The Promotion_A Reverse Harem Romance

by Mika Lane

  Just because you’re no longer a fat kid, it didn’t mean you were a recovered fat kid.

  See, you never leave that shit behind. At least, I didn’t. No matter how fit I might look, I’d always be the chubby little asshole of my childhood.

  That left me in the friendzone with Maizy, whose ass I was trying not to stare at as I followed her to the elevator.

  “So, how’d your date go last weekend?” she asked, pressing Lobby.

  Shit. Why did I tell her about that?

  “About as you would expect it to.”

  She laughed. She loved my dating stories. I guess I loved the searing humiliation.

  “Okay, give me some deets,” she said.

  “Well, the woman was…shall we say…not as advertised.”

  “Oh. That sounds bad.”

  “She was very nice.” I hoped she’d let me leave it at that.

  “Okay. We know that’s a euphemism for something undesirable. You’re not going to tell me what, though?” We pushed through our building’s revolving door into the madhouse that was the typical New York sidewalk. We fell into the stream of people pouring in both directions and without any discussion between us, we knew where we were going. Same place we always had lunch. I thought of it as our place.

  Maizy didn’t know that, though. There was a lot she didn’t know.

  “Yeah. Okay. She went on and on about how her friends were all having babies,” I said.

  “Ohhhhh. One of those. I don’t know why women don’t just keep thoughts like those to themselves. They send guys running in the opposite direction. It’s really not that hard to figure out.”

  We walked into our lunch place, a little diner owned by a Greek family, where they served the best comfort food you could imagine.

  But to be honest, any place Maizy wanted to have lunch would be okay with me.

  “You getting the regular?” she asked, looking through the menu.

  As if either of us would ever deviate from the same thing we ordered every time we came. A BLT for me, and a cobb salad for her.

  “So are you gonna call her again?”

  Note to self: do not share date information with Maizy ever again. Too much mortification for one day.

  She studied me. Thank god, she couldn’t read my mind. She’d know that what I really wanted to do besides eat a BLT was pull up her skirt and—

  Stop it, asshole.

  “Nah,” I said.

  She leaned toward me on her elbows. “Well, I don’t blame you. Manhattan is full of great women, and you have your pick of the lot.”

  Yeah, right.

  “On a positive note…” I said.

  Her face brightened.

  “It looks like I’m getting promoted to partner. Senior partner.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and then she shrieked.

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!”

  She had tears in her eyes. She was always on my side. Another reason I loved her.

  I meant like. Another reason I liked her.

  “You work so hard. You totally deserve it, Cato. We’re going out for drinks to celebrate!”

  That’s what I liked to hear.

  Except that we went out for drinks all the time. And that’s all it was. Drinks.

  “I’m so proud of you, Cato. You are really tearing it up at the firm.” She leaned toward me. “Wouldn’t it be great if someday you and I could work together? We could really run the place, couldn’t we? We’d be so amazing. Although they say you shouldn’t work with friends.” She pursed her lips and gave me an oh, well look.

  “Any word on your review? Eva given you any hints?”

  “Ugh. She’s so awful. I guess I haven’t told you. She let me know that until I have a guy, like a fiancé or preferably a husband, that my opportunities at the firm will be, shall we say—limited.”

  “Holy shit, she can’t say that.” I hated that Maizy worked for such a bitch. The woman wasn’t nice to anyone unless she wanted something, but she really rode Maizy.

  “Yeah. At the party, she said that.”

  “She told you that at the firm party? Is that why you left so abruptly?” I asked.

  Maizy shrugged while stabbing some lettuce with her fork. “Yeah. I was kind of freaked out. She basically said the wives didn’t like their husbands working with a single woman. Like I was trying to seduce them all. They wish.”

  “Whoa. Sexism alive and well. A single professional woman is not to be trusted unless she’s on the arm of a man. Holy shit. So what are you going to do?” I waved over the server for our check. I always paid because I made more money. Although I would have paid even if I didn’t.

  “Well, I guess Eva took pity on me because she invited me to a party at her house—”

  “Wait. You went to Eva’s house?” I couldn’t even imagine that Eva had a house. She seemed like she flew around on a broom that never landed.

  “I did. Isn’t that weird? She invited me to introduce me to her brother-in-law.”

  Oh. Shit. Not good. I hoped he was a dick.

  “He was pretty nice. Good-looking. Fun.”

  So much for that.

  “But I don’t think I could date a relative of my boss’s. It’s just weird.” She shrugged. “I guess it was nice of her to try and fix me up, though.”

  Yeah, real nice.

  We headed back to the office.

  “So…I called a matchmaking agency.”

  Twist the knife a little, why don’t you?

  My heart sank back to where it usually was. “Really? What was it like?” I asked. Horrible, I hoped.

  “I don’t know just yet. I had to fill out this super-long online form. They asked just about anything you could think of. It was kind of weird. Supposedly, they’ll start sending me guys to consider this afternoon.” She turned to me as we entered the elevator. “Hey, maybe you can help me sort through them, if you have time.”

  Yeah, maybe I can pour acid in my eyeballs while I was at it.

