Page 94 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

The thought made me puke. I nearly missed the toilet as I stumbled from my bed to the bathroom, nausea making my ears ring. Hugging the porcelain, I began to sob.

Something popped then. Some soap bubble that had been keeping my emotions muffled, my mind protected from the worst of it. I thought of Rome moving on within days of our fight, and I cried as I flushed the toilet, cried in the shower, and cried as I dried myself.

But when I stepped out in my living room, my hair wrapped in a towel turban and my body in a terrycloth robe, the tears dried up. Piles of boxes stared back at me, some of them flapping open, taunting me.

Was this really how I wanted to spend my days? Sick, in bed, throwing up and barely eating, ignoring the reality of my situation?

Everyone else could treat me as a non-person, but Iexisted. I was real. I was flesh and bone, and Imattered. Maybe not to my family or friends or lovers. Maybe not to my bosses. But I mattered tomyself.

Stomping across the room, I tore open the nearest box, yanking it so hard the flap ripped and took half the cardboard with it. Books came tumbling out, along with a random throw pillow.

The pillow was a soft pink crushed velvet with ridiculous tassels at each corner. I picked it up, feeling the softness of the fabric, the waterfall of the tassels’ ends between my fingers. Stroking the pink pillow with my thumbs, I marched over to my couch and set the pillow in one corner, fluffing it slightly so it looked right. Then I stood back with my hands on my hips, and a painful twist in my chest smoothed out.

I mattered. My home mattered. My things mattered.

I deserved to unpack all the knickknacks and possessions, if only for myself. I deserved pink velvet pillows and bookcases with perfectly aligned and alphabetized spines. I deserved a new plant, damn it.

No one else was going to buy me one.

Gritting my teeth, I picked up the books that had spilled out from the ripped box and set them in a corner. I’d need a new bookcase. My vintage Turkish rug was rolled up behind the couch, so I pulled it out and spread it over the floor, tucking it under the front legs of my couch. My coffee table was nudged under the window, buried under half a dozen boxes. I set the boxes aside and put the coffee table where it was meant to be.

I had a beautiful quartz tray that I used as ornamentation, and I knew I’d packed it in a small box…there! Triumphant, I pulled the tray out of the box, as well as a pretty little jewelry jar that was too small to fit anything in it but looked pretty on the tray.

Bit by bit, with a kind of zeal I hadn’t felt in a long time, I unpacked my things and found homes for every useless little trinket, every book, every bauble. No one could accuse me of being a minimalist, but that wasn’t a club I wanted to belong to. As I arranged my living room then moved on to the kitchen and bedroom, my shoulders straightened and my mood lightened.

This wouldn’t be my home forever, but it was my homenow. It was the new year, and I’d be damned if I spent it wallowing in self-pity, wrapped in a duvet surrounded by bare walls.

I’d wallow in self-pity wrapped in a duvet surrounded by fabulous artwork I’d bought at a dozen different flea markets over the course of a decade, thank you very much.

Chuffing to myself, I worked through the night. By the time the sky outside lightened, I collapsed onto my favorite teal couch, surrounded by all my beautiful things, and I smiled.

That was better.

I was still wearing my robe. My hair had mostly dried in my turban, and it would be a disaster when I finally decided to deal with it, but that was a problem for Future Nikki. For now, all I could do was rest my head on my soft pink pillow of crushed velvet—and sleep.

THIRTY-NINE

ROME

Holiday parties were torture.I hadn’t realized how much Nikki’s presence softened the sting of networking events, how much easier it was to talk to people when she was there to facilitate the conversation. How much I enjoyed being able to put my hand on her lower back and feel the heat of her body through her clothes.

Two weeks passed in a slow torture, and after the third soiree where I was asked incessantly where my dutiful plus-one had disappeared to, I decided that was enough for me. I closed myself off from all social activity and threw myself into closing the Monk deal.

We signed the contract on New Year’s Day.

I’d secured my company’s future. I’d paved the way for the next few years of financial success. I’d done exactly what I’d set out to do.

And the victory was hollow.

Employees celebrated around me. Clara even wrapped an arm around my shoulders and patted me with her palm in congratulations, and I mustered a curt nod in response. My legal team toasted to a successful negotiation, and Cole lifted his glass with the rest of them.

I bit back the urge to tell them all to get out. I’d done that once before, and it’d only made me feel worse in the end.

You could call her, temptation whispered.You could apologize.

For what? What could I possibly say to her after what had transpired between us?

She’d been hired to do a job, and she’d done it skillfully. Then, just like everyone else, she turned her back on me. The fact that she’d wrapped her abandonment in pretty words and honeyed promises meant nothing. If she wanted to be by my side, she would’ve stayed. End of story.

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