Page 42 of Big Boss
“Erica Ridley.” I remove my glasses and pinch the space between my eyebrows, where a headache is already forming.
“Donovan Tate,” she snips back, refusing to go along with my efforts to get her to talk. Her smart mouth drives me crazy. I can’t decide if I want to kiss her or turn her over my knee and spank her.
But right now, there’s something else that requires my immediate attention. “Erica, are you telling me that you are a virgin?”
I watch her fingers clench around the notepad. “No, Tate. I’m not.”
But there’s something about the way she says it that is enough to give even someone like me the hint.
“Were you a virgin before last night?” The thought is so terrible that I can barely whisper the words.
Reluctantly, she nods, and I shove my hands into my hair roughly.
God, the depraved things I did to her. And I certainly wasn’t gentle. Not at all what I would have done if I’d known it was her first time.
I’m absolutely disgusted with myself right now. No wonder she wasn’t sprawled across my desk in her underwear. She probably thinks I’m some kind of monster.
Maybe I am a monster.
I finally manage to look her in the eye again and I swallow hard. “Erica, I’m so sorry. I never would have—”
She cuts me off with a sharp movement of her hand. “Save it, Bossy. We both had a fun time, and nothing is any different between us today than it was yesterday.”
I suck in a shocked breath. “Everything is different. Surely you’re kidding.”
Erica shrugs one shoulder gently. “It’s not the Middle Ages. You don’t have to propose or whatever when you deflower a girl now. Nobody is coming for you with a shotgun and a marriage license.”
I blanch. How can she be so calm and unaffected by something so major? “This isn’t a small issue, Erica. You should have told me.”
Her scowl tightens. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I’ve been telling you all along that I don’t want anything between us to change, and here you are, ruining that. Nobody cares that we had sex, even if you aretheDonovan Tate.”
I stand up abruptly. “Don’t you ever talk like that again. It’s awful.” I shake my head to clear the alarm bells ringing in my ears and pull my hair into a ponytail. “I’m going out.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” she says, staring at me accusatorily.
“What do you care? You just told me that nobody cares that we had sex, but here’s the thing.” I pull on my jacket and turn to face her again. “I care. And if you don’t, then I definitely can’t be around you right now.”
She curls her body around her little notepad. “You don’t have to leave. I’m just another notch on your bedpost, and that’s okay by me. It was just a one-time thing.”
But I’m seething now, boiling over with a mountain of emotions that I can’t control. I have to get out of here before I say something terrible, something that I will always regret.
“No, I’m going out.”
She stares at me for a moment, then her hand bunches up the side of her skirt in that way that lets me know she’s anxious. “When will you be back?”
I shake my head. “Just leave me alone right now, okay? You’ve done more than enough damage for one day.”
And with that, I storm out the door, slamming it on my way out, leaving my coffee unattended on my giant desk.
I don’t even glance back at her because even if it wasn’t on purpose, Erica really hurt me. Like deep-gut-stab-and-left-out-to-bleed-and-die-on-the-sidewalk level hurt that I didn’t know I was susceptible to anymore.
I’ve certainly never been strong enough to face my attackers. No reason to start changing that problematic behavior today.
The elevator is a dedicated express that comes only to my floor. It’s the same elevator that Erica once trespassed in when I accidentally took her coffee order.
Because we drink the same type of coffee. Of course we do. This is supposed to be love, isn’t it?
My hand curls into a fist, and I rest my head against it while I wait for the elevator doors to open.
