The whole floor was mine, I told them. Why shouldn’t I make sure it was secure for what I wanted to do?
I put the tumbler to my lips and take a small sip of Scotch, savoring the buttery flavor for a few seconds before letting it slide down my throat. It starts a slow burn in my belly, a fire that begins to spread upward, and I take the glass and walk toward the couch, gazing out at the view of the park.
The trees are just starting to turn with the fall weather, giving the expanse the start of that gorgeous orange, gold, and red coloration they always put on the postcards. That makes it my favorite time of year. Halloween is coming, and after that Thanksgiving, and after that the joy of Christmas. It’s time for turtlenecks and sweaters and the rich, dark drinks that come with cold weather. Gingerbread lattes. Eggnog. Time for family and cuddling up with a loved one. The streets will soon be filled with kids out trick-or-treating and the parades that come with the season.
It all tugs on my heartstrings. Even now, it brings a smile to my lips.
But I’d had to grow up to understand what it all meant. Had to become an adult to actually be able to appreciate any of it. Because as a child…
Well, suffice it to say I grew up in a household that sent the nanny trick-or-treating with the kids, and didn’t exactly see the mother or father figure waking their kids up early on Christmas morning to open presents. Instead, my mother and father were workaholics. Constantly at the office. And if they were home, they weren’t spending time with me—or with each other, for that matter. They were on the phone or in their (separate) offices, working away as if their very lives depended on it. As if that was the only thing that mattered.
They had no time for family. And it didn’t take me long to start wondering why they’d bothered to make themselves a family in the first place. My father, a real estate mogul, had come into the marriage already wealthy, while my mother had pulled herself up by the bootstraps, starting at the bottom of the publishing ladder and moving up until she was finally running an entire publishing house. They’d both been movers and shakers in their industries by the time I came along, and I came to believe as an adult that they had me because a kid had been on the list of things they needed to do with their lives.
Have child, check.
I snort and take another sip of Scotch, enjoying the heady scent. No, my parents hadn’t gotten along well. They’d just been chess pieces who happened to move next to each other in the game of life. Pieces that helped to fill out the pictures they each had of what a life should be. I didn’t think they’d ever even loved each other. Love would have been too soft. Too easy to misunderstand, or fall prey to.
Of course, it took about five years of therapy for me to figure that one out—and to figure out how it had affected my own life.
I glance around the apartment again, taking in the bold colors, leather furniture, and plain walls. No pictures here. No artwork, no snapshots of friends, and certainly no warmth. And there’s a reason for that. I saw what my mother and father did to each other—and what they did to me.
I could never put someone else through that. Better to live a lonely life where no one counts on me than to set someone else up to feel that sort of heartbreak.
Of course, that thought brings another along with it, and this one makes me grin in earnest. Because this one isn’t black and white at all, but full of color and promise, a rainbow in a world of gray, a set of wings on something that had once been bound to the earth.
Josephine Evans. I growl at the thought of her, and at the bone-deep frustration it brings with it. She is warm and intelligent and talented, her fingers covered with paint and her eyes filled with dreams. Everything I have never been.
Everything I have never had. And everything I can never allow myself to want.
Chapter 5
Joey
I’m not really reading this, I tell myself firmly. This isn’t real. Then I look at the computer screen again, biting my lip to try to keep myself from screaming.
“Dear Josephine,
After some careful consideration, and a conversation with Mr. Billington, I’ve become convinced that it might be a good idea for you to go to San Francisco on the press tour.
Oh, who am I kidding? I didn’t become convinced. Mr. Billington gave me my marching orders, and I’ve got to go with them, I’m afraid. As such, you’ll be acting as his handler throughout, and that includes acting as the keeper of the schedule and the fixer of all the problems. Let’s meet first thing in the morning so I can start preparing you. This is going to be a big job, but you’re completely capable and it’s far past time for us to start training you on this sort of thing.
I’ll see you in the morning.”
The email finishes with one letter—N—and an emoji that looks both terrified and angry.
Which is about how I’m feeling, if I’m being honest.
I don’t have time for a trip like this. I don’t have the training for a trip like this. And as long as I’m being completely frank, the idea of spending an entire press tour with Reid—the man that makes me run alternatively hot and cold—has me raging inside.
Is that really it, though? Or is that rage actually something more like… excitement? Anticipation?
No, I tell myself firmly. It’s definitely rage. Absolutely frustration. And definitely nothing to do with his burning eyes or taut, muscular body. Or those dimples.
At that moment, another email comes flying into my inbox and I glance away from Nancy’s message and up to the thumbnail version of the new email.
It’s from Reid. And I can see the important part of it already.
“I hear we’re going to be taking a trip together,” I read aloud. “I look forward to letting you handle me for the duration.”
Well. I sit back and frown at the screen, reminding myself to keep breathing. Because I might have been hot with rage before. Now I’m hot for an entirely different reason. There is no mistaking the innuendo in that email.
