Page 21 of The Bargain

I’d lifted my coffee to my lips to take a sip as he asked and I was grateful I’d stopped, because I would have choked on the hot beverage.

Oh, nothing too exciting. Just got ripped in the boss’s office, kissed him, puked on him, and then went on a pseudo-date before he proposed this insane bargain that could both fix and destroy my life. You know, nothing too out of the ordinary.

“Umm…no, not really. Slept a lot. Read some.”

“Sounds like a nice, quiet weekend.” Kaylan’s smile was tight and polite. I could almost feel his pity. Yeah, that was a pathetic weekend—not because it was a total lie, but because it was an answer I’d given more than once. I rarely did anything on the weekends besides sleep, read, and prepare for the coming workweek.

What he didn’t know was that my weekends were usually spent checking on my mother, cleaning her house, getting her groceries, and running to Louisville to see my brother. When it was all over, I was glad to be at work because it was less stressful than my weekends.

“We should get to our desks. I’m sure Sebastian will be walking in soon.”

“Yep,” Kaylan said with a nod. He strolled out of our break room ahead of me. “He’s got a long list of meetings today. It’s going to be a busy one. I’ll be ready if you need me to jump on something.”

“Thank you.”

After my chat with Kaylan and a few sips of coffee, my brain was ready to attack the day. I breezed through a stack of emails and sorted through the reports and contracts that were ready to hit Sebastian’s desk. Despite nearly everything going digital, he preferred to read all major reports and contracts on paper. He said it was easier to write on the paper when a thought or concern hit him. It was my responsibility to decipher his handwriting and add the notes to the digital copies for the various departments.

Sebastian breezed through the office as I was getting the last of my notes together. There was no need for Kaylan’s warning text that Sebastian had arrived, because I could hear my boss’s cheery voice echoing across the entire floor.

“Happy Monday, Kaylan! You look like you had a great weekend,” Sebastian called out.

“So do you, sir,” Kaylan replied.

“It was fantastic. Best weekend I’ve had in a long time.”

I steeled myself, fighting the urge to bury my face in my hands even as heat crept into my cheeks. There was no way he was talking about me and our time together. He was insane.

As the clack of his hard-soled shoes grew louder across the black marble floor, I gathered up the papers and my tablet, which had a list of all the things he needed to review. Just like every day, I rose from my desk and moved to meet him at the door to his office.

“There’s my Byron. The man I would be utterly lost without,” Sebastian greeted with more exuberance than usual. He was a chipper person, but this was taking it to the extreme, even for him. Carl walked two steps behind him and gave a wordless shrug, as if to say he had no idea what had put him in such a good mood.

“Good morning, sir,” I greeted and pushed both of the doors open for him.

The first thing I’d done upon returning to Courtland Enterprises this morning was to clean up my paper mess, scrub away all signs that I’d ever had a drop of alcohol in that room, and freshen the air with his favorite scents. While I knew he’d seen the disaster I’d made, I’d wanted to make sure there was not even a shadow of it for his arrival on Monday. We needed to forget about that embarrassing incident.

Carl followed Sebastian in and made a quick check of the office to make sure everything was secure, then retreated to his own space. We wouldn’t see him until Sebastian stepped out for lunch.

As Sebastian dropped into his high-back leather swivel chair, I took up my usual position on his right. My too-handsome boss was dressed in my favorite suit—a dark-navy plaid material with a lighter-blue collared shirt and tie. There was something about the way the jacket hugged his shoulders that made it so hard to look away from him.

Did he know that was my favorite? I wouldn’t put it past him to wear it in hopes of swaying my final decision on the bargain he proposed, but how did he know it was my favorite?

It was only when I noticed Sebastian had his left elbow resting on the top of his desk and his cheek leaning against his fist as he gazed up at me with a grin that I realized I had been staring instead of talking.

“Sir, you have a long list of meetings today. The first is at nine—a briefing about the numbers Mr. Foster provided from the finance department on Friday. At nine thirty, the head of marketing for Courtland Comfort will be stopping by to discuss the last changes to the summer campaigns. Ten thirty?—”

“Did you do anything fun yesterday?” Sebastian interrupted.

“Sir,” I gritted out, trying to get him on task. I would not talk about how I’d alternated between anger and masturbating after he’d left my place.

“Would you like to hear what I did with my Sunday?” Sebastian waggled his eyebrows at me, and I got the impression that there were some distinct similarities between our Sundays.

“I think it would be best if we focused on work. We have a very busy day ahead of us if we hope to protect the jobs of everyone who works at Courtland Enterprises.”

Sebastian flopped back into his seat, his right hand rested on his heart. “Ugh. That was cold. How could you be so mean to me first thing in the morning?”

Sadly, this was not the first time he’d ever said that to me. It was a refrain I’d heard frequently when I scheduled meetings for him prior to nine a.m. My boss always came in at eight, so he could have a minimum of a full hour to go through messages and notes before his first meeting. I was usually in between six and seven to prepare for my day, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You promised me an answer today,” he pressed, dropping his voice to a whisper.

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