Page 17 of Work: Strictly Professional

No, what? I didn’t ask a question.

I must look confused because he clarifies, “I don’t want someone I don’t know in my home.”

“No problem, I’ll pick it up and drop it off myself.”

Actually, it’s a big fucking problem. I have at least a hundred calls to make today and traipsing around town picking up dry cleaning and dropping it off will take a huge chunk of time out of my day.

I’m absolutely fuming by the time I get to his place. Pam didn’t file the dry-cleaning receipt when she left, so I had to get shirty—excuse the pun—with the manager before he’d hand over Derek’s laundry. Plus, there’s roadwork on Olvera, and traffic was gridlocked for five blocks. It’s already taken me over an hour, and I still have to get all the way back to the office.

Thankfully Derek’s doorman is friendly and takes mercy on me when I don’t have the code for the elevator. Evidently, and unsurprisingly, Derek lives in the penthouse. I punch in the code and ride to the top floor of the building. The elevator opens straight into his entrance hall.

It’s an impressive space, I have to admit. Say what you will about Derek MacAvoy, but the man knows how to make expanses of glass and light work. The view is spectacular, a blue-and-green dream that wraps around the apartment. But the real hero is the terrace garden. Large folding stack doors in the kitchen, dining, and living room open to reveal a courtyard so lush and leafy it looks like a floating oasis.

The space confuses my senses. It’s beautiful. A symphony of bold choices and thoughtful accents. Light touches and one-of-a-kind pieces of art. At first I think it must be the work of an A-list designer, but the more I look around, the more I see Derek. He’s everywhere. He’s in the hard lashings of black that slice through vast stretches of white. He’s in the complete absence of shades of gray. He’s in the precision of every pane of glass and in the unforgiving way it meets solid concrete. He’s in the smell of leather that wafts up from the oversized Chesterfield sofa and the bolts of crisp white billowing cotton.

I’m tentative at first, walking slowly and cautiously as if I expect to be caught and put in detention at any moment. The day-to-day file said to hang the shirts on the hooks at the entrance, but there aren’t any hooks at the entrance. Just a solid slab of white wall, a sleek glass console table, and a huge, ornate mirror above it. The only thing out of place is a crumpled cloth bag on the floor beside the table with the wordsDry Cleaningembroidered on it.

Must be nice, I think. Living how the other half live. Just dumping your laundry at your front door and knowing that some poor sod will deal with it for you. Must be really, really nice.

I pad through the kitchen and dining area, running a fingertip over the table to check for dust. I come up empty. I wander through the living room, stopping to look back to make sure I haven’t dragged any evidence of my presence in on my shoes. For good measure, I toe off my shoes and make the rest of my journey on sock-covered tip-toes.

My pulse quickens as I walk.

The door to Derek’s bedroom is ajar. I stand in front of it and peer in, leaving the rest of my body safely out of view. His bed has been meticulously made up. Smoothed and tucked in, starched linen leaving no trace that a mortal has slept here. I step into the room, feet briefly leaving the ground when the plastic bag from the dry cleaner rustles.

There’s a dark timber bedside table on either side of the bed. They’re both polished well beyond the point commonly required to categorize a surface as gleaming. Both hold a lamp that looks more like art than lighting. There’s a bone inlay box on the bedside table on the left.

Derek’s side of the bed.

It’s a small box. Mother of pearl and teak. It’s about half the size of a shoebox. A personal item. The only thing in the room that looks like it belongs to a living person. I look around, heart in my throat, and take two steps toward it.

I stop in my tracks.

What the hell am I doing?

I don’t do this. I don’t snoop. I went to Sasha’s house at least once per week for almost four years and never once did I take it upon myself to go into her bedroom. Never once. There’s no need for it.

I race from the room, shirts sailing through the air alongside me as I move at speed back to where I should be, pausing only to shuck my shoes on as I walk.

Jesus Christ!

This is the problem with overly beautiful design. It’s so fucking thoughtfully done that there isn’t a single hook or handle in sight. What the hell am I supposed to hang these shirts on?

I drape them over the sofa, but they immediately slide off it. I consider hanging them off the back of a dining chair, but to me, that feels like damning proof I’ve ventured a little deeper into his home than I think he’d be comfortable with. After intense deliberation, I settle for the gargantuan kitchen island. I lay the shirts flat, which isn’t ideal, so I pat them down to avoid creasing. Then I hot-foot it out of there.

It’s not until I’m five minutes from the office that I realize I forgot to take Derek’s laundry bag with me when I left.

I give myself a long lecture as I ride the elevator up to my own personal hell. This is unacceptable. This isn’t me. Snooping is out of the question. Being distracted at work is out of the question. Sexually fantasizing about my boss is out of the question. It’s neither here nor there how attractive he is. That literally doesn’t come into it. The workplace is a place of work. It’s all right there in the name.Workandplace. It honestly couldn’t be clearer. It’s a place for putting your head down, and no, it’s not a place for thinking about putting your head down into the lap of the very man making your life a misery.

Jesus.

I need to snap out of this.

And I do. I snap out of it big time because no sooner have I taken my seat than the elevator doors open to reveal a beauty of such epic proportions that I find myself momentarily pitying straight men. No man remotely interested in women would stand a snowball’s chance in hell against her. She might well be the reason men started fearing women to begin with. She waits for a beat once the doors are open and then makes her entrance, seemingly generating her own wind as she moves. She arrives in a flurry of long, perfectly wavy blonde hair and a skintight whitedress that falls to her knees and accentuates her curves to such a degree that I feel unsure where to look. She seems to blur as she moves but comes into sharp focus when she stops at my desk. Big blue eyes blink and a pair of perfect lips curl into a smile that’s in no way friendly. She looks a little like Barbie—if Barbie had really good Botox and balls of solid steel.

“Oh,” she says by way of greeting. “You’re still here.” I get the impression she’d look surprised if she had full use of her eyebrows. “Tell him I’m here.”

She doesn’t seem to think she needs an introduction, and she’s right. I know without a shadow of a doubt who she is. Barbara Anne MacAvoy, Derek’s ex—and she’s beating a path to his office.

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