  “I only have thirty days until my review. Well, twenty-eight at this point, if you want to be exact,” she said.

  “You’ve got to get a guy lined up before your review? Are you kidding?”

  “Not kidding. But I think I can do it. There are plenty of nice people out there. I just have to make an effort. I need to put myself out there. It’s not like they’re just sitting under my nose, waiting.”

  Shit, she needed new glasses if she couldn’t see what was right under her nose.

  Chapter 7

  Maizy

  Back at my desk after a nice lunch with Cato, I opened my email to see if anything had come in from the matchmakers.

  Nothing. Yet.

  Nothing besides about twenty emails from Eva, no doubt ragging on me for being a less than perfect human being, employee, citizen of the Earth—you name it, and she’d find fault.

  Thinking back to lunch, I had to admit I was a little thrown off by Cato’s promotion. And now I felt like a shit. I mean, he was my friend. I should have been thrilled for him.

  God, I was a bitch.

  I knew he worked his ass off. All the senior partners loved him. Rumor had it they even fought over who got to work with him.

  So I should not be stung that he got promoted. For god’s sake, he deserved it. I was happy for him, I was. But for some reason, it made me feel even worse about my own situation being stuck with a bitchy boss who thought I could do nothing right.

  There was no doubt in my mind one of the reasons she thought I was such a lowlife was that I hadn’t gone to an elite college. She was one of the many snobs at the firm, and let’s face it, in the whole of New York City, who thought that unless you went to the best schools—the Ivies and a few others they deigned to acknowledge—you were a total dolt. Never mind that you could be smart as a whip or the hardest worker they’d ever seen. In her eyes, you were always less than.

  But that was okay. I’d show her. Somehow, some way.

  I was the first in my fam
ily to even go to college, much less graduate. My parents hadn’t been what you would call the supportive types. They were just normal, middle-class people, working hard to pay the mortgage on our modest little house and to put food on the table for Sparkle and me. I never thought I’d done that badly. Until I moved to New York, that is.

  I hadn’t realized until then what real advantages were. Like parents who helped their kids with their homework. Hell, my parents never even asked about my schoolwork, much less got involved with it. Parents who sent their kids to educational summer camps. My family hadn’t even known such things existed. And parents who encouraged after-school activities. I had to come right home and babysit Sparkle.

  So in the end, I’d found myself at the mediocre local college. Considering where I’d started, I felt like I’d come a long way. But in the snobbery of New York, even that wasn’t enough.

  My phone pinged with the alert I’d set up for emails. Then it pinged again. Several more times.

  I was getting emails from the matchmaker!

  And lots of them!

  I knew there were plenty of guys out there and that it was just a matter of getting in front of them.

  I opened the first email from the agency. It included photos and a write-up on someone named Al.

  Hmmm. Al looked like he was about sixty years old, even though his bio claimed he was thirty-one.

  And it got worse. Al, catch that he was, went on to describe himself as someone who believed he should be the boss of the household…

  I clicked the no checkbox and moved on.

  The next guy looked better. In his photo, he was good-looking, wore a suit, and appeared to be about thirty-something.

  Holy shit. He’d already been married and divorced three times. How do you even do that when you’re only in your thirties? I had to give him credit for trying, though. He was definitely a marrying man. Pass.

  It finally dawned on me why Cato acted a little weird when I asked him about his dates. The strange world of dating in the internet age was just a shit show.

  I rang my sister.

  “Spark, I don’t know about the guys from the matchmaker. They don’t look so good.”

  “Oh, c’mon. You’re just being picky. There’s probably a good one or two in there. You just gotta look,” she said. “You know, Maiz, something looks off with Cher—”

  “Oh, shit, here comes Eva.” I hung up the phone in Sparkle’s ear. She could tell me about her rat later.

  “Maizy,” Eva called, as if I weren’t sitting five feet away from her.

  “Hi, Eva. How’s your day going?” Like I really wanted to know.

  “It’s going well. It could be better, though.”

  Here it comes.

  “How could it be better, Eva?” I braced myself.

  “Well, if you’d finished up that work I needed you to do for Braden Darby, my day would have been great.”

  What power I had, to ruin someone’s day. Like I was god or something.

  “Eva, I thought you needed my brief tomorrow.” I could have sworn I had one more day.

  “You know, Maizy, it wouldn’t kill you to get something done early.”

  God, I wanted to kill her and be done with her passive-aggressive bullshit.

  “If you’d like it today, I can finish it up for you right now.” The damn thing was inches away from being complete. Why hadn’t she told me she needed it sooner?

  “Thank you. That would be good.” She turned on her expensive designer heels and slithered back to her office.

  I sighed deeply and rolled my eyes, just as she popped her head back in my cube.

  Busted.

  “I was wondering if you’d heard from my brother-in-law Anson?” she asked.

  Ugh. I should have known that was coming.

  “You know, Eva, he’s super nice. But I don’t know about dating one of your relatives. It seems so awkward.”

  “Well. Suit yourself. You know, it’s not every day a guy like him comes along. Especially for a girl like you.”

