The Bride (The Boss) (27 page)

“Do what?” I had no idea what was going on. For a split second, I wondered if he’d just written me a check to get out of an argument. “What are you talking about?”

“You said you abandoned your career. That’s not true. You were fired, and things were in the air for you. But that doesn’t mean you’ve left your passion behind you entirely.” He nodded at the note in my hand. “If you can’t get a job at a magazine, then get a magazine.”

“You mean…”

He blinked slowly, the hint of smile curling the edges of his mouth. “I mean, start your own magazine.”

For a weird moment, I saw myself doing just that. Sitting behind a big desk, making people get
my
coffee and generally terrorizing the masses. But then I remembered something crucial: “I have no idea how to start a magazine.”

“Oh, really? That’s a shame,” he bluffed smoothly. “If only there were someone you could go to for advice…”

“Oh, so you’re going to do the same thing you fired me and Deja for? You’re going to supply information to a rival company?” I pushed the check back at him.

He wouldn’t take it. “I said I would give you advice. I’m not going to talk to you about
Porteras
business. If you need me to give you advice, I’m here for you. But I’m not going to damage my own interests doing so.”

Neil said nothing as I laid the check between us. Then his gaze flicked up to my face and he said, “The choice is up to you. But if you were unable to have your dream job at
Porteras
, please consider building a new dream for yourself. I will be there for you every step of the way, if you want me there. I won’t walk away from you, Sophie. I’ve waited too damn long to be with you, and we’ve gone through too much together.”

I looked at the dollar signs and zeroes lying on the bed. “This isn’t your way of buying me out of my sadness?”

“No, Sophie, it isn’t. It’s me telling you that it’s all right to use our money for a fresh start.”

“If I take it… I’m just doing what Holli accused me of doing.” I remembered the way I’d bought a fucking hundred-thousand dollar purse right in front of her, like it was nothing. I was so ashamed. I hadn’t even told Neil about it yet.

I ripped up the check.

He grinned at me. “I had a feeling you would do that.”

“Well, one of these days, I’m going to surprise you. I’m not sure how yet, but I will.”

He put an arm around me and hugged me close. “Of that, darling, I have no doubt.”

* * * *

Two nights later, Neil came home from the office and started shouting for me from the front door. I’d been in the library filling out an interview for a blog—I’d naively assumed interviews were conducted over the phone—about my upcoming book. I shot to my feet; Neil rarely yelled if we weren’t in the middle of a heated argument, and I didn’t remember starting one today. Had something bad happened? I was absolutely sure I couldn’t take any more stress this week.

I dashed into the foyer, and he dropped his black leather messenger bag to catch me up in his arms and spin me around.

“Whoa!” I giggled, dizzy, and put my hands on his shoulders to slightly disentangle myself. “What’s gotten into you?”

“They accepted the offer. It’s ours.”

It took me a moment, but the wide grin on his face and the gleam of joy in his eyes clued me in. “The house?”

“Five million less than the asking price, and we can take possession at closing.” He leaned down for a kiss, and I obliged him, but his words stopped me.

“Wait, possession at closing… When will that be?” I was going to be very quickly plunged into a whirlwind of publicity for my book. It would be masochistic to try and manage a big move at the same time.

“I have to withdraw from one of my investment accounts to cover the purchase. I don’t have that type of money lying about easily accessible. It should take between ten and fourteen days for the transfer to clear, and then we’ll sign.”

It would never stop being a source of wonder to me that Neil routinely talked about moving eight figures from account to account. I was pretty sure my private savings account only held the five dollars required to keep it open.

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” I shook my head. “Neil. We’re getting a house.”

“Oh, yes, we are.”

“We’re becoming like, a family.”

His expression softened into the disarming half-smile I loved, and he dipped his head to meet my upturned mouth. I parted my lips under his, my tongue darting out to taste him as I gripped the front of his coat and rose on my tiptoes to get a better angle. When I was breathless and whimpering, he pulled back. “We’re already family, Sophie.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought him down for another kiss.

“Wait, wait.” He laughed, pulling back. “I haven’t even taken my coat off yet.”

“Well, take it off,” I ordered playfully. “Something about a guy buying me a seventy-eight-million dollar house is an incredible turn on.”

