by Wild, Nikki
“Goddamn, Carla, that smells—”
I stopped so suddenly that I was sure my organs would fly right out of my body. As it was, my stomach had dropped to my feet. It took several seconds for the sight before me to register, and when it did, it made no more sense than when I’d first walked in and seen it.
Carla was, as anticipated, standing in my kitchen and slaving over a hot stove. She had her dark, frizzy hair pulled back into a bun and her olive skin was aglow with a light sheen of sweat. Her apron was stained where she’d repeatedly wiped her coarse, calloused hands and from the way her back was bent, I could tell she’d had a rough day.
But that wasn’t what surprised me. What did was the person standing next to her, a person who didn’t belong in my house, and certainly not when I wasn’t here.
“Jane, what the hell?”
She turned to me, beaming so brightly it was almost blinding. She had her long, auburn hair braided down her back, and under Carla’s watchful eye, she was adding sweet Marsala to a pan.
“Hey, baby,” she said. The very sound of it made me cringe. “I thought I’d surprise you. Carla’s teaching me how to cook—it’s veal Marsala. I figured after such a hard day at work, you needed to come home and have a nice, hot meal waiting for you.”
I caught Carla looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t look happy. I knew her pain.
“Carla usually takes care of that for me,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck in the hope of making my anger dissipate. “That was a nice thought, though, Jane. I just wish you’d told me you were coming over. This is… a surprise.”
Jane smiled sweetly. “That’s the point, silly.” Then she left the stove—and any pretense of learning to cook—and crossed the room to me, sliding her hands up my shirt.
“When you didn’t come back to the office, I thought something might be wrong. I tried texting you, but you didn’t respond. Didn’t you get my pictures?” She looked up at me. “Was something wrong?”
There was a hint of an accusation in her voice. Jane wasn’t good at hiding her emotions. I looked at her, gently taking her wrists in my hands to move her away from my body.
It didn’t work. She only entwined her fingers with mine, swinging her arms gently as I sighed.
“Yes, actually. It’s my sister. She got fired from her job, and she needed someone to talk to and drive her home.”
Jane arched one of her perfectly-coiffed brows. “Sister? You never told me anything about a sister…”
“That’s because she isn’t my sister yet. Her mother is marrying my father. We’ll be stepsiblings in just a few months, though I think it’s fair to start using the title now.”
Jane didn’t look convinced. I could feel her hands growing cold in mine. “So… you’re not siblings yet. Then she’s just a woman you drove back to her apartment instead of coming back to the office to fuck me?”
I looked over at Carla. If she’d heard what Jane had said, she didn’t show it, and for that I was thankful.
I took Jane by the arm as gently as I could and pulled her out of the kitchen and into the hallway.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “First, you already know that we’re not fucking again. Second, Madison is practically family. And unlike me, she doesn’t come from money, so losing her job is a pretty big deal.”
“Doesn’t she have any friends?” Jane asked, wrenching out of my grasp. “Someone else she could call on instead of her ‘big brother?’_” The way she put the words in air quotes made me want to break her fingers.
“No. She has no one. Her mother is… well, her mother is the kind of person who wouldn’t give a burning man a glass of water. In fact, she’d probably use him to light her cigarette and complain about the smell.”
I smiled to myself. It was no wonder my father liked her. Those two had so much in common.
“The point is that I was the only one she could turn to. Besides, we ran into each other by accident. I had no idea I was going to see her today.”
“Uh huh,” Jane said, folding her arms across her chest. The kimono-style top she was wearing left very little to the imagination, and the pushup bra she had on underneath it ensured that her cleavage was practically touching her chin. I remembered the first time I’d gotten a glimpse of those beautiful breasts. It was funny how I couldn’t give two shits about them now. “You could have told me, you know.”
“Jane,” I said as calmly as I could, “I know you have expectations of what this… thing we had going on between us was. But you aren’t my girlfriend. We ended this. I don’t owe you anything.”
