He lifted a hand and encompassed the empty office. “Yes, clearly gossip would be an issue.”
“Okay.” She glanced around, and one side of her mouth quirked up higher than the other. “You got me there. Eggplant parm, huh?”
“Yep.” He stepped back and gestured her inside his office. “And wine, too, if you’re feeling adventurous.”
“I’m not done with the report yet,” she said quickly, her cheeks flushing to a fetching pink as she headed toward him, smoothing her skirt. “I’ll have to return to work after I eat.”
“Leave it.”
She blinked. “But—”
“I said, leave it.” He left the door open, just in case someone happened to come in after hours. When she stood at the table awkwardly, he pulled a chair out, and watched her. She sat down, and he pushed her in closer to the table. She let out a little gasp and clutched the edge of her seat. “It’ll wait till Monday,” he said.
“Maybe I can take it home with me and work on it over the weekend,” she said, placing a white linen napkin on her lap with a perfectly manicured hand. “It’s not my style to just leave things undone.”
“Mine either.” He sat down and lifted the cover from her dinner plate. After setting it down, he picked up the bottle of Clos Du Val pinot noir, and leaned in. Her nose was inches from his, and she watched him with wide eyes. He had the undeniable urge to lean in even more and capture her mouth with his. Of course, he didn’t, but still. The impulse was there. “So let’s be rebellious together, Maggie.”
She let out a nervous laugh, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Okay. Sure. Why not? Pour the wine, sir.”
“I like a woman who can see the merits of letting loose every once in a while,” he said.
She blinked at him, lowered her head, and straightened her napkin. “I don’t let loose very often.”
“I doubt that’s true.” He lifted a brow. “Surely when you’re at home, with your boyfriend, you—”
She lifted a hand, cutting him off. “I’ll stop you right there. There’s no boyfriend at home. As lame as it might sound, there’s just a cat.”
Satisfaction over her answer punched him in the chest, but he’d ignore that and the reason for it, too, thank you very fucking much. “I don’t even have that.”
“The boyfriend?” She smiled, looking more at ease. “Or the cat?”
“Either one.” He picked up the wine. “Tell me, how long ago did you move to New York?”
She scrunched her nose, making those freckles dance. “Is it that obvious I’m not a native?”
“Yeah.” He poured her a glass. “Sorry.”
She laughed and blew out a breath. Her bangs fluttered, but fell right back into her sight. “No apologies needed. I’m sure I stick out like a sore thumb.”
“You’re very polite and you apologize too much.” He poured himself a glass, too, and held it up. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
She clinked her glass to his, and took a sip. He lifted his glass just as she muttered, “He says with an apologetic tone…”
Choking on his wine, he set the glass down and swallowed hard. “Did you seriously just narrate our conversation?”
“Um, maybe?” She flushed. “I talk to myself a lot. It’s a bad habit.”
Or a delightful one.
Setting his glass down, he picked up his fork, unable to tear his eyes off of her. Her knee brushed his under the table and she jerked it back right away, shooting a quick glance at him. He didn’t miss the flush in her cheeks, or her quickened breath at the contact, but damn it, he wished he had. Still not fucking touching her, Gale. “You do?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
Fighting back a grin at her saucy tone, he shook his head. She’d turned his earlier words around on him. He’d always been a sucker for a quick wit, and the fact that she didn’t treat him like he was her boss, or the Beast of Gale, sat well with him. The rest of the workers tiptoed around him as if he might bite their heads off.
They weren’t exactly wrong.
He probably wasn’t the easiest boss in the world, but he didn’t demand anything from anyone that he didn’t ask from himself. “I don’t willingly say this about a lot of people, but I like you, Maggie.”
She flushed even more. “Uh—why?”
“For starters, you’re not afraid of me.” He swallowed a bite of eggplant parmesan. It was perfection. Chef Antoine had outdone himself. “It’s refreshing.”
