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“I have known you nine years now. No boyfriend or girlfriend. No long-term lover. No wedding. Is there something you are not telling, dear Benjamin? Has your sweet cock broken off?”
Jazz has a way of putting things. “Nope. It’s in working order, thanks for asking.”
“And you surround yourself with pretty young boy-men,” she goes on, her dialect growing thicker by the syllable. “Benji Boy, you are thirty-three years old, but your cock is twenty-three.”
“Jazz …”
“Young men, all around you. Why only young men? Why not men your age?”
“Blame Rebekah who does the hiring.”
“Hiring that you approve,” she counters.
I sigh into my palms, then lift a warning eyebrow at her. “This sort of prying isn’t the kind I pay you for, y’know.”
“I do not pry on friends,” she states, feigning innocence. “I am simply curious.”
“So I’m your friend, then?”
“Perhaps. Maybe. Shut up about it.” She shrugs, the subject making her uncomfortable. “I will get a new number and contact you, Benji Boy, my friend, as the old one is compromised.”
“Aww. I hit a note with you. How about your love life, Jazz? You know everything about me, probably up to and including the flavor of my toothpaste, and I know next to nothing about you.”
“I like it this way.”
I smirk. “Then I guess I’ll be alone dreaming tonight of how miserably single I am and wondering what’s wrong with me.”
“Not enough chocolate syrup in your life. That’s what.”
I choke on a laugh. “Keep in touch, Jazz. Or Irene. Or whatever your real name is.” I give her side eyes. “Nine years, huh?”
“Nine years, two months, sixteen days. Hmm. Now I have a craving for chocolate donuts.” The tablet goes dark, Jazz’s face vanishing.
With a shake of my head and a smile, I swipe the tablet off the desk on my way out of the office. I’m really glad I have Jazz working with me, despite the trouble my clients often cause. Since the start, Miss Melina and her spoiled daughter have been nothing but a general pain in my ass. Seriously, how many damned world-shattering crises can one celebrity have in a week? She’s a soap opera actress with a soap opera life.
And maybe so am I.
I push open the door to the conference room. My team sits at the long table chatting with one another—Julian, Samantha, and Quentin. At the opposite end of the table are two interns, awkward and silent as the chairs they sit in. One is bearded and handsome.
The other is Trevor.
Of course it is.
11
Trevor is still working. Harder.
There’s a great big marching band in the room.
Wait, no. That’s just my pulse.
My terrified, humiliated, mortified, panicking pulse.
Like, it’s literally pounding in my ears so loudly, I don’t even hear Ben’s first words of greeting.
His name’s not just Ben, I scold myself. It’s Mr. Benjamin Gage. Your boss. He is your totally untouchable boss and nothing more.
“Julian. Samantha. Quentin.” The boss says each of the names of the others at the table in a tone that’s detached and cool. Whatever banter they were having is now replaced with piercing silence as Benjamin Gage strolls by on his way to the dry erase board at the front of the room.
Which gives me a very unfair, perfect view of Ben’s ass. If anything, it has gotten five and a half times more epic since the last time I saw it. You know—at Ben’s place. With his pant buttons undone. And his junk on display in those tight, bulging boxer briefs.
And I almost caved.
In the next instant, I hear Ben’s voice fill the room, deep and dominant. “And you two are here for…?”
My eyes flick up from his butt—to find he’s not even looking at us. He’s at the board, calmly fishing a marker out of its tray.
“I’m Brandon,” states the bearded one at my side. “We were sent to take notes for R-Reynold and Emilio.”
A corner of Ben’s mouth curls upward. “You’re taking notes for Raymond, not Reynold,” he corrects him. “If you are chosen as the assigned note-taker for someone, I recommend you know the person for whom you’re taking notes.”
Brandon’s eyes flash wide. “Y-Yes, sir.”
“And keep up,” Ben goes on. “I don’t go slow. And you were sent to take notes for Emilio, I presume?”
I’m staring at him, surprised at his complete coldness and lack of acknowledgement. Are we really going to pretend like we didn’t meet each other at all this past Friday? Is he going to ice me out like I don’t exist?
And then I realize that last question was directed at me.
“Yes,” blurts Brandon, answering for me. “He is, sir. And his name’s Trevor.”
Benjamin Gage—chiseled jaw, breathtakingly handsome, cold in the eyes—continues to write on the board without once looking our way. “And did Trevor somehow lose his voice between the introductions and this conference room, or is it possible for him to answer me himself?”
