Page 6 of Knocked Up by My Fake Fiancé
"I'm serious. What is your problem?" she continues, her voice perhaps showing a little less pure anger and a little more genuine confusion and pain. "Because you and your entire team have done your absolute best to make this process as difficult and unconstructive as possible. You don't communicate your needs, don't cooperate, you're never available when needed to help make decisions, and then when I move heaven and earth to try to make it work anyway, you completely shit on my hard work and fuck up everything. Do you have any idea how muchtime and effort it took to set up all that decor? The least you could have done was inform us before carelessly taking it down."
She pauses for a moment to draw breath for the first time, and if I'm not mistaken I think I see a drop of moisture in her eyes. My goodness—this woman's serious. She really means all this. I half open my mouth to respond, but she beats me to it, launching once more into her diatribe.
"I don't work like that sir!" she proclaims. "I'm used to dealing with bratty rich people, but I thought a man of your age and experience would have outgrown that by now. How does someone with your level of business-savvy disrespect another professional's time and effort like that, huh? Tell me, because I'm curious… how do you and the people on your team think this sort of underhand action is even remotely okay to do behind the back of your appointed management team?"
"The 'set,' as you call it, was totally wrong for us," I tell her, my voice gruff with the struggle to tame the heat scorching through my senses. "It was over-the-top, and bordering on tacky, not at all what we were expecting from you."
"Well, in that case, you could have called me up and told me that, instead of issuing your own commands behind my back. How do you think this makes me look to all the staff at the Ritz? You've turned me into some kind of a laughing stock down there. God knows what they're saying about me. What I want to know is this—what are you going to do about it?"
The gauntlet is thrown, and my eyes flare open at the words. Tension crackles in the air, threads of it hanging in the atmosphere. Her eyes are definitely glistening, but she continues to stare down at me defiantly, and she doesn't burst into tears, she doesn't back down.
I pause before replying, letting the silence speak for me first. Showing her that I am in control here, not her. That I don'thaveto respond, but that Ichooseto respond on my own terms, and in my own good time.
"Is that any way to talk to your boss?" I finally ask. I make my words casual, but the threat hangs in my tone. She has no idea what she's stoking in me. Honestly, I still don't know what to do. Normally, of course, this would mean an instant termination. A full dismissal from whatever role or position the person had managed to achieve, complete with an immediate and ignominious escort out of the building from one of the security team. But this woman's not normal. She seems to have me in some kind of spell.
"I'm assuming after your careless destruction of my work, you're not my boss anymore," she responds. Is it my imagination, or is her voice huskier than before? "Plus, it's the truth. In months of working together, this is only the second time you or someone from your team has even met with me. This entire process has been painful because ofyourlack of communication. You seem to expect me to read your mind. How was I supposed to know what you actually wanted was a minimalist gray podium and gunmetal chairs that look like they come from some kind of 1950s public institution? And speaking of tacky…" Her voice hovers, then she seems to change her mind. "You know what? No, never mind. It's not like you deserve or want my advice anyway. I'm just telling you, Mr. Wolfe, that your dealings with me as your contractor have been wholly subpar."
I smirk. She's like a governess who's disciplining an unruly child. The heat is like a whip, whispering over my skin. Teasing the beast to the forefront. I find myself wondering what I might do if she told me to get over her knee for a good spanking… or what it might be like to putherovermyknee for the same treatment. My cock stiffens yet again. Best not to think thosesorts of thoughts, perhaps. I doubt she's in the mood for games of that nature.
I find myself standing up, walking around the desk, and pacing up to where she's still standing in front of my office door. My tread is light, but purposeful, a tiger stalking its victim.
She should be scared. She should back up.
She doesn't.
Instead, I catch the subtle squeezing of her legs. Her swallow.
Her lust.
We are close now. Too close. Neither of us is prepared to back away, to create the distance to make us safe. Neither of us is willing to give in.
"Are you done?"
"No, actually," she says, desire thick in her voice. "I also wanted to add that you have a knack for wasting others' time. Speaking of wasting time, your secretary is a witch with a capital ‘B.' I suggest you hire a PA who actually answers questions and deals with issues, rather than just sounding bored and hanging up."
"Okay." I nod. "Now I'm going to tell you one thing and one thing only. When you were hired, it was with the understanding that you'd managed events of this scale before. We didn't expect to handhold you throughout the entire process."
"I didn't–"
"I'm not finished." I cut her off, while staring at those plump lips, forming a stubborn line. "There were plenty of candidates whom we could have chosen, most of them far more qualified than you, but for several reasons, we chose your company. Had we known that you expected such intense oversight, we wouldn't have."
She glares. "Communication isn't oversight."
"It might as well be. Because had I not been supervising, you would have sold me that clown show for an opener."
Oh, now the fire is crackling in her eyes. "That 'clown show,' as you put it, is a visual representation of 'at-risk youth,' one of the major groups that your charity claims to help. The stage itself was set up by a native Brooklyn artist who was a former at-risk youth, and painted a mural on stage that reflected his upbringing and his triumph over it. You think your attendees wouldn't want to see that? You think those things go unappreciated?" She shakes her head. "I've been planning events for many years. You have no idea how much those little details mean, and you got rid of it, to hastily put together a dull and unambitious alternative look and feel with no soul and no meaning, simply because you couldn't pick up a phone and speak to me first."
"You keep talking to me like that, and you're not going to like what happens next." I growl, at my breaking point.
She should leave. She should get out right now, or my restraint will break.
But she doesn't. Her lids lower in challenge. "It's not an insult if it's true."
Fuck. That's it.
I try to stop myself, I really do. Words are screaming in my brain, telling me how much of a bad idea this is. But I fail.
Our lips touch, finally, and there's no going back.
