by Blythe Reid
“Thank you, Reggie,” I said. “For bringing this to me and for keeping it quiet.”
When Reggie left my office, I swiveled my chair to my window and thought about it for a moment. Lisa Turner had had warnings, before. She was on her final warning as it was, but this was grounds for immediate action, anyway.
I got up and walked out of the office, the papers tucked under my arm. I rode the elevator down to the third floor.
When I walked through the door, the open plan floor with its cubicles fell quiet. I never visited the editorial floor. Everyone knew I was here for a reason and it couldn’t be a good one.
“I’m looking for Lisa Turner,” I said to the person closest me to me. She pointed at a row of offices.
“The second one,” she said.
I nodded and walked through the cubicles to the offices behind them. Whispers followed me and the news that I was here about Turner had spread across the entire floor before I’d reached the row of offices. I was just about to knock on the door when it opened and a woman rushed out, bumping right into me.
“Oh, God,” she said and a wave of blond hair covered her face. “I’m so sorry, Mr… Liam?” She asked, looking at me and I looked into Harper’s bright blue eyes. “I mean... ugh, Mister Big Stuff. I’m so sorry.”
I blinked. She was blushing bright red, scrambling for the books she’d dropped.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“I’m Ms. Turner’s assistant,” she said. She looked as confused as I was. I racked my mind. Her new job, I suddenly realized. It was for me. Harper effectively worked for me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, returning the question.
I blinked at her. She didn’t know what I did for living. I hadn’t known what she did, either. We hadn’t talked about work at all, not more than that she’d moved to LA recently to pursue her career. I hadn’t wanted to talk about work with her. I’d wanted to stay in the surreal bubble that I entered every time I was with her. I’d wanted to stay as far away from work and all the responsibilities of real life with her.
“I’m the CEO, here,” I said. Harper blinked at me, the information sinking in. She shook her head as if she was trying to clear it, as if she was trying to figure out how the hell this was possible. I was stumped, too.
Apart for the work event – that she hadn’t shown up to – my work had been so far away. I would have found out that night, had she come with me. It was something I couldn’t focus on, now. I had to take care of business, first.
“I’ll deal with this later,” I said. It was too much to take in. “I have to speak to Turner.”
Harper nodded and stepped out of the way. I walked in through the open door and closed it behind me. Lisa Turner looked up, surprised.
“Was it you, talking to my assistant out there?” she asked. “I hope she didn’t do something foolish. She’s very new.”
“She was fine, Ms. Turner,” I said. “I want to talk to you about your work.”
Turner nodded, her face open. She looked so damn innocent, if I didn’t have the evidence under my arm I would have thought she hadn’t done anything.
“Care to explain this?” I asked, putting the papers in front of her. She read through it. I watched her as she took it in, her face going ashen the further she read.
“I don’t have to tell you that copyright infringement is a serious crime. We can be sued for this.”
Turner swallowed hard. “Are you going to press charges?” she asked.
I shook my head. “And jeopardize the company? No. I’m going to tell you to clear your office out by lunch and to never show your face here again.”
She blinked at me. “And my assistant?” she asked.
“It’s nice of you to think about others now, when you seemed to only care for yourself before. I will take care of Miss Peterson. Pack your things, Ms. Turner. I don’t want to have to call security to escort you out.”
Turner hung her head in what I hoped was shame. Not only had she killed her own career but she’d nearly taken my company down with her. If this had come out, if the wrong person had noticed, it would have been impossible to bounce back. Thank God for people like Reggie who had the mind to do the right thing.
I turned around and walked out of the office again. I looked around, searching for Harper but she was nowhere to be seen. No matter, there wasn’t much I could say here. Everyone was still staring at me. No doubt, the news had already spread that I’d just fired Turner.
“Back to work,” I said, marching through the cubicles again. Everyone around me scrambled to do as I’d said and it was good to know that I commanded that kind of authority in my own place. A king had to know that his subjects were still serious about following him.
10
Harper
I was in the ladies’ room, trying to keep it together. How the hell had this happened? I couldn’t believe I’d been working for Liam all this time. He was my boss, literally, the top guy that made sure my paycheck happened at all. We hadn’t spoken about work at all and now I wished we had. It would have been so much less of a shock if I’d known he belonged in the building when I’d run into him.
I wasn’t sure what to think about what we’d done now, either. I’d slept with him – given him my virginity – and now it turned out that we worked together. Not directly, of course, but still. What did that mean? Where did that put us?
I was in the bathroom, panicking. Everything made so much sense, now. His event on the same night that the company had had something going on that Lisa had needed to attend, all the money Liam made… everything.
And at the same time, nothing made sense. This was the weirdest coincidence.
It had been such a big deal to me to give Liam my virginity, too. I was scared that it would affect my career, now, scared that it would change everything between Liam and me. I wasn’t even sure exactly what we had now, as it was. We’d had sex, which I knew was something he’d wanted to do for a while. I had no idea if he was interested in me as a person.
And if he was? How would that work with us working for the same company? God, what a mess.
