by Selena Kitt
“No.” I whisper, but I think I do.
“I’ll get to smell you all day.” He says and laughs.
“You’re so nasty.” I try to sound mad, but I’m failing.
“Oh, you love it.” He says as he pulls down my skirt. “I think I’m going to make no panties a requirement for your continued employment.” Josh says as he opens the door. “Thank you for that enlightening discussion, Ms. Miller. Make sure you stop at Annabel’s desk and set an appointment for our Monday meeting.”
I step out of his office, and I’m about to say something smart when he closes the office door. I take a deep breath and try to stop the embarrassment from taking over. Annabel is smiling at me, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. She looks like she wants to kill me right now.
“Can we have lunch today, Zoe? I need to talk to you.” Annabel says in a calm tone that doesn’t with fit the murderous look in her eyes.
Whatever she wants to talk to me about must be important. Maybe it’s something I need to know about Josh. Maybe it’s something that can help me out of this predicament. If I don’t figure out a way to deal with him, and my feelings for him, I’m going to have to quit. I should just quit right now, but instead I agree to have lunch with Annabel.
“Let me get my purse, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.” I tell her and head for my office.
“Sounds good Zoe. See you in five.” She says to my back as I walk away.
I close the door to my office and pull my panties out of my purse. I’m an idiot, and I’m doing this to myself. I hope that whatever Annabel has to say makes this whole thing go away. A girl can dream, right?
We go to lunch at a little pizza place around the corner from work. You can get pizza by the slice, and it is delicious. Annabel fills me in on some of the office gossip, and I listen and nod. I want to tell her that I don’t care, but I’m trying to avoid making enemies at work.
“The juiciest rumor is about you and Mr. Allen.” She wads up her napkin and puts it on her half eaten slice of pizza.
“I wouldn’t listen to anything you hear about him and me.” I take another bite of my pizza. It’s good and I intend to eat the whole slice even though Annabel looks a little horrified that I’m eating more than half of it.
“People say you guys were a thing in high school and that he’s still into you.” She’s not even trying to hide how much this particular piece of information interests her.
“We went to high school together, but we were barely a thing. And, we’re certainly not a thing now. One of the other partners hired me for the position, and it seems that Josh barely remembers who I am.”
I’m lying so much right now, but I don’t need this hassle. If I’m going to quit, I want it to be on my terms. If I end up staying, I don’t want to be involved in any office drama. I have to find a way to extract myself from Josh’s emotional and physical grasp. What Annabel tells me next is exactly what I need to hear.
“Oh, that’s so good to hear.” She lets out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “I wanted us to be able to be friends, but that wasn’t going to happen if you were putting the moves on my boyfriend.” There is that smile that doesn’t reach her eyes again. It’s pretty creepy.
“Boyfriend?”
“Yes, Josh and I have to keep it under wraps at work. But, after a just few months of being his secretary, we’ve fallen in love. I should find another job, but I can’t stand the thought of being away from him now that I’m used to being so close every day at work.”
“Oh, well. Okay then. That’s great for you.” I fake a smile. “I have to get back. I have my first client meetings starting tomorrow, and I’ve got to get ready.”
Once I’m back in my office, I shut the door and smolder for at least an hour. That slimy motherfucker. I knew he was a bad boy, but it turns out he’s just a lying, degenerate asshole. I should have known better. He screwed me over once, and of course, he was going to do it again.
If I didn’t have client meetings for the rest of the week and a professional reputation to protect, I’d walk out now. Since, I’m trapped here, I’ll just make the best of it. No more meetings with Mr. Dick. I mean, Mr. Allen. He can fire me for not being his toy anymore, but I’m not putting up with this crap for one more second.
Zoe Miller will be keeping her panties on at work from now on.
Chapter 6
Josh
Maybe I pushed her too far. I thought she liked alpha Josh, but perhaps I should have kept the cocky dominating shit to a minimum. Hoping that sex would help her forget the way I left her when we were eighteen appeared to be the wrong approach.
It’s the only approach I’ve taken with women since I left her eight years ago, and other women seem to like it. The piece of the puzzle that I’m forgetting is that Zoe isn’t like other women. Sex, money, and power are all things that have attracted women to me in the past, but she wants something more substantial. At least, I think that’s what she wants. Maybe she wants a new car and a diamond and platinum bracelet. Not knowing how to acquire what I want in this situation is driving me mad.
“Maybe she wants you to stop thinking of something to be acquired.” I say to myself in an empty room.
Can I change for her, though? Can I take down the walls I’ve spent the last eight years building? She didn’t break my heart, I did that all on my own, but she’s the reason my heart broke. I’ve not turned into a very good person, and the last thing I want is to show her that side of me.