  Oh, no, she did not.

  She must have figured out from the look on my face that she’d stuck her big foot in her big mouth.

  “Um. Excuse me?” I gripped the edge of my desk so she couldn’t see my hands shaking.

  “Oh, um, I meant that, you know, it can be hard for a woman your age to meet a nice guy. I mean, don’t they say the chances of being struck by lightning are greater than meeting a single man—”

  “I’m only twenty-eight, Eva.”

  “Right. Hey, I think I hear my phone ringing.” She disappeared.

  Jesus Christ.

  Funny, though, that she’d asked me about Anson—he’d texted me only the day before.

  Just like Brade.

  I hadn’t had time to get back to either of them. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to, anyway.

  I mean, date my boss’s brother-in-law? Or a giant rock star?

  They both sounded like accidents waiting to happen.

  Just then, an IM from Cato popped up on my computer.

  when we going for that drink?

  anytime. tonight?

  perfect.

  Maybe I could discuss my dating dilemma with him.

  Although…maybe I should keep that to myself.

  Cato…Cato…Cato…

  To be honest, Cato was handsome as hell. Tall, fit, dark hair and eyes.

  He’d confided in me before that he used to be chubby. Or was it fat? He’d even showed me an old photo.

  Never would have known it was the same guy. Chubby kid, glasses, acne.

  Time and adulthood had been good to Cato, no doubt about it. Solid as a rock, nice slim waist, broad chest.

  Not that I’d ever seen him in anything other than his work clothes.

  But still.

  Nah, he wouldn’t be interested in me. He liked those young, skinny, model-types. Although, he never seemed to date any of them for very long.

  I’d even wondered if he was gay. You never know.

  Oh, what the hell was I thinking? I couldn’t date Cato, a guy from work, just like I couldn’t date my boss’s brother-in-law or some musician.

  I turned back to my matchmaker emails.

  I like money, fast cars, and women.

  You’ll love my gun collection!

  I’m here to meet one lucky lady.

  Looking for someone who already has herpes.

  God. Help. Me.

  From under what rock did these cretins crawl?

  I closed the matchmaking application and deleted every last email I’d gotten from them. I might not have had a ton of prospects, but I wasn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel, either. Money, guns, luck, and herpes were not anything I was interested in, thankyouverymuch.

  I was done. Playing it safe could go to hell. Anson, Brade, and Cato—even though he didn’t yet know it—were getting another look. They really were nice guys, and they seemed to like me okay.

  I wasn’t going to remain a middling paralegal for the rest of my days. No, now was the time to prove that I was a great benefit to the firm. I had a lot to offer, and they were going to start seeing it.

  I wanted a damn promotion and of all things to hold me back, the lack of a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband was not going to be one of them.

  My first step was to dial the matchmaking firm to tell them I wanted my goddamn thousand dollars back.

  Chapter 8

  Von

  My last patient of the day was a rat. Named Cher. Yup, a male rate named Cher.

  It was fun to treat a rat. I know that might sound strange, but my vet practice pretty much consisted of seeing dogs and cats all day. Anything other than that was a welcome change. I was always happy to see the odd snake, parakeet, or rodent. I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of them to kind of mix things up, in fact.

  “Hello, ladies,” I said to the two attractive women who’d brought in the rat. They had to be sisters since they shared some similarities, but they sure w
ere different from each other.

  One, whose name was Sparkle—whose name is Sparkle, anyway?—was a hippy dippy chick with ruffled bell bottoms and braids piled on top of her head. The other one, Maizy, looked like she’d just come from an office uptown with her professional-woman clothes and big, horn-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m Doctor Varten. What’s going on with your little Cher?” My own dog—one of several— who had run of the place, was sniffing at the canvas bag holding the rat.

  “Well…” Sparkle started to speak but her voice wavered and a big tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t know, Doctor, but he’s not eating much, and his eye seems runny.”

  Sparkle’s sister put her arm around her and patted her shoulder.

  “It’s just that,” Sparkle huffed, “I really believe he’s my spirit animal. I have such an attachment to him. We meditate together.”

  Okayyy…

  I looked at Maizy, who rolled her eyes.

  All right. I got it.

  One of them was a nut. The other was…well, I wasn’t sure yet.

  I mean, I felt for Sparkle, I really did. No one knew better than I did what it meant to love an animal. And what it meant to lose an animal. Hell, I became a vet because when I was growing up, we couldn’t afford one. If one of our pets got sick, Dad would take them “out to the country.” I was so determined to learn how to take care of animals, I’d gotten myself a part-time job at the local vet when I was just fifteen and stayed there until I finished college.

  But meditating with a pet rat? I couldn’t say I’d heard that one before. But if there’s one thing you learn as a vet, it’s that people have all sorts of relationships with their animals. And some of them were pretty out there.

  “Well, let’s take a look at Cher,” I said, removing him from the small bag he was in. I picked up the little fella and realized Sparkle had been right. He was looking skinny, had runny eyes, and was barely moving.

  “Can you help him, Doctor?” she wailed. Maizy hugged her tighter, and the dog tried desperately to lick him.