Chapter 22
Samantha
And then… Monday morning came.
It was warm and sunny, the sky high above the skyscrapers a beautiful blue. Spring was warming New York. I dressed at six as usual, eating breakfast in my kitchen and checking my boss’s schedule on my phone.
My boss, Aidan Winters. Who I definitely had not fucked on Saturday night.
Oh, God.
You can do this, Samantha.
In my work clothes and my regular makeup, I looked nothing like Sarah, the woman who had picked up a stranger in a bar. The man she had hooked up with was a beautiful specimen in a dark blue suit, not New York’s infamous Man in Black.
I scrolled through Aidan’s schedule for today. He was scheduled to be at the Monday meeting, which was a company-wide check-in to set up the week. Since Tower had only twenty employees in the New York office, it was easy to have meetings that included everyone. Sometimes Aidan attended them and sometimes he didn’t. Today he was going to be there.
He had more meetings in the afternoon: with Finance, with Legal. After staying away from the office for weeks to avoid me, now he was going to be there all day. It was probably on purpose, because everything Aidan did was on purpose. Let’s see if we can get along, this schedule said. I’m willing to try if you are.
There was one way to find out. I finished my breakfast and went to work.
I gotto the office at eight and did my usual routine. I opened Aidan’s office and booted up his MacBook. I prepped the meeting room for the Monday meeting. I went through Aidan’s email, sorting the urgent from the not-so-urgent and the garbage. I picked up the firm’s mail from the receptionist at the front desk and sorted through the things that Aidan would need to see.
At eight forty-five, I heard his voice in the open office, talking to the receptionist. As if I had a radar attached to me, I heard his footsteps as he walked into his office and sat at his desk.
The moment of truth. I picked up papers from my own desk and walked—briskly, normally—to his office door.
Aidan was behind his desk, dressed in his usual black. He was clean-shaven, his hair combed neatly back from his forehead, his dark eyes intent as he read something on his MacBook screen. He looked up at me, and his expression gave nothing away. “Good morning, Samantha.”
“Morning,” I said. I stepped into the office and put a paper on his desk. “This is the itinerary for the Monday meeting. Oscar is sick today, so he’s going to phone in.”
“Did the signed contracts get sent to Wells and Vane?”
“I couriered them first thing. I’ll get a call when the receptionist signs for them.”
“They have to be there by ten.”
“They will be.”
It was a normal conversation. We’d had a dozen Monday morning conversations just like it. And what I felt as we talked was pure, unmixed relief. With the strangeness of Chicago and the weeks afterward, I’d missed Aidan, my boss. I’d missed my job, which I genuinely liked. I’d missed feeling normal.
We were normal again, thanks to the game.
Well, almost normal. When he handed me papers, the sight of his hand reminded me of the moment when it was inside my black panties, making me come as he said dirty things in my ear. And I definitely, definitely wasn’t thinking about him deep inside me, saying I’m going to make you come. Which he had.
Those things had happened to different people. I had a staff meeting to arrange.
We had finished our business conversation, and Aidan had drunk most of his first coffee of the day. I was turning to leave his office when he said, “Oh, Samantha, there’s one more thing.”
“Yes?” I turned back.
“I have some dry cleaning I need to have picked up this afternoon. Do you mind doing it for me?”
Never, not once, had Aidan made me pick up his dry cleaning. He’d always treated that job as beneath me. For a second I was angry, and then I remembered Aidan never did anything unless it was on purpose.
He was up to something.
His expression gave nothing away, so I said, “Picking up dry cleaning isn’t really in my job description, Aidan. Maybe you should get an intern.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I don’t trust an intern with the codes to my penthouse, Samantha. I only trust you.”
His penthouse. I’d never been there, though I knew he lived on the Upper East Side. “You need your dry cleaning dropped off at your penthouse?”
“I would appreciate it.” He paused, then added, “Just this once. And I’m asking nicely.”
