Kissing the Boss

by Linda Kage

  Ezra let out an irritated sigh before answering, “I hope you don’t actually expect me to understand what that means, because I don’t.”

  “I have a security alarm set in my office. And tonight, it went off. Someone broke into my desk. I’m guessing they used your party as a diversion to cover their theft.”

  “Did you have the door locked?” Ezra sounded suddenly alert. “What was taken?”

  “It shouldn’t matter if the door was locked or not,” Lana snipped. “Would it make their violation into my privacy more right if I had the door hanging wide open? How dare you victim blame me!”

  “God, you are impossible. Was anything taken or not?”

  A slight pause followed before she admitted, “No. Nothing’s missing. They must’ve noticed the light blinking on the silent alarm and fled before they could swipe anything.”

  Ezra seemed calmer when he asked, “Do you know who it could be?”

  “Not yet.”

  And… The irritation returned to his voice. “Then why did you call me in here? If nothing was taken and no locks were broken, I can’t exactly bar the doors and forbid everyone from leaving until the culprit confesses.”

  “Actually, I wanted to know where you’ve been for the last forty-five minutes, Nash. I have it on very good authority you were missing from the ballroom for approximately that long.”

  I set my hand over my mouth, unable to believe she would so openly accuse him of riffling through her drawers. Knowing who’d really been in her office, I was tempted to charge in there and set the record straight, defending him.

  But revealing myself now would cause all kinds of problems. First of all, Lana wouldn’t believe me, and secondly, it would only alert her to my new standing with Ezra. Thirdly and worst of all, it’d reveal to him who I was.

  And now that I was near my stepmother, freshly reminded what a viper she was and how much she could hurt both me and Ezra if she knew what we’d been doing together, I was back to wanting to keep my identity a secret from him. For both our protection.

  “Keeping your moles busy tonight, I see,” he said to Lana with bitterness thick in his voice. “I’m surprised you didn’t just have one of them follow me to find out where I went.”

  I tensed, waiting for him to add, Or did you? as if he suspected I was one of her moles. But thank goodness, he didn’t.

  “Did you break into my office or not, Nash?”

  I darted another quick peek through the doorway to see him folding his arms over his chest and bracing his feet wider apart. “Why don’t you just pull up the video on your handy little security system and find out?”

  There was a lengthy pause before Lana reluctantly admitted, “Because I didn’t have a camera installed. It’s motion-censored only.”

  “Ah. So it could have been a draft, or a mouse, or a fly that set off the alarm. Not an actual human being.”

  “It was a human,” Lana bit out stubbornly.

  Ezra snorted. “We’re done here.”

  He was still barefoot so I didn’t hear footsteps but I knew in my gut he was headed my way. Dashing back toward the shadowed spot I’d hid in from Hayden earlier, I ducked down just as Ezra entered the hall looking murderous, his jaw clenched and eyes narrowed.

  He didn’t notice me, didn’t even look for me, so I held my breath and watched him storm away.

  From inside my stepmother’s office, I heard her throw something against a wall and growl a curse before the sound of breaking glass followed.

  This was my best chance to get out of there without being spotted. Acting on impulse, I took off down the hall, once again grateful for my light, padded slippers.

  When I rushed into the ballroom seconds later, my gaze was frantic, searching for two men: Ezra, in the hopes he wasn’t here and didn’t see me, and Brick, hoping he was here and did spot me.

  I couldn’t find either, and my distress mounted. Where the heck was my stepbrother?

  And that’s when I finally found him leaning against the wall, making out with a slutty barmaid-looking woman with white knee socks and a red cape flowing down her back.

  Groaning, I hurried toward them. What was he thinking? We had no time for this.

  “Brick,” I said as soon as I reached them, only to realize the woman was none other than Sabella from Belts.

  I guess he hadn’t avoided her too well, after all. Whoops.

  Neither seemed to notice my arrival.

  Desperation made me lift my voice. “Brick!”

  Nothing.

  “Oh my God, Brick!” I screeched and smacked his arm with one of Ezra’s high heels, making the couple finally startle apart. “We have to leave. Now.”

