The Official Guide to Marrying Your Boss

by Doyle, Mae

  The website was a problem for later, maybe after I bought dinner for the two of us, and only if Nick continued to push the issue. Right now, though, I could get the phone. I could end this.

  I practically ran out of my office and into the main reception area, giving Linda a wide berth. She was seated behind her desk like the gatekeeper, a young woman leaning over the desk talking to her.

  Reflexively, I scanned her face for what kind of work she was having done.

  No cleft palate.

  Nothing wrong with her nose.

  She looked perfect, and I felt a bit of envy when she flashed Linda a grin and walked off to Nick’s office.

  Without meaning to, my feet slowed. I was halfway across the office, turning my head completely around so that I could look back over my shoulder and see what was going to happen.

  In my periphery, Linda’s face floated there like the red balloon from It, her eyes locked on me as she watched the look on my face.

  But I didn’t really register that until later.

  Just then I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the woman. She wore a tight black dress that clung to every curve that she had and practically wiggled her way across the office like it was her own personal catwalk.

  If I tried to move like that, I’d probably throw my back out, but no envy here. Nope. None.

  Not even about the fact that her blonde curls bounced on their own accord halfway down her back. That the bright red bottoms of her shoes flashed and peeped at me as she wiggled her away to Nick’s office.

  Nope. The thing that made me the most envious was that she barely knocked on the door before opening it and walking right in. I held my breath for a moment, hoping against hope that she was the cleaning lady and was going to come out of his office bearing his trash above her head for all to see, but the door clicked shut, a sound that was so loud in the quiet office that I almost cupped my hands over my ears and fell to my knees.

  Dramatic? Sure.

  But it pretty much summed up how I felt.

  It was stupid of me to think that the devastatingly sexy Nick Marshall didn’t have at least one woman who looked like that hanging around him. She was all stretched out and thin, like a yoga instructor who also happened to squat enough to have a butt you could balance a candle on without worrying about burning down the entire town.

  Suddenly, my squats and lunges in the hallway felt desperate and pathetic.

  There was a tiny tickle in the back of my throat and I turned away, headed to the door, but not before I heard something in the office that I didn’t think I’d ever heard before.

  In fact, I was pretty sure that it was illegal and that Linda would somehow find a reason to write me up if I ever did it.

  Nick and the blonde were laughing.

  I gasped a little and ran for the door — no wiggling here, it simply wasn’t something that my body knew how to do — hit at it a full run, and sucked in the cold air that swept around me like someone who was drowning would suck in a breath after being pulled from the pool.

  Except, in that scenario, there would be a group of people crowded around me, including a sexy lifeguard disappointed that I woke up so quickly because it meant that he couldn’t perform mouth-to-mouth.

  The only person I wanted to give me mouth-to-mouth was Nick, and the idea that he might be doing that right now with someone else made me pull my phone out.

  Tiffany answered on the first ring. “What’s going on, my little criminal? You well on your way to setting up a catering business?”

  “I’m trying,” I told her, wishing that I’d thought about grabbing my coat from the back of my office chair. Not only would I be warm right now, but I might have missed the wiggly blonde, so I’d be in a much better mood. “I’m on my way right now to buy a burner.”

  “You’re what? Hold on.” She asked, then I heard her whisper something to another person. After a few seconds, she was back. “Okay. I didn’t want my intern hearing about how crazy my best friend was or she may not want to give me her cheap labor any longer”

  “Do you pay her? I didn’t know that interns got paid.”

  “You’re changing the subject because you’re a law breaker now, but yes, I pay her. It’s pennies compared to what I’d pay a real employee, but she’s home from college for Thanksgiving break and was the one that worked with me over the summer.”

  “Maggie? She seemed nice,” I said. “You have her pretty busy?”

  Tiffany sighed. I knew that she was slammed with work, but I also knew that there were some things that you just couldn’t let an intern do without having to go back behind them to make sure that they didn’t screw everything up.

  “She’s great,” she said, dropping her voice, “but I don’t have a ton of intern-friendly things right now, so she’s…hovering.

  Bingo.

  “I bet you wish that you had something more for her to do,” I said. The bait was out there, and if I knew Tiffany, it would take three…two…

  “What do you have in mind?” She asked, but then before I could answer, she continued. “Oh, God, you want me to have her set up your fake website, don’t you?”

  I grinned into the phone, finally getting a little pep in my step as I hurried down to the corner bodega.

  I wasn’t wiggling, not by a long shot, but at least I wasn’t trudging. I didn’t want to be Eeyore, but there had to be a happy middle between him and Roo.

  “You and I both know that being able to set up a website is a prime skill for her to know,” I said, pulling my argument out of my butt as I talked. I wasn’t captain of the debate team in high school for nothing, although that seemed like an impossibly long time ago the more I thought about it. I’d kept telling myself that I’d aged well, like a nice wine that wouldn’t last very long in my presence, but right now I didn’t feel full-bodied and delicious.

  I felt more like a stinky cheese, if I was honest with myself.

