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The thought makes my cock twitch in my pants and I cross over to my desk and sit down before my body can betray me. She watches me, her eyes narrowing like a cat.
“I’ll be going then,” she says. “I’ll see you in the morning, maybe?” she says, sounding hopeful.
“I’m sure you will,” I say, holding her eyes until she looks away and bites her lip. She turns to leave, but I call her back, grinning.
“Rose?”
“Yes?” Her look expectant.
“You still haven’t actually emptied the waste basket?”
She goes beet red this time and hurries over, mumbling apologies.
“Are you new?” I ask kindly, remembering that for a worker in her position, disgruntled clients can mean no pay check and no job.
She nods, emptying the basket into a bag clumsily. I get the impression being a maid wasn’t on her list of ambitions. I want to ask her why she’s doing it and find out more about her. Is she a student? A single mother? An aspiring actress trying to afford classes. Anything is possible in New York City.
“Yes…today is my first day. I’m still getting used to it. I’ll get better, I promise.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her.
She finishes up and hurries off, giving me another fine view of that ass as it wiggles out of my door. But already, she’s more than just a body…she intrigues me in a way no one ever has before.
I will be sure to be extra early to the office tomorrow.
Chapter Two
Rose
I curse myself as I strip out my awful uniform and kick off my flats, wrenching the net out of my hair and collapsing back onto my bed. Why did I ever agree to this?
Because otherwise you wouldn’t have a job, that’s why, I remind myself resentfully.
Resentful, because it’s all Adrian’s fault that I’m in this position. Adrian, the Senior Editor at the Witness, and my boss…and I’m on my last warning. If I don’t deliver an explosive expose on Sebastian Adams, digital tech genius and notoriously hard nut to crack, then I’m out on my ear and I really will be working as a maid for a living. Which might not be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that my first day has shown me that I’m really not very good at it. Adrian pulled strings with the agency manager to get me in at the last minute as a maid for Sebastian himself – and the other managers at his company – but in order to make it look believable I have to actually do the job. I’ve cleaned ten offices this morning and it isn’t even time for brunch. Now I have to get to the office and write this week’s gossip column. No doubt Adrian will be salivating to know if I have any leads yet.
What am I going to say? That he actually seems like a really nice guy.
And he’s stupidly hot. Like, sizzling.
I’ve seen his picture of course, in the Times and Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. And all the features in the rags about how he’s the most eligible bachelor. I thought I knew what to expect…but in the flesh, he is even more handsome. He’s built like a heavyweight boxer, his expensive suit doing nothing to hide that with the face of a male model, dark and brooding and sensual. I knew that, of course, but what I wasn’t prepared for was his aura. He oozes power from every pore. This is a man who is very, very sure of his status in the world. Who always gets what he wants.
If he hadn’t been so nice to me, I would hate him. The fact that he was so nice means this job is going to be a lot harder than I anticipated…both because I will feel really bad about lying to him, and also because if I can’t dig up any dirt then I don’t have a story.
Which brings me right back to not having a job. Damn Adrian.
I’m on a warning because the last reporting job he put me on went badly. Our sources were unreliable, but he insisted on pushing on anyway even though I said we should pull the piece. But when the shit hit the fan, guess who got the blame? Me.
All I’ve ever wanted to be is a reporter, an investigative journalist. More than a gossip column or fashion tips writer. At twenty-one, I’ve got plenty of time…but if Adrian fires me, I will never get a job in New York again. I will be back at the small-town paper I started in back in my hometown, covering the country fair.
I shower, trying to push images of Sebastian out of my mind as I run my hands over my body. Once I’m done, I blow dry my hair, pull on a pair of tight black ripped jeans and a white off the shoulder top and head out to the office, pleased at least to be looking more like myself again. That dress and hairnet were doing nothing for me.