  “Hey.” Brick grinned with glassy-eyed amusement before licking his bottom lip and wiping the back of his hand across it like a man satisfied with what he’d just tasted. “Where you been, kid? I looked—”

  I jostled his arm trying to get him to hurry. “You don’t want to know. Suffice it to say, we need to go. Right freaking now.”

  He straightened, his gaze growing alert. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  I waved to Sabella as I began to drag him toward the door. “Sorry, Sabella. You can have him back as soon as he drives me home.”

  “Whoa, hey,” Brick tried to protest. “Where’s the fire? What’s going on? It’s not even midnight yet.”

  When he refused to budge, I ground my teeth and spun to him, but he couldn’t read the death threat expression I was sending him from inside my mask, so I said the first thing that came to mind that I knew could scare him off.

  “Your mother’s here.”

  No other words were needed. With a shudder of revulsion, he gripped my arm and whisked me from the building.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I woke up Sunday morning touching my lips as if I could still feel Ezra’s mouth against them.

  Ezra.

  It felt so strange to think of him with that name, like someone I didn’t even know. Then again, the man I’d met last night had been a stranger to me, even if he’d ended up being someone I recognized.

  Nash could stay the haughty but fair CEO I wanted to emulate before I overthrew, but Ezra… Ezra was the kind, compelling, entertaining man with a passion for me that made my head spin and blood heat. Meeting him felt like a dream.

  I sat up in bed, frowning and worried that maybe he had been a dream after all. Not sure why I would put him in a Maleficent costume and then have a boob war with him in my dream, but hey, dreams were weird things.

  In fact, maybe the entire night had been a dream. Had Brick really given me a job and called me family? Had Hayden smiled at me and accepted my cookie? It all seemed too good to be true.

  Across the room, morning sunlight shifted through the window and glinted off the size eleven black heels sitting on my dresser. Ezra’s shoes.

  My shoulders went slack with relief. No dream. He’d been real, and he’d kissed me, and it had been magical. So wonderful and magical.

  Ignoring the fact it could never happen again, I decided to be positive and just remember the night before for the beautiful experience it had been.

  Humming to myself, I swung the sheets off me and shimmied off my mattress so I could dance my way to the window and open it for a little fresh air. The breeze was crisp and made me shiver and hug myself, but I still inhaled deeply. The bakery down the block must be making something full of cinnamon and sugar this morning. Mrs. Tremaine on the second floor must be doing her laundry with her lavender-scented detergent. And the potted roses of Mr. Duke’s to my right must be blooming. Because the day smelled absolutely glorious.

  When I said, “Good morning, day,” a pigeon sitting on the ledge of the building next to mine cocked its head my way. Then it cooed out that sound they make that was something between a turkey’s gobble and a cat’s purr. So I nodded to it, calling, “Good morning, bird.”

  The pigeon flew away. I had to laugh. A bird person I was not.

  I also wasn’t a
cold-weather person. Shivering once more against the cool November breeze, I shut the window and hunted up some yoga pants, a fuzzy sweater, and toe socks: my usual Sunday morning, loner clothes. A single mug sat on the kitchen counter, awaiting me when I shuffled into the room, still half humming, half singing the song stuck in my head.

  “Thunder,” I murmured under my breath. “Feel the thunder. Lightning… And the thunder. Th-th-thunder…”

  No one complained about my awful tone-deaf pitch. No one told me the way I swung my hips, dancing along when I started up the coffee maker, was cheesy and ridiculous. And no one demanded I make them a cup of coffee as well. Because of course, no one else was around.

  Which also meant no one could laugh at my cheerful behavior and tell me how cute it was. No one could snuggle with me as we shared body heat and rubbed noses before sipping from that first cup of the day. No one was here to keep me company at all.

