Coming Soon…
THE BET
Chapter 1
Guy
“You are, as always, a creature of habit.”
I looked up from the steak and potatoes dinner I had been enjoying in silence and couldn’t help but sigh at the woman standing over my table. Without even bothering to ask or wait for an invitation, she pulled out the chair opposite me and plopped down on it.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
I kept eating as I watched her. She knew I wasn’t pleased by the interruption, but she was also one of the few people at the firm who wasn’t fazed by my temper or irritation.
“How is that?” she asked, referring to my plate as she set her purse down. “I’ve only ever had their carbonara here, and it was underwhelming, to say the least. I came here with Paul, and he complained for two weeks afterward about how overpriced food always tastes so bad.”
I continued eating, and at my silence, she eventually cocked her head and looked at me.
“How mad are you that I interrupted your dinner and reflection time, which everyone knows never to interrupt you at?”
I reached for my glass of wine and took a drink. “Remind me again why I can’t fire you?”
She laughed out loud, her gentle voice ringing out across the room. There was a low constant buzz of others eating and making merry as well, so no one else paid her any mind.
“Because I’m your Human Resources Officer and your former teacher. I do my job wonderfully well, but you also can’t be disrespectful or dismissive of me like others because I was your favorite teacher.”
Sighing because she was absolutely right, I picked up the menu and handed it over to her.
“Order the seafood pasta. It’s much better than the carbonara.”
“Alright,” she said excitedly and slipped down her glasses. A few minutes later, the waiter was waved over, and she placed her order.
“This dinner is on you, right? You pay me well, but surely not enough to pay for this sort of place. I mean, I can, but what a waste. No plate of pasta should cost anything more than thirty dollars.”
This immensely amused me, and seeing this, she and gave me a soft look.
“Alright, let’s talk about it,” she invited, leaning back against the chair. “Four secretaries in two months? That”s problematic, and people are beginning to ask questions.”
”You”re making it seem like I assaulted them or something,” I replied. ”All I did was fire them for being so monumentally incompetent.”
”Yes right, so you say, yet they all deny they made the mistakes you claim they did.”
I raised an enquiring eyebrow. ”So, you”re saying I”m lying?”
”I”m saying you preferred Mr. Connerty, and now that he”s retired and moved back to Poland, you”re not even trying to give anyone else a chance to replace him. I know he”s been your secretary and a paralegal for you for the last eight years, but you need to find someone else that you like, or at least learn to like. You”re the biggest talent in the firm, and you need someone to manage your affairs for you; otherwise, you’ll be spending your valuable time doing tasks than should be done by less qualified staff.”
”Thank you for repeating all the things that I wasn’t aware of,” I said sarcastically, but she smiled back.
“The girl today,” she said. “The one you fired. She said that she proofread the contract several times before sending it two days ago. As to why there was an extra zero missing, she has no idea how that could be possible, especially since you checked the document as well.”
”So, I”m at fault?” I asked.
She sighed. “I”m just saying that I know these mistakes are monumental, but rather than fire the staff, why don”t you scold them or something and give them another chance?”
”And you were told I hadn’t given them other chances?” I asked. ”If I didn”t want to give her a chance, she would have been fired from the first day,” I said. ”She didn’t tell you about the services bill she sent to the wrong client? We had to reduce Alchai Motor’s charge when they saw how much of a discount we gave to Maxwell House.”
”Yikes, you still remember that? It must have monumentally pissed you off.”
”I”m guessing she didn’t mention this when she came crying to you, did she? Tell me, how much incompetence should I bear before I kick them out? Should I wait till they make an error that costs the company millions? Just so that I can earn the reputation of being magnanimous and friendly?”
At this, she went quiet, and a waiter came over with her food. After smiling up at him and saying thank you, she picked up her cutlery and dove in. We both ate silently, and it was comfortable. Things were always comfortable between us, and I had always trusted her judgment of character; after all, it had been that astute judgment of character that had seen the potential in me and pushed for me not to be ignored and written off as a grad who was going absolutely nowhere apart from jail for all my blowups and the troubles I had caused in school. So far, as the firm had grown, she had also been able to recruit the best talent, but so far, all the secretaries sent over to replace the now-empty seat in front of my office had been a catastrophe.