  “And it would get her out of your hair,” I told Tiffany when she didn’t immediately respond by telling me that I had the best idea she’d ever heard. “It’ll probably take her the afternoon, at least.”

  “I don’t know,” Tiffany said, drawing out the words. She was saying one thing, but I knew my best friend well enough to know what her hesitation meant. I just needed one thing that would convince her.

  The bodega was just across the street, so I needed to wrap this up, and fast. The website probably wasn’t one hundred percent necessary, but it was a great way to get Nick off my trail, and I didn’t know how to do it myself.

  “I’ll buy dinner the rest of the week, and I already have an email address for her to use when setting it up,” I said, squinting my eyes shut hard. Little fireworks of color burst in my view, and I focused on them not on how expensive my offer to buy dinner was going to be.

  It just meant that I’d be on her sofa for a little longer, that was all.

  “All week?” Tiffany sounded happier. ”Fine. But only because I really want to pretend like I have a sugar daddy, okay? I’ll text you my order every afternoon and you can have it waiting for me when I get home from work. Maybe you can even rub my feet.”

  “Don’t push it,” I told her, but I was laughing. Leave it to Tiffany to take what was possibly the most stressful time in my life and make me laugh.

  I hadn’t told her about the buxom blonde, but that was a conversation for later, over dumplings. “Thanks, Tiff. I really appreciate it. I think that this will let me get him off my back.”

  “You got it. You’re still going with Tasty Foods? Not going to pretend like you had a mini stroke and meant to say something else to him on Friday?”

  I shook my head, then remembered that she couldn’t see me. “Nope, Tasty Foods Catering Company it is. And now I’m going to go buy a burner phone. Catch you on the flip side.”

  I hung up without giving her a chance to respond, which was something that always happened in movies when the bad guy/hero/action movie star was going to go do some
thing wild.

  Or mundane, like buy a burner phone.

  I didn’t feel cool, though, I felt like a little kid who was trying desperately to hide lies while digging the hole deeper and deeper.

  Chapter 13

  The warmth of the air inside the bodega almost took my breath away after being outside for so long in the cold.

  Okay, it wasn’t that cold, but I definitely wasn’t dressed for the weather the way that I should have been. I’d gotten so used to my cozy little office last week that I hadn’t been paying much attention to the weather.

  I’d been in this bodega many times in the past, normally to grab a quick snack when Tiffany and I were out, but I’d seen the huge display of burner phones in a cabinet by the checkout, and that was where I went, skipping by the rows of chips and candy and keeping my eyes on the prize.

  There was a crying child with a snotty nose hanging onto her mom by the front, and I waited until they’d checked out and left before walking up. It wasn’t that I was a germophobe, but there was something about a child that was actively leaking snot to make me want to stay away.

  The man behind the counter was older, with a thinning patch on the top of his head, and he leaned over the counter to me, giving me a bit of a frown. “What do you need?” It was the most that he’d ever spoken to me before, and I paused for just a moment, wondering why he sounded so grumpy.

  It was obvious that he noticed that I hadn’t picked anything up, and I held up my hands to show him that I wasn’t trying to steal anything. “I, um, need a phone,” I said, pointing to the cabinet mounted on the wall behind him.

  It was made of plexiglass, which meant that I could see all of the phones inside of it, but I couldn’t have picked out a good one on a dare. The case was locked and there had to be at least a dozen choices, but they all looked the same, all flip phones with bulky antennas that belonged more in an action movie than in my purse, but I didn’t have a choice.

  I’d started down this path and now I needed to finish it.

  “A phone.” He was looking at me like he was trying to figure me out, and I halfway dared him to try. I’d love a little psychoanalysis right now about how crazy I’d become, even if was just from the corner bodega guy.

  “Yes. That one.” I pointed at the cabinet, making sure that I didn’t point at one in particular. I had no idea which phone I needed, just that I needed it to make calls. “Does it text?” I asked, suddenly wondering what I’d do if Nick decided to text Tasty Foods.

  The thought of getting his words delivered right to my pocket gave me a little thrill and I shivered, but then I had to remind myself that that wasn’t going to happen.

  He’d text the phone once, maybe twice, but then I’d shut him down and make sure that he never thought about Tasty Foods again. I just had to find a really good, really real, caterer to pull it all off.

  “Sure, it texts,” he said, with a shrug, then pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. There had to be two dozen identical keys on it, but he flipped quickly through them, grabbed one seemingly at random, and unlocked the case.

  The box he pulled out was bright orange and white, and he put it on the counter for me to look at while he locked back up. Carefully, like it was going to bite me, I grabbed it and turned it over, reading the back even though I didn’t know what to look for.

  “Look good?” He asked, slipping the keys back into his pocket. They jingled a little and were silent, and I gave a quick nod, scanning the list of features on the phone.

  Calling.

  Texting.

  That was basically it, but that was okay, because I didn’t need a smart phone that would allow me to run apps. Like Instagram for example.

  If I ended up setting up a Tasty Foods Instagram then I was simply too far gone down the hole.

  “It’s perfect,” I told him, and he grunted, turning and grabbed a card from the rack behind him. “It’s your service card,” he told me, and I nodded.

