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“Fair enough. Just keep your players in line, and they will be fine. Besides, I like the team we have this year, and unless provoked, I don’t intend on changing it.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re the only one who gets to do the provoking around here without suffering any consequences,” she chides.
“Is that supposed to be a dig at me, Lee?”
“I don’t know, Nichols. Is it?”
The mouth on her will get her in trouble one day. The woman has no filter.
Oh, she tries. Impeccably so.
With everyone else, she’s the very embodiment of eloquence, class, and propriety.
A sophisticated mask she likes to pull out of her handbag, believing it will send out the message that she’s beyond reproach.
I don’t know what it says about me that I’m actually flattered that I bring out the worst in her. That with me, she’s unbothered to show the cracks under her cool facade, preferring to burn me with her scathing tongue and tempestuous wit.
A wit that I’d find utterly charming if she weren’t so goddamn young.
“If there isn’t anything else you need from me,” I announce flatly before diverting my gaze off her to my computer screen, my not-so-subtle way of telling her we’re done here.
I don’t have to look at her to feel her eyes on me, those clear-blue orbs digging holes into my head. I pretend to be enthralled with whatever spreadsheet I have on my screen, but in reality, I’m doing everything in my power not to take a deep breath in the hopes I’ll catch a whiff of her magnolia perfume.
“Nichols,” she finally says, turning on her heel to strut out of my office, but not before she does that little flip of her ponytail to demonstrate she’s not one bit bothered by my indifference to her presence.
Little does Miss-Know-It-All realize that her presence affects me in a very primal way.
Sometimes, I’d like nothing more than to string her neck for being so openly defiant of me while simultaneously having the urge to shut her up by kissing her stupid. Sometimes the urge runs further south, my cock having more delectable ideas of keeping her mouth too busy to talk back to me.
Knowing that the urge even exists makes me keep my distance from her.
Last night was the first time that I gave in to it. A mistake that I’m still chastising myself over.
But, like in most things, Piper was right and had me pegged.
I was bored.
Bored from the endless drivel I had to put up with all evening.
I love my job.
Fucking love everything about it.
Except for when I have to attend some lame-ass party for PR purposes.
Especially in the off-season.
That’s when I’m expected to spend most of my summer nights mingling with frivolous socialites and other snobbish dimwits who wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it bit them on the ass.
I try to devise excuses not to attend all the soirées I’m invited to, but sometimes, even I run out of plausible reasons not to go. And when the old man himself orders you to attend a party, well, there’s no way of getting out of it.
Last night was such an occasion. A fundraiser for something or other. Honestly, after you’ve attended one, you kind of lose interest in all the others.
It’s always the same black-tie event. With the same boring people you’ve seen hundreds of times and had hundreds of the same conversations with.
The population of Boston might be huge, but when it comes to people with money and power, there’s only a very select few who hold such a privilege and, therefore, are always invited to such things.
I, myself, have only had the displeasure of being included in this elite group for less than a decade. And my consensus has remained the same since the first one I was forced to attend. These parties are nothing more than a shallow way the rich have found to flaunt their money and entitlement amongst peers who won’t judge them for it.
