Chapter Fourteen Grant
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Grant
“OH? SUCH AS?” RAE “Sunny” Jensen watches me, her expression a fascinating mix of annoyance and that wide-eyed curiosity she showed on Friday night. Beside her desk is an enormous plastic bin filled to the brim with tchotchkes.
I focus on her annoyance, wondering how she can be peeved at a perfectly logical request from me after sitting unfazed through that unhinged staff meeting.
Because Rae is an agent of chaos. That’s how. She may look all sweet and innocent with those rosy cheeks and curly hair, but underneath all her disarmingly cherubic trappings, she is a wreaker of havoc who has somehow snowed the rest of the world into thinking she’s harmless.
I know better, though.
“Are you going to be a problem, Rae?”
“Are you?”
“Very mature.”
“I’m not the one treating the team like children. No laptops outside of the building? No one works from home? That’s ridiculous.”
“We’re not discussing company policy, Rae. We’re talking about this.” I flick my finger back and forth between us.
“Oh, rest assured, there is no this ”—she stops emptying her bin just long enough to wiggle her hand in a parody of mine—“to discuss.”
“Excellent. And no blending professional and personal. Ever.”
She takes out a box of adhesive bandages and adds it to the growing pile of medical supplies littering her desk, followed by tissues and a half dozen tiny desk fans. After that comes an animal-shaped bowl, which she promptly fills with three kinds of candy. “Of course not.”
Of course not? Of course not? I’ve never seen a less professional environment than this, including companies where my contract ended with half the personnel going to prison.
The club’s got better boundaries than this hellscape, and people there have literal sex with each other.
It may not be in my job description, but there’s no reason I can’t straighten a few things out while I’m here.
Poor Dorothy’s been snowed by her own employees, and if I’m not mistaken, this woman’s spearheading the whole shambolic thing.
She may be, as Dorothy claims, “the heart and soul of the company,” but more than anything, I suspect that she’s the life of the party.
Rae Jensen is an anarchist in sheep’s clothing. This ends now.
“I mentioned to Dorothy that we’d met before.”
Finally, she stops unpacking things from that damn box, like some demented Mary Poppins, and gives me direct eye contact.
Those freckles do things to me. All over her nose, a few on her cheeks, and others scattered toward the neckline of that sweater.
With those massive blue-green eyes, she’s like a killer bunny. Cute and unbelievably dangerous.
“Oh, really? You just went and did that, without first discussing it with me?”
“I didn’t tell her the circumstances. Just that we’d met.”
“Great. Fine.” Her smile’s so wide and fake that it’s atrocious. A clown smile on a baby deer. “Thanks. I’ll make sure to put it in our personnel files.” She opens her laptop and types furiously.
“I’d like to—”
A blue-tipped finger goes up, stopping me in my tracks while she continues to tap out notes about our previous relationship. Or whatever she’s chosen to call it. Doesn’t matter. I won’t be here long enough for that to affect me.
Wait. How do I have a file? I’m not an employee.
With a final flourish, she looks up, her expression polite. “Go ahead.”
I blink, my mind blank before remembering what I was about to say. “As I was saying, we need to make sure we’re on the same page about how things work around here.”
“What page is that?”
“As you know, Dorothy’s asked me to come in and help her out with a special project. Once it’s done, I’ll be out of your hair.”
“And when will that be?”
“Depends on how much cooperation I receive from HR while I’m here. Will you cooperate?”
“Certainly.” Another fake smile before she digs back into the big box. Clothes start to come out now. Sweaters, followed by a pile of doughnut-shaped cushions. Umbrellas. “Anything else?”
“You do not go back to the club.”
This time, when her head snaps up, emotion has broken through. She’s pissed, and man, is she gorgeous. “What?”
“The club is my domain, and I’d prefer that you not—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t get the club.”
I’m a silent partner in the club, and the building is literally mine. Given the circumstances, I mention neither. “I’m a member” is all I go with.
“You just said we’re keeping private and professional separate.
Maybe I’ve decided to become a full-fledged member of the club.
Are you saying that, in your short-term capacity here at Sugar, you have a say in where I go on my nights off?
” She leans forward. “Because I didn’t hear you complaining last Friday.
In fact, I happen to have a text on my phone offering to show me around next time I—”
“You don’t want to go” is the only thing my brain can come up with.
“Oh, I do.”
“You don’t.”
“I really, really do.”
“Why?”
She pauses, mouth open, cheeks blazing again, those eyes flashing fierce and green. For a handful of seconds, I have to work to get my breathing back to normal.
“Whatever, Genghis. I’m done talking about it.”
“What was that?”
“I said whatever. I’m not—”
The conversation is saved by a knock on the door. “Quick question, Rae.” Dorothy slides inside, smelling like a marijuana dispensary. “I’ve been thinking about benefits.”
“Okay.” Rae sets down the clothing stain pen and wipes she’s just unpacked from her magical mystery box and, after a scathing glance my way, gives Dorothy her full attention. “Shoot.”
“You know how McGruntcakes got sick last year?”
“I remember. So glad he’s better.”
My attention bounces between the two of them, wondering why on earth they’re talking about Dorothy and Malika’s dog.
Dorothy comes over and perches on the corner of my desk. “Weeeell, I was thinking we should give the employees paternity leave. In case of pet sickness.”