“See,” she said, taking a step toward me, “that’s where you’re wrong…”
I stepped back into the wall as Jane approached, sliding her body up against mine like a cat in heat. I could feel her taut stomach stretching over my abs as she purred, one hand sliding up over my shoulder as the other delved down between my legs.
“Jane,” I started, but she cut me off.
“Shh. Easy there, big guy. You’ve had a rough day. Family drama. I get it.” She rubbed me through my slacks, and for a moment, a ripple of pleasure pulsed through me. “You’ve had all kinds of unexpected things happen to you today. How about we make this one a good one?”
She began working my belt, trying to slip the tongue through the buckle. Despite my own desires—or lack thereof—I could feel myself hardening at her touch. Jane could feel it, too. She had that look in her eye, that smugness that always came over her face when she knew she had won.
Except she hadn’t won. Not this time. And as she tried to tug my pants down past my waist, I grabbed her arms again and gently pushed her away. “Stop. Christ, what were you going to do, blow me right here in the hallway?”
Jane licked her lips and grinned. “If that’s what you want…”
“It’s not,” I said. “This isn’t something you can fix by putting my cock in your mouth…” I let her go and set about fixing my zipper. “We’re not doing this anymore.”
She stared. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you showed up in my house uninvited, harassed my housekeeper, and then interrogated me about what I was doing with my sister. You’re not my girlfriend, Jane. You’re not even my fuck buddy. You’re my personal assistant. This is wildly inappropriate, and I think you should leave.”
Jane looked at me for a long time, a longer amount of time than I was comfortable with. Every second that ticked by, the air in the hall seemed to become thicker, colder, like the intensity of her glare was sapping the life right out of me. I was sure I’d find the house plants wilting later when I walked into the living room.
But I held her gaze. Maddy was right. Jane had crossed a line—again—and things weren’t going to get any better until I stood my ground.
“Fine,” she said. I hated that word, especially coming from her mouth. “I’m not your girlfriend. Whatever. I’m just the girl you fuck at your desk when you’re having a bad day, I guess.”
“You drugged my coffee and handcuffed me to the chair!” I shouted indignantly. Sure, I’d hired her because I wanted to get into her skirt, but the way it happened wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“I didn’t hear you complaining,” she replied, the anger evident as she turned away.
She was right, I hadn’t complained at the time. Hell, I’d liked it. Jane was nuts, but she breathed a little excitement into my life. Trouble is, she didn’t understand boundaries and her ever-escalating sexual escapades had started to become even more dangerous. Sooner or later, our little office romance was going to bite me in the ass. I was trying to put an end to it for good reasons.
She walked back into the kitchen, grabbed her purse off the back of one of the kitchen island chairs, and came storming back down the hall toward me. The sounds her heels made on the tiled floor were like bones snapping. They gave me the shivers.
She swept past me and toward the foyer, but not before calli
ng over her shoulder, “I guess you’re only worried about being inappropriate when there’s other people around, because when we’re alone, stuffing your dick in my mouth is totally fine!”
“Not when I catch you hiding under my desk right before a regional board meeting!”
“You could have stopped me,” Jane said.
“I am stopping you Jane, we’re not doing this again. This is over. This has been over for weeks and the sooner you get that through your head, the better. I don’t want you in my house, I don’t want you in my bed, and I don’t want you in my fucking office. We’re done Jane. Don’t bother coming to work tomorrow, I’ll mail you a severance package.”
Maddy’s words were echoing in my head as I put the nail in this relationship. She was right, if I was going to end this I couldn’t leave a shred of hope… even if it hurt.
“You’re not going to fuck me, and now you’re firing me? We’ll see about that,” Jane said coldly, slamming the door behind her and ending any chance at getting the last word on the matter. The sonic boom she left behind mingled with her words as they echoed through my house.
