Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Carley
The sound of my phone vibrating breaks me from my concentration.
I’ve been working my way through emails since nine this morning, barely stopping for a break.
Glancing at my phone’s screen, I see a message from Saylor waiting.
She’s been messaging me nonstop since I moved out.
It’s hardly been a week, and I do miss seeing her regularly, but falling asleep and waking up next to D every day is the kind of heaven I wasn’t sure I’d ever find.
I already knew we had a lot in common, but you don’t really get to know someone until you live with them.
So far, there aren’t any red flags I need to worry about.
He works the majority of the time, sometimes even through breakfast and dinner.
He’s always very apologetic, but I honestly don’t mind.
I love watching him work. It’s like a weird type of foreplay I’ve never experienced before.
Outside of work, he’s a bit of a homebody, much like myself, which works out especially well at the moment.
There’s nothing like a stalker to keep you from wanting to go outside.
I’m more than okay with staying in while we’re not at the office. I know my time at Okeanós is limited, and while I would love to stay, leaving means D and I can be free to have the kind of relationship we deserve.
I sigh because I know that can never happen with Blaine still in the picture.
There are times, like right now, when I’m more angry than frightened where I want to seek him out and tell him he is insignificant. Tell him he doesn’t scare me anymore. It would be a lie, but that’s the point in my life where I wish I was. I don’t want to live in fear any longer.
Grabbing my phone, I unlock the screen and read Saylor’s latest message.
Saylor
Did you know studies have shown you can gain up to seventeen pounds during the first year of a new relationship?
Her message makes me smile and shake my head. These are the types of things we would normally talk about at home, and I love her for not wanting to let that go.
Me
No, I didn’t know that.
Saylor
It’s true. So I’m switching to black coffee to help shed the couple pounds I’ve gained since meeting Ren. Trying to nip it in the bud before it becomes an issue.
Now I shake my head at her for a different reason. She gets this way all the time, even though she barely has one ounce of fat on her bones. She isn’t sickeningly skinny, but she definitely doesn’t need to lose any weight.
Me
Well, you have to do whatever you think is best for your body.
You can’t just tell Saylor not to do something. In all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve learned she is going to do whatever she’s determined to do.
Even if it’s stupid.
The more you fight her on a topic, the more obsessed she gets. If you don’t entertain her ridiculous ideas, she gets bored of them fairly quick.
Saylor
Do you want to meet up for lunch today?
Me
D and I have a lunch meeting with some prospective clients, or else I would. Maybe tomorrow?
Saylor
Boo, you whore!
Me
Calm down, Regina.
Saylor
Okay, tomorrow it is. I’m holding you to it.
Me
It’s a date.
D pops out of his office just as I put my phone down. I still feel guilty when I have it out while I’m supposed to be working. The other day, he told me he could take me into his office and spank me for using it if that would make me feel better.
Thinking back to our conversation now, I don’t think I would mind one bit. Maybe I’ll test him later.
As my thighs begin to clench, D speaks.
“Any thoughts on lunch?” he asks me.
“It doesn’t matter to me. I could go for anything.”
His eyes glimmer with lust, and his tongue darts out over his lower lip at my response.
“Be careful what you wish for, théa.”
“You’re insatiable.”
He stalks toward me, his eyes glued to mine. I see a promise in them, like he wants to prove to me just how insatiable he actually is. Just before he stops at my desk, the phone rings. I have to clear my throat, breaking free of his lustful spell in order to speak.
“Dimos Anastos’s office,” I answer.
“Emma Kersey for Dimi.” The woman on the other end is short and almost hostile in her response.
Covering the receiver, I whisper to D, “Emma Kersey for Dimi? Is that you?”
The lust vanishes from D’s face immediately before he responds.
“I’ll call her back.”
I’m thrown off by the weird name the caller used, but I don’t think much of it.
“He’s unavailable at the moment, but I will leave him a message.”
There’s no response on the other end. I don’t hear any background noise, either.
“Hello?” I check to see if she’s still there, but I don’t receive a response.
Placing the receiver into the cradle, I turn back to D.