“I didn’t buy it just for you,” he reminded me, pulling his gloves off and shrugging out of his coat. He tossed both on the large round table in the center of the foyer. “I expect to live there, myself, if that’s all right.”

I sighed, a hand pressed to my chest in mock offense. “Well, if you must.”

Following him into the bedroom, I leaned against the door frame. “You know, Sue isn’t here right now.”

“Isn’t she?” Je frowned and tossed his jacket over the sofa in front of the fireplace. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She said she needed the evening off, so I gave it to her. It’s not like we can’t fend for ourselves.” I chewed my lip. “In fact…how would you feel if we didn’t have a housekeeper once we move?”

“How do you feel about vacuuming thirty-five-thousand square feet?” He grinned at me and sat on the couch to take off his shoes.

“Why would I be doing the vacuuming?” I shot back. “You’re the one who’s going to be retired. You’ll be free to do all the housecleaning for me.”

“Forgive me, for this will seem unbearably posh, but I’ve never used a vacuum cleaner in my life.”

Okay, throwing around huge sums of money, I had gotten somewhat used to that. The fact that he’d met the Queen of freaking England, and there was a photo of said meeting framed and hanging in the hallway? I could cope. But these small, everyday things he had no acquaintance with still freaked me out.

I changed the direction of the conversation. Considering the week I was having, I didn’t have the fortitude to overthink something so weird as living to be fifty years old without ever touching a vacuum.

“I never said we couldn’t have a cleaning lady come in a few times a month,” I began reasonably. “Thirty-five-thousand square feet is a lot of house. We’re not going to use it all every single day. And like I said, you’re going to be retired. And you love to cook.”

“I do love to cook,” he conceded.

“And it will be awful nice to have super loud sex whenever we want.” I walked slowly toward him. “That was kind of what I was getting at when I told you Sue wasn’t here.”

Emma was in England as of this morning, wrapping things up at Global Defense Fund’s London office. We were truly alone, a rare occasion that had to be savored.

I straddled his lap and leaned in close. He hadn’t taken his tie off yet, so I gripped it and tugged. “What do you say? Wanna do rude things to each other?”

“Always,” he said with a slight smile. “I only… I didn’t know when you’d be in the mood. After what happened.”

It was true that I was still devastated by my fight with Holli. Six years of friendship didn’t magically disappear in two days. I’d spent most of the morning watching
Bowfinger
and crying, but by afternoon, I’d gotten bored with my sadness. Just because Holli hadn’t called me didn’t mean she wouldn’t; we needed cool off time. I wasn’t about to spend mine constantly moping, though. Not when Neil and I had a chance to be a normal couple.

“Why don’t I change, and then I’ll start on dinner. We have all night,” he reminded me. “Besides, the sound of my empty stomach won’t make for a very sexy encounter. I worked through my lunch today.”

I’d seen Neil’s “working lunches.” He usually just sat next to a plate of something until it was too cold and congealed to be eaten, then came home famished.

“All right.” I climbed off his lap. “I could do with a shower first, anyway.”

While Neil went about his plan, I set to mine. A quick, hot shower lifted me from my funk—both depressive and odor wise—enough that I wasn’t content to just throw on some sweats or pajamas. Working from home had severely enabled style-laziness.

I blew out my hair, then took a curling iron to it, creating soft, romantic waves that fell around my shoulders. When I put on my makeup, I went with a thick, crisp cat’s eye in black liquid liner and put on MAC’s “Relentlessly Red” lipstick. It would match the dress I would wear.

I’d recently acquired a truly amazing, bright red sheath dress, ruched from hem to very, very low neckline. It was possibly the tightest thing I’d ever purchased, and I hadn’t worn it for Neil yet. If he’d noticed it in the closet, he hadn’t said anything. I chose a red lace balconette push up bra and slid the extra thick padding into the pockets in the cups. Then I struggled into the dress, pulled up the zipper and checked myself out in the mirror.

I looked like I should have been in a hair band music video in the 90’s. It was perfect. I slipped on black patent leather pumps and walked myself and my epic cleavage right on out to the kitchen.