I’d fled when I’d heard from one of the other assistants that Lisa had just gotten fired. Someone had listened at the door to the two talking inside. It had been something about copyright infringement. I wasn’t sure what that meant for my job, either.
When I returned to Lisa’s office, she was emptying one of her drawers into an apple box. She looked up at me when I walked in.
“Harper,” she said, and I realized she was crying. “I’ve been fired.”
“I heard,” I said.
“It’s so unfair,” she said. “The whole thing. You know me, don’t you? You know what my intentions were.”
I didn’t know what to say to her. Copyright was serious and even though I didn’t know the full story, I doubted that Liam would fire her for no reason. He wasn’t a mean person. I didn’t know him in the office, of course. I only knew him casually, sexually. But it didn’t seem like he would just cut her off without a good reason.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Lisa because I had nothing else that I could say.
“This is bullshit,” Lisa said. “He said if I don’t have my things packed by lunch he would send security to escort me out. Can you believe it? Like I’m some kind of criminal. The man’s a complete pig.”
I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t agree.
“Do you know what this means for me?” Lisa asked, crying harder. “I don’t know if I’ll find a job as an editor, anywhere.”
I felt sorry for her. But at the same time, I was still sure that Liam wouldn’t have done something this drastic without a reason. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.
By lunch time, Lisa wasn’t done. She’d spent the last hour crying at her desk. I’d tried to pack up some of the things for her, but at one, security arrived.
“Come, Miss Turner,” Henry said in a soft voice. He was a big man with baldin
g hair and a protruding belly and we all knew him. “Boss’s orders.”
Lisa nodded and picked up the box with her personal belongings.
“Will you make sure the rest of the stuff goes where it should?” she asked.
I nodded and watched Henry escort her out of the office. Everyone was watching. It was the ultimate walk of shame.
At two-thirty, a woman found me in Lisa’s office where I’d been sorting through files. When she called my name, I was just lifting a heavy box and it slipped, falling to the floor. Files tumbled out, a mess everywhere.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I didn’t know what to do now that Lisa was fired so I’m sorting out files. Or at least, I was trying to.”
She chuckled. “Let me help you with that. I’m Sarah, Mr. Young’s PA.”
“Oh,” I said. The woman that worked with him every day. She wasn’t very much of anything – she had mouse brown hair and glasses, she wore no makeup and was dressed in a nondescript women’s suit. She walked into the office and kneeled on the ground, helping me to pick up the files.
She worked fast and efficiently.
“Mr. Young wants to see you as soon as we’re done here,” Sarah said. “Me?” I asked.
“Yeah, he wants to talk to you about your position here now that Ms. Turner has been fired. You’ve only been working here a short while, right?”
I nodded. “About six months. I can’t lose this job.”
Sarah shook her head. “Honey, he’s not going to fire you. You just saw Lisa lose her job but she’s been a question for a while. He’ll probably look for a new position for you. He’s a good man.”
I didn’t respond to that. I didn’t want her to know how well I knew Liam. Especially not now that we’d slept together. But it was good to know from another source that he was a good man. He seemed like a great man but I still wasn’t sure what I was to him. I had the feeling that Liam meant a lot more to me than I meant to him, that I’d been interesting because I’d been a virgin. At the back of my mind I was scared that the thing that had made me special was gone now and that he wouldn’t see me as someone he wanted to spend his time with.
He hadn’t even introduced me to his daughter, yet. Of course, that could mean anything. I had no idea what the situation was at home with her, how hard it must have been for the child to lose her mother.
“This is fine for now,” Sarah said after we’d stacked the files. “Mr. Young will be getting impatient. Follow me.”
I got up and followed her. It felt like all eyes were on me. After the spectacle, earlier I guess I couldn’t blame them for ogling. The office was a nosy place.
We rode the elevator to the fifth floor. A knot formed in my stomach – I didn’t know what was going on, what Liam needed me for.
Sarah glanced at me. “It will be fine,” she said to me. “Mr. Young doesn’t bite.”
Oh, no, I thought, he did other things.
We walked to his door. It was a large, dark door with his name and surname and his position printed on it in golden letters. I swallowed hard and Sarah knocked.
11
Liam
“I’ve got Miss Peterson for you,” Sarah said after she opened my door. I nodded to her. “Let her in,” I said.
She stepped aside. “Go on in,” she said to Harper. She walked into my office and Sarah pulled the door closed behind her.
She looked brilliant in her working attire – suit pants and a blouse that traced her curves but looked reserved. Office wear. Sexy.
“Sorry about earlier,” I said, walking to her. I pulled her against me and she relaxed a little against me. “I had no idea that you worked here.” I let her go again. She seemed stiff, unsure. “Can you imagine the odds?”
She shook her head. She looked nervous.
“I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it,” she said.
I nodded and sat down behind my desk.
“I want to talk to you about your position here,” I said, getting down to business. “With Turner gone, you’re an assistant without someone to assist.” She looked nervous, scared even. I realized what she must be thinking.
