Hailee
One of the largest perks of being ultra-rich is time. Private planes. Private streets. Private elevators. Waiting is not something they’re used to doing, and just like that, we’re gliding down 8 th Avenue without a bevy of brake lights ahead of us.
The silence finally gets to me. Alex has never seemed to mind it. He uses it like a weapon in boardroom dealings and meetings. Most people can’t stand a long silence, perhaps because they don’t know what to do with themselves during it.
They’ll pull self-consciously on their earlobe. Clear their throat. Take a sip of their San Pellegrino. Alex just lifts his gaze somewhat, not quite staring into space, like every option he has available to himself is written in the air.
Maybe it’s just another thing he gets away with because he’s so damn handsome. I, however, grow sick of the silence in the car.
“Who’s in the trunk?” I ask.
“So many questions, .”
I pause for a moment. I don’t think I’ve asked too many questions. In fact, I should be asking a lot more while I sit thigh-to-thigh with Alex Blackwell. But that’s not why I pause. I’ve never heard Alex speak my name before. To be frank, I wasn’t sure he even knew it. I have never been confident I have a pretty name.
Growing up, some kids would call me “Hey Lee” with the Lee sound nagging on the back of the tongue, but when Alex said it, I felt like a piece of fine art. Refined. Elegant. He captured everything the name was supposed to be.
But something about it kind of pissed me off. There was a teasing in his tone too, like I’m just the nervous kid he’s dealing with.
“I don’t think I’m being unreasonable asking about who’s stuffed in the trunk.”
“It’s Francis!” The muffled shout comes from behind the seats. “Francis Martin. I’m in Accounts.”
“Why is Francis Martin from Accounts in the trunk?”
“I wasn’t too fond of the idea of him sitting on my lap, if you can believe it.”
“Plenty spacious back here, boss! No worries.”
Alex doesn’t respond.
I want to make a quip about how he has no problem with a girl more than a decade younger being pressed up against him, but I keep my mouth shut.
Sometimes I find it hard not to flirt, but I get the feeling if I make one little comment like that, Alex will make me walk the rest of the way. He might fire me if it means maintaining whatever verbal contract he made with my brother.
Or maybe the idea of some contract between Alex and my brother is me being delusional. Just my coping mechanism for why my drop-dead gorgeous boss hasn’t so much as said my name in all the years I’ve worked under him.
God… Under him. Why does he have to smell so good? Now I feel like the creeper employee. The forgotten girl. I’m not crushing on him. Alex is an asshole. Primarily motivated by money and power. He’s just hot. He’s hot, and I’m lamenting my love life more than ever recently.
There’s something defeating about being single for so long in the biggest city in the country. In a city of eight million, there must be something wrong with me if I haven’t been swooped off my feet yet.
But take that city of eight million, and only half that are men. Take that four million, and maybe only ten percent are around my age and single. Then take that figure and reckon how many of those men want to be in a relationship versus sleep their way around town. Add in all the guys with red flags, and suddenly a city of so many feels like Iowa.
We take a sharp corner, and I have to grab on to the door handle as hard as I can to keep myself from rolling onto Alex’s lap. I let out a stifled sigh of relief as the car steadies.
“Nobody knows how to drive in this town,” Jackie says. “I swear to God, all the cars should be driven by robots already. Not a Brooklynite who’s too busy scratching his balls to look at the goddamn road.”
“You’re a gem, Jackie,” says Alex, looking at his phone.
“That’s why I work for you, sir.”
“I know how to find them, don’t I?” Alex says and suddenly turns to me. “And where’d I find you?” He asks like he needs a refresher on who I am in the first place.
“You’re my brother’s best friend.”
“Your brother… He freezes in front of the camera. You know that?”
“I’ve been told.” He’s referring to an incident where Lucas was questioned live by CNBC, and he stared at the lens like a deer in the headlights.
“It’s not genetic, is it?”
Alex has been looking at me, but I haven’t met his eyes until now. Blue. So damn blue.
I’m getting annoyed again. “No, it’s not genetic. We share parents, but not much else,” I say a little venomously.
Alex is the kind of man who’s got every skill in the book. I get the feeling he is assuming that everyone who isn’t him is a ditz who can’t handle themselves.
A close car horn interrupts the conversation, and Jackie’s shout interrupts it further. “This chicken-shit idiot just cut us off!” She points and yells, “Learn to drive!” She leans across Richard’s lap and knocks on the window. “Roll down the window, Richard. I need to yell at him.”
“You are yelling at him.”
“He needs to hear me.”
Jackie’s back seat road rage is a nice distraction from my own stress. I’m just calming down when I feel the car jerk again.
This time it’s because a white pickup blows through a red light. My heart leaps. Time seems to slow down. We swerve in time to avoid a collision, but this time I lose my grip on the door handle.
The G-forces throw me across the back seat, and when I land, my vision is dark.
Navy, to be precise. I’m lying across Alex Blackwell’s entire lap, and I can feel the car’s air conditioning on my bare butt. My skirt has been thrown up with me. My cheeks are hot, blushing, like someone lit off lady fingers in my mouth.
I feel my skirt being adjusted. It’s done smoothly and as fast as lightning, and then Alex helps me gently so I’m back in my seat.
He smoothed my skirt down. He pulled me up, and now he’s making a joke with Jackie to diffuse my embarrassment.
“Do you think he was scratching his balls?”
“He must’ve had a knuckle up his ass, he was so distracted,” Jackie responds.
In another five minutes, we’re filing out of the car in front of the venue. The driver opens the trunk and lets out Francis from Accounts, who stands and hands Alex his briefcase.
“Sir.”
Alex takes it. “Thanks, Francis.”
He then says to me, “We’ll see you in there.” He starts to walk, but he freezes midstep. “And nice rabbits, by the way.” His gaze darts to my waist, and then he winks.
I’m frozen on the sidewalk.
He winked at the rabbits on my Target-brand underwear. He turns away before I have to worry about him seeing me blush. I’m angry. Genuinely pissed off.
So why on earth, I ask myself, is this is the most turned on I’ve been in months?