony.”
“I did.”
I don’t tell him that Ren sometimes got what he demanded. That the three weeks I spent working for him after we broke up were hell and that it took me that long to get my head on straight and realize that I needed a lawyer. The money had been an afterthought, something my lawyer had demanded. I’d just wanted someone to listen to me, to agree that what Ren had wanted was not okay.
Harlequin Dare May 2021 Box Set Page 30