Neil’s back was turned when I entered. He was frowning at something in the refrigerator, holding the brushed steel door open, and he didn’t look at me as he asked, “I’ve put one of Sue’s lentil casseroles in the oven, but what would you like as a side? It seems our choices are kale, kale, and more…”

His words died away as he looked up and took in the sight of me.

I did a slow turn. “What do you think?”

I knew what he thought. The dress fit me like a latex glove, and created the illusion of gorgeous, long legs on my five-foot-four body. And if there had been any doubt in my mind as to his opinion, they were entirely removed when he strode toward me and grabbed me, his hands sinking into my hair. He didn’t kiss my mouth—good, because I didn’t want him to smudge my lipstick quite yet—but tilted my head to the side to suck at my earlobe and whisper, “I think I’m going to rip that dress off you, throw you on the counter, and fuck you until you can’t walk tomorrow.”

A few crude words spoken in his cultured accent was all it took to set the blood in my body pounding south. The ache of my desire was not gradual, but an immediate, intense need.

“You’d better get a condom first,” I reminded him. We’d agreed we wouldn’t go unprotected for three months after we’d had sex with another partner. That provided time for a checkup to get a clean bill of sexual health.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. You’re right.” He groaned against my ear. “The casserole will burn, won’t it?”

“Probably.” I stepped back. “You’re not really going to rip it, are you, Sir?”

“Have I ever destroyed anything I didn’t replace?”

I thought of all the panties he’d shredded, the buttons he’d popped, and the underwire he’d twisted. But he was right. He had replaced all of them.

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” he promised with a chuckle. “Get a stool and drag it over there, where I can see you.”

I pulled one of the high backed stools from the island. It screeched on the tiles. Neil went back to the refrigerator, barely sparing me a look as I hopped up on my perch.

He dropped a bundle of kale on the island, then turned to me, leaning on one hand on the counter. After a moment of consideration, he asked, “Are you wearing panties, Sophie?”

I pressed my lips together and shook my head, swaying one knee just slightly open from the other.

“Show me,” he ordered.

With a hand on each knee, I slowly pushed my legs apart. I trailed my fingers up my thighs as I spread them wider, baring myself completely.

He nodded his approval and went back to the island.

I wasn’t sure if I should close my legs or not, so I tried to.

“Don’t do that. Did I say you could close them?”

“No, Sir. Forgive me, Sir,” I purred back at him.
 

He glanced up briefly as he reached for a head of garlic. “How do you feel?”

“Exposed, Sir.” I giggled at the wash of nervousness that always followed his first few commands. It was the giddy moment I realized that the game had started.

“Good. Get your tits out.”

A hot flush traveled up my neck. I loved how obscene he became in this role, saying things to me that he would never normally say. I slipped one strap off my shoulder then I decided I’d done far too much work getting into the dress to take it off already. I jerked the neckline down and lifted my breasts from the cups of my bra.

“Touch them. However you like, as long as you don’t stop.” He slid a cutting board onto the island and began to mince some garlic.

At his words, my skin tingled with gooseflesh. The blood rushing faster through my veins made the room seem colder, only intensifying the feeling of exposure and vulnerability. The uncertainty of what he had planned, what was going on in his devious mind, made me squirm in my chair.

I started by trailing my fingers over the tops of my breasts, then down between them, skating up and around my hard nipples. Neil barely glanced at me. I knew he wasn’t so absorbed in cooking that he couldn’t spare a look at me pleasuring myself. His mind worked fast, so whatever it was he was carefully planning would be—

“Nothing too intense tonight,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts.

My hands froze on my body. He looked up, his expression soft and sympathetic. “Darling, you’re not having the best week. We can still play, but I’d rather we keep it light, for your sake. There’s no reason to risk sub drop.”

He had a point. I’d had sub drop twice before; once, because he’d moved too fast at the beginning of our relationship, and the second when we’d played again for the first time after he’d come home from the hospital for good. Both times, I’d been experiencing emotional upheaval in other parts of my life, and submission had opened the floodgates and poured all my stress out, washing me away on a days-long depressive episode. He was totally right, two days after a huge fight with my best friend was not the time to let someone slap me and call me a whore, no matter how turned on it made me to think of it now.