Page 17 of Enemy Boss

“Great,” Cullen says, flashing me a smile. “Grab your stuff and meet me at the elevators.”

I nod my head and then I leave his office and go to my desk. I put my jacket on and collect my purse and then I make my way to the elevators. Cullen is already standing there and when he sees me approaching, he presses the call button for the elevator.

It pings its arrival as I come up beside Cullen and the doors ping open. Cullen gestures for me to enter first and I step into the elevator car, and he follows me without a word. The sexual tension between us is thrumming as Cullen hits the button for the lobby and the elevator starts to go down. I wonder briefly if he’s going to kiss me. I know if he does that then I should resist him, not let him know how easily he can get me to bend to his will, but I know that I won’t do that. I don’t think I would be able to resist his kiss even if I wanted to. It doesn’t matter. The elevator reaches the lobby of the building, and the elevator doors ping open, and Cullen hasn’t kissed me, although I did catch him looking at me with a lustful look on his face. He looked away quickly when I caught him, but I’m pretty sure he looked back in time to catch me smiling and biting my lower lip.

We cross the lobby and leave the building and I stand at the side of the cross walk waiting for a gap in the traffic so that we can cross the street.

“Where are you going?” Cullen says.

I look back at him to see him frowning at me.

“I thought we were going for a drink,” I say.

The bar everyone in the firm uses for after work drinks is across the street and half way down the block.

“We are,” Cullen says. “But if it’s all the same to you, I would rather go somewhere that isn’t full of my staff where I will only end up talking shop.”

“OK,” I agree, biting my lower lip again, this time to stop me from smiling.

Cullen has been to that pub plenty of times and he isn’t usually in the least bit put off by being surrounded by the staff or talking about work. He wants to be with me; just me. I feel like I am heading further onto dangerous ground but what can I do? Insist we go somewhere he’s said he doesn’t want to go? Tell him I’ve changed my mind? I don’t do either of those things. Instead, I head into the danger. You only live once, right?

I follow Cullen and he leads me around the building to the parking lot.

“I’ll follow behind you in my car,” I say.

I don’t know if he was planning that or if he thought I would be travelling with him, but I’m determined to stick to only having one drink and it will be easier to stick to that if I know my car is outside. He doesn’t argue about it, he just nods his head in agreement, and we get into our separate cars, and I follow him as he pulls out of the parking lot.

Chapter 12

Max

Ipick up my glass of white wine and sip it, enjoying the cool crispness of it on my tongue. The bar Cullen has chosen is nice. The lights are dimmed enough to make it feel cosy and intimate but not enough to make it feel like a dive bar. The music is soft and modern, and the chairs and carpet look clean enough to be new. The lights in the ceiling give off a soft yellow glow and the clientele seem similar to Cullen and me – city professionals having a drink after work.

“So, is this your local when you’re not in the usual work’s place?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t really say it was my local. Me and my friends tend to meet here for a few drinks on a weekend before we go into town,” he says. “It has a very different vibe on a weekend when everyone is in party mode rather than unwind after work mode.”

I nod my agreement. I am sure the music will be louder, the people more raucous. It makes me wonder how the place looks so clean though.

“Where do you tend to go on a weekend?” Cullen asks. “Before you go clubbing, I mean.”

I almost ask him how he knows I go clubbing, but I stop myself just in time when I remember exactly how he knows about that.

“We tend to hit a few of the cocktail bars in town,” I say. “Or often we all meet at one of our apartments and have a pregame there and then just go directly to the club.”

“I always feel like that’s a good idea, but I know by the time midnight rolled around and the clubs would be livening up, I wouldn’t be bothered to go if I wasn’t already out,” he says.

“It tends to work the other way with me,” I say. “By the time it’s time to go, I can’t wait to get out and hit the dance floor.”

We exchange stories about some of the times we’ve been out clubbing. Funny and embarrassing stories, stories of the best nights we’ve had, that kind of thing. Time flies as we chat and when Cullen excuses himself to go to the bathroom and comes back with another round, I don’t complain. We keep talking, moving on to our families.

Cullen tells me about how his father died when he was barely four years old and how his mom worked her ass off so that him and his older brother, Liam, never went without anything. When he speaks about his mom and his brother, he changes, softens. It’s clear he adores his family and it’s nice to see this softer side to him.

He asks me about my family, and I tell him about my own mom and growing up with a single mom, although mine is because my dad was a dead beat who left her when she was pregnant. Cullen gets angry about this on my behalf, and I can’t help but feel a glow inside at his protectiveness.

“It never really affected me, not having a father around. My mom made sure it didn’t and that I didn’t want for anything,” I say.

“Yes, I feel pretty much the same,” Cullen agrees. “I think it was harder for Liam, because he was seven when our father died, and I guess he remembered enough to know what it was like to have a dad where I was too young to really remember anything. I’m sure at the time I noticed he was gone and asked about it, but it wasn’t something I carried with me in the way Liam did at first.”

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