Zoe’s presence in my life takes me back to a time when I had potential to be something more than a dumb, rich jock who rolls over people to get what he wants. I’ve been in survival mode for so long, but she makes me want to live. That’s why it’s so disturbing that I had her within arm’s reach, and now she’s pulling away from me again.
She won’t take my calls on her office phone or her cellphone. Zoe hasn’t been at one of our meetings for three days. Monday when she didn’t show, I just assumed it was related to a client, but it’s Wednesday today and it’s become obvious that she’s giving me the cold shoulder.
Normally if a woman were to do this to me, I’d just blow her off and find another one to occupy my time. It’s been years since a woman seemed worth any kind of trouble to me. My philosophy with women up until lately was that if they want to have fun, we can have fun, but if they want to play games or have any kind of relationship, I’ll find something a little easier to dip my wick in. If you know what I mean.
I need to tell Zoe what happened the night I disappeared, but I can’t. If I could tell her, it would fix everything. For a moment, I let myself think about how things would be if that night had never happened. My life would have turned out very differently, and I could have made things easier for her too. One of the partners who recruited her was telling me about how she worked full time at night while she was in law school.
I should have found a way to help her. I should have found a way to take care of what was mine. I’ll never forgive myself for leaving her to fend for herself. Her parents did the best they could, but she had to struggle so much. One of the most beautiful things about her is that she didn’t let that struggle bring her down. She rose above it and made her way in the world despite her adversity.
The qualities that made her a success in high school, college, and law school are why the partners were so eager to have her work here. So many young lawyers have a sense of entitlement when they come in here looking for a job, and that’s especially true of the ones who are as smart and talented as Zoe. She’s not like that, though, and she’s as smart as a whip and a hard worker too.
She’ll be an exceptional mother too. Just thinking about her having our babies changes something in me. I’d even cut my hair and shave my beard if she wanted me to, but the thought of our baby pulling at my chin hair flashes into my mind and my heart stutters. Maybe I’d even give up my bike. No, no. She’d never ask me to do that. I want to know what life would have been like if I hadn’t had to leave that nigh
t.
In my mind, I can see myself waking up next to Zoe and driving her home instead of sneaking out of bed and disappearing. The next day at graduation, I would have kissed her and asked her to be my girlfriend in front of everyone. God, I wish I could have seen her speech. I heard years later that it was amazing.
Everything would have been different. Zoe and I would have lost our virginity together on some hot summer night before we both left for college. We would have called each other every day and spent all of our breaks from school in each other’s arms. She and I would have gone to the same law school, and right now, she’d be planning our wedding instead of ignoring me.
Instead, I became the biggest asshole I can stomach being. The farther I push people away, the safer I feel. Instead of making love to Zoe for the first time, I lost my virginity to some chick whose name I don’t even remember. I met her in a bar. I’ve probably screwed my way through half of the women between the ages of nineteen and forty in this city. None of them ever filled the hole she left in me. Now, I would trade my entire fortune to take it all back and have Zoe be the one.
I’m late to work on Thursday because of an automobile accident on my route to work. I decided last night that I’m going to go to her office and try to reason with her, or make her moan again. Maybe both. I pass by the conference room on my way to her office and what I see makes my blood boil.
Zoe and an older man are sitting very close to each other at the conference table. She’s got her laptop and a bunch of files spread out, and they’re deep in conversation. Even though they have a computer and several folders open, it doesn’t look like they’re discussing them. It looks more as if he’s alternating between interrogating her and flirting with her. That’s pretty typical behavior for him from what I remember.
The man Zoe is sitting at the conference table with shouldn’t be here. I stop and look through the window for a moment. I hope that the way I’m looking at him makes him burst into flames. My hands start to tremble, and I know I have to calm down before I go in there and remove him from my building.
Zoe sees me standing at the window glaring, but she gives me the go away look and waves me away with her hand. The man is too busy staring at her tits to notice what’s going on, and keeps talking at her while trying to look down her shirt. She thinks I’m glaring at her, and doesn’t realize my anger is directed at her “client”.
I can tell she’s uncomfortable with the way he’s looking at her, and it makes me feel a little better to know Zoe’s not enjoying his attention. That is, until he reaches under the table and runs his hand up her thigh. She cringes and pushes his hand away. Zoe turns to me and pleads with her eyes. In an instant she realizes that she’s in over her head, and the look of fear and revulsion in her eyes makes the monster in me come alive. I’m not normally a violent man, but I will hurt someone for threatening any kind of harm to someone I love.
She’s about to lay into him, but I burst through the door before she can speak. Zoe can spit fire, and I have no doubt that she would have tried to put him in his place even if she was afraid. She’s not going to have to, though, because I’m going to handle him. That man is dangerous, and all I want right now is to put myself between him and Zoe. I grab him by the throat and pick him up out of the chair. Zoe gasps and backs away from us.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Dad?”