”I”m here because we have to send someone over tomorrow, but I really don”t want you to also send this person away. Can you be a little more lenient if they do make a few little mistakes?”
”I”ll forever be lenient if the mistakes they make are small mistakes,” I replied. ”If there are huge ones that could potentially harm the firm and my business, I will indeed lose my shit.”
She smiled again, shaking her head, and returned to her meal. It was then I looked out through the window at the busy Manhattan late evening sidewalk and saw her. She was just getting out of the taxi, and the first thing that caught my eye was the glistening skin of her legs. Coupled with the heels she had on, they were so long my attention was arrested long enough to see the face that those slender pair of limbs belonged to. And unsurprisingly, she was just as gorgeous as I had expected. Her hair was a dark gorgeous blonde and bouncy. The loose tendrils framed her face in a way that made me unable to look away, and when she smiled at the suited man who came up to her, then I found my breath catching in my throat. She was dressed gorgeously in a red skirt suit, and although it was as elegant as could be, especially now that she was standing straight and tall and the skirt shaped her hips and legs all the way past her knees, it was impossible to hide the gorgeous curve and appeal of her body.
The man who had come up to them held out his arms as though to embrace her, but instead, she stiffened her spine and offered her hand instead. He boldly brushed it away and instead pressed her into his chest. I saw the deep unhappiness and disgust on her face as a result. She didn’t like him immediately. True to form, she tried to pull away, and after she succeeded, she was tense. I watched as she moved toward the man in a pin-striped suit, and then they both watched the one who had forced the embrace as he spoke to them both.
I”d had enough business dealings to understand the situation, especially the man in the striped suit gesturing ahead with his hand. This was a business meeting, and she was either a partner or an employee, and the man in the striped suit was her boss. This was definitely not the first time they had met, judging by how she shifted closer to her boss; she was expecting him to protect her. However, he didn”t seem to even notice. As they walked, she tried her best to stay by her boss’s side on the extreme end, but the client soon mentioned something, no doubt complaining about this, and to her visible shock and annoyance, the boss moved and kept her right next to the client. He smiled at her like he was looking at a piece of meat that he was ready to devour, and then they all walked into the restaurant.
”Let me know exactly what you are looking for,” Gloria said just then. “Would you prefer a male secretary? But the second candidate was male, and he seemed to last even less than the other females.”
“That”s because women are emotionally intelligent enough to know when not to monumentally fuck up. Unlike that lanky moron.”
She smiled, and then she shook her head. “Alright, well, you need a replacement, and I”ll be looking externally now rather than internally. We’ve been sending people over from the temporary secretaries’ pool I had, but we’ll have to go back to the agency tonight to get someone that will suit you best, so give me your requirements now, and I can use it as a strict guide.”
“For one, I know they should, of course, not be an eyesore, like you have previously stated, but now I am beginning to think you want someone that somehow looks like those heiresses you dated, and when this expectation is not met, you eventually miraculously find a way to fire them in the weeks following.”
At her accusation, a very blatant one at that, I looked up and couldn’t help but feel wrongly accused.
“That”s not accurate,” I said. “I didn’t care what they looked like. I only cared how they performed.”
“I believe you, but in order for everyone else to believe it, at least pick someone with experience from this file and commit to trying to be patient with them for at least the next three months.”
“Gloria, I”m not committing to shit,” I told her. “Pick someone capable and send them to occupy that desk. They should be the ones vigilant and afraid of messing up, not me.”
At my words, she sighed and continued eating. “Will you at least look at the file? I came all the way here.”
“It”s fine, minutes from the office. I”m sure you needed the exercise.”
I rose to my feet then, and she laughed. “I can”t believe you”re still the same little boy from twenty years ago.”
“Creature of habit,” I said as I grabbed my phone and headed over to the bathroom with it in my hand.
Chapter 2
Hannah
I truly wondered just how much more of this shit I could take. It had been three freaking months now since I had been working for this a-hole, and he hadn’t hesitated at every point in time to throw me to his clients in one way or the other. At first, I was sure I was mistaken, and he just hadn’t seen how some of them, especially the old geezers, tried to flirt with me, get close to me, or touch me inappropriately. In fact, he had almost encouraged it, almost as though I was some prize that they had access to taste and could get a full feel later on after whatever business deal was concluded.
