The Boss (31 page)

I almost covered my eyes as I scrolled
through the intro paragraph. Businessman, I knew. Philanthropist,
what?
Land mine victim charity,
what?
This was the
guy who was spanking my ass raw on the reg?

The gist of things seemed to be that I was in
way over my head. My eyes scanned the section about his early life
- Born to Rose (nee Arden) and Leif Elwood, youngest of four
children, lived in London until he was seven, family moved to his
father's native Reykjavik - you know, all of the stuff you do when
you're not the child of a poor single mom from Michigan. I dropped
my head to my hands.

To the right of the page, beneath a picture
that looked more like the man I’d met in the airport than the way
he looked now, was a bar with background facts. And I nearly choked
when I saw that under "partners" it listed
Valerie Stern
(1984
−
1988)
above
Elizabeth
Walton-Elwood (2007 – 2012)

Stern? As in... Elwood & Stern? Another
check of the dates made my stomach churn. Was his business partner
Emma's mother?

That was it. Obsessive, stalkery Googling
took over the rest of my day. I learned that Neil had first worked
for the British arm of his now deceased father's media corporation
before breaking out on his own to work for... Richard Branson. And
oh, look, there was a photo of Neil and Richard Branson, at some
black tie event in the 90's. Standing next to Paul McCartney. I
also learned that Neil was the tenth richest Brit, owing to his
shares in his father’s media and property management companies in
Iceland. His estimated net worth was 6.5
billion
British
pounds.

And I had argued with him over paying for
room service.

I shut my laptop and set it gently aside, as
if it were some highly unstable compound.

There was a knock at my door, and Holli
called, "You can stop hiding in there out of politeness, she's
gone."

"I wasn't hiding," I told her as I opened the
door. "I was giving you some space. I thought you weren't going to
see her again."

"I was undecided." Holli followed me to the
bed and sat on the edge while I flopped across it sideways.

Staring up at the crack in the plaster above
my bed, I set my billionaire problem aside for a moment. "Are you
any closer to a decision on her?"

Holli considered, scooting back and pulling
her legs up criss-cross. "I like her. I'll definitely see her
again. But let's not go picking out toasters to put on the
registry."

I grinned and teased, "Holli and Deja sittin'
in a tree..."

"What about you? Two consecutive nights. You
never stay the night. And getting caught by his daughter!" Her jaw
dropped. "Please tell me she did not walk in - "

"No! But it was bad enough. She heard
everything
. She totally hates me now." I gestured guiltily
to my laptop. "Then I come home and find out, oh, Neil is not only
like, a billionaire with his own company, but yeah, he's a knight
and he hangs out with a Beatle every now and then."

"Yikes. But... according to Deja, you should
be in there with him." Holli bit her thumbnail. "I didn't tell her,
by the way. She brought it up on her own."

"What do you mean 'in there?'" I snorted.
"We've had sex, I've already closed that deal."

"I... don’t think it’s just sex for him,
Soph. Deja said that he asked about you several times while he was
in England. Always trying to see how you were doing in the new job
and stuff, making it sound like he cared about you as an employee,
but still. She thinks the dude is in love with you."

"No, definitely not." I forced myself to kill
the goofy smile I felt coming on. Like, strangle it with my bare
hands kill it. I did not need to start drawing hearts and flowers
around his name in my notebook. "Neither of us are in a place to
pursue anything serious."

The memory of that Wikipedia page flashed
through my mind. He'd been with Valerie Stern for three years,
married to his wife for two, although they’d apparently dated for a
few. Was that as long term as he got?

Why did that bother me?

Of course, he'd promised we'd stay friends
even if we stopped sleeping together. Had he made the same promise
to Valerie? Was that why they were in business together? Or had
that been a do-the-right-thing move, giving the mother of his child
a job after he cut out on her?

"Ugh!" I pulled my pillow over my face so I
could scream into it and kick my legs in childish frustration.
Sitting up I groaned, "I keep assigning him all these sinister
emotional motives for practically everything he does. Like, 'Oh,
he's doing this because he's a bad father,' and 'Oh, he's doing
that because he feels guilty about his ex.' Why can't I just like
him?"

