Page 48 of Foreplay with the Boss

I thought that we might go to Spectacle Island, but now that we were out here, I wanted time alone with Kat, who looked like she belonged out here. Maybe she was a siren—that would describe how impossible she was to resist.

She braced a hand on top of the windshield, the breeze swirling her hair around her face. “Man, if I had a boat, I’d come out here all the time. There’s something so freeing about being on the water, like worries don’t exist anymore.”

“That’s why I used to practically live out here. It was nice to get away from it all for a while.” Those days seemed like distant memories, more like daydreams than reality. In high school, it was usually with my rowdy group of friends, and despite not being in international waters, we sure acted like we were. After Dad died was when I started taking more solo trips, just me and the water, everything else too far away to touch me for a while.

“Why the ‘used to’, then?”

“Because I decided to get my shit together. I immersed myself in my work and it’s been non-stop for years. Even most of my weekends are filled with work.”

“You should take a day off once in a while to just come out here and enjoy the peacefulness—or even an extra-long lunch. The office wouldn’t crumble without you, you know.”

“Not sure I want to take that chance. Plus”—I grabbed her hand and tugged her down onto my lap—“you’ll be gone soon, and what fun would it be to be out here without you?” “Not much, because while you’re a very smart, interesting guy, I’m clearly the one that brings the humor.” She ran her fingers across my jaw and then pressed her lips to mine for a sweeter kiss than we usually shared. I was surprised at how much I liked the sweet, especially while out here on the water, where it felt like we were the only two people in the world. “So, how’d you learn to sail? Some fancy private school where you can take Boating 101?”

“No, my fancy private school kicked me out.”

Her mouth dropped. “What? Are you serious? Or are you screwing with me?”

“Not screwing with you for the moment, but later…” I moved to kiss her neck and she hummed, her body melting into mine before she sat up and pulled back.

“Wait. You’re not getting out of this story. Spill it.”

“The story is I was a rebellious, disrespectful teen, and I didn’t bother going to class as much as I should.”

“Ooh, a bad boy. I suspected as much.” She ran her hand down my chest. “And you learned to sail, how?”

I thought she’d get distracted and forget the original question, but I should’ve known she was too tenacious for that. She dealt with a lot of numbers and research, which was what made her so good at the marketing side of the business.

“My dad. We started with a sailboat, which requires more work than turning a key and a steering wheel. He tried to reserve most weekends for family stuff.” And it was one more reason he didn’t make it in the cut-throat business world. “Anyway, we spent a lot of them out here, and the speedboat came into play later.”

“It was…” I was kind of embarrassed to admit it to her, especially since on our first day working together, I’d jabbed at her about her dad giving her a job, and I was learning I was more spoiled than she’d ever been. “A present, one I got my sixteenth birthday.”

It was also one of the few things I refused to sell back when we’d been selling off assets to pay off dad’s debts. Most of them involved living too large, extravagant possessions and trips, but now that I was thinking of them in a different light, most of them were for the family.

Maybe Kat was right about having to choose whether your passion went to your career or family. He’d chosen family and being well-liked, and he’d failed at business. I’d chosen work, and I was more intimidating than well-liked, but when it came to work, I exceeded and succeeded.

With him gone so early, I hated the thought of not having those good memories of him, of the trips and the time he’d spent teaching me skills he thought I’d need.

Kat reached up and ran her fingers through the back of my hair, and I found myself opening my mouth and letting more spill out. “My dad was a great guy with great ideas, and he knew how to charm a crowd, but he was a horrible businessman. He let people take advantage of how nice he was, and when the company took several big hits and things started falling apart, he bent over backward to try to keep everything the same for his employees and at home, and he made a lot of bad moves. He lost not only his money, but also a lot of the investors’ money, and he ended up running the company into the ground. There at the end, he was stressed all the time, and it just pushed him toward the heart attack. And as if losing him wasn’t hard enough, he left my mom and me in a world of debt.”

“That’s why you worked so hard to climb the business ladder so quickly.”

The fact that she jumped to the right conclusion right away made me think that maybe she’d understand my side a little better when she found out about the restructure, although I knew the hurt and anger would still be there. “It is. Regardless of the debts I’ve paid off and all the money I’ve made, I still feel this need to redeem the family name. That’s another reason I’ve pushed so hard to make Craze as big and as strong as it can be.

I’m close to achieving my goal, too, and I won’t rest until I do. For my dad, and for my mom, and yes, for myself, too.”

“Then do it. I know you can. And I know if your dad was here, he’d be proud. I can tell he meant a lot to you, and I’m sorry you lost him.”

For some reason, her acknowledging my loss made my throat feel too tight. I didn’t mean to go to mushy territory, and I needed to find my way out of it, and fast.

“And since I’m also enjoying the extravagant present he gave you when you turned sixteen, I’ll resist pointing out that you must’ve been one spoiled, troublesome teenager.” She nudged me with her elbow and flashed me a teasing smile. “No wonder you turned out so bossy and demanding.”

Bless her for lightening the mood without me having to tell her I didn’t want to talk about my dad anymore and making things tense and awkward. I wrapped my hand around her elbow and teased her right back. “If you go ahead and say it, is it really resisting?”

She shrugged, that heart-stopping smile spreading across her beautiful face. “Probably not, but when it comes to resistance and you, would you want me to do a better job?”

“Fuck no.”

She trailed a finger down my chest. “That’s what I thought. And since I’m not sure you listened very well the first time around, you shouldn’t bother resisting my advice about taking a break once in a while so your life doesn’t solely revolve around work, thinking about work, and doing more work.”

---