Dirty Nasty Billionaire [Part Three]

by Paige North

  I can feel my heart breaking, both for myself, and for him. “I don’t know what happened in your life to get you to this point, but it’s not too late. You can get help. You can overcome this. There’s therapy and medication. Your life doesn’t have to be like this. You’re not even living! You’re just … existing.”

  There’s an ocean of silence between us. I try to catch his eye, to pull him into one of our intense gazes, but he just keeps staring at the white marble of the island.

  I try one last time.

  “I want to tell you that I’m falling in love with you, but that would be a lie,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “Because I fell in love with you so long ago. I’ve been in love with you all this time. And I’ve been trying to pretend for you, but I can’t do that anymore.”

  I glance up at him to see he’s finally returning my gaze. But he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move an inch.

  I sigh. “And the worst part of all this is, I think you love me, too.” I reach for my bag from the floor and head for the door. There’s nothing left for me here. If he’s not willing to commit, then I can’t let myself hang around. I can’t let myself get hurt anymore than I already have. But before I leave, I pause at the door. I can’t bring myself to turn around and face him.

  “It’s such a fucking waste,” I say.

  The next sound I hear is the door closing behind me.

  Chapter 4

  I told Nixon that I’d quit, but that was only because I wanted to be with him. If he doesn’t want to be with me, then fuck that. I’m showing up at the office today, just like every other day, and I’m going to own that internship. I’m going to Boss Bitch so hard that Amber’s going to want to give up. I’m going to make him give me that goddamn job.

  But as soon as I stroll into the intern conference room, I know that Amber won’t be quitting. She’s got a wicked Cheshire grin on her face that tells me she has something up her sleeve.

  “Hi guys,” I say, dropping into my usual seat and pulling my laptop out of my bag. My voice is casual, but I’m instantly on edge. Something is up.

  But she’s not giving it away quite yet.

  “Why don’t we have a team meeting to go over where everyone’s at with their projects,” Amber says. “I think it’s important that we all stay updated, so that if anyone drops the ball, or drops out —“ at this, she gives me a pointed look “— that the rest of us can easily pick up the ball and run it to the finish line.”

  She’s definitely got something up her sleeve. But we make it all the way to lunch until I find out what it is.

  I’m down in the cafeteria, a stark white wonderland of free food for Scour employees. The food is prepared by a Michelin star chef, and they serve everything from vegan to paleo to gluten free to keto (whatever that is). I’m just settling down to an empty table with my tray, which is filled with grilled salmon, a summer salad, and a warm, fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookie that is approximately the size of my head.

  A file folder drops onto the table next to my tray.

  I look up and see Amber standing there, her snotty grin so bright I swear you could see it from the top of the Prudential Center. She gestures at an empty chair beside me.

  “May I?” She asks.

  “Something about your expression tells me I don’t have a choice,” I reply.

  She lets out a sick little giggle. “Oh, Delaney, we all make our own choices.”

  Ugh. “Amber, cut the crap. What’s going on?”

  “Why don’t you look in the folder?” She nods to it, resting in the middle of the table. She’s clearly been planning this, the lines she’s going to say, all the stage directions. I hate that I have no choice but to follow along, but if I want it to end, I’m going to have to play. So I reach for the folder and flip it open.

  Inside is a photo, slightly grainy, but maybe that’s from being blown up into an 8x10. It takes me about point two seconds to realize that it’s a photo of Nixon and me. I remember the moment clearly. It was a few weeks ago. He’d pulled me into the 6th floor supply closet, where he’d hoisted me up on a few stacked boxes of copy paper and fucked me until I came. Twice. The photo is of us emerging from the supply closet. I could almost explain it away, like were discussing supply chains or some such nonsense, except as he emerges from the door behind me, his hand is resting firmly on my ass. And I’ve got a smile on my face that’s a mile wide. The photo may not show much, but it manages to spill all our secrets.

