by Julie Kriss
“What are we doing, Noah?” I asked as all the familiar buildings slid by outside the window, all the familiar streets. “Why are we going back to the old place now?”
Noah scratched his chin, but finally he answered. “Because the entire building is for sale,” he said. “And we’re going to buy it.”
Three hours later, I let myself into Samantha’s hotel room. I was tired and drained in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. The trip down Memory Lane had been good, bad, and everything in between.
Noah was right: our old place was for sale. Not just the apartment we’d rented, but the whole building. It was in even worse shape than it had been in when we left; it needed updates, upgrades, and renovations. Probably several million dollars’ worth. The real estate itself was going for next to nothing, but that didn’t mean the place was cheap.
The cost didn’t matter. If the building wasn’t bought, it was going to be condemned. Noah wanted us to buy it, renovate it, put the Tower VC Chicago offices on the top floor, and rent the rest out.
It was a nice idea. It was also an idea that would lose money—lots of money. Which was the opposite of what a venture capital firm is supposed to do.
We’d debated it for over an hour, sitting in a diner long after the real estate agent had left. Noah said the money didn’t matter. That was typical Noah, who liked to roll the dice and hope for the best. The problem was that the rest of us liked money—a lot. We’d worked fucking hard to earn what we had, and Tower VC was built on Dane’s genius, Alex’s muscle, and my sales and finance acumen. It was easy for Noah to dismiss money when it was the rest of us who had made him rich without his parents.
And at the same time, he was right. Tower had a healthy bank account and access to almost unlimited loans. This one project, as expensive as it was, wouldn’t sink us. And if we didn’t buy the building, it would be gone. A piece of our past, reduced to rubble.
“We can’t let that happen,” Noah said. “Fuck the money. Let’s save it.”
Alex had crossed his arms. “I didn’t get into business to lose money on a bunch of sentimental shit. You want a keepsake, go buy an old record or something. I’m out.”
Dane voted for the project. He was a Chicago boy to the bone, and he didn’t want to see a piece of Chicago condemned.
I voted against it.
We were at an impasse.
Samantha’s room was dim and quiet. Nothing had been moved or rearranged, so she hadn’t been out of bed. There were no room service dishes, so she hadn’t eaten, either.
I walked softly to the bedroom. My assistant was still in bed, sound asleep, but she’d been tossing and turning. The covers were pulled out and twisted, and one long leg lay across the top of the coverlet, sleek and almost unbearably sexy. Her shirt was twisted up, exposing her smooth hip beneath the cotton of her panties. Her hair was tangled in the pillows, her face slack. The migraine had obviously receded, and now she was sleeping it off.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to slide my hand up her bare leg, over the perfect curve of her ass. I wanted to wake her up with my cock pressed against her, my mouth on her nipples. I wanted to do every fucking dirty thing to her, and then do it all again. And again.
Samantha was my assistant. My employee. My just being here was completely wrong, crossed every line. For God’s sake, I was in her bedroom, watching her sleep. Fantasizing about fucking her. On a business trip.
Somehow we’d gone from professional colleagues to something very, very dangerous. Something neither of us should want any part of.
And still I wanted to get into that bed with her. I ached to do it.
I took a step back. I was bigger than this, smarter than this. I was a man who managed his sex life with ruthless precision, who had his desires under cold control. I could stay out of my assistant’s bed and treat her with respect instead of fucking her senseless. Everything about this was wrong.
That was the reason I liked it. But what I wanted didn’t matter. Get a grip, Winters.
I left the bedroom and put her key card on the table next to the door. I slipped out of her room, closing the door silently behind me, and walked down the hall to my own room.
I walked to the minibar, poured myself a slug of Scotch, and downed it. In my pocket, my phone vibrated silently—a message. I had my ringer off. It was my private number, the one that very few people were in possession of. I pulled out my phone and checked who had called.
It was the hospital where my mother was currently a patient. Because after years of not caring for Ava and me, my mother was losing her mind, irrevocably, piece by piece. And putting her in the hospital was the only thing I could do.
She’d been a single mother to me and Ava when we were growing up. Our father had hit her—Ava and I were too young to remember—so she’d left him. She’d worked long hours at a factory and left us alone much of the time. Not her fault, but even when she was home, we were treated like an annoyance. Be quiet. Go to your room. Go play. Go to bed. I don’t have time. When I was ten, I’d heard her tell the woman next door that she wished she’d never had kids. Some women just aren’t made to be mothers, she’d said. That’s me.
At fifteen, I’d packed a bag and moved in with my friends. My mother had never told me to come home.
It wasn’t exactly a loving upbringing, but I’d survived. It was harder for Ava. Ava was the one who needed affection, who craved it. Who just wanted someone to love her. That person wasn’t going to be our mother. We could wish things were different, but it was never going to happen. As adults, there wasn’t much my sister and I could do about it except get therapy—in her case—and soldier on.
And then, a few years ago, our mother had been fired from her job for absent-mindedness. She got pulled over and her driver’s license had lapsed because she’d forgotten to renew it. When the traffic cop asked her questions, she looked at him in confusion because she thought he was her cousin Garrett.
