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“Damn it!” I mutter as I grab my pants and tank top and get dressed as quickly as I can. I grab the bottle of wine that’s half finished and run to the door to figure out who would knock on my door at eight o’clock.
When I look through the peephole, my heart sinks. It’s not a drunk or a door-to-door salesman. Not even a complete stranger.
No, it’s Emery Brooks wearing that damned smile on his far too handsome face. Why in the world would my boss be at my apartment? And more importantly, why didn’t he text first?
My hands are shaking knowing how I look. I don’t have time to change, and any other pants I put on will be ruined from my mud butt situation. I open the door anyway, and the first thing that Emery does is look me over. There’s so much judgement in his expression. “I thought you were going to a pool party,” I say before he has a chance to get a word in.
“I still am. But I realized that there was a mishap in my office.” He holds up the laptop bag and says, “I grabbed the wrong computer, and I’d like to get at least a little work done tonight.”
I take the bag, still a little confused. Our meeting flashes through my mind, and I realize he set his bag down next to mine when he took the call about the pool party.
“I’ll get yours. I haven’t started on work stuff yet.” I hurry to my bedroom and grab the bag to get him out of my apartment as fast as possible. When I get back, Emery is pouring himself a glass of wine like it’s some kind of community property. I bite my tongue as he sits down at the dining room table.
He looks up at me as he takes a sip. “I also wanted to apologize for the way things have been going at the office.”
I blink at him. We’re having this conversation now?
There is absolutely nothing I can do about it, though. So I sit down across from him. I pull the bottle back to me as he sips his wine and grimaces. “This is terrible. How do you drink it?”
“Like this,” I say as I take a swig of the bottle. This isn’t the office, and if he’s going to show up unannounced and want to have a conversation about work, then he’s going to have to get over me being me. He didn’t hire me because I was classy or professional.
Instead of looking at me with disgust like I expect, he just chuckles. “Why waste a glass, right?” he says.
“Not worried at all about drinking after me?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t grow up wearing a suit, Miss Carter. When I was a kid, we drank out of the water hose, and when I was in college, we played beer pong with community cups. Now… Well, I would guess that kissing different women every night is probably worse than drinking after you.”
Our strange conversation at the office replays in my mind. I’d almost managed to forget about it. Why would he say those things and then constantly bring up other women?
“Someone ought to have taught you that when you’re drinking wine with a woman, you shouldn’t bring up kissing other women.”
He grins again. “Anyway, I was trying to apologize for our strained relationship at the office.”
“Why didn’t you text me?” I say instead.
He frowns, and even though I’m very invested in this conversation, I can’t help but feel an itchy sensation start up where I smeared the tanner. Is it supposed to feel like this? “I did. That’s why I was a little surprised you’re wearing that very special outfit.”
Shit. Where’s my phone even at? That’s when I realize I had it on silent while I was filming my video.
“Oh. I guess I didn’t hear it.” It’s getting hard not to scratch my ass, and I take another sip from the wine bottle. How long has this stuff been on me? Ten minutes? Fifteen?
“Will you please accept my apology?” Emery finally says.
It’s hard to play it cool as the itching turns into a slight burning sensation. “If you need to hear me say it, I accept your apology. You’re the boss, and you’re trying to make sure things go right.”
Emery finishes his wine and leans back to cross his arms. “No, it’s not that simple. Finding someone like you isn’t easy. I can find a thousand people who can make a good magazine ad or a hundred who can make killer TV ads. They’re all expensive, but that doesn’t matter because our agency is expensive. But this new generation of social marketing is killing the industry.”
God, my ass is burning like fire now, and it’s taking everything in me not to run to the bathroom to get this crap off me. Emery just keeps talking, though. I know it’s him trying to tell me how important I am, but all I want is for him to leave.
“But you seem to understand it in a way that none of the rest of us do. I want you to succeed where everyone else has failed. More than that, though. You aren’t like the rest of the people I’ve hired. You push back and argue and speak your mind even though you’ve got less experience than my secretary. It makes me question things, and I haven’t had to do that in years.”
The burn isn’t getting any better. In fact, I think it’s getting worse. Emery’s staring at me, and I don’t even really know what he was saying. The room is silent as I stare at him, trying not to wince.
It finally gets to be too much. “I’ve got to go,” I say and jump out of my seat, hitting the table and knocking the wine over. The liquid runs, but I can’t worry about that when I think my ass is being eaten alive.
I run straight to my room and into the adjoined bathroom, throwing the door closed behind me. My clothes are off me in an instant, and I turn the shower on right before jumping in. I don’t care that the water is ice cold or that the shower curtain isn’t quite closed as I scrub the tanning lotion.
“Are you okay?” Emery’s voice says from my bedroom.