I truly would have quit a long time ago, but there was something he always did, which was look the other way right until the contract was won over or the deal was concluded, and only then would he even put up a fight whatsoever for me. And since I was his only secretary, I had no choice but to be in on all these freaking meetings. It was upsetting every single day, but in all other areas, he was pretty kind and fair, except in this. And the salary, so far, was the highest I had ever gotten through the agency, and I wanted to move out of my trashy Brooklyn apartment to get a much better one with views and floors that weren’t being devoured by ants and termites. Also, hallways that didn’t smell like rat piss or Chinese food that didn”t waft up to my bedroom at 1 am. All these were the dreams I held in mind, and so far, only the salary that this man paid me was enough to even allow me the hope to entertain any of these. It didn’t mean that I wasn”t still furious and growing even more miserable by the day, but I couldn’t quit, not yet.
After a particularly discouraging encounter, I had a talk with myself, questioning if I could go on. I ultimately made the agreement to endure and save up for a year. Just one year, and with the experience on my resume from this top marketing agency, I could move on to the next stage. Just one year, I admonished myself, even as we were shown to our table, and I immediately hurried to try to get a seat next to the boss. However, he noted this and went immediately to the bathroom, leaving me to fend off the old shit by myself. So even when I tried to sit opposite him, he caught my hand and pulled me into the seat beside him in the booth. As soon as my butt connected to the seat, I couldn’t get up, and right at that moment, I wanted to shoot him. However, all I could do was smile and pretend not to notice his arm brushing against me, and basically his entire side rubbing against me. There was more than enough space on the booth, but here he was, glued to me like Velcro, smiling and bathing me with his disgusting breath that stunk of garlic.
His lunch was still stuck in his teeth, his hair thinning, and his supposed-to-be white eyes so dull that it all made me physically sick. I brought out my phone and pretended to be busy as I replied very seriously to the text messages I was receiving from the other secretaries at the agency; there was a plan to meet up later on. Something about a fired squad, all from the same boss, and hence it was supposed to be juicy. I usually didn’t attend these gatherings, but at that moment, I would have given anything whatsoever to be out of this freaking overpriced restaurant and be on my way over, or perhaps on my way home. Sighing, I replied and confirmed my attendance, and then I put the phone aside and picked up the menu again.
“What do you usually like to eat?” the man said, reaching out to brush my hair over my shoulders, and at that moment, I had truly had enough.
“Please don’t touch me,” I said, and the bite to my tone was unmistakable.
He seemed startled, the smile on his face immediately dissipating, and then he slightly moved away. I had gotten what I wanted, but I couldn’t help but feel as though it would cost me my job instead. So, before my boss returned, I added, “It’s been so hot lately, and I am yet to cool down from all the heat outside. Don’t you feel hot as well?”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Keep me company till your boss returns,” he said, reaching out to catch my hand. “I’d like to hear some of your ideas on the strategy we presented back at your office. You look like someone who would have a lot of wonderful and fresh ideas.”
He wasn’t wrong because currently I truly had some red-hot ideas, like pouring a pot of boiling water over his head and watching him melt like a candle as a result. Instead, I smiled, wrenching my arm from his.
It took him a little while to warm back up to me but eventually, he did, and thankfully, it was just as my boss returned.
“Let’s order some refreshing cold cocktails for you,” he said.
“Mocktail,” I replied. “I can’t drink alcohol.”
“You can’t? Why?” he asked, and I was tempted to say that I was pregnant. I didn’t, however, see how this could possibly end well for me, so I simply smiled and used that excuse to rise to my feet.
On the way, I looked at my boss and couldn’t help the look of hatred I gave him. He wasn’t even the least bit startled and tried to talk to me, but I ignored him without any remorse and continued on my way. As usual, I knew that he wouldn’t care because when I had brought up my dissatisfaction in the past with how he handled this matter, one of his many useless, disappointing, and downright aggravating answers was that it didn’t just hurt me to be a secretary and that my looks played a big part of it. I was like honey, and I had to do my own part in catching the flies for the rest of the company.
“You understand what I mean, right?” he’d ask then. “I won’t let them into the pot; that”s crossing the line. But at least let them hover. You have to be a team player.”
What the fuck could I have possibly said after that?