"Because you really, really like him," Holli
said with a pitying smile. "You're trying to find ways to avoid
liking him. That's the first sign."

"Oh, like you with your 'undecided' on Deja?"
I blew out a long, exasperated breath. "You're right though. I love
him. I am in love with the guy I started a casual relationship
with, and I'm afraid of what that means."

Holli shrugged. "Why does it have to be mean
anything? You love him. Great. But you don't want to get married
and do the happy family thing, you've always been pretty clear on
that, right?"

"Yeah," I conceded. "I don't see myself cut
out for that kind of life."

"So, you love him. Enjoy the time you're
spending with him. If it turns into something more, then it does.
If it doesn't, well... you're with him right now. Just roll with
it."

"How can you say something I've already said
to myself, and make it sound ten thousand times smarter?" It was
true. A lot of the time, the voice of reason in my head was just
Holli's voice calling me a dumb ass. "I guess I just don't like the
thought that he might not feel the same way about me."

"Um, he feels the same way. Trust me. If Deja
picked up on it, then he’s into you.” Holli stood and stretched.
"I'm gonna take a shower, and then I'm having lunch with my agent.
On a Sunday, so you know it's good news, if it couldn’t wait until
tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed, okay?"

I held up both my hands, giving her a total
of four sets of crossed fingers. "Consider them crossed."

At least one of us should have something
awesome happen in our career, I mused as I reached for my laptop
again. As soon as the screen blinked on, I closed the browser
window. I didn't need to know any more. Holli was right, I wasn't
in this relationship because I wanted some traditional romantic
fairytale. I was seeing him because we were great together in bed,
and we got along as people. And so what if he had some big,
impressive past? All the awesome shit he'd done in his life had
happened after twenty-four. I was twenty-four right now, so there
was no reason I should feel inadequate just because I didn't have a
legend of British rock on speed dial. I wasn't going to worry about
how different we were. I was just going to enjoy being with
him.

Chapter Sixteen

I went to work on
Monday morning feeling really great about the positive direction
things had taken. I'd been promoted - on my own merit and not, as I
had feared, because of who I'd slept with - and despite the current
cluster fuck going on in the beauty department, we were actually
doing okay. We'd found a really cool, under-recognized beauty brand
we'd made the focus of the hastily overhauled January spread, and
even though it had put us behind on February, the sky wasn't
falling like it had been during my first week.

Unfortunately, working in the same building
as Neil and not seeing him was psychological torture. I felt like
an obsessed middle-schooler, which I really didn't like. I forced
myself to focus, and worked so I was away from the door. I didn't
want to catch myself looking up every ten seconds, trying to get a
glimpse of him on the off chance he was walking through the main
floor.

The only way Neil and I were going to be able
to continue our relationship outside of work was if I could keep
concentrating on my job. Which is why when I went to his office at
the beginning of my lunch hour, it had nothing to do with us
dating, and everything to do with Holli and Deja dating.

After seeing the two of them together in the
apartment, I'd decided that I had to meddle. Just lightly. Just to
give Deja a hint. Because from what I'd discerned from our past six
years of friendship, dating Holli was like trying to solve the
puzzle box from
Hellraiser
. Deja was doing me a solid by not
blowing the whistle on my extracurricular fun times with Neil, so I
owed her a solid right back.

"Hey, Mr. Elwood isn't here," Deja said,
looking up from her computer when I pushed through the door.

"That's okay. I'm not here to see Mr. Elwood,
I'm here to see you." It was still super bizarre to be back in this
office, standing in front of the desk I'd worked behind for two
years. I looked over to the empty desk across the room. "Still no
second assistant?"

"No, I don't really think he needs one," Deja
said tapping a button on her keyboard before swiveling her chair to
face me. "Either he's not demanding enough, or I'm the most capable
assistant in the universe."

"I bet it's the second one."