“She hung up,” I shrug. “Weird, she called you Dimi.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t important anyway. I’ll order in from Delray.” Winking, he turns on his heel and saunters back into his office.
* * *
After our prospective clients leave, and as I help D clean up lunch in the board room, I hear the sound of high heels clamoring across the marble floor in the lobby just outside. Both mine and D’s heads snap toward the sound.
“I’ll go see who it is,” I tell D.
“No I—” he begins to protest, but I’m already out the door.
As soon as I step into the hallway, my anxiety shoots through the roof. I watch her as she sashays her way across the marble floor, dressed impeccably as always, but she’s about as welcome as a case of measles.
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
“Well, it’s lovely to see you too, Carley.”
“Sorry, I just didn’t expect you to be here. Is everything okay?”
“Well, I should ask you the same quest—” something behind me cuts her off, and I know exactly what it is.
She may be my mother, but the amount of rage I feel toward her at the moment is completely warranted. Her eyes practically glow when they land on D. I feel his presence as he walks behind me and stands to the side of my desk.
“Hello, Gianna Martin. You must be Dimos Anastos.”
She approaches him, offering him her hand like she’s the Queen of fucking England, and he should fall at her feet.
She’s unbelievable.
Taking it in a firm shake, and without validating her shameless flirting, he nods to her.
“Very nice to meet you, Ms. Martin.”
“Please, call me Gianna.”
Please don’t.
“Mom. I wish you would have called first. You can’t just show up here like this.”
“Well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You know, since you moved out of the apartment and all.”
Panic.
How the hell does she— Saylor! I’m going to kill her.
“I shouldn’t have to hear about your life from Saylor’s flavor of the week, dear.” She turns her attention back to D and lays the loving mother act on thick. “She never tells me anything. I swear, it’s like she’s trying to punish me for caring about her.”
“Wait, what?” Ren told her?
“You’ve been dodging my calls, so I decided to show up to your apartment last night. That boy said you moved in with your boyfriend. I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”
I fidget uncomfortably while I try to think of what to tell her. I don’t want her knowing I’ve gone and shacked up with my boss. That can wait until … never … or at least until I find a new job. But my mother is like a CIA operative. There isn’t much that gets past her.
“Well, are you going to tell me about him?”
“Not right now. Not when I’m trying to work.”
“Well, I’m sure your boss won’t mind if we catch up for a little, right?
” It’s the wink she gives me that tells me she already knows exactly who my boyfriend is.
“Saylor was quite inebriated when I stopped by. She was rather loose-lipped, although there’s not really much about her that isn’t loose.
By the way, is she going through a phase?
The new boy she’s with seemed a little ragey. Angry.”
As quickly as she makes the statement, she shrugs her shoulders and waves the entire idea off.
Saylor. Is. Dead.
What the fuck was she thinking, telling my mom about me and D?
“Don’t you think you’d have more fun with someone your own age? Someone with more experience?”
Are you fucking kidding me right now?
“You are completely out of line, Mother. It’s time to leave.”
“I’m just trying to get to know your boyfriend a little more, Carley.” She runs her fingers over the long, gold chain that dips in between her cleavage.
“No, you’re throwing yourself at him like a desperate hooker.”
“Carley, do not take that tone with me,” she scolds, as though I were a child.
“Do you honestly think you can hold his attention for very long? You’re so young, so inexperienced.
This office fling is going to be over and done with before you know it.
Then you will be out of a job and out on your ass.
I’ve been down this road before, darling. It never ends well.”
I refuse to have her come to my place of work and treat me like a child in front of D. Let alone eye-fuck the shit out of him. Before I’m able to tell her off, D comes to my rescue.
“I’d like to make something very clear, Ms. Martin.
What I feel for your daughter is, quite frankly, none of your fucking business.
However, since you seem to be overly interested in my intentions with her, I’m happy to tell you I have incredibly deep feelings for your daughter.
Feelings that make it impossible to look at or think of another woman as anything more than an annoyance.
It didn’t start as an office fling nor will it end as one.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see an end to our relationship at any time in the near, or far, future. ”
My mother looks like she just got slapped across the face. If I wasn’t still seething with animosity, I think I’d be smiling.