  I realize there’s more in the file, and I start flipping through. There are several of me coming out of Nixon’s building, which by themselves wouldn’t be incriminating, but coupled with the supply closet shot, tell all you need to know.

  I huff out a breath and flip the folder closed before anyone else can catch a glimpse over my shoulder. But I clutch it in both hands so hard the cardboard crinkles.

  “Oh, you can keep that one,” Amber says, like she’s offering me the extra soda in her lunch or something. “I have plenty more.”

  “What do you want?” I try to sound sharp, fierce, but I can hear my voice. I just sound exhausted. I can’t believe she’s doing this now, when Nixon and I aren’t even together anymore. As if that would make a difference if the photos got out. My career at Scour would be done. No matter how hard I worked or how much I deserved it, no one would believe I earned the job. They’d think I fucked my way to the top. And admitting that Nixon and I were done would only make me sound pathetic. I’d be the girl who screwed her boss and got dumped. People would look at me like a walking lawsuit.

  This can’t get out.

  “I don’t want anything you can give me,” Amber says. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I just wanted you to know that I’m taking this to your boyfriend. I’ve got a meeting scheduled with him in about an hour. He’s probably going to fire you, because that’s what he can give me. Also, the final job.” She grins like Miss America on acid, and I hate her so much right now, I want to knock every last one of her capped teeth into her head.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I reply through gritted teeth, as if that matters in the slightest. As soon as I say it, I regret it. I wish I could take the words back, because they only seem to delight Amber further.

  She reaches over and lays a hand on mine, a gesture that in any other situation would be sympathetic. But she’s just twisting the knife. “Oh sweetie,” she says, her lower lip jutting out in a cartoonish pout. She pats my hand. “Couldn’t even do that right?”

  I barely touch my lunch. My appetite is gone. I trudge back to the conference room like I’m headed to the guillotine. When I get back to the room, Colin is tapping away on his laptop, Jenna perusing her phone. Amber is nowhere to be found.

  Because she’s meeting with Nixon.

  As soon as she sees me, Jenna’s eyes light up. “You’re back! Amber wanted me to let you know that she’s got a meeting with Nixon.”

  A fact I already knew, but Amber wanted to make sure I didn’t forget it. And as I watch the delight in Jenna’s eyes, I know immediately. She’s the one who took the photos. Because of course Amber wouldn’t do her own dirty work. She’d have to recruit her little minion Jenna to do it for her.

  “What do you get out of all this, Jenna?” I snap, and I see Colin glance up, confused.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she shoots back, innocent as all get out.

  “You’re smart. Capable. I’ve seen your facility with the financials. You have as good a shot at the job as any of us. Why are you letting Amber run the show and treat you like shit? She’s only out for herself. When there’s no one left to fuck over, she’s going to turn on you.”

  Jenna’s eyes narrow, but there’s a flash of worry there, too. She knows what I’ve said is true, and if it hadn’t occurred to her before, maybe she’s not as savvy as I thought. But she doesn’t say anything, just returns to her phone.

  I sl
ide back into my seat next to Colin, who glances up over the screen. He’s hunkered down, like he’s in a foxhole trying to avoid friendly fire.

  “Anything I should know about?” he murmurs.

  I sigh. I really don’t to get into all of it with him. He’ll find out soon enough, anyway.

  “It’s fine,” I say. I pull out my laptop and toggle into the presentation I was working on about the interior design app. Colin and I both think it’s a winner, and we’ve teamed up to sell Scour on the acquisition. It’s a risk, working with your competitor, but I was sure together we’d be able to beat Amber and Jenna. And if I was going to lose out on the job, I’d be ok losing it to him. And if I got hired? My first recommendation was going to be to bring Colin onto the team.

  But that’s probably all over now. There’s really no point in continuing to work, except for the fact that I don’t want to let Colin down. I might as well get as much accomplished as I can before Amber shows back up with Nixon, and probably some reps from Human Resources. And maybe a few lawyers, too. Hell, security could be showing up to escort me from the building.