She raised her brows and cut into her own dinner. “What’s to be afraid of?”
“I guess it’s because I’m a beast.”
She choked on her food, swallowed it, and reached for her wine with a shaking hand. He watched her with amusement as she drank the whole glass. Once finished, she set it down and locked eyes with him. “So, you heard that?”
He nodded once. “I also heard you defend me. Thank you.”
“Oh. That?” She waved a hand. “That was nothing. It’s ridiculous that they gave you that name in the first place. You being a strict boss doesn’t make you scary.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” She licked her lips, and he couldn’t look away from her red, exquisite mouth. Leaning in, she rested a small hand on his arm. Her innocent touch burned through his shirt, searing his skin, and he stiffened. Her nostrils flared slightly, and she held his arm tighter, as if she felt the instant attraction, too. His pulse sped up, and he shifted in his chair to accommodate his increasing hardness. “And anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he didn’t. “So, uh, where are you from originally?”
It had been years since he’d been this curious about a woman. She worked so hard. Never complained, and she was beautiful in a quiet and serene kind of way. She was nothing like the women he used to date—not that this was a date, nor was he even thinking about her that way. Okay, well, maybe a bit.
But they were just two people getting to know each other on a Friday night. At the office. He was rewarding her for her efforts. Yes, that’s what this was.
That’s all this was.
“A farm in South Dakota.” She put her fork down and held a hand up. “You’re shocked people actually live there, right?”
He swallowed a laugh. “Well, now that you mention it…”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, laughing and tossing a piece of bread at him.
It hit his chest, exploding with crumbs before it fell into his lap. He blinked down at it. No one, in all his thirty-three years, had ever thrown food at him. He’d seen it in movies but didn’t think people actually did it.
Something of his shock must have shown on his face, because she turned whiter than the table linen.
“Oh…” She jerked back, knocking her fork under the table. “Oh crap. I’m sorry, sir. So sorry. I forgot—”
He held up a hand. “It’s fine. Your fork might not agree, but I’m good.”
She laughed uneasily. “I’m such a klutz, give me a second.” Scooting out the chair, she crawled under the table. Benjamin lost sight of her, but her hand brushed his ankle, which didn’t do a lot of good for his dwindling resistance to her. “Oops.”
He swept the breadcrumbs off his crisp dress shirt, forcing his body to cool the hell off, and peeked at her under the table. She knelt at his feet, on all fours, and stared up at him. She rested a hand on his knee, laughing uneasily. “This isn’t awkward at all, right? I mean, I’m just a girl, kneeling under a table at her boss’s feet…”
An almost-laugh escaped him. “Maggie.”
The moment they locked eyes, the air between them became charged, and the desire was undeniably there. Her hand on his knee tightened, and then she let go with a small sound. The way she looked at him—all wide eyes and parted lips—practically begged him to stop fighting the attraction between them.
To take what she had to offer, and more.
He cleared his throat. “You—”
“I—” she started.
“Am I interrupting?” A chilly voice he recognized all too well intercepted.
Well, shit.
“Not at all.” He stiffened, fisting the dainty white napkin in his lap. He knew, just knew, his mother would immediately assume the worst as to why a woman was on her knees, under the table, in his office. “What are you doing here?”
“William informed me you were working late, so I decided to stop in. I see that working does not mean the same thing to me as it does you. No big surprise, of course.”
He stood to give her a stiff half-bow of greeting. She was about to skin him alive, and he had only himself to blame. He never should have invited Maggie to dinner. “What a pleasant surprise, Mother.”
“Moth—” Maggie straightened at his words, banging her head on the table. “Ow.”
“Oh, Benjamin.” She raised one haughty brown brow, curled her upper lip at his dinner companion, and hugged her Prada jacket closed. “I’ll just bet it is.”