She was young, the doctors said, for that kind of deterioration. But it wasn’t unheard-of, and there was no treatment. Maybe someday there would be, but not now.
So now, at thirty-four, I paid for the care of the woman who had barely acknowledged me for twenty years. I visited her when I could. Sometimes she remembered she had a son, and sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes I thought she only pretended not to remember.
I’d called the hospital earlier to arrange a visit before I left Chicago. Now I checked the message they’d left. Mr. Winters, we’re very sorry, but today is not a good day to visit your mother. She has said that she doesn’t want to see you.
“Fuck you,” I said to no one in particular. Not my mother, who couldn’t help who she was and the sickness that was taking her. Not my partners. Not Samantha. Maybe I was saying it to God. Or to myself.
I hung up the phone. I could drink; I could spend the evening jerking myself raw, thinking of Samantha in the room a few doors down. I could get pissed and feel sorry for myself. But I had a better idea.
I pulled out my suitcase and started to pack. It was time to go back to New York.
Seventeen
Samantha
* * *
As the plane approached LaGuardia, I closed my laptop and put it away. I ignored the empty seat beside me, where my boss was supposed to be sitting.
It was Thursday. Aidan had left Chicago sometime while I slept on Tuesday, leaving me a simple text: Gone back to New York. Hope you feel better. I’ll be in touch. Enjoy your day off. A.
Of course, the first thing I wondered was whether his change of plans had something to do with me. Was he upset that I got sick on the day of the partners’ meeting? Then I realized that was egotistical and ridiculous. Aidan was a powerful man who could, and did, do anything he wanted. None of his decisions revolved around me.
We had corresponded since by text and email, and everything seemed fine. I had taken his advice and enjoyed my day off yesterday, spending the day with my parents in their small suburban bungalow, wat
ching golf and talking gardening with my dad, going shopping with my mom. They had cooked me a big dinner—Dad fired up the barbecue—and fed me to bursting. All in all, it had been a great day.
Aidan had said he would take the day off, too, to visit family. But he’d gone back to New York instead. I wondered why—but that was none of my business.
As the plane taxied toward the terminal, I pulled my wrap around me and tried to push down the flutter of unease in my stomach. My migraine was long gone now, but there was no doubt it had been a weird moment between Aidan and me. I remembered the way it had felt when he put his arms around me—the texture of his fine wool suit against my thin T-shirt, the warmth of his body underneath. I remembered how he had smelled, the line of his clean-shaven jaw. I’d never been that close to him before. In the moment, I’d been afraid of throwing up, but thinking back on it, I could remember the details now that I wasn’t under a fog of pain and humiliation.
He’d put me in bed. He’d rubbed my neck. I’d put my hand on his wrist.
And he’d come back to my room sometime when I was sleeping and left his copy of my key on the table.
All of it made things awkward now, to say the least. How were we supposed to work face-to-face?
Maybe we would just move on, ignore what had happened. That was probably best. We were boss and employee. The neck massage while I was wearing nothing but panties and a T-shirt could fade into the past where it would hopefully be forgotten.
I winced to myself, standing up to grab my bag from the overhead. There was no way I was forgetting that, even if Aidan did. I’d remember the feel of his fingers massaging my neck forever. Talk about embarrassing.
You’re a professional, Samantha. Act like one.
I could. I would.
And if I wanted my boss’s hands all over me, rubbing more than just my neck, then I’d just have to suffer.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about how Aidan and I would work together. Because he was avoiding me.
He had back-to-back meetings out of the office the first day I was back. Then he flew to Atlanta for a meeting. Everything was done by email and text, the messages concise and impersonal. Polite. He flew to Denver for another meeting. A week in, I got the idea. We were going to pretend that Chicago never happened, and we were going to do it by never being in the same room again.
It was exactly like the time after the meeting with the Egerton brothers. Obviously the Man in Black had some hang-ups when it came to talking to his assistant directly. Okay, last time I’d avoided him a little bit, too. And maybe I had been letting it slide for a week because it was easier. But it still made me angry. I hadn’t done anything wrong in Chicago, and neither had he. We hadn’t done anything together. Nothing at all.
Absolutely nothing, when I wanted to do so much.
Another week passed, and I didn’t see my boss. He took meetings in New Jersey and Washington, and when he was in Manhattan he came in to the office at some ungodly hour and left before I got in. Then—I realized when I saw the timestamps on his emails—he’d come in again after I left for the day, and he worked into the evening. All so that he wouldn’t have to be in the same room with me.
It was ridiculous. It didn’t matter that the work of Tower VC got done just as efficiently as it ever had; it was still stupid. It had to stop.
So one Friday night, I left work at six. I pretended I was going home, but instead I went down the street to the bookstore and browsed for an hour, picking out a novel to read and buying it. Then I walked back to the Tower VC offices and let myself in.
The office was dark and empty except for a beam of light coming from Aidan’s office. His door was ajar and his desk lamp was on. I crossed the open office space and stood in his doorway.
Aidan was sitting at his desk, his laptop open in front of him. He was wearing his customary black, though his jacket was flung over a chair, his tie was loosened, and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. He heard me coming, and his dark gaze fixed on me.
