“What you’re asking is impossible.”
“What you’re picking upisn’twhat I’m putting down,” I retort, folding my arms. “This is the same as me turning up at your house unexpected, and you serving me cake I’ve never had before. Cake that it, turns out, I like. I’m only asking what the recipe is. What store I can visit. Because honestly, Whit, I kind of want a bigger portion. I want to taste it properly.”
“Get out of the car,” he grates out, all commanding. “Whatever your start date is, wipe it from your calendar. I’ll help you find something else.”
I laugh. If he wants to get rid of me, he’s going to have to change the way he speaks to me. That whole dominating,do as I sayjust seems to ring my bell. “I don’t want something else. I don’t want to work anywhere else.”
“This isn’t going to work.”
“How? I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
“You’re not that innocent.”
“I’m talking to you as a friend, not as my boss. I’m not trying to seduce you—I wouldn’t even know what that looked like.” True story. This is just my own brand of wearing him down.
“Friends don’t do to you what I did,” he replies with a glower.
“That depends on what kind of friendship you have. This woman you were expecting. Wasn’t she that kind of friend? What do they call them? Friends with benefits?”
“I’m rarely friends with the people I fuck. And I never fuck people I work with.”
“Well.” I flick my shoulder. “We haven’t fucked, so cool beans.”Urgh. Cool beans? Do I have to regress to fourteen? What next? I’ll ask him if he wants to listen to my iPod?“Look, Whit, I will be working for VirTu. I respect Jody too much. I won’t make problems for her. And like I said, I’ve already signed my contract.”
“I’ll get someone in from an agency to fill in.” His words fall rapidly. “I’ll write you a check to keep you afloat until you find something else.”
“That sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to buy me off.”
“That’s not what this is, and you know it.”
“You’re making such a big deal out of nothing,” I say with a chuckle that I hope doesn’t sound too forced. The next six months of my life is theonlytime I’ll get to live for myself and do what I want. And what I want to do is him. I just have to get him on the same page. “I won’t do it, Whit. Jody has enough to deal with without worrying about you and what kind of mess an agency will leave her to clear up.”
“Mimi, come on. I can’t take that night back.”
“I wouldn’t give it to you,” I reply softly. It was the hottest experience of my life, so to hear him deny me would break me a little. But I also don’t believe him. I was there. I saw the way he watched me. Sensed his desire through his fingertips. “Would you really take it back? If you could?”
“You shouldn’t ask me that.”
And there is my answer. The truth in his troubled expression, and I’m sorry for it. Sorry he feels troubled, at least as he frowns and rubs a knuckle over his left eyebrow, refusing now to look at me.
“I don’t want to turn the clock back.” Relief rushes through me at the admission I thought I’d never hear. “This is exactly why you shouldn’t be anywhere near me, because every time you step into my office, I won’t see you professionally. I’ll be remembering how wet and warm you felt. How your body bent for me. And every time your mouth moves, I’ll hear the sounds falling from your lips and think of how exquisite you are when you come.”
A blush runs across my skin, my eyelashes fluttering as I take this all in. That right there sounds like a beautiful sort of work-life balance.
6
WHIT
I was right aboutone thing. Every time I see Mimi Valente, no matter what expression she’s wearing and no matter what she has to say, I see her mouth softly open and her eyes glaze. Hear her soft, tortured breath in my ear. Feel her fingernails digging into my forearm.
Wouldn’t you be curious?she’d said in the car.
The answer is fuck yes. I can’t stop thinking about all that I could show her. I can’t stop imagining it, and I just…can’t.
“Have you got a tic?”
I blink, glance up, then scowl as I notice Mimi standing on the threshold to my office. And here comes the start of another hard-on.
Our conversation two weeks ago was nothing short of a revelation. I’ve never met anyone like her. That she says what she’s thinking is refreshing. She’s so open and unaffected, and that makes her more than a little dangerous. The things she’d had to say seemed like a lot of information to take in. A lot to digest. But as I’d driven away from her aunt’s house, I’d done my best to push it all away. I told myself that I wasn’t too worried. I had another few weeks of running interference before the day she’d end up working for me. Enough time to wear her down, to encourage her to find something else. I’d pay a finder’s fee to an agency, whatever it took. And if it came down to it, I’d decided I could always take El’s suggestion and place her with another department. Out of sight, out of mind. As opposed to not only being within sight but also within reach for eight hours a day while dressed like she’s auditioning for the part of a sexy secretary onMad Men.