  My jovial mood sputtered. Once my coffee was ready, I carried it to the big box window—the only reason I’d picked out this place to rent—and sat on the cushions, drawing my knees up to my chin so I could people watch. My neighbor to the left, Major, was taking his seeing-eye dog, Gus, for a walk to the grocery store on the corner. Gabby from the first floor of my building was calling to her little brother who was running ahead of her down the street, demanding he slow down so she could catch up. Mr. and Mrs. Duke were holding hands and tilting their heads close together as they exited the bakery, each eating chocolate scones. It seemed everyone else had someone to share the day with. I was the only one with no one.

  I thought again to the night before with Ezra. It’d been nice not being alone in the garden. He’d made me forget about… Well, everything sad. I had liked forgetting. I had liked sharing my time with someone.

  I had liked him.

  Sighing, I finished my coffee and returned the empty cup to the kitchen, where I preheated the oven. I had no idea why I cooked when I was lonely. Maybe the nostalgic smells of my youth kept me company, because it always reminded me of how I used to love to sit on the kitchen table, swinging my legs and watching when my mom had baked. I wished I had the recipe for that banana nut bread she had perfected. But Lana had thrown out pretty much everything that had ever belonged to Marcella Judge when she’d moved in with my dad, recipe books included.

  So I made due with a recipe I’d gotten from the new flower shop owner a couple blocks over. He’d been kind enough to share some recipes with me from his mother’s stash.

  Three hours later, I had more chocolate chip cookies baked than I could possibly eat in a year, or maybe I should say shouldn’t eat in a year. So I pulled open the drawer housing my cellophane gift bags and I started to divvy them up. After I left a dozen sitting out for myself, I collapsed on the couch in the living room and turned on a movie.

  Then I read a little. After that, I took a nap, ate a late lunch—or early supper, whatever—washed some laundry, and picked out a smart, responsible outfit to wear the next day in order to become the best-dressed personal assistant Brick had ever hired.

  Once I’d changed back into my nightshirt and crawled under the covers, then turned off my nightstand lamp, I settled onto my side and tucked a hand under my cheek. My gaze drifted through the darkened room where moonlight spilled across the floor and glinted over the shiny surface of Ezra’s high heels.

  This time, seeing them didn’t brighten my mood. They just reminded me I hadn’t spoken to another living human the entire day, that I was going to bed by myself with only my toe socks to keep me warm, and that I was a total, lonely loser. I let out a long, melancholy sigh.

  Why did he have to turn out to be so unattainable?

  Why couldn’t he have been my happily ever after?

  Why couldn’t something in my life finally just go right?

  I fell asleep with tears on my cheeks.

  But the next morning was a new day. Monday, fresh start, first try at a new job, a new opportunity. Maybe even a new Kaitlynn. Awake and out of bed half an hour before my alarm went off, I was determined to do everything right this time around.

  I might not have been as peppy as I’d been the morning before, but I was still raring to go.

  Anticipation and dread combined in my stomach, souring my morning coffee and making it completely impossible for me to even think about eating anything. Scared to death that something would go wrong but still hoping for the best, I arrived at JFI nearly an hour before Brick did. But that was fine with me, since I had a tote bag full of deliveries to make first.

  To begin with, I stopped by the courtyard to fetch Lana’s teacup I’d left outside on Saturday night. Then I trooped to the basement and visited Bruno’s workroom where a sink and soap and scalding water could be found. After sanitizing the cup, I left a baggie of cookies and a cheerful note for the janitor before I returned the cup to where I’d found it on Saturday.

  I made my way to the third floor next, where I left another cookie-filled bag on Hayden’s desk, no note. And then I snuck toward Ezra’s office.

  Only the CEOs had outer offices for their assistants; the rest of the department heads either had their secretaries work in their offices with them or they put them out in general population. All this meant I had two office doors to sneak through before I arrived at my destination. From the quick peek I made through the glass walls into Ezra’s outer office, his assistant, Winston, hadn’t arrived yet. I held my breath and slowly reached for the handle to the first door. It was unlocked.

  With the first step of my plan out of the way—which was actually getting inside his office—I hurried through Winston’s work area to the door that led into Ezra’s personal space. Also unlocked.

  And empty. Thank God.

