Page 23 of Get It In Writing
“First, I want you to know that I fired Joanna right after you left. She’s a certifiable lunatic.” He reaches across the table and breaks off a piece of my muffin.
“I’m going to let that slide because spinning a tall tale can really drain your energy, and it’d be cruel for me to withhold food from you right now. Want me to go get you some water, too? Bottled? What brand?” I remark.
“I’m not fucking around here. She’s nuts. She came onto me. Said she was playing some game in the office and...it doesn’t matter, does it? All that matters is that she’s gone now, and I’m so sorry that you went through all that.” He looks at me with his crystal-clear blue eyes and my stomach knots up around itself.
“So you didn't give her a note?” I ask.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No way.”
“How do I know this is the truth?” I ask. “It’s no secret that you’re hot and every girl in the office would love to have what we had. And by now, everyone probably knows what happened between us.”
“I thought of that,” Harper says, “so I had Joanna sign a non-disclosure agreement. She won’t tell anyone.”
“Why would she agree to do that? What’s her incentive? Isn’t she free to share some stupid office gossip if it happens to be very much the truth?”
“Strictly speaking, she can. But the IT department found out that she logged onto your computer and read that email I sent to you. That’s a huge violation, and the company decided that it would be in the best interest of all parties involved for everyone to just pretend the affair with my receptionist never happened.” He takes off his coat and drapes it over the back of his chair. Now he’s reaching for my coffee.
I look around the coffee shop and hope we’re not causing a scene. There are tears forming in the corners of my eyes, and they’re dropping onto the table. I wipe them away with a crumpled up napkin and shake my head.
“So why are you here? Everyone decided that it’d be this open secret, and now I’ve just been discarded like Joanna. What do I get out of all this?” My glasses are fogging up and I take them off to wipe the tears away. There goes my shield.
“No, baby. You don’t get it,” he says, taking my hands in his. “I want you to come back, and we can be open about it this time. I can fuck you in my office whenever I want.”
A smile forces itself onto my face as my stomach does a nervous, excited flip.
“Are you sure that’s appropriate?” I ask.
“Of course it’s not fucking appropriate. But fuck it. I own the place. What’s the point in that if you can’t make up the rules?” He squeezes my hands and wraps my fingers through his. My head is clear and my heart is full. “I’m not giving up on you. When you talked to me with all that wit of yours and weren’t afraid to stand up to me in the breakroom at work that day, I knew you were different from all the other girls who either cower away or throw themselves at me. You met me on my level. You asserted yourself as an equal, even if you didn’t know it then. And that’s when I knew I fucking had to make you mine.”
“I can’t do it,” I say, sitting up straight. “I can’t work for you.”
“You mean,” he says, cocking his smile to the side and looking at me square in the eyes, “you can’t get on your back every time I tell you to and I can’t lick you until you come all over my face? Because that’s a bonus of what working for me would entail. But you already know that.”
“No,” I say confidently. “I can’t do it. I have my own business. Now, I work for myself.”
“So you’re saying yes to the other part? The licking part? Or do I have to get on my knees under the table right now and convince you?” he says, giving me a cheesy wink.
“No,” I say. “That won’t be necessary. That part would be a little bit unprofessional, don’t you think?”
“So you do like it behind closed doors in a dark room. Where you can only feel and can’t see. I knew you were a good girl.”
“Oh, you knew that?” I laugh, putting my glasses back on. “I can be both. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get a tattoo now. Since I’m now my own boss. I deserve it, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” Harper says. “You do. And it would look fucking hot on you. And the best part is that you get to design it.”
I pull out a pen and smooth out one of the napkins I have crumpled on the table, and write my answer.
Yes.
I slide my answer across the table to him like it’s top secret, but this time it isn’t. This time, we can be open about it.
He looks down at the note and smiles, slipping it into his pocket.
“I’m keeping this. And let’s go. I have my car outside. We’re getting out of the city for a while.”
