Chapter 5
Chapter five
~EMMA~
My new apartment is a shoebox.
And no, not metaphorically.
Literally.
If I stand in the center with my arms spread, I can almost touch both walls.
The "kitchen" is a hot plate and a mini-fridge that sounds like it's actively dying. The bathroom is so small I have to sit sideways on the toilet.
But it's mine.
In New York City.
Only a twenty minute subway ride from my dream job.
The dream job where my boss is the man I had the best sex of my life with four weeks ago.
“FUCK!” I scream to the empty apartment, then immediately feel bad because my upstairs neighbor is definitely going to hear everything I say through these paper-thin walls.
I drop my purse on the floor—there's no table, that arrives next week—and beeline for the one thing I unpacked immediately.
The wine rack Sasha gave me as a going-away present.
"For emergencies," she'd said.
This definitely qualifies.
I grab the corkscrew and a bottle of red that I know absolutely nothing about except that it cost more than I should have spent.
My hands are shaking so badly it takes three tries to get the cork out.
When it finally pops free, I don't even bother with a glass. Just take a swig straight from the bottle like the professional mess I am.
The wine tastes like regret and about three more screams of ‘fuck.”
I sink onto my air mattress—the actual bed also arrives next week—and stare at the ceiling, replaying the entire excruciating evening in my head.
The moment I saw him across that room, looking like he'd stepped out of a cologne ad in his perfectly tailored suit, I knew I was screwed.
And not in the fun Miami way.
In the "my entire career is about to implode" way.
Donovan.
Just my luck that Don wasn’t short for Donald or Donnie or any other normal name.
It was short for Donovan Titan Mitchell—CEO and founder of the company I'd just agreed to work for.
The universe has all the humor of a sadist.
I take another swig of wine and pull out my phone, immediately FaceTiming Sasha and Riley on our group chat.
They answer within seconds, and I can tell from their faces that they've been waiting for this call.
"Emergency wine deployment?" Riley asks, seeing the bottle in my hand.
"Oh, this is bad," Sasha agrees. "This is 'finished the entire bottle before nine PM' bad."
"It's worse," I say. "So much worse."
"Did you get fired on your first day?" Riley leans closer to her phone. "Did you accidentally insult someone important? Did you—"
"I slept with my boss."
Silence.
Then: "WHAT?"
"Not tonight!" I clarify quickly. "Four weeks ago. In Miami. Don—the guy from Miami—is Donovan Titan. My boss. The CEO of Titan Industries."
More silence.
Then Sasha starts laughing.
Not a polite chuckle—a full, gasping, tears-streaming-down-her-face laugh.
"It's not funny," I say.
“We don’t think it’s funny, sweets,” Riley says, though she's trying to hide her smile. "Okay, maybe a teensy bit funny. You, Emma ‘I Ironed My Underwear for the Interview’ Sinclair, accidentally had a one-night stand with your future boss."
"I didn't know he was going to be my boss!"
"Obviously." Sasha wipes her eyes. "Oh my God. What did you do when you saw him?"
"I almost fainted. Then I almost threw up. Then I shook his hand like a normal person and pretended we'd never met."
"Did he recognize you?"
"Immediately. We made eye contact and I'm pretty sure we both died a little." I take another drink. "Then we had to stand there making small talk with other executives while pretending we haven't seen each other naked."
"This is amazing," Sasha says.
"This is a nightmare. This is my life imploding in real-time."
Riley's already typing on her phone. "Okay, I'm googling him. We need intel. Maybe he's a secret psycho and you can quit without feeling bad."
“Oh no. Do not—“
"Oh my God." Riley's eyes widen. "Emma. He's hot."
"I'm aware."
"No, like, really hot. Like 'put him on a billboard' hot. I mean, we could barely see him at the bar. He could have been the Elephant Man for all we knew.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Aw, honey, we were just proud to see you put yourself out there again.” She turns her tablet around to show me a professional headshot of Donovan looking devastatingly handsome in a suit. "How is this your life?"
"Keep scrolling," Sasha demands, crowding into Riley's frame. "What else? Is he married? Secret kids? Gambling addiction?"
"He's forty-two," Riley reads. "Never been married.
No kids. Built Titan Industries from the ground up—started in his Queens apartment fifteen years ago and turned it into a multi-billion dollar company.
" She pauses. "Oh. He was engaged once. To a woman named Vanessa Carter.
Venture capitalist. They broke up eight years ago. "
My stomach bottoms out. "Keep going."
"There's not much else. He's notoriously private. Doesn't date publicly. Lives in—wait for it—a penthouse on the Upper West Side."
"Of course he does," I mutter.