There was a second of vertigo as I looked at him. He looked good, but he wasn’t as put together as usual. His hair was mussed slightly, and there was a shadow of beard on his jaw, as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days. The cuffs of his sleeves were roughly rolled up. The effect was so hot it made my knees weak. I did my best not to let on.
“Good evening,” I said to him.
What was Aidan’s expression as he looked at me? Anger? Annoyance? Something else? He wasn’t happy to see me, and he didn’t pretend otherwise. “Samantha, what are you doing here?” he asked bluntly. “It’s seven o’clock on Friday night.”
I crossed my arms. I was still wearing my trench coat, my purse and the bookstore bag slung over my shoulder. “It seems this is the only time I can get a meeting with my boss.”
He scowled. “If you needed a meeting with me, you should have scheduled one.”
“Would you have come?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Come on, Aidan. Ever since Chicago, we’ve been acting like two divorced parents who have to trade off the kids every weekend.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Nothing happened in Chicago.”
There was a second of silence, heavy and thick. I pictured his hand on the back of my neck, his fingers moving over my skin. I knew he was picturing the same thing.
“I agree,” I said. “Nothing happened in Chicago.”
His voice was harsh. “Then why are you angry with me?”
“Because I haven’t seen you in two weeks.”
“We’re not married, the last I checked.”
God, he was being an ass. I rolled my eyes. “I’m aware of that, and I thank God for it, believe me.”
Aidan pushed his chair back, laced his hands together over his stomach. Those hands. His strong wrists. My gaze dropped to them, and I pulled it away by force, made myself look at his face again. That was no better, because now I was looking at his cheekbones, the line of his mouth. The stubble on his jaw. Wondering what it would feel like on my skin.
“I don’t see a problem,” Aidan said. His voice was icy cold. I’d heard him use that voice in meetings when he was particularly annoyed. Most of his employees shook with fear when he used that voice.
“Then you’re blind,” I said. Never, in my entire career as an executive assistant, had I ever spoken to a CEO like this. It had never even crossed my mind. Yet with Aidan, the words came out. “If you don’t want me to work for you anymore, just say so. It can be a mutual agreement.”
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I want you to work for me?” Now he sounded angry. “When the fuck have I ever said anything of the kind?”
“Does this kind of thing work on your other employees?” I asked him. “Acting one way, then pretending the other person is crazy? Well, you can play your game if you like, but you’ll be playing it alone. If you can’t acknowledge a problem, then I’ll do it myself. And I quit.”
I turned away from the door, lightheaded. I hadn’t intended to quit. It wasn’t my plan. But there was no way I could work for a man who couldn’t be in the same room with me. I couldn’t even blame him entirely—it was hard for me to be in the same room with him, too. I wanted him so badly, and I couldn’t have him.
I started across the dark open office space, trying not to wobble as I walked. Behind me, I heard Aidan’s chair move, his laptop snap shut. The lamp went off and his door closed. His legs were longer than mine, his stride faster, and in seconds he had caught up with me. “Samantha. What the fuck?”
Normally, Aidan didn’t swear when he spoke to me. Now he couldn’t seem to stop. “I was clear, I think,” I said. I kept walking.
His hand touched my elbow. It wasn’t rough—it wasn’t even a grab—but my body stopped as surely as if he’d spun me around. That was how much control he had over me without trying. When I looked up at him, his dark eyes were blazing.
“You are not fucking quitting,” he said.
“Yo
u have no say in it,” I told him.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.” I turned again, moving harshly, even though he wasn’t holding me. Because it felt like he was.
As I moved, my bookstore bag fell to the floor, the book I’d bought spilling out. Before I could stop him, Aidan had stooped and picked it up. He looked at the title, at the back, and I felt my cheeks get hot. I’d bought an erotic romance, this one particularly dark. The title was One Night with the Devil, and the cover featured a photograph of a woman’s elegant hands, bound at the wrists with a thick red silk ribbon.
Aidan turned the book over, looking at the back. I knew he was seeing the words taken and possessed and unimaginable pleasure. I knew he was seeing the words in bold: I barely knew him, yet I couldn’t resist his command. The author’s name was Melina Cherry.
I stood there with my hands clenched, refusing to feel ashamed. I was a grown woman, and I could read whatever I wanted. “Give that back,” I said.
He handed it to me. He didn’t scoff or laugh; he didn’t even have a derisive look in his eye. Instead, he looked at me with the same intensity he had before. “Is that how you get off?” he asked. “With books?”
That was tonight’s plan. I was pent up and wanted an orgasm, but that was none of his business. “Would you rather I do it with strange men?” I snapped, shoving the book back in the bag. “Would that be more acceptable to you?”
He looked furious, and for a second my breath stopped. “It isn’t acceptable to me at all.”
I made my voice work. “Well, that’s too bad. Once again, you don’t get a say.”
“I know I don’t.” Aidan stepped forward, closer to me. I didn’t step back. I could smell him, that deep, masculine scent, and this close I could see the stubble on his jaw. I clenched my hands again so I wouldn’t touch it. “Do you know why I’ve been avoiding you?” he asked me, his voice low with anger.
“In fact, I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?”
