But I held her gaze. Maddy was right. Jane had crossed a line—again—and things weren’t going to get any better until I stood my ground.
“Fine,” she said. I hated that word, especially coming from her mouth. “I’m not your girlfriend. Whatever. I’m just the girl you fuck at your desk when you’re having a bad day, I guess.”
“You drugged my coffee and handcuffed me to the chair!” I shouted indignantly. Sure, I’d hired her because I wanted to get into her skirt, but the way it happened wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“I didn’t hear you complaining,” she replied, the anger evident as she turned away.
She was right, I hadn’t complained at the time. Hell, I’d liked it. Jane was nuts, but she breathed a little excitement into my life. Trouble is, she didn’t understand boundaries and her ever-escalating sexual escapades had started to become even more dangerous. Sooner or later, our little office romance was going to bite me in the ass. I was trying to put an end to it for good reasons.
She walked back into the kitchen, grabbed her purse off the back of one of the kitchen island chairs, and came storming back down the hall toward me. The sounds her heels made on the tiled floor were like bones snapping. They gave me the shivers.
She swept past me and toward the foyer, but not before calling over her shoulder, “I guess you’re only worried about being inappropriate when there’s other people around, because when we’re alone, stuffing your dick in my mouth is totally fine!”
“Not when I catch you hiding under my desk right before a regional board meeting!”
“You could have stopped me,” Jane said.
“I am stopping you Jane, we’re not doing this again. This is over. This has been over for weeks and the sooner you get that through your head, the better. I don’t want you in my house, I don’t want you in my bed, and I don’t want you in my fucking office. We’re done Jane. Don’t bother coming to work tomorrow, I’ll mail you a severance package.”
Maddy’s words were echoing in my head as I put the nail in this relationship. She was right, if I was going to end this I couldn’t leave a shred of hope… even if it hurt.
“You’re not going to fuck me, and now you’re firing me? We’ll see about that,” Jane said coldly, slamming the door behind her and ending any chance at getting the last word on the matter. The sonic boom she left behind mingled with her words as they echoed through my house.
I sighed, rubbing my face with my hands. “She’s insane,” I mumbled, trying to make my dick forget about the warmth of her hands, the gentle press of her chest against mine. “She’s utterly fucking insane.”
“You’re telling me,” Carla said, and I looked up to see her standing in the archway to the kitchen down the hall. “If I’d known what I was getting into, I would have never opened the door.”
“Sorry, Carla,” I said. “I had no idea. It won’t happen again.”
She eyed me harshly. “She’s really not your girlfriend?”
“No,” I answered with a rueful laugh. “Dear God, no.”
She nodded slowly. “Hm. Better figure out some way to let her know that. She don’t seem to listen so good.”
“Thanks, Carla,” I said, listening as her footfalls took her back to the stove.
I took a detour into the living room, grabbed a bottle of vermouth from behind the bar, and made myself a martini, but all the alcohol in the world couldn’t drown the sick feeling Jane had left me with that evening. Things were getting worse between us. She was pushing even harder for us to legitimize things, and in a way that reminded me of Fatal Attraction, or for that matter, Misery.
I shuddered at the thought and took another swig. As good as that veal Marsala had smelled on my way in, my stomach turned now at knowing that Jane had had a hand in it.
It was time for Jane to go. I needed Madison to take me up on my offer, and I needed her to do it soon.
I thought all weekend about Preston’s offer. Frankly, it seemed too good to be true, but who was I to judge? I had an unhealthy view on all things family-oriented, to the point where a simple kindness might seem like a set up to me. I knew I needed to be more trusting about this, especially given the direness of my situation, and in the end, I caved.
Saturday afternoon, I sent Preston a text. I used the number he’d left me on the card, though I didn’t know if that phone was for business or personal use. He didn’t respond right away, and maybe he wouldn’t until Monday morning. Still, he’d told me to show up when I was ready, and I believed in making a good first impression, even for my stepbrother.
I spent the rest of that day sorting through my wardrobe. Preston’s office was unlikely to be anything like ExecuSpace, and I knew I’d have to exhibit a certain amount of decorum. I couldn’t use the check to afford new clothes—not until Monday, anyway—so I chose the only dress I had that could be considered anything close to “high fashion” and paired it with some nude heels I hadn’t worn since I’d got them.
I would have preferred not to wear heels at all. They weren’t my thing. They made my feet hurt, my knees ache, and I’d read all the studies warning me about the long-term damage I was inflicting upon myself by wearing them. Unfortunately, the men who ran these kinds of companies hadn’t gotten the memo—or otherwise didn’t care—which meant that heels were still considered “professional attire” for women, and that meant I had to either put up with them or settle for an equally-unsupportive pair of flats.
In the end, I chose the heels. Flats might have saved my calves, sure, but I could never find a pair that fit right. I’d spend the whole day feeling the backs of them scraping off the skin from my ankles and heels, and I’d come home either bleeding or blistered. Until I got a feel for what Preston would and wouldn’t allow, heels it was.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was too nervous, too excited, too terrified to doze off. I kept wondering what Preston the boss, rather than Preston the brother, would be like. I wondered if I wasn’t in over my head. Maybe personal assistants to men like him did a lot more than what I’d learned in my ten years of experience working in the field. I didn’t want to screw up and find myself out on my ass yet again for the second time in less than a week.
Preston didn’t strike me as the type, though. Despite everything I’d ever thought about family, he treated me with respect and kindness, if our outing on Friday was any indication. He seemed genuinely to like my company, which hopefully meant that we’d get along. I just hoped he wasn’t expecting perfection and that he would help me correct my mistakes instead of jumping down my throat about them.
Calm down, I told myself when midnight rolled around. Not everyone in the world is your mother, or Tyler, or Miguel, for that matter.
It was still nerve-wracking, though, and when my alarm went off at six a.m., I’d barely slept a wink.
“What a great way to start my first day,” I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as the first amber rays of sunlight tickled my face through the blinds. I needed a hot shower and an even hotter cup of coffee if I was going to be able to count this day as salvageable.
I’d made plans for what bus would take me to Preston’s office and when, but when I hurried downstairs, I found a car waiting for me. This one looked more like what I would have expected from the Harveys: a black town car with a white-gloved driver standing outside, looking up at me and shielding his eyes from the sun.
“Miss Hearst?” he asked me.