Entry-Level Mistress

by Sabrina Darby

  The office was large and modern, yet with the slightly retro color scheme of taupe, brown and orange. The far wall was completely glass. The last time I’d had this expansive a view of Boston had been from a plane, or maybe from the top of the Prudential building.

  Just as in the lobby, artwork punctuated the walls. A large ovoid sculpture stood in the corner, and I recognized the work of one of my mentors. One of his works was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and yet this piece had become a temporary bookshelf, with two hard covers and a yellow legal pad lying flat on the peak. I fought the urge to go to it, to pick up that pad. Instead I turned to the clean lines of the large, light wooden desk that was intended to be the focus of the room. I walked toward it hesitantly, and then ran my fingers along the edge. This was where Hartmann did his work, made his millions. Billions.

  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what such wealth meant. Sure, my father had been wealthy before the “retrenching” but this billionaire thing was new to me. As a child, wealth simply meant a private school, and a nanny who took me shopping at Barney’s and Bergdorf’s. It meant friends’ birthday parties that were fantastical and ridiculous. Tea parties served on priceless, antique tea sets and gift bags full of iPods and Marc Jacobs headbands.

  A silver pen, a closed laptop, and thick leather portfolio with the edges of papers peeking out, were all that rested on the surface. He was neat, but not too neat, not too careful or precious about his possessions.

  Who was Hartmann, and what was I doing here, touching his desk, waiting for him? An image of his lips filled my mind, a memory of their taste, the sharpness of the sensations of touching him, of breathing in his scent … I was making myself dizzy.

  My purse vibrated against my side as my phone rang. At least not another text. I fumbled for the phone, saw my father’s number and pressed the button on the side to send the call to voice mail. Of course, he would call right at this moment. The room was too hot, too constrictive.

  The phone call was a good reminder. When would I ever again have a chance to be alone in Hartmann’s office? To look through his notes and his files. Would he really be that careless to leave important documents around in an untended office?

  Tension made my stomach cramp. What did I expect to find if I did look? Falsified tax documents? Proof that he’d set my father up a lifetime and a different company ago? This wasn’t some primetime television show with convenient eavesdropping and surely no one would be so stupid as to leave that sort of evidence around, not even on a password-protected computer that could one day be confiscated by the feds or the police.

  My father hadn’t been quite that cagey. The day they arrested him, they took everything in our apartment, including my computer. When I’d left for Arizona, everything of financial value from my old life had been confiscated, pored over in some distant room by nameless suits with grim expressions.

  Hartmann didn’t know what that was like. Hadn’t had to deal with the fear of one’s home being raided. And he was the reason I had.

  He could be back at any moment.

  I reached out, touched the curved side of the leather portfolio, played with the hard corner. One flick and it could be open before me. Wasn’t this exactly why I was here?

  I looked to my right, where a brown sofa sat parallel to the paneled wall. With sudden purpose I crossed the room, dropped my purse on the floor and sat down on the couch. It was completely possible that this whole situation was a test to see what I’d do. Perhaps he had cameras in here and could see every move I made. Perhaps he was even now in a room next door, watching me. If I were a billionaire about to have a date with the daughter of my enemy, that would seem like a smart move.

  But if it was a test, then it wasn’t very subtle.

  Why did he invite me here for a takeout lunch? To ask me the same question I’d been wondering all day, why was I still working here? Or to talk about this weekend, about what made him change his mind? What did run through Daniel Hartmann’s head?

  And what did I want to talk about? Sitting there, I grew increasingly self-conscious and nervous, aware that on Saturday, I’d been bouyeed by a false confidence inspired by physical attraction, by knowing I had the power to tease him, to make him kiss me.

  The way I wanted him to kiss me again.

  After another silent moment in the huge, empty room, I kicked off my shoes and lay down, arm stretched upward to pillow my head. With that slight tilt, I could see out to the opaque June sky. I looked up. The ceiling was a mixture of white and wood paneling that concealed a well-designed lighting system.