Chapter 7
Zoe
I jump out of my chair and back into the corner of the conference room. I want to leave, but Josh and Andrew are between the door and me now. There is a fight when Josh tries to take Andrew out of the room and Andrew punches him. I was shocked at the way Josh grabbed Andrew, but he must have thought he was protecting me. The level of violence Andrew is engaging in is frightening. Josh is trying to get his father away from me and out the door, but Andrew keeps swinging at him brutally. He’s trying to hurt him.
I breathe a sigh of relief when two security guards come in drag Andrew out. Josh’s lip is bleeding and I grab a tissue from the box on the table. When I hand it to him, he looks completely broken down and on the verge of tears.
“Thanks.” He says and holds it to his lip.
“Are you alright?”
“Let’s go to my office. We can talk there. I need to be somewhere with a lock on the door right now.” He says and walks out of the conference room.
When we get into his office, Josh locks the door behind him and rips of his tie. He unbuttons his top buttons and takes off his suit jacket.
“What are you doing?” I ask him
“Sorry, babe. I just need to breathe and I can’t with that stupid tie on.”
It’s the first time that I get a glimpse of his tattoos. Under that perfectly tailored business suit, Josh’s chiseled body is completely tatted up. Goddamn. Goddamn. Goddamn wow. I should be focused on what he wants to talk to me about, but I can’t concentrate. What I want more than anything is to get a better look at that body.
“I’m sorry about that.” He says and breaks me out of my daydream. “I need to tell you what’s going on. But first, please tell me why you were meeting with him?”
“Andrew scheduled a meeting with me through my secretary. I thought I was going to provide him with legal advice about his investments, but he just kept asking me about you. He also wanted to know about you and me. It was starting to get strange right when you showed up. Why was your father asking me about you? Why wouldn’t he just ask you?”
“Okay, Zoe. I owe you the truth.” He says and runs his hand through his thick wavy hair. “My father is an abusive prick, and he’s dangerous. I was lucky that I was able to get him to move out of the country for a while, but now he’s back. He’s not supposed to be allowed in the building, but he must have slipped past security.”
“I don’t understand, if you and your father are estranged, how did you buy this law firm? We just graduated law school within the last year. I’m sorry, Josh. That’s not important right now, I’m being an asshole.” Sometimes I can’t shut the analytical part of my brain off.
“It’s okay, Zoe. I know it’s confusing. My grandfather died when I was twelve. He didn’t pass his fortune on to my dad. He put it in a trust for me. I got a stipend for living expenses and enough to pay for any college and law school I wanted to attend. I inherited the money fully when I graduated and passed the bar. The partners here and I started working on the deal for me to buy the practice my second year of law school when it became obvious I would graduate and get my inheritance.”
“So that’s why you don’t talk to you dad? He’s angry because you got the inheritance?” I ask him, but I sense that there has to be more to this.
“No, Zoe. It’s much more than that.” He says and he looks so grief stricken that I want to reach out and hold him. “I’m protecting someone else. The night I left you, I did it because I had to. I did it for my little sister and for my mother too.”
“Your sister? What happened to your sister to make you vanish without a trace?” I ask the questions, but I’m not sure if I want to know the answer.
Chapter 8
Josh
It’s time to come clean. Cadence is twenty-one now, and I can’t carry this burden alone anymore. For reasons I still don’t understand, I feel connected to Zoe in a way I’ve never felt connected to anybody else. If I can tell anybody about my father, it’s her.
“The night of the party my dad got drunk and let himself into Cadence’s room after she went to bed.” I start to choke up, and grab the arm of a chair for support as a wave of nausea threatens to overtake me.
I don’t know how I’m going to get through this, but then I look up into Zoe’s big, soulful eyes and I find the strength to keep going. She looks like she cares about me, and I desperately need someone to care about me right now. Screw the bravado and the alpha bullshit, even if it’s just for a minute, because I need that connection I had with Zoe our last night together eight years ago.
Right now, I need to be vulnerab
le, but only with Zoe. I’m drowning in my secret, and she’s my lifeline.
Chapter 9
Zoe
“Oh no.” I could sense where this was going given his father’s lecherous behavior with me. “Josh, let’s sit down.”
We walk over to his small conference table and sit down. I move my seat closer to him and take his hand. He takes a few moments to compose himself and then continues.
“He tried to rape her, Zoe. At first, he tried to drug her, and she wouldn’t finish the milk he brought her. It was spiked with something, and she could taste it when she took a drink. So then, he tried to force himself on her. She got away from him and locked herself in her bathroom. Fortunately, she’d left her phone on the bathroom counter when she was getting ready for bed. She sent me twenty text messages before I finally checked my phone.” He says in a voice just above a whisper.