I lean forward. “What leave?”
“Paw-ternity. Isn’t that cute?”
“It really is.” Rae slowly nods. “And how long were you thinking?”
“Oh, you know. Very flexible. Like, Grunty was sick for a couple of weeks, so…” She shrugs. “As long as it takes.”
“Right.” Rae appears to consider. “Um, so, would there be, like, a limit on what kind of pet?”
“Oh, no. Of course not! We don’t discriminate.”
“Definitely. Obviously. Cool. Yes. Right away. I’ll look into it and get back to you with details.”
Dorothy stands up with a tinkle of bells and bends to give Rae a big kiss on the cheek. “You’re a delight.” She turns to me. “Isn’t she? Come on. Look at her. Isn’t she just freaking gorgeous?”
“Ahhhh.” I glance wildly over at where Rae’s watching me with an expression that says, Go on, agree with her.
I dare you. “Rae seems great.” I settle on neutral ground, relieved when Dorothy mumbles something about just being so happy to have us both in the office as she jingles her way out, closing the door behind her.
“What the hell was that?”
“What?” Rae goes back to emptying the box.
“How could you say yes to something so patently idiotic?”
“You’re talking about the paw-ternity leave?”
“Yes. Why on earth would you agree to that?”
“I always say yes to Dorothy.”
“That’s ludicrous!”
“Really? Is it? Look.” She sets a miniature bottle of mouthwash on her desk and gets up, goes to our office door, and opens it. I don’t allow my eyes to follow the roll of her hips. “Do you see a foosball table out in the lobby? Ping-Pong?”
All I see is a comms manager tapping at her phone and sucking on a lollipop. “No.”
“A row of those footbaths with the fish that eat calluses?”
“Of course not. That’s disgusting.”
After shutting the door, Rae starts moving items from her desktop to the cupboards. “Well, you can thank me because Dorothy wanted those things.”
“Seriously?”
“You have no idea.”
“She’s a menace.” Maybe I should talk to Malika. Dorothy’s wife might know how to curb her more absurd requests.
“Don’t you want to know how I did it?”
I sigh. “Go ahead. I can tell you’re dying to school me.”
She stops what she’s doing, turns, leans back against her desk, and folds her arms across her chest, which pushes up her ample breasts. For a handful of seconds, the edges of my vision literally go dark.
“Like I said, I always agree to Dorothy’s shenanigans. Always. Bring Your Pets to Work Day? Bagel of the Week? Best Zoom Background awards… I said yes to every one of those suggestions.”
“That’s silly. Just tell her no.”
She shakes her head, making that little librarian, you’ve-been-a-bad-boy tsking sound, and I’m suddenly not so sure this shared-office thing was a good idea.
“See, if I agree, she forgets and moves on to the next outlandish request. If I refuse, it becomes a thing.” She leans toward me conspiratorially.
“Trust me, refuse and you wind up with a pair of llamas disturbing the peace and a summons to appear in court.”
“You’re saying that happened?” I’m beginning to suspect that I don’t know Dorothy at all.
“Yep. The llamas were aggressive. We paid fines.” The sparkle of humor in her eyes makes me want to, hell, tickle her or something. I do not fucking tickle. “Try it sometime. Agree to one of her ideas.”
“Harebrained nightmares, you mean.”
“I’m serious. Agree, write it down, and walk away.”
“What if she asks about it later?”
“Oh, she might.” She gives a wicked grin that I want to lick off her face. “That’s when I pull out the list.”
“The list.”
As she bends to grab something from the mystery bin, her skirt goes taut around her hips, sending a jolt to my cock.
The fact that she emerges holding a clipboard in no way diminishes my body’s inappropriate reaction.
“The master list—or as I like to call it, the mistress list—of all requests made to date.” With long, crystal blue fingernails, she points at one column and then the other. “Those fulfilled and those pending.”
I watch, slowly filling with something like awe at how this woman has managed to hide an entire Machiavellian underbelly beneath that Strawberry Shortcake facade.
Then again, she did come into a kink club on her own the other night, shopping for a Dom, so there’s definitely more than meets the eye with this one. What worries me now is this urge to scratch the surface for a glimpse at the other good stuff within.
“And?” I finally prompt.
“And nothing. I hold up the clipboard, flip through the many pages.” She does it now, wide-eyed and cheerful as a Costco hostess hell-bent on getting rid of her last pig-in-a-blanket sample of the day.
“I mention the budget and how we’ve got to whittle it down.
Maybe, in this case, I’ll let her know that if I stop getting her butt cushions, we can afford the paw-ternity leave.
For one pet. But I’d be happy to go over all the line items with her. One at a time.”
“I’ll bet she hates that.”
“She really does. Nothing gets her out of the office faster than bringing out the list. Works like a charm. And…” Rae lifts that bossy little finger again. “Every once in a while, when something’s not too egregious, I give it to her.”
“Such as?”
“Such as homemade cookies at staff meetings,” she deadpans.
“Baked by you.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve been upping my baking game anyway, so…” With another half shrug, Rae goes back to sit at her desk, bends down, and pulls out a handful of phone chargers.
It’s not until I tear my gaze away from her that my lungs finally fill back up with oxygen. Yet again, I’m kicking myself for this shared office setup.
This is going to be hell on my libido.