Page 21 of Her Boss

As I waited for Brooke to pick up, I stared out my window at the warm, breezy afternoon, whispering the words in the quiet office. “Define good.”

CHAPTER 9

Geneva

I wasn’t sure what to expect for my first real day of my internship, but the word I would have used for at least the start of the day was… anticlimactic.

I’d lost count of the number of cups of coffee I’d fetched, the amount of filing I’d done, and how many times I’d remarked in my head what a shithole his office was.

Something didn’t add up.

The building itself was a depressingly drab structure. The place was so run down, even the plastic kickboards were beginning to peel away from the base of the walls, the adhesive failing in numerous places. Some of the outlets didn’t work; there was a daisy chain of dusty, tangled extension cords plugged into the outlets that weren’t broken, the mess probably constituting a dozen fire code violations all by itself.

At least the bathroom was spotless.

I’d shown up to the office that morning wearing my new attire—a knee-length navy pleated skirt, thigh highs with four-inch heels, and a sleeveless cream sweater that made my breasts look two cup sizes larger than they actually were—but what I’d expected didn’t really come to pass.

What I’d assumed was that I’d be doing general office grunt work—which I had been right about. But I’d also half-dreaded, half-anticipated Rick would be out regularly to leer at me and comment on what he saw; I didn’t want to think about how much I hoped that he liked and approved of how I looked.

What the hell has gotten into you?

I worried I was beginning to lose my sense of shame, that modesty had largely deserted me. But that wasn’t quite right either. I still felt those things keenly, but they’d begun to sort of reorient themselves toward being seen through the filter of his approval or disapproval. It was truly messed up, but there was no doubt I was beginning to think of him in those terms, wrong and fucked-up though it may have been.

Rather than have to deal with Rick perving over me—or worse—what I’d had to contend with instead was largely… boredom.

I’d been there for hours, and Rick still hadn’t so much as left his office. Did the man ever have to at least take a piss? All of that coffee I’d been making—which Chloe dutifully delivered to him—had to be going somewhere, didn’t it?

The deep bass of his voice could occasionally be heard through his door, and now and then, Chloe’s phone would ring at her desk—situated just outside that same door—but otherwise one would scarcely be faulted for concluding Rick wasn’t even in the office.

So it was that I was hard at work, increasingly lamenting that the frustratingly contradictory man appeared to have forgotten I existed when Chloe’s phone rang once more. I blew my bangs away from my eyes, careful to scratch the itch at my nose with the back of my hand. My fingers were already beginning to darken with ink residue from the old filing I’d gone through, the vast majority of which seemed to be generated by a company called ‘RST Group Limited.’ I’d made a note an hour before to check if I could find any information about the company.

My initial assumption was that it had to be one of Rick’s biggest clients, but I really had nothing else to go on, the numerous invoices, statements, and work orders so shot through with abbreviations, code, and corporate gibberish that I couldn’t hope to make any cogent sense out of it. What little I did know about Rick’s particular pursuits led me to suspect that that level of inscrutability was probably intentional.

“He wants you in his office,” Chloe said, her voice hushed, her hand over the receiver. “Now.”

“Me?” I set down my stack of invoices on her little desk, rubbing my hands together to try to get some of the ink residue off my fingertips. “Um, what about this…?”

“Just go in.” Chloe hung up her phone, waving me in. “Don’t keep him waiting. Trust me, that won’t help your cause.”

“My cause?” But I was already moving, my heart beginning to beat at a considerably elevated clip.

Here goes nothing.

Then I found myself in Rick’s office once more, my eyes immediately zeroing in on that desktop, the place I’d spent several painful, humiliating minutes a day before.

I should have been mortified, even angry. But instead, I was more curious than anything else. Nothing had gone as planned, so I genuinely wondered what he might have in store for me. After the day before, how bad could it be?

And why is your pussy clenching at the thought?

He was sitting behind his desk, the huge dark brown leather chair rocking slowly as he finished up a call, his cell to his ear. He turned just enough to peer back at me, his hand rising. His extended finger jabbed toward someplace vaguely in front of his desk.

I gulped as I did as he ordered, standing where he’d directed me. A sense of deep foolishness consumed me as I waited there for him, wringing my ink-stained hands before me as he finished up.

“…and move the Friday meeting to Monday. I’ve got too much shit to work on this week, and I don’t think I’ll be able to make it in. Yes. I mean it.” He paused. “Well, I don’t really give a shit how many board members flew in for it. Can’t be helped.” He spun in his chair, facing me, his elbows planted on the desk, his dark, intense eyes boring into me. “Yes… yes. No—it’s the other one. What else?” Another pause had Rick rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger while he listened. “Yes, but I can’t remember—you’ll need to check the account. Probably one of Darby’s. Okay… yeah, that should do it. I have to go. Got a girl here I need to give a little talking to.”

Oh, shit.

I was definitely in trouble for something. And yet, my nipples instantly grew tight. My only saving grace was that the thick fabric of the top might not have made that fact totally obvious.

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