She gave a little laugh, but I could tell she
was eager to talk about Holli. Her eyebrows shot up, and she smiled
a big, unnatural smile. "So... how's Holli?"

"Good, she's good." I nodded, my lips clamped
together as I tried to figure out how to say what I wanted to tell
her. "Look, I think you guys could be really good together. But
there's something you should know."

"Oh?" she asked warily, her smile fading a
little. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Well...” I took a breath. "Holli is really,
really sensitive about her weight."

Deja laughed in disbelief. "Um, she weighs
about two pounds! I wish I was so skinny."

"I know, and that's the problem." I'd lived
with Holli since freshman year at college, so I'd had plenty of
time to see how the well-meaning comments of strangers had affected
her. I really hoped I could make Deja understand in a few minutes
what it had taken me years to learn. "She gets a lot of crap for
being so skinny. People get snotty with her and accuse her of
having an eating disorder, or they give her a bunch of praise for
her willpower. She just gets tired of it. The truth is, it's just
how her body is. She has as much trouble gaining weight as most
people do losing weight. Then you get a bunch of jealous people
taking digs at her, and there's no way she can win."

"Oh my god." Deja looked slightly ill. "And
here I was, all weekend with my stupid, 'Oh, I'm so jealous of you,
you can eat whatever you want, I wish
my
thighs didn't
touch, blah blah blah.'" She dropped her head into her hands. "Deja
you fucking idiot."

"No, look, don't beat yourself up." I felt
kind of bad, though I didn't know why. If I were routinely
offending someone, I would definitely want to be told, and I was
sure Deja appreciated hearing this. "She really likes you. And I
think you guys would be so great together. Just, in this case, an
apology might go a long way."

"Will do," she assured me. "Thank you."

"I'm about to go grab some lunch. Do you want
me to bring anything back for you?"

Deja shook her head. "No, I've got this
avocado wrap thing in the fridge. Go, have a good one."

As I turned to leave, Neil came through the
door, followed by Hope. He looked startled to see me there. "Hello,
Sophie."

"Hello, Mr. Elwood. I was just on my way
out." I passed him and nodded at Hope. "Hello."

"Getting along alright in the beauty
department, dear?" Hope asked. She was about one hundred percent
more pleasant now that she wasn't working with Gabriella.

"Things are going great. A few bumps, but
it's going great." I nodded at her and Neil, catching his eyes
super briefly before I headed through the door. I'd just made it to
the lobby when my phone vibrated with a text message from Neil.

That skirt is driving me insane.

I smirked to myself as I exited the building.
I was hoping he'd noticed my floaty green skirt beneath the hem of
my short white wool coat. I had definitely started to dress with an
eye to what Neil would find attractive. Nothing inappropriate for
the work place, still fashionable, but I'd figured out early that
he was pretty into skirts. A flash of our night in the hotel six
years previous came to me, his hand gripping the back of my
waistband and roughly jerking down my jeans. A hot flush suffused
my body, starting at my torso and spreading to my limbs. Okay, so
maybe the clothes didn’t matter. Maybe he was just into me.

"Hey, Sophie!"

I startled guiltily. I wasn't even twenty
feet from the front door and I was thinking
inappropriate-for-the-office thoughts. When I turned, Jake was
jogging down the steps to catch up with me.

"You going to lunch?" he asked, stepping to
the curb to hail a taxi.

"Yeah," I said, not adding the part about
going on my own. Ever since his little tantrum in the conference
room the other day, I'd been avoiding Jake. It was a lot easier to
do, now that I was in beauty. To him, my department was a frivolous
joke, around just to pad out the magazine's advertising. He hadn’t
called or asked how the job was panning out. I was surprised he
even deigned to speak to me anymore.

"Mind if I tag along? I've got something I
want to run by you." The cab he'd signaled stopped at the curb and
he opened the door for me.

Gritting my teeth, I smoothed my skirt down
and swung my legs in, thighs firmly together. Jake got in beside me
and gave the driver the name of an incredibly pretentious sushi
place that was currently the rage among the elite at
Porteras
.