  When he walked in, he’d see my legs first, and maybe the fall of my hair off the side of the sofa. I liked that image, imagined it as a photograph in a fashion magazine—as if anything I was wearing was remotely a designer brand.

  But I was being ridiculous. Really, I should sit up, stop playing at seduction. If he wanted to talk—about the past—then that would be for the best. And yet the thought terrified me, as if that dark, shared history might hold monsters better left locked away.

  I heard the faint but distinct sound of the glass door opening. Then footsteps and a ridiculously loud rustling of plastic. I struggled up to a sitting position.

  “Don’t move. Stay right there.”

  I looked over my shoulder, found Daniel striding into the office carrying a bag of what smelled like takeout, which he placed on the coffee table as he slid onto the couch next to me.

  I didn’t move, desire flooding through me at that expression on his face.

  “I wasn’t going to do this,” he said softly, his heat wrapping around me, his mouth finding my ear at the same moment that he touched my stocking-clad thigh just below the line of my skirt. “But then I saw you there, waiting for me.” I melted back against him, into the feel of his mouth on my skin and his hands caressing me. He made it sound as if I had been lying on his bed waiting for sex. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said quickly, turning, nearly crawling into his lap, all thoughts of talking far, far away. He smelled like the hazy June day, aftershave and shampoo. Maybe it was simply our intertwined past, but it felt as if I’d known him forever. “I entertained myself reading all your papers and computer files.”

  He moved away from me infinitesimally.

  “I don’t think you did.”

  Despite the undercurrent of uncertainty, the note of seriousness in his statement, I refused to laugh and give up the bluff too soon. Instead I ducked my head, pressed my lips to his neck. He groaned and moved against me. Apparently thirty-something-year-old men responded not dissimilarly to college boys.

  “Isn’t it what you wanted me to do?” I prodded lightly, realizing, even as I did, that we said so much in the subtext, in the spaces between words. I needed to know how devious he was in our most basic interactions. I needed to know—

  “No,” he said, punctuating his words with the breathtaking movement of his tongue down my neck. “Because I wouldn’t want to have to send you away. You’re coming home with me tonight.” A shiver cut through me as I imagined myself in his loft, in his bed. He rolled away, shrugged out of his suit jacket and straightened his tie. Gave me just enough space to gather my thoughts. To realize that he had not provided a conclusive answer to my previous question … and that, for the pleasure of his touch, I was far too eager to do exactly as he wanted and go with him tonight.

  “You assume so much.”

  He gestured to the food. “Pita, hummus, falafels, salad.” He paused a moment, then looked back at me. “Am I wrong?”

  “Yes, you are,” I said evenly, proud of myself for my composure. For not outwardly jumping at the chance to see him undressed as soon as possible. Whenever I was next to him rational thought disappeared but, in rare moments of cold clarity, my actions shocked me.

  Yet, it was all play, none of this real.

  Which meant there was nothing wrong with doing exactly as I wanted, as long as it was on my terms.
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br />   “But,” I added, “if you ask me out, I might consider Friday.”

  He reached for a slice of pita bread and then said, in the most aggravatingly mild tone, “I’ll check my schedule.”

  Some part of me that was still the feminist, independent Emily, even when within a dangerous proximity of him, bristled. I reached for him, resting a hand on his thigh as I leaned forward and plucked my own piece of pita. After I relaxed back, I didn’t move that hand. I waited until I felt him shift, his breath just inches from my neck. Then I lifted my hand and leaned back.

  I couldn’t let him be the only one with power here. I needed to even the playing field, and if physical touch was my only weapon …

  I turned all my attention to my food. Until I very casually said, “Friday’s no longer available anyway.”

  “That’s rather childish, don’t you think?”

  “Is it?” I put down my fork and shifted so that I was facing him again. “More childish than you checking your schedule when we both know that if you want to see me you can cancel any plans you have?”

  My quickened breath punctuated the silence between us. The phone in the outer office rang muted and distant. I tried to understand the play of emotions on his face, the seeming desire that warred with restraint, with that part of him that had tried to warn me away two nights before. Maybe I was making things too difficult for him, giving him space to be rational. Was that so bad since at least one of us should be rational?

