Page 1 of Kiss and Makeup
Chapter One
Kristin
Offices were for two things: work, and discrete sex.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t used the privacy of an office for a little fun in the past. But when I had, it had been with a boyfriend. An exclusive boyfriend. As in, we only had sex with each other.
A boyfriend like my current one, Brent. Or at least, if you had asked one minute ago, I would have said we were exclusive, and I wouldn’t have argued against some quick office sex.
Here I was, right now, in Brent’s office. And that definitely wasn’t me he had bent over the desk, moaning his name with her panties around her ankles and her skirt pushed up around her waist.
The door hadn’t made a sound when I opened it. I couldn’t either. All I could do was listen toslap slap slapand watch in disbelief.
Believe it.
“Brent, what thefuck.”
If I wasn’t so emotional that I couldn’t tell whether the tears that burned at my eyelids were angry ones or hurt ones, the scene would have been comical. Brent spun the girl over his desk around with his dick still inside her, as if hiding his nakedness with her tits would somehow retrieve this situation. “K-Kristen! It’s, uh… uh… I swear I didn’t… I just….”
“No.” I cut him off with utter remorselessness. “We’re through.”
“Kristen, wait!” An arm that had once made me feel safe snatched at my arm like the clinging, slimy touch of a monster. “I’m sorry, it’s just… you’re never around. You’re always staying late at the office, or going on a business trip, or taking a call, or busy with Emma—”
“Don’t you even say her name,” I snapped, wrenching my arm out of his grasp. “Don’t you dare come around my child or me ever again.”
I spun around on my stilettos—the ones I’d worn just for him, because I could have worn way more comfortable heels—and marched out of the office. “Hi, sorry?” I said sweetly, my entire body shaking as I poked my head over the front desk to find the receptionist, who was looking through a file folder while talking on the phone. “Brent Walker is having sex with his secretary in his office.”
Shock overtook the woman’s face. I managed to escape the office building before my own shock broke into sobs.
I leaned into the recessed door of a closed-down establishment, pulled the hood of my coat low over my face, and cried into the soft lining.
Why? Was it even possible to know someone? I thought I had known Brent. I thought he would never cheat on me.
And he had, less than half a day after telling me how much he loved me and that I was the only girl for him.
Tearfully, I rubbed the cold tip of my nose. Maybe I should have seen this coming… Brent had seemed a little off for a while, but I thought that was because I’d been so busy lately.
Well, it was because of that. Brent couldn’t accept that being recently hired as head of the marketing department at BeautyBee Cosmetics meant that I had to seize the initiative and prove myself. He couldn’t wait for me, so he’d spotted a chance to put his dick in his secretary’s vagina and taken it.
What an asshole.
So why did it hurt so much?
My brokenhearted sobs had subsided into sniffles that could be associated with the chilly late October weather, so I abandoned the doorway for the flow of pedestrians.
Maybe it hurt so much because it was so familiar. How many times had this happened to me?
Oh, not walking in on my boyfriend having sex with his secretary. That had only happened once. But the cheating, the trying to be there for someone but having them lose interest in me… that happened way too often. Every time I met someone new, in fact.
Passing an Martha’s Antique Shop, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror in the window. Ugh… I’d have to run into the lobby bathroom when I got to the BeautyBee building. Tears had left my eyes puffy and sent dark lines of mascara streaking down my cheeks, and my usually immaculate, tight ponytail had slipped and let wisps of hair stick out every which way.
I looked like a mess, but my CEO would never know that I was anything but fully committed to marketing their holiday products when I walked into his office in half an hour. In the tough, competitive Chicago business environment, bosses didn’t care about your problems, and if you cared about moving up in life, you wouldn’t let them know you had any.
Get it together, Kristen,I ordered my reflection as soon as I stepped into the one-person bathroom and shut the door.You can lose it later. Not right now.
Look like a businesswoman, feel like a businesswoman. With my mascara back in place, my hair flawless, and my lips a tasteful pale pink, I felt ready to put aside my personal life and deal with this meeting.
So, when my knock on his office door was answered with a “come in”, I didn’t hesitate. I strode inside with all the confidence of my position in the company.