"Emma." Sasha's leaning so close to Riley's phone her face fills the screen. "This man is a literal billionaire who built his company from nothing. He's single. He's hot. And he's clearly into you because he could have anyone and he chose to sleep with you."
"That's not helpful."
"It's extremely helpful," Riley argues. "You're acting like this is a disaster, but this could be—"
"A sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen?" I interrupt. "A career-destroying scandal? The reason I get blacklisted from every tech company in the country?"
"Or," Sasha says slowly, "it could be really hot."
"No." I point at my phone screen. "Absolutely not. We are not doing this. I did not work my ass off for six years to throw away my career because I can't keep my hands off my boss."
"But you want to keep your hands on your boss," Riley points out.
"That's irrelevant."
"That's extremely relevant."
"It's not happening," I say now, teeth grinding together. "I spent four years with Josh, compromising my career and my goals to make him feel important, and where did that get me?."
"Don isn't Josh," Sasha says gently.
“Same principle.”
They're both quiet for a moment.
"Okay," Riley says finally. "So what's the plan?"
"The plan is I show up on Monday, do my job brilliantly, and pretend Miami never happened. Don and I already agreed—strictly professional. No special treatment. No references to the past."
"And you think you can do that?" Sasha asks, brow cocked. "Work with him every day and pretend you don’t want to ride his face?"
"Sasha,” I take a mental pause. “I have to. There's no other option." I take another swig of wine. "Besides, he made it very clear tonight that he's on the same page. We're both professionals. We can handle this."
"Famous last words," Riley mutters.
"I'm serious. This is my dream job. I'm not going to screw it up because I can't control myself around an attractive man."
"An attractive billionaire," Sasha amends. "Who you've already slept with. And clearly have chemistry with."
"I'm hanging up now," I announce. "I need to drink this wine and mentally prepare for Monday."
"Emma," Riley says, her voice softer now. "We're just teasing. You're going to be amazing. You earned this job. Don't let anything—or anyone—make you doubt that."
"Even if that anyone is a silver fox CEO with a face made for sitting on,” Sasha adds with a nod.
We say our goodbyes, and I'm alone again with my wine and my thoughts and the increasingly loud sounds of my neighbor's TV through the wall.
I know I should eat something.
Unpack more boxes.
Do literally anything productive.
Instead, I lie back on my air mattress and stare at the ceiling, wine bottle balanced on my stomach.
The thing is, they're not wrong.
Donovan Titan is hot.
And he's successful. Single.
And the way he looked at me on that balcony made my entire body remember things I'm supposed to be forgetting.
"No," I say out loud to the empty apartment. "Absolutely not. We're not doing this."
But even as I say it, my mind drifts back to Miami.
My hand slides down my stomach almost of its own accord.
My fingers tease a path past my belly button…
And even lower.
I know this is a terrible idea.
That I should drink more wine and go to sleep and wake up tomorrow ready to be professional and focused.
But my hand keeps moving, and my eyes close, and suddenly I'm back in that penthouse in Miami with Don's mouth on my neck and his hands—warm and heavy—slipping between my thighs to stroke my—
My phone rings.
I jolt up so fast I nearly launch the wine bottle across the room.
The caller ID says "Unknown Number," which is either a spam call or someone from work, and either way I can’t answer it while currently in the process of—
I let it go to voicemail, my heart pounding.
"Get it together, Sinclair," I mumble, setting the wine bottle aside. "You're a professional. You have an MBA. You don't masturbate to thoughts of your boss."
Even if your boss looks like that.
And sounds like that.
And made you come so hard you—
"STOP," I say loudly enough that my neighbor definitely heard.
I need a shower.
A cold shower.
And possibly a lobotomy.
I grab my towel and head for the bathroom, and by the time I'm standing under the lukewarm water—because the hot water doesn't work properly—I've given myself a mental pep talk worthy of a sports movie.
Afterwards, I dry off, pull on my pajamas—an old Northwestern t-shirt and shorts—and crawl onto my air mattress with the remainder of the wine.
My phone buzzes with a text from Sasha.
SASHA: You're going to be fine. And if you're not, we'll help you hide the body.
I smile.
Then another text, this one from Riley.
RILEY: Also, for the record, if you DID want to bang your hot billionaire boss, we would support that decision too…
RILEY: Just saying
I set my phone aside and take a final sip of wine, staring at the water-stained ceiling of my shoebox apartment and try not to think about the fact that somewhere across the city, Donovan Titan is probably in his penthouse with his perfect view and his expensive furniture.
Alone.
Possibly naked.
And maybe even thinking about Miami, too.
But it doesn't matter what he’s thinking or feeling or doing right now.
What matters is that on Monday, I'm walking into my dream job ready to prove myself.
And no man—no matter how attractive or successful or frustratingly unforgettable—is going to derail that.
Not again.
Never again.