Sighing, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and wondered what they saw in me. I usually dressed femininely before I came to work for this bastard, but lately, I found myself covering up more and more. The only thing left for me now was to constantly wear a necktie to cover up my chest completely, and even that didn’t seem useful.
“Fucking dogs,” I cursed as I turned on the faucet, and the woman beside me gave me a sympathetic look through our reflection in the mirror. I smiled back, and somehow this seemed to calm me down. I didn’t want to use the toilet, so I particularly took my time washing my hands until I had no choice but to shut the tap off and take another ten or so minutes to dry my hands.
I had purposely left my phone on the table so there was no urgency to return, even though I knew the boss needed me there, but that was the price I had to pay for being fed to the wolves. I regretted it, though, as I got out of the bathroom and stood in a corner, dreading returning. This was the perfect time now to call Mandy to catch up on some chatting. We had been so busy the past week preparing this proposal that I had all but ignored all my personal contacts, and so now was the perfect time to hit her up to while away time.
Since there was no way, I leaned against a console containing the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers and lost myself gazing at it. Therefore, when my distracted self was finally able to note the presence looming over me, my heart nearly stopped in my chest. I was so startled and scared I had to crouch down to endure the blow of fear, and by the time I straightened once again to see who had suddenly approached, I was ready to scream their freaking ears off.
But when I saw just how handsome the man standing by my side was, my tongue was instantly tied. It was almost embarrassing, to be honest, but after I took in his gorgeous face and tousled dark hair, I wasn’t too hard on myself for the way I had reacted. Now if this was the geezer that was trying to touch and feel me up at every point in time during the meetings, I didn’t think I would have any problem with it whatsoever.
“Did I startle you?” he asked.
I had a very long and nasty response to this question because how would it feel to suddenly be walked up on and startled to within an inch of your life?
However, I reminded myself of just how attractive he was, and it didn’t take long for me to lose my annoyance just from staring up into his gorgeous blue eyes and slightly tinted pink lips. It had to be from the wine, I was sure because there was no way in hell those were their natural flush. I mean, he would just be too freaking unreal.
“No,” I shook my head, barely audible, and he glanced back toward the restaurant; that move made his scent all of a sudden even more pronounced, and after smelling nothing but tobacco and garlic for the past several hours, he almost damn near brought tears to my eyes. He smelled like vanilla and lime, and sweetness, and sex, and cleanliness, and sex, and I wanted to sniff him in like drugs.
“I couldn’t help but notice your distress,” he said, and my fantasizing brain came to a screeching halt.
“What?” I asked, and he smiled slightly compassionately.
“Do you want me to take a recording?” he asked. “I’m witnessing a good distance from your table, or maybe my partner could do it? This way, you’ll have evidence if you ever want to file a lawsuit?”
There was a lot of information coming at me all at once, and I truly did not know how to process it.
“Uh... “ I began as he reached into his wallet and produced a business card. I looked at it but couldn’t really process anything beyond the fact that it said law firm. I looked up once again at him, and he smiled.
“Should I go ahead? Then you can bring it to the office whenever you want, and I’ll get someone to work on it for you.”
“No,” I immediately refused and handed the card back to him. However, he didn’t accept it.
“Why?” he asked, and the truth almost spilled out. This was New York, and I could barely afford food and rent already, not to mention a freaking law firm. I wasn”t about to bankrupt myself and get blacklisted from ever being able to work as a secretary or personal assistant of any kind, thank you very much.
“No,” I smiled, bringing out the most sweetest and polite smile I could muster. “No thank you. Everything is fine. Thanks. Thank you.”
He stared at me, and for the first time in so long, I felt such shame that I was denying my pain. However, as I noted the wealth he radiated, that pain and shame instantly disappeared because I understood that someone like him could never understand the pain of being born by someone like me. He probably came here to eat every day and thought nothing of it. He was physically allergic to suits that cost less than five thousand dollars in his closet, and he had a personal driver, while I had to constantly endure the dangers and disgust of the train.
“No,” I replied, even more firmly, straightening my back and lifting my chin. “I’m fine.”
To my surprise, he didn’t push or even argue.
“Okay,” he said. “Do you want to keep the card, regardless?”
Simply because he wanted to see some sort of further reaction from me, I rejected the offer again.
“No thank you.”