But the nervous, fluttery feeling in my stomach doesn’t make this a good idea. It doesn’t even make it a smart idea. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is a recipe for disaster, just waiting to be whipped up in the universe’s kitchen and served to us, no doubt at the worst possible time.
My eyes go back to the email from Reid, considering, but instead of answering, I hit the button to power down my computer and stand from my desk. Me telling him he’s being inappropriate isn’t going to do any good, and I doubt whether he’ll even hear it. In fact, given what I’ve seen of him, I’m betting he’ll make it into some sort of joke.
No, the answer is clear. I’ve been told that I’m going on the Bay Area trip, and I can’t change that. I also can’t change the fact that Reid Billington had chosen this week to decide to start flirting outrageously with me—and has then demanded that I go on a press tour with him. I can’t change the butterflies I have in my stomach at the thought of spending that much time with him.
I’ve lectured myself about finding him attractive in the past, and it’s never done a lick of good. Chances of that suddenly changing are slim to absolutely none.
I’m just going to have to maintain my boundaries. Get through this trip, no matter what it takes. Without falling in any deeper. And without letting anything stupid happen.
No problem.
Chapter 6
Joey
I won’t allow myself to think about him. I won’t.
Who cares if he’s reached something deep inside me that no one has ever reached before, with his stupid, brilliant eyes and the way he leaned in toward me today, holding my hand and poking fun at the colors embedded in my skin? Who cares if he’s now sent me an email hinting at the idea that he expects me to handle him while we’re on tour?
That means nothing. Nothing, I tell you!
I whirl through the front door of my apartment in a tornado of frustration, already stripping the clothes off my body as I toss work’s Josephine Evans to the floor and became plain old Joey. My f
itted jacket goes flying onto the couch, the blouse following closely, and I’m unzipping my skirt and jerking it down over my hips before I even get through the living room.
I leave it laying where I manage to get it off.
The stockings take a bit more work, but I have them off within a minute and when I emerge from my bedroom again, I’m wearing yoga pants and a tank top. I let my hair down, shaking it out of the French twist I chose for today, and look grimly at my hands and the color that betrayed me during that meeting today.
“Note to self: Buy scrub brush for better washing of hands,” I mutter. “Actually, buy two of them, and keep one in the desk at work.”
I grab my phone and check for a text, praying. The first thing I did when I left the office was to send Lana a 911 message—code for “hello, I need you right now!” Normally, my best friend is quick to respond, but she hasn’t replied yet.
Throwing the phone on the counter in between jars of paintbrushes that need cleaning, I turn to the refrigerator and yank open the door. A quick scan of the interior shows me a number of no-doubt-expired leftovers and a half-finished bottle of rosé.
“Wine it is,” I mutter.
I’ve yanked the bottle out of the fridge and turned to the cupboard, trying to remember if I’ve washed any of the wine glasses lately, when my phone dings. Lana.
“I’m already here,” she’s written. “Are you coming or what?”
I grin, feeling better already. Funny how contact with some people can do that to you. Lana has been my best friend since our freshman year at college—the rational, level-headed angel on my shoulder to balance out the artist on the other side—and she’s always known exactly how to bring me back down to earth.
Finding out that I was going on tour with Reid Billington is a curveball I hadn’t seen coming. But Lana is just the batter to manage it.
“Be there in ten,” I write back. “Order me something strong.”
“Uh-oh,” comes her reply. “Are we talking three-shots-of-espresso strong?”
I grimace. I only drink espresso on days when I have to take care of something life changing. But if anything qualifies as life changing…
“Better make it four. With an extra shot of mocha.”
I get down from my nineteenth-floor apartment to the coffee shop that inhabits the front of my building’s lobby in what must be record time, and fall right into what Lana and I declared our booth on the day I moved in.
The place is typical for Manhattan—sleek and modern, with an ultra-efficient use of space—but we’ve experimented over the years and found that, no matter how plain the tables are, this joint has the best coffee within a twenty-block range.
And that’s saying something. The convenience alone would have kept me coming back. The addition of prize-winning coffee just sweetens the deal.
Lana appears seconds after me, carefully balancing two drinks in her hands, along with a bag of goodies. She gives me a grin, but the grin melts when she sees what must be a truly disturbing expression on my face. Her gaze runs up and down my body and then parks once again on my face.
“Out in public in yoga pants and a ratty old tank?” she asks, dropping into the seat across from me. “Tell me. And keep it short. A look like that doesn’t encourage delay.”
I grab for my coffee first, needing the injection of caffeine to power me through the story I’m about to tell. After scalding my mouth on the dark, liquid goodness—and then taking another moment to get my voice working again—I dive in.
“It’s Reid Billington,” I say. “That press tour that he’s taking? The one to San Francisco?”
She nods. “The one you’ve been working all hours to get him ready for?”
“Exactly. Well, you’ll never guess who they’ve assigned to accompany him.”
She was about to take a drink of her coffee, but now she sets her cup slowly back down on the table, her eyes filling with understanding.
“Oh.”
And that one word encompasses everything I’ve been feeling and thinking up to this point.