Chapter Two
Maggie crawled out from under the table clutching her stupid fork, her face on fire and her heart racing. Out of all the positions to be found in, kneeling at her boss’s feet was not the most flattering. And the thing was, she was the person least likely to be caught messing around with her boss. She had bad enough luck with men as it was; she wasn’t about to throw the possibility of her ex firing her into the mix.
No, thank you.
She’d keep her disastrous romantic entanglements out of the office.
Once she made it to her feet with Mr. Gale’s help—which his mother did not miss—she smoothed her skirt and swallowed hard, still clinging to the fork for dear life as if it could somehow save her from what was coming. “Mrs. Gale. This isn’t—”
“Quiet,” the older woman snapped, without taking her murderous glare off of her son. “No one was speaking to you.”
Picking up her wine, she swallowed a healthy mouthful, and it washed down the retort attempting to choke her to death in front of her boss and his nasty mother. The woman watched her son like he was a bug she’d stepped on.
Something to be scraped off and forgotten.
And, in return, Mr. Gale watched his mother with all the warmth of a winter’s night. Maggie had never wanted the power to be invisible as much as she did right now.
And she used to pray for it every night.
Guess she knew now where he’d gotten his cold, emotionless exterior. He wasn’t rude to her or anything. He never was. He just didn’t really have the time, or the desire, to chat idly all day long. Something told her that he’d never been taught how.
They must not teach small talk at Harvard.
But they spent a lot of time alone at the office, so she got to see a side of him no one else did. And the more time she spent with him, the more he reminded her of a lost puppy who had all the bones in the world, but no idea what to do with them.
Especially after tonight.
“Please tell me this ‘dinner’ is not being billed to the company,” Mrs. Gale said, each word icier than the last. “Last I checked, there is no clause in your contract that states the company must pay for your many dalliances.”
Many dalliances?
She’d never have pegged Mr. Gale as a playboy.
Sure, he had the looks and the money to pull it off, but he spent almost all his time locked in his office, scowling out at his employees through the glass windows on either side of his closed door. Alone.
Covertly, she stole another glance at him as he shrugged back into his jacket while his mother watched him angrily. Tonight, he wore a black suit with a light green pinstripe dress shirt and a pair of black loafers. Something about the way his custom-made suit hugged all those hard muscles was a lot harder to ignore than it usually was—maybe because moments before she had been kneeling at his feet, staring up into his eyes and thinking how handsome he was from down there.
And he was. Handsome. From every angle.
Not just his feet.
He always had a slight five o’clock shadow going on, but she’d never seen his hair when it wasn’t picture perfect. The man easily could have been a GQ model, but instead he was the CEO of his family’s pharmaceutical company. He was well over six feet tall, weighed a little under two hundred pounds, was thirty-three years old, had attended Harvard for six years, and wore a size thirteen shoe.
I know way too much about him. Stalker.
She sighed.
Oh, and he was freakishly, devilishly, impossibly hot.
And single.
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he remained otherwise motionless. “This isn’t a ‘dalliance’, Mother,” he said.
“It’s not.” Maggie tore her eyes off of him, flushing when his mother shot her a condescending look. “It’s so not.”
He shot her a narrow-eyed look.
She stared right back at him, and took a big gulp of wine.
The second he turned away, she put down her glass, swiped a napkin across her mouth, gently set her fork down, and decided to creep out while no one paid attention to her. If she had any luck—which she normally didn’t—she’d escape before whatever was about to happen here happened. World War Three, maybe.
Slowly, she stepped sideways to the left.
Mrs. Gale snapped her fingers. “Sit down. No one excused you.”
Before the sentence was even finished, Maggie slammed her butt into the soft leather chair. Mr. Gale was her boss, which made his mother her even bigger boss, so she didn’t exactly have a choice. “This really isn’t what it looks like, Mrs. Gale. I—”
“Don’t bother, Maggie.” He frowned. “She won’t believe you.”
Mrs. Gale shrugged. “You’re right. I won’t.”
