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I’m on my knees, adjusting the placement of a furry white area rug in front of a sleek red leather sofa, when Rhett appears in the doorway of my new office.
“I have those projections you asked for from accounting. Matthew delivered them an hour ago.”
I stand up, checking the location of the rug. “And you waited a whole hour to get them to me?” I put my hands on my hips and look at him sternly. It’s our favorite game. “Close the door so I can show you how displeased I am.”
He closes the door and locks it. In seconds, we’re on the rug, his body on top of mine. “I told you putting your office on the same floor as mine was a bad idea,” he says against my neck.
“I could put my office in Amsterdam, and it would still be too close.”
“Mmmm.” His mouth makes a line from my ear to the square neckline of my dress. “You’ve been vice president for two weeks and I think I want to call in some of my collateral from getting you this position.”
I laugh. “What shall it be this time?”
He works my skirt up over my knees. “Let’s start with you naked on this rug.”
“I have a meeting with finance in fifteen minutes.” I giggle as he pulls down my panties.
“Then I guess I have fifteen minutes.”
Rhett is nothing but prompt. Fourteen minutes and one silenced climax later, he lifts me to standing and fluffs out the smashed side of my hair. “Perfect.” He assesses the rug. “It could probably stand to be about six more inches away from the sofa. I kept bumping it with my elbow.”
I shove him toward the door, laughing. “Get out of here, you brute.”
He turns for one final kiss before twisting the lock. But before he opens the door, he turns back to me. “I love you, Bailey Johansson.”
“Oh!” He’s never said this before.
He grins. “It took me a while to get the words out. I’ve felt it a long time.”
“As long as I have?”
He draws me to him. “And how long is that?”
“Somewhere between ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Armstrong’ and ‘Is this my desk?’”
His smile is enormous. “Mine might have been the first time you pulled out that pink lip gloss.”
“You know I can completely control you with that one little tube.”
“And I love it.”
We allow ourselves one more long, lingering kiss before he heads out.
I pick up the folder he left on the sofa, barely opening it before Viola pops her head in. “Bailey? I’m going to sit in on this one if that’s all right with you. Jamison wanted a point person inmarketing to be up to speed since you’ll be at the conference next week.”
Viola looks about the same, bright pink skirt, canary-yellow top, and those Jimmy Choo mules. But she’s better. Since the week of meetings when Rhett and I first came back from Colorado and sat down with everyone involved in the snafu—other than Blake, who never came back—she’s calmed down. She’s been heard. And she really had been trying to show that Marney wasn’t doing her job, leaving Viola in charge of things she couldn’t always handle, while trying not to implicate me.
She’s on probation for improper conduct with other employees, but everyone is watching. Rhett and I know that we’re the worst out of all of us, and there’s no telling what it will be like if we ever split. Dating someone in your company is a huge risk, and it never seems to end well. Viola understands the terms of staying.
So do Rhett and I.
Jamison arrives next, and as we sit on the sofa and chairs surrounding the new rug, I try to focus on the meeting and not what just took place on it.
I’m happy here, for now, but I have plans. Big ones.
Dougherty is a stepping stone, and I’m being as up front about it as I can with Rhett, while working hard to make an impact and garner experience that will help me. I’ve applied to grad school, and everything I’ve learned will take me into the next step of my life, wiser and more confident.
When they’re gone, my assistant Kate comes in. She’s only been with me for a week, and is still very nervous. “Bailey? I typed up the projection sheets like you asked. I wasn’t sure about some of the figures.” She passes me a folder. “The digital version is in the shared folder, but I know you like numbers on paper.”
