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It wasn’t completely physical, either. His straight-to-the-point no-nonsense manner made me feel like I’d been plugged straight into some kind of energy source. My body and brain were buzzing with stimulation, and I wanted more of that feeling. And all of those were very dangerous thoughts. Dominic was only here because I’d convinced him to let me do these interviews, and I needed to make sure I didn’t start complicating things. There was also the fact that his family was the main reason my life was upended two years ago. I was starting to wonder if I had read the situation wrong, though, and decided I could subtly start the interview there.
“So, uh,” I said. “The thing my sister brought up. About Columbia. I realized it was you that first day at the office, but I didn’t want to say anything. I thought maybe you remembered and just didn’t want things to be awkward. You really don’t remember me from back then?”
“No,” he said. “I remember my dad trying to tell me there was some damaging article circulating the campus. I had no idea he got you expelled over it. He’s a complete bastard.”
His words were a gut punch. In a few short seconds, I could feel my brain start rearrange the pieces that had been in place for two years. “You really didn’t know?” I asked.
“I didn’t. My dad does what he thinks is best for himself. He always has. If you wrote something that made our family look bad, it made him look bad.”
I nodded slowly. It made sense. I’d never really believed Dominic urged his father to take action against me, but I’d lumped him in as the enemy. They were both Lockwoods, and it had been easier to think all of the Lockwoods were the bad guys.
I was having a hard time processing this new reality. On his first day, Dominic had been the enemy. I had two years of pent up anger ready to unleash on him. But what did I make of this? Did I hate him as much if he was just my grumpy boss who was hoping to be able to fire me? Worse, he was now my grumpy boss who had defended me in front of my dad and even told my whole family I was too valuable to fire. He was dangerously close to being downright likable, and I had no idea what to do with that information.
“Well,” I said. “You need to be careful. You’ve been trying very hard to make sure I don’t like you, but if you keep this up…” I shrugged and couldn’t quite make myself say the rest of my thought out loud.
Dominic’s eyes blazed with some unknown emotion. “It’s not that I’m trying to make you not like me, Darcy. I am your boss. I’ve been working my whole life for an opportunity like this, and I’ve put a great deal of thought into the way I want my work atThe Squawkerto go. I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to be the sort of boss who made friends with his employees.”
“Right,” I said, once again noticing my ice cream was melting on me. This might be the first time in my life I’d taken long enough to eat ice cream that it even had a chance to melt. Or maybe the energy crackling between us was speeding up the process. “Becoming friends would be a bad idea. But staring at my ass all the time–not such a big deal, right?”
Dominic’s jaw ticked. For a second, I thought he was about to grab me by the hair and kiss me, but he took a slow, deep breath and seemed to brace himself for something. “Fine. Let’s get it out in the open. I’m attracted to you. Obviously I’m fucking attracted to you, Darcy. And if you didn’t work for me, yeah, I’d pursue my attraction. But youdowork for me.”
“I’m attracted to you, too,” I said. I had no freaking clue where this boldness was coming from. Maybe it was that extra packet of sugar I put in my coffee this morning because I was feeling spicy.Damn you, artificial sugar.“And I’ve also put a lot of work into this magazine and don’t want to screw it up.”
“Then we agree we shouldn’t do anything about our…feelings,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a statement. Was I just imagining the question mark dangling there?
“What should we do?” I asked.
“I could think of plenty,” Dominic said.
My core clenched and my whole body went into high alert. I felt it then–like the offer was something physical I could reach out and grab. With the right word or gesture, we could be speeding back to whatever fancy apartment Dominic lived in. Within an hour, I could be pinned beneath his weight and gasping his name.
I had to actually close my eyes for a few moments, forcing myself not to take the bait. I sensed he didn’t fully want me to, either. After a few tense heartbeats of silence, I opened my eyes and pointed to his ice cream. “Can I try that? It looks good.”
Dominic jumped a little like he’d been stirred from a daze. “Yeah. Sure.” He scooped some up on his spoon and extended it towards my mouth. I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t expected him tofeedit to me, but I leaned forward and parted my lips. My eyes met his as he carefully turned the spoon over and dragged the contents across my tongue.
Holy. Shit.
Our eyes were locked the whole time and I felt like I’d just violated the innocence of the group of teen girls who I now noticed were staring at us with wide eyes and slack jaws.
I cleared my throat and ran my tongue across my lips, shifting a little uncomfortably as my freaking vagina started pounding down the door to my brain and asking if she could take it for a little joyride.No, Vagina. You are not getting anywhere near my brain when Dominic is involved, because we both know exactly where that joyride would take us.
“That’s good,” I finally managed. The truth was I had no idea what the ice cream tasted like. I’d been transported to full blown bliss-town because my boss was spoon feeding me while making erotic eye contact.
If a little bite of ice cream from him was this arousing, I frankly wasn’t even sure I would survive a sexual encounter.
“You still have some,” he said, pointing.
I rubbed at my lip a few times and Dominic shook his head. He finally leaned over the table and rubbed his thumb down the side of my mouth. I thought he was about to suck the ice cream from his finger and I would’ve officially melted into a puddle of horny desire right then and there, but he snatched up a napkin and rubbed his finger clean.
I felt like I could finally breathe again. “So we’re both attracted to each other but we’re not going to do anything about it?” I asked. “Just making sure I’m clear on the plan, here.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Why would it be?”
“The look on your face says it might be a problem.”
“It’s not.”
