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And third: I didn’t know if I had a job anymore.
Six
Samantha
* * *
I told Emma everything. Well, everything except the part about feeling a hopeless kind of lust mixed with affection for my boss, and I left out the part about wanting to slap someone. Some things you don’t need to tell the woman who gives you the assignments that pay your bills, even if she is your sister.
Emma listened intently, moving seamlessly onto her second glass of wine. “And he left for the day after that?” she asked when I finished.
I nodded.
“Have you heard from him?”
“No.”
She thought it over, like a doctor arriving at a diagnosis. “Well, I didn’t get a phone call, which makes sense, since you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That doesn’t matter, and you know it.” This was why I had wanted to talk to Emma so badly: she knew the business like I did. “What matters is that there were millions, maybe tens of millions of dollars on the table. And the deal is off because my presence disrupted it.”
“The Egertons being fucking assholes disrupted it,” Emma corrected me.
“They wouldn’t have been fucking assholes if I had been the kind of woman they don’t find attractive.”
Emma swirled the wine in her glass. “It sounds like the Egertons would be assholes no matter what the circumstance.”
“Emma, come on. You know your CEO clients. What’s more important in their scheme of things? A single assistant or a multimillion-dollar deal? All Aidan has to do is fire me, then call you and request someone conventionally unattractive, or male, or gay. Problem solved, and he goes back to making millions. It’s shallow, and it’s completely unfair, but it’s how the world works. Especially this world.”
Emma sighed. “I’ve had that phone call before, I admit. The Get me someone ugly call. As if the men can’t help themselves and they don’t think they should have to. I mean, really.” She rolled her eyes. “But, okay. Let’s say Aidan sees your presence as the thing that derailed the deal. The fact is, he hasn’t fired you.”
“He also hasn’t talked to me. About anything.” It had been a long, long day. I’d kept my head down and kept my focus on my work, but I didn’t know where Aidan had gone, or what he was doing. And, of course, it was none of my business, especially if he was upset with me.
I cared about keeping my job. I cared about my paycheck. But this job was different. I liked it. I could work somewhere else, but I didn’t want to. I’d only been at Tower for three months, but it was already more than a paycheck. And I had a good guess as to the reason I felt that way.
What was he doing right now? Did he have plans tonight? There was nothing in his schedule. Then again, there never was.
“Okay,” Emma said, her tone decisive. She pulled her phone—which had been buzzing during our conversation—from her purse and tapped quickly through something on the screen. “Here’s my diagnosis. It’s a tough situation, but it’s made worse by the fact that you want to fuck your boss.”
“What?” I gaped at her. “What does sex have to do with anything? I don’t want to have sex with Aidan. I work for him. I’m a professional.”
Emma kept tapping her phone, ignoring my outrage. “The word is fuck, Sam. You need to loosen up. You want to fuck Aidan Winters, just like every other woman in New York with a functioning vagina. It’s okay to admit it, because you won’t act on it. But in the meantime you’ll be hung up on him and undersexed.”
“I have no idea what this has to do with the fact that I almost lost my job.”
“When was the last time you got laid?” Emma asked, ignoring me again.
I pressed my lips together and didn’t answer.
She glanced up at me briefly, then nodded, going back to her phone. Frankly, it was a little annoying that she was only giving me half of her attention. “I thought so,” she said. “Have you even dated anyone?”
“You know how dating is in this business.”
She nodded again. “It’s impossible. The long hours, the nonstop commitment to the job, combined with the fact that most men can’t handle a woman who is successful and makes a lot of money—there’s almost no time to meet anyone, and the dating pool is thin. And you can’t fuck your hot boss, so you need another sexual outlet. As in, a one-night stand.”
I rolled my eyes. “Emma, I haven’t done that in years. Since my early twenties.”
“Well, you can do it tonight.”