  When Amber finally stalks into the room, though, there’s no trace of the smug satisfaction she displayed at lunch. She doesn’t say a word to me, or even glance my way. She just drops down into her usual chair. She whips out her laptop and starts furiously typing.

  Something didn’t go according to her plan.

  I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

  Something tells me maybe a little of both.

  Chapter 5

  Elise wakes me up by barreling through my bedroom door, still in her pajamas, her iPad in hand.

  “Delaney, you need to wake up right now,” she says. Her voice is full of urgency and worry, and all I can think is oh my god, someone died. I sit bolt upright in bed with a gasp of fresh morning air.

  “What?” I cry, scrambling for my phone to check the time. It’s five forty-five in the morning. But before I can register that it’s way too early and that I’m way too tired, I see the notification on the screen in a little white box. And my stomach turns a complete somersault.

  Scour CEO Embroiled in Office Sex Scandal - Dalliance with intern causes discord

  “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah, ya think?” Elisa snaps. “I knew you were getting laid, but how could you not tell me you were fucking the boss of all bosses?”

  “Wait, my name is in there?” I drop my phone and snatch her iPad out of her hand. I’m going to need a bigger screen to watch my entire life fall apart in real time.

  Elise already has the CNN story pulled up. CNN. My sex life is on CNN. I let my eyes skim over the words, too frantic to slow down and read every one. Nixon Blake … billionaire playboy … caught having a sexual relationship with an intern … Delaney Masterson … recent graduate … New England College … high honors … sex in the office … against company code of conduct.

  Oh my god, there’s even a quote from a Human Resources rep from Scour. And further down, several prominent employment lawyers weigh in. And noted feminists, some condemning Nixon Blake for harassment, some condemning me for trying to sleep my way to the top. And at the very bottom, over ten thousand comments from internet strangers all over the world, most of whom are very excited to call me a slut and a climber and a gold digger and a whore.

  But that’s not even the worst part. The very worst part? That’s the red button at the top of the screen that reads “Start Slideshow.”

  I know I shouldn’t. I know there’s nothing in there I haven’t already seen in Amber’s file folder or, you know, lived. But somehow seeing it pixelated beneath CNN’s Breaking News scroll feels important, and all the more humiliating.

  There they are, the photos of me leaving Nixon’s building with bee stung lips and sex hair. There’s me coming out of the supply closet, Nixon’s hand planted firmly on my ass while we smile conspiratorially. They even have a photo of Nixon at the State of Scour Gala where you can see me, slightly blurry, in the background. Of course, because I’m surrounded by a crowd of white-haired men in tuxedos and the errand older woman in a modest black dress, I look like a fucking sex-starved harlot in my slinky blue silk. These pictures tell quite the story — without quite telling any of it fully, of course, not that it matters to any of the hundreds of thousands of people probably clicking through over their morning coffee.

  Which of course leads me to fall down a shame spiral imagining all the people I know who are seeing this. My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Duncan. My parish priest, Father McCutcheon.

  My parents.

  “Oh god,” I croak out, before dropping Elise’s iPad and sprinting to the bathroom. I don’t vomit, but I come damn close. I fall to my knees on the cool tile, resting my head on the toilet seat. Maybe if I did throw up, I’d feel better. Maybe it would be like an exorcism.

  But no, those photos, that story, would still be on CNN. And who knows where else. Seen by everyone with an internet connection.

  My life is over.

  Behind me, I hear a sigh. I look up and see Elise standing in the bathroom door, leaning against the door frame.

  “I’ll say it again — you should have told me.”

  “Why, so instead you could say ‘I told you so’?”

  “Maybe? I don’t know. Or maybe I could have saved you from this to begin with. Dating an internationally-known and recognized billionaire bachelor is enough to land you in some media somewhere, of course. But when he’s the head of the company you work for? Come on, Delaney. You had to have known that was a disaster waiting to happen.”

