Page 7 of My Forbidden Boss

I’m the best at slipping through the net and doing what needs to be done, and David Chandler can only be that. A job that needs to be done.

Too much rides on me doing what I need to do. The only emotional strings I want to get caught up in are my mother’s and after that I can kiss this nightmare goodbye and live my best life.

In Moss Creek, that’s a joke. There is no best life. There’s survival.

Ran pelts down and soaks my blouse. I’ll think about Moss Creek later. For now I have to get out of this rain.

I scrape together the gist of David’s — Mr Chandler’s — meeting. Innovation and Excellence Award gala dinner. Tonight. Dress code formal. Seven thirty sharp.

He requested my presence there because Andrea couldn’t go and it’s important to Blue Sky. I wonder what on Earth I can bring to the gala as a first day employee, but that doesn’t matter.

It’s a way to get close to him I wouldn’t otherwise have.

And I have no suitable clothes.

I hike my bag onto my shoulder, feeling it bang against my hip. It’s heavier than normal because of the cell phone my father sent me via FedEx. Didn’t have the decency to give it to me face to face. This whole time he’s blackmailed me has been remotely. I’ve never met my father in the flesh.

Small favors.

I fish out the cell and check my messages. No missed calls or messages. Bigger favors. Then I think this cell is not only for my sperm donor. It can call out when required. My father set me up on a plan, with those expectations. He didn’t qualify I only had to call him.

I didn’t think of it at first because I’m not used to it. For the first time in my life, I have a cell to use.

I dial and the call answers. “Hello?”

“Maddy. It’s me,” I say. Hearing a familiar voice is a chest punch I find it hard to recover from.

“Adeline? How is New York? Did you meet David Chandler? Have you done what the asshole asked you to do?” I can always count on Maddy to cut to the chase. She has me unwound in microseconds.

The rain comes down in earnest now. I scamper along the sidewalk to warm up my chilled skin and answer her questions. “It’s me. Crazy. Yes. No.”

“So you have met him?” Maddy asks, her voice sharp.

Maddy knows everything Mom doesn’t.

I didn’t tell Mom her one-night stand had come back to kick her life again. Not about the desperate call to my father when we received the notice tacked to the front door of the apartment. Or the six months to find another place to live because the block of commission housing was going to be knocked down, replaced by a new subdivision for more suitable people. Not the way my father snubbed me, then turned around my plea for help because for the first time in my life he has a use for me.

Someone dives into a cab and out of the rain in front of me. I push on. I have at least five blocks to walk and I can’t afford the cab that would get me back to the apartment dry.

“Yes.” I’ve told Maddy everything, but the words stick like tar in my mouth when I go to tell her how I feel about David. Hey Maddy. He makes my panties melt and he’s so far out of my league we’re in different galaxies. By the way, he’s old enough to be my father but I still want to tap that silver-fox like a hammer on nails and build a four story log cabin with every lickable inch of him.

She’s good with a lot of things, but a twenty year age gap is too much for me to admit to.

I hope I’ll sleep this off. That the insta-lust is a reaction to an over abused nervous system. Take a woman out of her small town and watch her hormones melt the good sense out of her.

“And?” Maddy asks.

“I have to go to this gala and my purple unicorn pajamas aren’t going to cut it,” I say. She knows what I packed. She visited the thrift shops and helped me put my ‘professional’ wardrobe together from what we could find.

“A gala! Oh my god. That’s so exciting,” she says, giving a little squeal.

Maddy is full of exuberance but I’m out of my element. I don’t understand what I’m doing and if it wasn’t so important that I be here, I’d take the first bus back to Moss Creek. Yep, I’m totally that kind of piker.

“I’d rather eat my Ramen and crash on the couch,” I say, dodging a puddle. Some water splashes into my pumps. I have to find the nearest laundromat. These clothes will need to be washed before I can wear them again and my budget only stretches so far, even with the thrift shopping.

“When is it? I’m coming down and we’re going shopping!” Maddy says.

I’d love nothing more than to have my BFF with me and cry on her welcoming shoulder. I’d even sleep in the shower stall in my kitchen so we can both fit into my broom closet apartment. “It’s tonight. The dress code is formal,” I say as the air gets sucked out of my lungs.

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