“Don’t look so nervous,” I said and chuckled. “I’m not going to fire you. I was thinking you should become my assistant.”
She blinked at me. “Don’t you have Sarah? She said she’s your PA. Isn’t that the same thing?”
I shook my head. “Babe, you’d be surprised how much work there is to do around here. Sarah has her hands full as it is. I could use you in meetings, helping me run errands, that sort of thing. Besides,” I said, leaning forward. I took in the sight of her, her beautiful eyes, her full breasts and wide hips and remembered what she’d looked like naked on that beach, writhing beneath me. I got hard just thinking about it. “If you’re around me all the time I can fuck you whenever I want.”
She gasped, her cheeks glowing bright red. I chuckled. Her blush was the sexiest thing I’d seen in a while. I loved it that’s she was so unsure, so nervous about anything to do with sex. It was refreshing when a woman was pure, inexperienced, fresh. It made me want to fuck her again and again and again.
“So, what do you say?” I asked, trying not to think terribly dirty things about her, as if that shit was going to work.
She swallowed. She didn’t look sure. She looked around the office as if there was a lot to take in, as if she could find an answer hanging in the corners.
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly.
I frowned. “You say that a lot,” I said. It was usually her answer when I asked her something, before I pushed her to say yes to me. I wanted to push her again, make her be with me all the time so I could have her whenever I wanted. But this had to be her decision. I wanted her to want to be with me. I didn’t want her to just put out when I snapped my fingers. I wanted her to want it as much as I wanted it. Strange, but true.
She nodded. “I’d rather admit it than lie about something I’m not sure about.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to win this one if I insisted she give me an answer, now. I would rather have a maybe than a no. “Fine, fine. You can have twenty-four hours to think about it. I want an answer tomorrow. Come to my office, same time, and tell me what you’ve decided. Okay?”
Harper nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” I said. She hesitated for a moment before she left. I was being a little off with her but there was a lot for me to think about, too. I hated firing people, even if they deserved it, and seeing Harper in my building had been a shock. A good one, but a shock nevertheless.
I would wait a day for her to tell me what she’d decided and we would take it from there. I hoped she would make the right choice.
12
Harper
I was going to say yes to Liam. I knew it. I’d known it even before he’d given me the twenty-four hours to think about it. I was glad he’d given me the time to think but, as with everything else where Liam was involved, I couldn’t say no to him. I didn’t want to.
I wanted to work with Liam. Seeing him every day sounded amazing. At the office he seemed so stern, so serious. After he’d given me my twenty-four hours he’d dismissed me from his office and I was intrigued by the man that he seemed to be at work.
When we were together and he was with me at the club or we were at his place, he seemed carefree and full of mischief. In the office he’d seemed responsible, serious about what he did. I imagined he was a very good CEO.
Everyone clearly revered him. The reaction on the floor when he’d arrived to fire Lisa had been electric in the way it was when everyone stood at attention, bristling to obey his every command. They all knew exactly who he was.
Which worried me. Gossip was a serious thing on my floor, news traveling so fast it could reach your destination before you did. I didn’t want things– whatever it was – between me and Liam to come out. I didn’t want the world to know. They would take this juicy piece of gossip
and run with it so fast my career would buckle beneath the pressure before the day was out.
It was a reason not to take the position he offered me. As much as it turned me on thinking he wanted me with him to ‘fuck me whenever he wanted’, as he’d said, I didn’t want to fuel the gossip mill. I was terrified of the rumors that might sprout from what was going on.
But, I had to give him an answer, and by two-thirty on Tuesday I was back in his office. After Sarah announced me and closed the door behind me, I turned to Liam. He wore a light blue shirt and it made his ice blue eyes look like live electricity. His dark hair was brushed back, a little messy like he’d been pushing his hands into it all morning.
“You’re back,” he said. It was the same line he’d used at the club when he’d found me again. It felt like a million years ago, now.
“I am,” I said. “I’ve thought about what you’re offering.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, a question without words.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
He smiled at me. “Good girl,” he said and I flushed. It should have been condescending but something about the way he said it made me feel proud about my decision. Heat flushed through my body. I had pleased him and that was a hell of a turn on. Liam walked around his desk and the atmosphere charged. His eyes slid over my body and I felt his gaze like a physical touch. I shivered.
“Come here,” he commanded in a soft voice that was magnetic. I walked to him. He pulled me against him and kissed me, hard. His tongue was in my mouth and he was sure about what he wanted, holding me against him. I felt his dick against my stomach, hard and eager, mirroring my own desires. I wanted him as badly as he wanted me.
Liam didn’t waste time. He unbuttoned enough of my blouse to reach in and squeeze my breasts, pushing his fingers into my bra so that they were on my nipples. He ground his cock against me and I gasped into his mouth.
Liam let go of my breast and reached behind me, unzipping the dress pants I wore. How had he known that was how to undo them? He pulled them down and they fell, bunching around my knees. He pushed his hands into my panties, sliding his fingers into my slit.