I sighed, rubbing my face with my hands. “She’s insane,” I mumbled, trying to make my dick forget about the warmth of her hands, the gentle press of her chest against mine. “She’s utterly fucking insane.”
“You’re telling me,” Carla said, and I looked up to see her standing in the archway to the kitchen down the hall. “If I’d known what I was getting into, I would have never opened the door.”
“Sorry, Carla,” I said. “I had no idea. It won’t happen again.”
She eyed me harshly. “She’s really not your girlfriend?”
“No,” I answered with a rueful laugh. “Dear God, no.”
She nodded slowly. “Hm. Better figure out some way to let her know that. She don’t seem to listen so good.”
“Thanks, Carla,” I said, listening as her footfalls took her back to the stove.
I took a detour into the living room, grabbed a bottle of vermouth from behind the bar, and made myself a martini, but all the alcohol in the world couldn’t drown the sick feeling Jane had left me with that evening. Things were getting worse between us. She was pushing even harder for us to legitimize things, and in a way that reminded me of Fatal Attraction, or for that matter, Misery.
I shuddered at the thought and took another swig. As good as that veal Marsala had smelled on my way in, my stomach turned now at knowing that Jane had had a hand in it.
It was time for Jane to go. I needed Madison to take me up on my offer, and I needed her to do it soon.
I thought all weekend about Preston’s offer. Frankly, it seemed too good to be true, but who was I to judge? I had an unhealthy view on all things family-oriented, to the point where a simple kindness might seem like a set up to me. I knew I needed to be more trusting about this, especially given the direness of my situation, and in the end, I caved.
Saturday afternoon, I sent Preston a text. I used the number he’d left me on the card, though I didn’t know if that phone was for business or personal use. He didn’t respond right away, and maybe he wouldn’t until Monday morning. Still, he’d told me to show up when I was ready, and I believed in making a good first impression, even for my stepbrother.
I spent the rest of that day sorting through my wardrobe. Preston’s office was unlikely to be anything like ExecuSpace, and I knew I’d have to exhibit a certain amount of decorum. I couldn’t use the check to afford new clothes—not until Monday, anyway—so I chose the only dress I had that could be considered anything close to “high fashion” and paired it with some nude heels I hadn’t worn since I’d got them.
I would have preferred not to wear heels at all. They weren’t my thing. They made my feet hurt, my knees ache, and I’d read all the studies warning me about the long-term damage I was inflicting upon myself by wearing them. Unfortunately, the men who ran these kinds of companies hadn’t gotten the memo—or otherwise didn’t care—which meant that heels were still considered “professional attire” for women, and that meant I had to either put up with them or settle for an equally-unsupportive pair of flats.
In the end, I chose the heels. Flats might have saved my calves, sure, but I could never find a pair that fit right. I’d spend the whole day feeling the backs of them scraping off the skin from my ankles and heels, and I’d come home either bleeding or blistered. Until I got a feel for what Preston would and wouldn’t allow, heels it was.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was too nervous, too excited, too terrified to doze off. I kept wondering what Preston the boss, rather than Preston the brother, would be like. I wondered if I wasn’t in over my head. Maybe personal assistants to men like him did a lot more than what I’d learned in my ten years of experience working in the field. I didn’t want to screw up and find myself out on my ass yet again for the second time in less than a week.
Preston didn’t strike me as the type, though. Despite everything I’d ever thought about family, he treated me with respect and kindness, if our outing on Friday was any indication. He seemed genuinely to like my company, which hopefully meant that we’d get along. I just hoped he wasn’t expecting perfection and that he would help me correct my mistakes instead of jumping down my throat about them.
Calm down, I told myself when midnight rolled around. Not everyone in the world is your mother, or Tyler, or Miguel, for that matter.
It was still nerve-wracking, though, and when my alarm went off at six a.m., I’d barely slept a wink.