“Alright,” he said and continued on his way.
He didn’t try to convince me; he didn’t try to use this as a segue into asking me out. He offered his help simply, and when rejected, continued on with his life as though absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I didn’t quite know how to feel, so all I could do was watch him as he returned to his seat, and then I met the gaze of the woman seated by him. She gave me a sympathetic look that definitely made me feel ashamed from all the way across the room, and so I lowered my head and, for no reason whatsoever, returned to the bathroom.
Chapter 3
Guy
“Poor girl,” Gloria said as I returned to my seat after such a fruitless endeavor. “It”s not her fault she”s such a looker. Absolutely gorgeous.”
I didn’t respond, and that was because I knew she would see in my eyes just how much I agreed with her, and I wasn’t about to give her this reason to further tease me into favoring secretaries because of their looks.
I had noticed her from the moment she appeared outside the restaurant until she got in. That gorgeous face, pouty lips, and gray eyes were etched into my memory like nothing else, and for the first time in a very long while, the plate before me didn’t satisfy me. Though I was almost done with it, I suddenly felt famished all over again, but this time around it was absolutely not for food. Instead, it was for hard, sheet-clawing fucking, and the woman behind me was who I wanted to let off steam with.
This was incredibly amusing to me, given that I had just approached her to help her escape from that predator of a man, but here I was picturing her legs wrapped around my back and my cock in her mouth.
“It is her fault,” I said offhandedly, and Gloria gave me a look.
“I have to go meet Al,” she said quickly, brushing off her meal. “You”ll be ready to give serious consideration to these candidates tomorrow, right? I”m going to leave the folder with you.”
I was silent for a little while as I polished off the glass of wine, and then I nodded.
“I’ll try to make your job even easier,” I said, and she laughed. She rose to her feet, pressed a kiss to my cheek, and went on her way. I was ready to leave as well, but I found myself lingering in the restaurant. My back was to her table, so I couldn’t exactly turn around to watch her, but I waited for her to return from the bathroom. She was no doubt going to pass by my table, and I just wanted to ensure that she was okay.
Perhaps she was reluctant to take my extended hand of help because she needed the job. I was once like her, and so I could understand her reluctance.
I sat there until eventually, she emerged from the bathroom. She was quite decently dressed, no doubt forced to over-hype perhaps more than the average New York woman because of all of these nonsense advances that she had to fend off from clients.
She was dressed in a blood-red skirt suit that fit her body in a way that I couldn’t look away from. It wasn’t her fault that she was just the way she was, curved to absolute perfection, and I didn”t even think it could be hidden unless she wore a massive, oversized coat of some sort.
She avoided my eyes pointedly as she walked past, however, I caught the whiff of her scent. It smelled sweet but a bit bitter at the same time, and it etched the memory of her in my mind.
There was nothing more I could do here, and it seemed as though she could handle herself, so I rose to my feet and considered heading back to the office. However, due to the erection I was now sporting, I finally gave my attention to Charles as he opened the door for me to get into the back of the town car, I decided to call it a day.
I wanted to fuck so badly, but there was no one I wanted but that woman, of course. Given the stress of the day, I truly didn’t have the energy to deal with another human being, so I simply headed back home and hopped into the shower. I tried to make it cold to cool me down, but somehow that made my body temperature spike even further, so I simply stood under the cool water and decided to stop torturing myself.
I was still hard, so I held my cock in my hand and began to stroke. It had been forever since I had done this since I had needed this kind of cheap relief, and so it was a bit uncomfortable to be jacking off in my bathroom. It made me feel weak and silly, but I needed to get a good night”s rest, so I went as hard as I could with her in mind until my breath shortened. It didn’t take long. Thirty seconds, and I was coming hard and strong. My hands were full, and as I stared down at the release, I couldn’t help but shake my head.
Turning in order to rinse off the stain, I thought of the woman once more and wondered if I would ever see her again. I regretted the fact that I hadn’t even considered trying to keep in touch with her, but ultimately, I blamed the bastards she was with because if I didn’t think of that, the last thing I wanted was to harass her even further with male attention. She was so fucking attractive, and it should have been a blessing, but I understood as well how that could bring more troubles than opportunities. Shaking my head and now immensely relieved, I got out of the shower, toweled myself dry, and headed straight to bed.