He rubbed his jaw. “You can’t come in here and order my employees around. If Maggie wants to leave, she’s allowed. She’s not a prisoner in my office.”
She stood again. “Great. Thank you. I’ll be on my—”
“Your employee?” The other woman laughed, but it didn’t sound like humor at all. “Oh, that’s just rich. You have one of your workers under your table doing…doing…”
Shoot me. Shoot me now.
“As we already told you,” he said, his tone tight with exasperation. “It’s not what it looked like.”
“Oh, but it was. And there are rules against such things.” Mrs. Gale focused her cold gaze on Maggie. “Get out. You’re fired.”
She exhaled a big breath of air, dread punching her in the stomach. She’d been in the city for half a year, fighting her way into this hard-to-attain position at Gale Incorporated, and now she’d been sacked over suspicion of going down on her hot boss—and she hadn’t even done it. Great. Just great.
She had to get out of here, with her head held high, and then she’d cry. But not in front of this horrible woman. She nodded. “Right.”
“Don’t even think about walking out of here.” His icy look froze her to the spot. “Sit down.”
She sat again, feeling a bit like a marionette on strings, and wishing she were anywhere but here with these two people. A funeral. Even the dentist.
Or the gynecologist, with her feet in stirrups, and an apologetic doctor holding a speculum between her thighs going, “Sorry, but this will be cold and uncomfortable.”
Literally. Anywhere else.
Mrs. Gale sniffed, crinkled her nose as if she smelled something foul, and crossed her arms. “How dare you bring one of your paramours into the company as an employee. What would your father say?”
She stiffened, every nerve within her screaming for her to tell this pompous woman exactly where she could stick her old-fashioned attitude. She stood again, nails digging into her palms. “You know what? You can take your—”
“Father would say nothing.” He smoothly stepped in front of her and cut her off, all without even glancing her way. “We were working and had a dinner break together. We were both fully clothed, and she just happened to be under
the table. That’s it.”
Mrs. Gale cast a glance at the table in question. “Oh, dear me. I didn’t realize that wine at a business meal was now standard. Shall we serve that all day long at the break station, instead of coffee and tea? Perhaps throw in a few hard spirits, as well, to liven up the day? Some leftover medication that didn’t pass FDA approval?”
Maggie’s nails dug even deeper into her palms, but she miraculously managed to keep her mouth shut. She had a suspicion that this had nothing to do with her at all, and everything to do with them. Mrs. Gale was a force to be reckoned with. Word on the street was that she never stopped pushing till she got her way, no matter what stood in her path. Apparently, that ruthlessness extended to her son, so Maggie speaking up in his defense wouldn’t do anything to help diffuse the situation.
If anything, it would only rile the monster even more.
Mr. Gale crossed his arms, not even close to losing his cool over his mother’s…well, coolness. If anything, he looked mildly amused. The man was like a machine, all cold, hard logic and no irrational emotion at all. “That’s not the same thing. It’s after seven, and we’re both finishing up a twelve-hour day on a Friday. Since my original dinner meeting was canceled, I invited Maggie to join me before I go home—alone, I might add. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Then why was she under the table?” Mrs. Gale lifted her head and somehow managed to stare down her nose at her son, despite their height differences. “Let me guess. You were playing hide and seek. She seems to be of the age and intelligence level that she’d enjoy such trivialities.”
Maggie gasped. “Excuse me. I graduated top of my class at—”
He interrupted with, “She dropped a fork and was picking it up.”
“Ah, but no one will believe that.” His mother shook her head. “Not once I tell the board the disgraceful behavior I witnessed. Interoffice relations are forbidden.”
“Not always,” he said, still looking completely bored.
If she had known she was going to get fired anyway, maybe she would have had a little bit of fun under that table first. Mr. Gale was an attractive man, and the way he’d been looking at her right before the interruption…
Beauty and the Boss (Modern Fairytales) Page 2