We had a momentary standoff. I gave in, not because he was my boss, but because I wanted to know what the game was. “Just this once,” I said.
He pulled a set of keys out and slid them across the desk to me. “I’ll text you the address and the entry codes,” he said. “And I’ll tell the concierge you’re there with my permission. You can go anytime.”
Aidan’s buildingwas at Third Ave and 83rd Street, a low-rise red brick building with immaculate wrought iron railings. The noise of Manhattan was hushed here, as if this were a different city. My own Hell’s Kitchen apartment—which was far from cheap—seemed a long way away. The only sounds were a few car honks a few blocks away and the barking of a dog.
I got out of the taxi, the dry cleaning bag with Aidan’s clothes in it over my arm. The doorman let me in with a smile and a nod; he was expecting me. The foyer was clean white marble, the elevator to the sixth floor classic with a wrought-iron door. The entire building was as hushed as a library.
The elevator doors opened to the penthouse suite, and I typed in Aidan’s code. The door clicked and I opened it.
Aidan’s apartment was beautiful, a huge open-concept space with a bathroom and bedroom on one side. The main room held a dark gray sofa, square and masculine, with a matching dark coffee table. The kitchen had marble counters and gleaming steel appliances. A bank of windows overlooked 83rd Street, facing north. Next to the windows was a glass-topped desk with a computer on it and stacks of papers on it.
I stood looking around, curious. I’d seen plenty of my former bosses’ apartments when I dropped off mail, fed pets, or picked up forgotten jackets or cell phones. I was no stranger to luxurious places to live. In all of those cases, I’d never had the urge to snoop, which was why I was so good at my job. I may have had their security codes, but my bosses’ private business was just that—private.
Still, none of my previous bosses had been Aidan Winters.
I shouldn’t look around too closely. Then again, he’d invited me here, hadn’t he?
The dry cleaning was heavy over my arm, so I walked to the bedroom. It was masculine in here, too, the king-sized bed swathed in a navy comforter, a dark wood nightstand and matching dresser along one wall. The bed was made, but hastily, the blankets pulled up and left slightly mussed. He didn’t have a maid service, then, or at least not one that had been here today. I looked away from the bed, trying not to picture Aidan’s long body, possibly naked, sprawled out on it.
His closet was big and contained a lot of black clothes, as expected. But as I hung the dry cleaning bag I also saw other colors. There were casual pants and button-downs, and a stack of sweaters on the top shelf. The suit I’d seen on him Saturday night was in there. The closet smelled like Aidan, a scent I’d become closely acquainted with. I ran my fingertips over one of the shirts, remembering what he had tasted like when he kissed me in the elevator of the Lowell hotel.
Get it together, Samantha.
I backed out of the closet and closed the door. I looked around, wondering why Aidan had sent me here. Was it just to have me in his private space, to know that I had been there? Or was there another reason? He wasn’t trying to impress me with his expensive penthouse—he wasn’t the type, and he must know I wouldn’t be impressed anyway. There was something here he wanted me to see.
When I came back out into the main room, I spotted it. An envelope on the kitchen counter. I picked it up and took out the piece of paper inside.
It was a ticket to an exclusive art gallery showing. The gallery was in SoHo, the artist was obscure but trendy, and tickets were limited. The show was this Saturday night.
I ran my finger over the edge of the invitation, thinking. This was obviously an invitation to continue the game. The question was, did I want to continue it?
Last Saturday had been incredible. I’d discovered aspects of myself I never knew I had. I wanted that again.
But today he’d made me pick up his dry cleaning.
I couldn’t make things too easy for him. I had to make him suffer a little. I could make him wonder what I was going to do next instead of assuming he owned me.
I put the ticket in my purse. Then I walked back into Aidan’s bedroom. Standing next to his bed, I lifted my skirt and slid off my panties. They were a pair of my favorites—slate gray, slim cut, soft as my own skin. They undoubtedly smelled like me. I put them on Aidan’s pillow.
Then I left the apartment, locking it behind me.