  “What I want, Emily, is something I shouldn’t even be thinking right now, with that door unlocked and Janine about to come back from lunch any minute.”

  My eyes widened. My lips parted a bit more. I wanted the exact same thing and yet hearing him voice that desire startled me.

  He laid his hand onto one of my knees, slid beneath the hem of my skirt, skimmed the edge of my stocking. He caressed my skin with his thumb.

  “Hartmann?” I managed quietly, struggling not to tremble under his touch. “I’d better go.”

  He slid his hand up an inch more, stroking, kneading the softness of my thigh. I liked his hand there and yet I was terrified of it at the same time. As if it suggested something irreversible, some line I was about to cross. What was I doing?

  “I have a late meeting. I’ll send my driver to pick you up at eight. Tonight.”

  “Right,” I said, shaking my head even as I agreed, knowing that I was saying yes to the wrong plan. I quickly stood, forcing him to remove his hand. “I’d better to get back to work.”

  I couldn’t help but look back over my shoulder as I pushed open the glass door. He was still watching me with that inscrutably dark expression on his face. A flutter went through my abdomen as I realized again how little I knew this man.

  I stumbled forward, letting the door fall shut behind me.

  Despite everything, I had no doubt, that tonight … tonight I would sleep with him.

  Chapter 5

  His chauffeur picked me up. In the Bentley. I sat in the back, running my fingers over the seams of the leather, overwhelmed by memories of the last time I’d sat there. This was unreal.

  This reckless girl in her black dress and high heels being driven to the house of her boss, her enemy, the man who had ruined her life … ruined her with a kiss.

  With a look across the office.

  This wasn’t me.

  By the time the car stopped in front of a modest-looking brownstone on the quaint, brick-lined Charles Street, the bottom floor of which was taken up by an antique shop, I wanted to run. Toward him. Away from him.

  Instead I slid my leg across the seat and placed my heel on the uneven brick. The night was warm, the first hint of Boston’s usual humid summers heavy in the air. I stood, straightened my dress, thanked the driver.

  There was no past anymore, only the powerful present. And there were just a few feet between me and Daniel Hartmann.

  The street echoed with the indulgent noise of people enjoying a good meal, and I glanced toward the sidewalk patio of a restaurant. Its patrons seemed to sense they were being watched and they, in turn, watched me.

  Watched me walk the eight steps from curb to door, which then swung open.

  And there he was. Completely and unfairly gorgeous. Casual in his dress shirt, slacks and bare feet.

  Well-shaped, well-tended, masculine bare feet.

  “Hello,” he murmured, stepping back.

  “Hello,” I returned, moving past him into the narrow hall. There was a slight breeze as the door shut behind me. While he locked it, I looked up the steep, old staircase before me, the flights winding upward. I rested my left hand on the thick, round newel post. There was nothing at all extraordinary about this hall. It hadn’t been modernized or refinished. The only thing that distinguished it from any of the brick walkups my college friends had lived in was the clean, unchipped paint.

  “I wasn’t entirely certain you’d come.”

  “No?” I asked, and started to turn to face him. His hand snaked around my waist, pulling my back against him, so that my hand fell to my side, brushing against his thigh. Even the slightest sensation, skin against fabric, shot through me like electricity. I loved how he was taller than me, how he folded over and around me, how I could lose myself in his touch and trust that he would hold me up.

  “I wasn’t entirely certain that you should come,” he amended. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But it was hard to pay attention to the thin shred of doubt when he was lifting my hair. The feel of his fingers on my scalp was exquisite. Then his mouth found the back of my neck.

  I shivered under his lips, his tongue.

  Three days ago, I could never have imagined this was where I’d be, with him of all people. Held by him.

  I pushed the thoughts away. Focused on his other hand splayed across my midsection, holding me in place. I lifted my own hand to cover his. To cover part of his. Then to stroke his skin. My fingertips tingled with sensation.