“What a great way to start my first day,” I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as the first amber rays of sunlight tickled my face through the blinds. I needed a hot shower and an even hotter cup of coffee if I was going to be able to count this day as salvageable.
I’d made plans for what bus would take me to Preston’s office and when, but when I hurried downstairs, I found a car waiting for me. This one looked more like what I would have expected from the Harveys: a black town car with a white-gloved driver standing outside, looking up at me and shielding his eyes from the sun.
“Miss Hearst?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said, carefully taking the next few steps down to where he was parked. I felt like I was going to snap my ankle. I knew I should have gone with a kitten heel. “I take it Preston sent you?”
“Yes, miss,” he replied, opening the back door for me. “I’ll be taking you to his office today. But first, I’m to ensure you’ve had a good breakfast. Let me know where to stop, miss. Anywhere you’d like.”
I slid into the backseat, buckling my seatbelt as the driver closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side. As he sat down and shifted into drive, I told him, “Honestly, I’m not really a breakfast person…”
The driver frowned. “Mr. Harvey asked me not to bring you to the office until eight-thirty, miss. I think he has some sort of meeting to attend to before then, and he doesn’t want you waiting around.”
“I’m fine with waiting,” I assured him. I met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry—we haven’t really been introduced.”
“I’m Gordon, miss. Or Mr. Fletcher. Whichever you’d prefer.” He was an older man, white-haired and rugged, but when he spoke it was like listening to pure velvet. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, if Mr. Harvey offered me a free breakfast, I wouldn’t waste the opportunity. There’s a place downtown called Nero’s that does a fantastic omelet, or if you’d prefer, we could stop at one of the chains…”
I smiled at him. “Really, it’s not necessary. I’ll let Preston… er, Mr. Harvey know that he can treat me to lunch, instead. Besides, if I get in a little early, I can get the lay of the land before he gets out of his meeting. I’d count that as an advantage, wouldn’t you?”
Mr. Fletcher shrugged. “I suppose so. If you insist, Miss Hearst…”
I leaned back and relaxed as Mr. Fletcher pulled away from the curb and turned out of my apartment complex. It calmed me to know that I
might have some time to myself in the office before Preston knew I was there. His previous assistant might have left some notes I could go over while I was waiting, something that could give me a head start on performing my new job duties. I always liked having a leg up, and for the first time since Preston had offered me the position, I felt confident.
It was a deceptively long ride to his office. Maybe it just felt that way because he wasn’t in the car to have a conversation with to pass the time, although Mr. Fletcher did a good enough job of keeping me entertained. He was a really kind man, and I felt a little guilty that he had to come all the way out to my apartment so early in the morning to ensure I made it to work. I’d have to look into getting a car sometime soon—a used one. I didn’t want to blow my signing bonus all in one place.
Mr. Fletcher pulled up to a building that didn’t look at all like an office. In fact, it reminded me of a small Tuscan villa more than anything else. It had those terracotta roof tiles I’d always seen in pictures and columns out front that seemed way too majestic for a mere base of operations. With the gate out front and the fountain gushing beyond it, it was definitely not what I was expecting.
Hell, I could fit my apartment in there five times over, I thought as I looked up at it. And I owned a two-bedroom.
Mr. Fletcher waited at the gate as it opened, prompted by the transponder attached to the visor of his car. “Mr. Harvey likes to keep things… homey,” he explained, driving through. “He spends a lot of time here. He’s even got a small bedroom set up for those nights when he just can’t get away. There’s a kitchen, too. Do you cook?”
“Yes,” I answered. “But only for myself…” I thought my skills were adequate, but what if Preston didn’t? Was that something he expected out of a PA? It wasn’t even something I had considered.
A new level of apprehension washed over me as Mr. Fletcher made his way up the circular drive to the front of the office. He parked, looking over his shoulder at me as he said, “You’ll be fine, miss. Mr. Harvey’s not a bad guy, and you seem like a smart girl. You’ll do well.”