“That about covers it. Give me sugar.”
I make grabby hands at the bag of goodies she’s holding and she sticks a hand in, grabs a mini donut, and hands it to me without looking.
“So tell me what to do,” I say, my mouth full of pastry.
Lana, my communications-studying best friend, came out of school with a better GPA than I did, and more commitment to our field, and set out to conquer the world. Almost immediately, she secured a job with one of the biggest record companies in New York, and has since established herself as the premier publicist in the building for the talent, i.e., the rock stars and rap artists the company represented.
In short, she gets to hang out with real live rock stars every day and make sure they don’t do anything so stupid that they actually take a hit to their reputations. But she’s never let it get to her, and she’s never lost that edge of professional perfection. She wears her dark red hair slick and blunt, chopped off even with the point of her chin, and almost never takes off the horn-rimmed glasses, which have been a staple since the day I met her.
She looks like a naughty librarian. But she is one of the best publicists I’ve ever known, and when it comes to advice, she absolutely rocks. She’s never let me down.
She takes a deep breath and bites her lip as she stares at me, preparing to lay down the path I’m to follow. But to my surprise, instead of telling me what to do, she starts asking me questions.
“Do you want to go?”
“What?” I ask, shocked—and more than a little disappointed. “What do you mean do I want to go?”
“It’s a simple question. Do you want to go? Do you want the opportunity?” she replies with a shrug.
I snort. “Of course I want the opportunity. It’s a big step up. Getting to run an entire press tour by myself, are you freaking kidding me? It’s a publicist’s dream! It’s the Reid Billington part that’s giving me nightmares.”
Lana lets a smile reach the corner of her mouth. “Ah,” she says simply.
“‘Ah’ what? What does that mean?”
She gives me a long, slow look, filled with innuendo. Like she knows some big secret that I haven’t figured out yet. I reach out and snag the donut from in front of her, holding it over my head like a hostage.
“Speak,” I say firmly. “Or the donut gets it.”
At that, she snatches at the air in front of me, trying to get the donut back. But I hold it further away from her, leaning back in my seat and laughing.
“Speak or I’m eating it myself,” I tell her, ignoring the fact that she could quite easily go up and get another one if she so desired. “This isn’t the time for secrets or knowing looks, Lana.”
She shrugs, giving up the fight. “I’ve seen Reid Billington. Seen him a lot in the press, and even met him once or twice. He’s a rich, good-looking guy, and he doesn’t seem to be short on the charm. What could possibly be wrong with spending a couple days with him in San Francisco?”
She eyes me as she finishes her question, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s baiting me. But what exactly is she hoping to catch?
“And he’s a stuck-up, arrogant jerk,” I say shortly. “Sure, he’s rich and charming. But you’ve never had to work with him. You’ve never had to lead a meeting with him sitting there staring at you, all…” I waggle my fingers, unable to come up with the words I want.
“All… hot and sexy?” she asks, her voice lowering to a grumble. “All green-eyed come-hither-little-girl-and-sit-on-my-lap monster?”
And at that I shove her entire donut into my mouth and chew with exaggeration, just out of spite.
She scowls at me, but I know she knows she had it coming.
When I swallow, I lean forward. “Nothing like that. I don’t think of him that way, and you know it. I need this job too badly to let his looks get in the way.”
She shrugs and grins. “I’m just saying, if I worked for
a man with that face, I’d have a whole lot of trouble turning down the idea of a trip to the West Coast with him.”
I flip my hand out, indicating that I could care less about such things. “You and I are different people. Now tell me how I get myself out of this.”
“Simple,” she says. “Fake it until you make it. Figure out what you’re going there to do, put a script together, and make sure you stay on script. The. Entire. Time. No cheating. No forgetting. No looking at him as anything more than your boss.”
“Fake it until you make it,” I murmur, nodding. A script. That makes sense—and it’s exactly what I would have told a client. Decide on what you want to say in an appearance, write it down, and then stick to it. Don’t ad-lib. Don’t break from your plan.
Don’t get caught up in the moment.
I can do that. I can treat this just like any other day in the office. And that is exactly what I plan to do.
I get back to my apartment to find a note on the door, and I snatch it off, wondering what the problem is now. I love this building, I really do, but it’s in the Meatpacking District, which means two things: charming buildings that don’t match the high-rise sensibility of the busier parts of Manhattan, and a somewhat… eccentric crowd.
A quick scan of the letter tells me that some of my neighbors have been complaining about the… I squint and got closer to the paper as if that will change what I’m seeing. The smells coming from my apartment are evidently bothering people.
Smells? Smells?
I throw open the door and take a deep, heaving breath, trying to figure out what they’re talking about. Oh. That. I have a bad habit of painting with the windows closed, and the place is filled with the scents of oil paint and water color, that acidic, burn-the-back-of-your-nostrils smell that comes with any high-quality pigment. I’m around it so much that I’m used to it.
Maybe my neighbors aren’t as forgiving.
How to Have Your Boss' Baby Page 3