  “Let’s go up,” he whispered and I took a step backward, up the stairs, not breaking eye contact. I smiled. He laughed and moved quickly toward me. I stepped back and up again, and again, watching him stalk me. The moment exhilarated and every inch of my skin was alive with anticipation. My heart beat fast in my chest, as if this were really a chase, as if I didn’t want him to catch me. Then he was fast, a blur of motion, pushing me against the wall and filling up my world with him and his kiss.

  He let go and stepped past me. I followed him up the stairs, swiftly, nearly pulling him back down, and we played that way, pushing and pulling, kissing and breathless up the rest of the flight of stairs until we reached the top.

  We tumbled into the room and I gasped, pulling away from him. The walls were covered ceiling to floor in art. Not the large commissioned pieces that hung at the office but an eclectic collection of smaller, framed work. I walked around slowly, staring, trying to take it all in.

  “You said you have a buyer,” I prodded. “And the ex-girlfriends of course.”

  “Right, these are actually a few pieces I’ve picked up on my travels. Just random artists.” I arched my eyebrow in question. He shrugged. “I like to give people a chance.”

  “Then … ”

  “The loft is where the other pieces are.”

  “You have another place in Boston as well?” I felt stupid, like I was missing something rather basic here, but everything was so overwhelming—the art, him … Then I remembered the photographs I’d seen of him “at home” in magazines. That must have been the loft.

  “I have a home for show, for the girlfriends and the parties, and then I have this. For me.”

  I tried to make sense of that. He’d separated out his life: the part that was public, and the part that was truly private. Interesting that his girlfriends seemed to be part of the public life.

  “I thought you might like this better.”

  I let out a disbelieving laugh and started toward him, my heels clicking on the old wooden floor. I came in close, studied his face and s
lipped my hand up his chest, and then around his neck.

  He was sharing all this with me. Despite everything that lay between us. I could take it as a taunt, a dare to strike at him just as leaving me alone in his office might have been. And perhaps it was a taunt. Only, it was something more too.

  “Who are you, Daniel Hartmann?”

  The corner of his lips quirked up slightly, but I didn’t really want an answer in words. I wanted to know him the way I knew the shape of clay or metal or marble or any of the surfaces with which I worked.

  He picked me up, almost effortlessly, and I held onto him, wrapped my legs around him. I could see my shoes behind his back.

  “I’m the man who is about to take you upstairs and strip every piece of clothing off of your body.”

  Oh. Okay.

  “What about dinner?”

  “It can wait.”

  He let me down. Lifted his chin, indicating the next flight of stairs. I turned, shot a smile over my shoulder and then ascended. He was right behind me, his hand resting on my hip, sliding sometimes down, sometimes up, teasing over me until I wanted to kick off my heels and run. I paused at the landing. I felt the heat of his body as he stopped himself just before colliding into me.

  “Is there anything we need to talk about?” I asked on a breath, trying to be sensible, at least in one aspect. “Diseases, anything?”

  “I’m good,” he said, moving closer, wrapping himself over and around me again. “You?”

  “Yeah, me too.” And thank goodness because what if he had said something else? And could I really trust him to tell the truth? Maybe it was because I was cloudy-headed with lust, but for some reason I felt I could. That same reason that had me here, about to sleep with the one man in the world I could actually call an enemy.

  Intelligence felled by lust?

  He reached out beyond me, twisted the knob of the door to the right. It swung open, and he stopped me in the threshold, trapping me between his arms. God, this was hot. I liked him being a little bit more in charge. This was so different from the other guys I’d dated. I lifted my face to his, took his kiss with a sort of fearful hunger. Then I turned my head away for air, and his kiss didn’t end, just moved lower, his dark head bent to my neck. His bedroom looked sparse, nearly unfurnished. There was a low platform bed, neatly made, with a thick rug at the foot. One standing lamp. Stacks of books around the room. But there were no proper bookshelves, no desks, nothing on the walls. Only a window that looked out toward the Charles River.