Page 46 of Triplet Babies for My Billionaire Boss

Chapter Twenty one

Rodney

I had been shocked when Danielle called me a pussy. I’d never had a woman talk to me like that. I had always known she was a strong woman, outspoken and defiant, but she had never shown it before, not with me.

It had bruised my ego. There was no way it couldn’t have. She’d told me to my face that I wasn’t being a man. If I hadn’t been so offended, I would have admitted that it was hot as hell. There was something attractive about a woman that had the balls to stand up and say something like that. And to me of all people, when I was her boss and her superior in so many ways.

But that hadn’t been true for a while now, had it? She may have been working for me and she was half my age, but Danielle had been my equal in every way since we had fucked the first time. It was what I liked about her so much. It was what made this so hard. In the business world, Danielle wasn’t my equal, which meant that if any of this came out, the press would eat me alive.

I was in the media more and more now. I was in tech magazines, and I was being watched by the paparazzi. When I was on the verge of releasing new software, all eyes were on me. It was a rollercoaster of publicity. Some weeks, I was out of the public eye completely, and others, I was a hot topic of discussion.

Right now, they were all watching me, and I had to be careful of the moves I made.

It wasn’t just about that, though. I couldn’t act on my feelings for Danielle because of her father. Unlike my popularity in the media, which changed from month to month, my friendship with Mark never did. He was my best friend, and Danielle was his daughter.

Why could she not see why I was doing what I was doing?

By Wednesday, I was starting to see the how things were going to be between us from here on out. She had given me the cold shoulder for two days now. I had hoped it would blow over, but it hadn’t. I guessed it was wrong of me to assume she was fickle enough to forget about our little fallout in the elevator and fawn over me again in such a short amount of time, but a man could hope.

Which was also wrong of me. I wasn’t supposed to hope she would start drooling over me again when I’d been trying to get her to stop all this time. Except, I missed it. I missed her trying to mess with me and trying to get me worked up.

When I stepped into the elevator on Wednesday morning, Danielle was already in it. It was a surprise. I was usually there before her, and she slipped in behind me. She was busy on her phone. When I stepped in with her, she glanced up at me, but that was all. She turned her attention back to her phone without saying anything.

I stood next to her, and we rode in silence to the top floor. She wore a neat pair of high-waisted pants with heels that weren’t too high. Her blouse was sleeveless but buttoned up to her collarbone, and her hair was pulled back in a tight bun on top of her head. She looked beautifully professional, but her outfit was conservative and fit for the office.

She wasn’t inappropriately dressed. No extra skin showed that made me want to jump her bones. Which was exactly what I’d wanted, right? I had told her if she didn’t dress like this, I would write her up. Now, she gave me what I wanted, and I missed how she had dressed before. I missed the little game we had been playing. Danielle had added spice to my boring life, and that was gone now.

We got to work once we were in the office. Danielle focused on her duties without making things hard for me, and it irritated me to no end. When she had played hard to get, it had driven me crazy. Now that she wasn’t doing anything at all, it downright pissed me off.

I called her into my office at around ten. She had just returned from the coffee station and held out a cup to me when she stood before my desk. I took it from her.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she said politely.

I cleared my throat. “I want to talk about your attitude in the office,” I said.

“What did I do wrong?” Danielle asked. “I did what you asked me.”

I shook my head. “You’re treating me like you want nothing to do with me. People are going to start noticing and wonder what’s going on. They’ll be able to do the math, you know?”

“So, when I was playing along, being sexy and seductive–something you started when you came on to me that first night–it was wrong? Now that I’m not doing it at all, it’s wrong, too?”

“Danielle, don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Why are you acting like this?”

Her face changed, but I couldn’t tell what her expression meant. She lifted her hand, pressing it against her stomach, and took a deep breath.

“I’ll stop being like this if you start being a man.”

God, this again? Was she going to call me a pussy again? I prepared myself for it. Danielle looked like she wanted to say more, and I braced myself but she paled.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Danielle pressed her fingers to her lips, her eyes glazing over before she turned and ran out of my office. I got up and followed her. She ran toward the ladies’ room, drawing attention. Other employees saw her pass and got up to follow her, to check if she was okay. By the time I reached the ladies’ room, a handful of people joined me there. I heard Danielle throwing up in the bathroom.

“That’s enough,” I said to everyone around me, hoping to save Danielle some embarrassment. “Get back to work.”

Reluctantly, they filtered away. I stopped the last lady–Monica, I think her name was–and asked her to fetch a glass of water. She nodded and walked toward the coffee station where there was a water cooler.

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