  Yes. My service card. I had no idea what I was doing or how to make the phone work, but I pretended like I was with him.

  He rang me up and I paid in cash — which was what I’d learned to do in Die Without Pain — then I slipped everything into my purse. I was spending money left and right to try to cover my tracks, and I promised myself that it was going to end.

  My goal was to move out of Tiffany’s place, and to do that I had to stop buying things to cover up my lies. For just a moment I struggled a little to get my purse zipped up, but I finally managed. The stitches around the zipper looked a little strained, and I gave my purse a quick pat.

  I’d had it for years and didn’t like the idea of it giving out on my anytime soon, but I couldn’t exactly walk back into work carrying the burner phone in my hand. Linda would have an absolute field day with that, I was sure.

  So much for shopping for Thursday’s decorations. I’d have to come back out later after I dropped off the phone in my office.

  “Is there anything else you need?” The man’s voice had changed just a little bit and I noticed how he glanced around the bodega. As far as I could tell, we were the only ones in the store, and he must have thought so too, or he wouldn’t have done what he did next.

  Bending down, he pulled a hidden tray out from under the counter and put it up for me to see. It was covered with shiny, colorful, blown glass pipes, all laid out in order from smallest to largest. The once closest to me was swirled with blue and bright yellow, and I had to stop myself from reaching out and running a finger over it.

  “Um,” I said, frowning and looking up at him. I had no idea why he thought that I’d be a smoker, but he just nodded and smiled.

  “You want the good stuff. Big dealer now, huh?” He asked, and pulled out a box. Before I could even register what he was saying and try to stop him, he pulled off the lid. An overpowering scent hit me straight in the face, and I didn’t have to look in the box to know what was in there.

  “You’re trying to sell me weed?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice as neutral as possible and not to sound like a little old lady who had just seen a murder. Although, to be fair to little old ladies, if I had on pearls, I’d clutch them so tight that they’d break in my hand.

  “You’re a dealer,” he said, like he thought that I was stupid and he was trying to convince me of the fact that I was needed drugs to sell now that I had a burner phone.

  “Not a dealer,” I said, backing up a step. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, I’m not a dealer, I don’t need drugs, I don’t even do drugs…”

  His face went from perfectly calm and all-knowing to a bit panicked, and he grabbed the box and the tray and slipped them quickly under the counter. “You need to go then,” he said, and I nodded.

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  “I won’t say anything,” I promised. “I didn’t see anything. I just…I was never here.” Giving a little flip with my wrist, I tried to show him how cool I was. I didn’t care that he’d just tried to sell me weed from under the counter. No biggie. It happened all the time.

  Even as I said it though, I realized that I sounded just like someone from the movie, but now I didn’t think that it was a fun comparison. My face flamed hot and red as he looked at me like I’d lost my mind, and even though the bodega floor was dirty, it wasn’t so sticky that I would feel completely stuck in place and unable to move.

  Which I did.

  A look of understanding dawned on his face. “You’re having an affair,” he said, then nodded to himself like that cleared everything up. “Good. You don’t tell on me, and I won’t tell on you. But when you get tired of your little affair, you just come back and let me take care of you, okay?”

  I made a little strangled noise in my throat and locked eyes with him. Suddenly, my feet felt magically unstuck, and I managed to turn away from the counter, trying not to break into a run.

  Was it better that he thought that I was a woman with questionable morals and not a drug dealer? Reaching the door, I grabbed for the
handle to push it open, but someone pulled the door at the exact same time, sending me flying through the door without anything to stop myself.

  I felt myself tipping forward and I flailed my hands, hoping that there would be something there. Nothing.

  Like falling from a tree when I was little, I grabbed out at the empty air, not lucky enough to grab anything that would save me. The sidewalk flew up at me and I closed my eyes, wishing more than anything that this wasn’t happening.

  But it was. It was happening, out on the corner of the street, in broad view of anyone and everyone who happened to be walking by. “Noooo!” I shouted, the word drawn out in my fear as I flew forward.

  My knees hit first, a jolting pain shooting up through my legs as I landed on the ground, and my first thought was disappointment that I ripped my new tights. There wasn’t any way that they could survive the fall.

  Then my hands hit and I felt searing pain shoot through my palms as I came in contact with the cold pavement. I rolled over on my side, squashing my purse under me, the corner of the box with my new phone digging painfully in between my ribs. It hadn’t looked very hard in the bodega, but now it felt like it was made from pure metal. As quickly as I had fallen, I came to a rest on my back, blinking up into the bright sky.

  “Oh, I am so sorry!” I couldn’t see who was talking, but their voice was not only kind, but a little panicked, which I appreciated.

  I wanted whoever had just tried to kill me to feel bad about it.

  Rationally, I knew that it wasn’t Nick’s voice, but for just a moment I had the wonderful thought that when I looked up, it was going to be him standing over me. He’d pick me up off the ground and realize that he really liked shorter redheads and then carry me back to the office.

  I’d lean my head against his hard, broad chest, lulled by the sound of his heart in my ear. Then he’d patch me up, using all of his best bedside manners.