  I drew out a breath and quickly pulled the shoes from my tote bag along with the second to last bag of cookies I had on me.

  After arranging the shoes and cookies artistically on the corner of his desk, I took out the note I’d written to him, folded it in half and set it on top of the cookies before getting the heck out of Dodge.

  Inside the note, I’d written:

  Thank you for a magical Halloween. –Yellow.

  No one walked the hall when I reentered it, nobody saw me make any of my deliveries, and no one was around when I breezed through the open doorway of Brick’s office and tried to orient myself to the layout of the land.

  By the time Brick showed up forty minutes later, I had a steaming cup of coffee ready for him, all the dates that were scribbled on Post-it notes and stuck to the outside of his planner penciled into his planner, and the scattered pages that had been left lying haphazardly around the room organized into three neat piles.

  He slowed to a stop in the doorway, blinking at me in surprise. “Oh,” he said. “You’re here already.”

  “Oh,” I answered back, taking in the cup in his hand that advertised the name brand brew he held. “You brought your own coffee.”

  He glanced at the cup in his hand, shrugged, and stepped into the room, sipping as he came closer. “My last secretary made horrendous, teeth-grating shit, and I never learned how to work the coffee maker myself.”

  “Well, that makes my job easier then.” I removed the steaming mugful I had sitting on his desk and brought it to my own lips for a sip, but he held up a hand.

  “Now, wait a second here. I want to taste that. See which is better.”

  I rolled my eyes because it was so typical of him to want to taste test everything first to make sure he had the best. When I handed the mug over to my stepbrother, I pressed my lips together, waiting eagerly for his verdict as he took his first sip of the coffee I’d made.

  “Mmm.” He lifted his eyebrows and then lifted the cup I’d made. “We have a winner.” He handed the store-bought cup to me to drink from and then settled himself in his chair only to stop drinking when he realized his desktop was clear and tidy. “Whoa. What happened?”

  “First of all, I also brought cookies.” I slid his bagful acr
oss the surface of his desk to him, and then while he drank and polished off the food, spreading crumbs everywhere, I explained what I’d done before he’d arrived.

  When I was finished talking, I swiped all his cookie crumbs off the desk and into my palm before tossing them in the trash. Then I sent my brother an eager expectant look. “Well?”

  I bit the inside of my lip, hoping I hadn’t overstepped my boundaries with anything, but all he said was, “Damn. I don’t know what my mother was smoking when she let you go, but I am never firing you.”

  I laughed out my relief. “You won’t have to. I plan to advance before your true secretary even thinks about returning from her maternity leave.”

  Brick merely sniffed. “We’ll see if I let you go.” But a telling grin wavered at the corners of his lips. He nodded respectfully. “I think you’ll do just fine here, sis.”

  An hour later, I was standing at his four-drawer filing cabinet, trying to organize three weeks of papers while Brick chatted on his phone with… Sabella, I’m guessing. Or maybe it was her coworker, Adelyn. It was hard to tell from what he said, but it was definitely a woman on the other end of the line, and he was definitely interested in her.

  When he’d driven me home on Saturday, I hadn’t asked him what his deal had been with Sabella at the party. We hadn’t talked at all, in fact—both of us lost in our own thoughts. I just thanked him for the ride and hopped out, hurrying up to my apartment, as soon as he’d stopped at the curb.

  I hadn’t told him about catching Hayden riffling through their mother’s office drawers or running into Ezra in the courtyard, and I certainly didn’t tell him who I’d spent a portion of the night kissing. Glancing at him now, I hoped he never got it into his brain to actually wonder and ask where I’d disappeared to for nearly an hour. But he seemed suitably distracted on the phone by Sabella… Or Adelyn, so I figured I was safe on that front.

  My own brain began to roam as I searched for a file under the Rs, my thoughts drifting toward Ezra land. I wondered what he was doing, what he thought about everything that had happened Saturday night, if he’d arrived yet to see the cookies and shoes I’d left him. He would know as soon as he saw them that I worked here, that was a given, but he’d have no idea where in the building to look for me. He’d probably just think—