  Did I? I try to think back. Was there I time when I thought I shouldn’t be with Nixon Blake? Because if there was, that thought got swallowed by the incredible connection we shared. Yeah, ok, there were a lot of orgasms, but it was more than that. I got the sense that I knew Nixon better than anyone, even if that meant I didn’t know him very well at all. I felt like he let me inside his world a little bit, even if it was just a toe in the door. I fell in love with him, for god sakes. This wasn’t just a fling. How can you ignore that kind of connection, those kinds of feelings?

  “Oh shit, you fell in love with him, didn’t you?”

  “What?” I say in a desperate attempt to protect some of my privacy, to protect even the tiniest sliver of my relationship with Nixon.

  “Don’t even try to hide it. It’s written all over you face,” she says, the truth of the words washing over me. Because I’ve never been in love before, never even thought I was in love before. Not until I met Nixon. He’s my first in so many ways.

  I look up at Elise, who seems to have, at least for the moment, gotten over the fact that I lied to her for so long (though knowing Elise, I’m definitely going to hear about it later … and for years to come). She’s looking down at me, her face a mix of pity and sadness.

  “Look, it’s not that bad,” she says, though even I can tell it’s half-hearted.

  “Seriously? Not that bad? My parents are probably sitting at the breakfast table eating shredded wheat and reading about me fucking my boss in the copy room!”

  “First of all, no one actually eats shredded wheat.”

  “You’ve met my parents,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Of course they eat shredded wheat. They’re the most upstanding, bland citizens in the country. This is going to kill them.”

  “You’re they’re daughter. They’ll forgive you.”

  “And the rest of the country?”

  “They’ll forget. A Kardashian will get knocked up or some model will throw a cell phone, and you’ll be yesterday’s news. They’ll be packing fish with this news by tomorrow.”

  “What year do you think it is, 1983? There are no newspapers, and the internet is forever. A search of my name will bring up this story forever. Oh my god, how am I going to get a job anywhere, when the person interviewing me will have quick access to my sexual history with just a few keystrokes? I’m going to have to become Amish, because those are going to
be the only people who won’t know!”

  Elise arches an eyebrow at me.

  “Oh go on, just say it,” I spit the words at her. “You’re allowed.”

  “Just this once, let me say, for the record, maybe you should have thought of that before you slept with your boss.”

  I sigh. “Ok, I deserved that,” I reply. “Do you feel better now?”

  “I’ll feel better when you get up off that bathroom floor, get dressed, and go to work.”

  “Are you nuts? I can’t go to work! Everyone there knows! And what’s the point of competing for a job at Scour now? I’m never going to get it.”

  “You’re going to go in there, and you’re going to see Nixon Blake, and you’re going to tell him he needs to make it right. He’s the boss. He’s richer than god and a genius to boot. He’s got the power, so he can — and he should — fix it.”

  I pause, thinking about that idea. I could go talk to Nixon. He could put out a statement saying, I don’t know, that our relationship had nothing to do with work? Or he could just say that we had a relationship. Hell, if his biggest fear was getting found out, and that’s happened, then maybe that means nothing’s stopping us from being together. Maybe he could give an interview somewhere admitting to the relationship and saying it wasn’t just sex.

  And for a moment, I feel a glimmer of hope. Because maybe, just maybe, this could be a good thing. Maybe this is what we needed to finally be together.

  Elise reaches down and offers me a hand, dragging me off the bathroom floor, grabbing me by the shoulders, and pointing me towards my bedroom. “Now let’s go in there, pick out your most fuckable, yet work appropriate outfit, ok?”

  I take a deep breath and let it out. Can I really do this? Go back into the lion’s den, my head held high despite my very public disgrace?

  I guess I can. Because that’s just what I intend to do.

  Chapter 6