Chapter 5
LAURA
Troy isn’t at his desk when I return with his triple shot no-foam latte, which only annoys me further. He always insists that his coffee be made extra-hot. The man drinks scalding hot liquid all day. Must be the source of the steam that comes out of his ears when he speaks to me.
But it won’t be scalding hot by the time he returns from wherever he’s gone.
Maybe he forgot all about sending me on the errand in the first place. Sometimes it feels like he really does waste my time on purpose, despite him claiming he wouldn’t do such a thing this morning.
With my boss safely out of the way, I’m able to return to my emails in peace.
I reply to the preschool with an enthusiastic response, giving times when I could sneak away from this place to take an interview next week.
Then I check the job boards, scrolling through the endless listings of entry level positions.
None of them pay as well as Dixon HQ does. It sucks that I’m having to take a pay cut to get away from my boss…but after working here for nearly a year, it’s clear that I don’t fit. And if Troy won’t fire me, I’ll have to quit to get out of this weird, toxic relationship.
I close my eyes and imagine working at the preschool.
Being surrounded by small children all day, wiping sticky fingers and singing silly songs.
It’s basically the opposite of the cold, corporate hellscape that I’m in right now.
And they offer tuition reimbursement. So the pay cut wouldn’t be all bad. At least I’d get free college.
A man clears his throat behind me and I scream, jumping in my chair while simultaneously slamming the lid of my laptop closed.
“Am I interrupting something?”
I spin my chair around to face Troy, the glaring good-looking giant.
His navy eyes look almost green in the afternoon sun filtering through the window that I opened when I got back upstairs.
Normally he keeps the floor’s windows closed.
Like some kind of vampire in a designer suit, he seems to detest the open windows, preferring ugly fluorescent lighting to the natural sun.
“Just finishing up some messages,” I say. There’s a squeak in my voice that gives away my dishonesty. His eyes narrow and I wait for him to challenge me, to explode, to do all of the things I’ve been waiting all year for him to do.
Troy acts angry but never really blows up in anger, though. He’s more like a moody shadow, always dark and ominous. A raincloud, but the rain never falls and the thunder never comes. Just the threat of it.
“Your coffee is probably cold by now,” I blurt out, my voice a pitch too high, like I’ve been temporarily possessed by a nervous cartoon mouse. “Um, I could microwave it for you.”
He wrinkles his nose in disgust. Of course. Rich snobby Troy Dixon would never have a re-heated latte.
“Does the fact that my coffee is cold have anything to do with you loitering downstairs and flirting with Isaac Lawson for thirty minutes?” he snaps.
I’m so surprised by this question, I forget to be afraid of him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask with a snort of laughter.
His scowl deepens.
Uh-oh. Here it comes. Troy Dixon is about to fire me.
Finally.
I had a good run. Learned a lot about Microsoft Excel, fancy lattes, and how to un-jam a copier machine in less than a minute. Unfortunately I never learned how to un-crease my boss’s brow. Actually I think I’m an accidental expert in pissing him off.
“I’m talking about you and Isaac, downstairs, looking cozy,” he snaps. “Do you even know what he’s like? Of all the men in my company that you could hook up with, of all the options, you choose–”
“I am not hooking up with that guy,” I retort, rising to my feet. Even when I’m standing now, he still towers over me. Glaring. Intimidating me. Or trying to.
Suddenly I don’t feel so intimidated, though. Probably because I’ve got nothing left to lose. I’ve been biting my tongue for months now and with each passing week, it gets harder to keep my thoughts inside my mind instead of letting them come out of my mouth.
“And if you’re so scandalized by what Isaac is like, then why do you employ him? And let him go around calling women names like Dollface? Maybe you’re just as bad as him. You didn’t mind until you thought he made your coffee cold. Which is the most selfish, pig-headed thing. And I–”
His lips land on mine before I can even process the fact that it’s happening. All at once I’m engulfed in everything Troy Dixon.
His hands wrapped around my waist, his torso pressed against my front, and of course, his mouth.
His lips claim mine, tongue parting them and exploring my mouth and without even being fully conscious of what I’m doing, my tongue explores his, responding to him without even asking my brain for permission. It’s just automatic.
It’s when I feel his erection pressing into me that I finally come back to my senses.
He does too. We pull apart at the same time.
I recoil until I’ve backed all the way into my desk, nearly toppling over.
I catch myself on the edge and regain my balance, breathing hard and staring into the deep blue eyes of the man that, just a moment ago, I was certain must hate me.
“What the fuck?” I breathe.
“That was a mistake,” he says harshly, tearing his eyes away from me. “I’m sorry. That was…”
“A mistake,” I say with a nod. “Yeah. I get it.”
He looks back at me. Eyes full of that mysterious moodiness that I’ve never been able to fully decipher. Is it lust? All of this time when I thought he was judging my clothes, my hair, my body…was that actually lust?
He opens his mouth. Looks like he’s about to say something. I wait, holding my breath, my fingers gripping the edge of my desk so tightly that my knuckles are white.
But then he looks away again, staking into his office and closing the door.
A moment later, the electric blinds block him from view.
“So…am I fired, or not?” I wonder aloud, dropping into my desk chair with a huff.