Entry-Level Mistress - By Sabrina Darby Page 0,24
It was only one step up from a dorm room really. I thought of the expensive new stockings I had been about to slip on. Ridiculous. Like a child playing dress-up.
“This is … ”
“Cluttered,” I filled in for him. “Yeah I know.” I was breathless and waiting for him to pull the towel off me, only, he seemed distracted by my stuff. It definitely wasn’t the sexiest room ever, not even a blank slate like his Charles Street bedroom. Or sophisticated like his high-rise condo that I had only ever seen in a magazine spread. “I could get dressed as I was planning to do,” I reminded him.
He walked, or rather wound his way, to the bust of Medusa, ran a finger over one of the twisted snakes. He seemed to take in all of the random collection of artwork I had completed over the years. I wanted to tell him to stop looking, wanted to push him out of there. Then he picked up my newest sketchbook, which he couldn’t possibly know was the newest.
“Daniel—”
He brushed past me with it, sat down on my bed.
“It’s stupid stuff, just student art,” I said with a shrug, trying to hide my anxiety as he flipped through the book, but angry with myself at the same time for putting down my work. I’d had success with sculpture, had two gallery showings in Jamaica Plains; sold some pieces. But I’d never been cocky about my abilities, not in that showy way that some of my peers had been. Sometimes I wondered if that made me less, if that difference would be what made them succeed. Only, I was going to succeed too. I would.
He put the sketchbook down, shifted to sit with one knee bent and the other leg still rooted on the ground.
“I don’t know you all that well, Emily,” he said, his tone utterly serious, and I had the sense that this would be what it felt like to be on the other side of a business meeting with him. “And while I might have had suspicions, I still don’t really know why you came to work for me. But we all make choices in our lives. At twenty-one I wasted away a fortune in the name of revenge.”
I went cold. He spoke so matter-of-factly about the revenge he had taken on my father. Revenge for some unknown hurt my father had caused. I wanted to stop his lecture and force the long-awaited discussion. Except he continued, sweeping all thoughts of any bold confrontation about the past from my mind.
“But I came back,” he said. “And I succeeded. That kind of comeback doesn’t happen for everyone. If you want to pursue this,” he gestured around the room, “this is the time to do it. Not the time for working in corporate America.”
I felt small all of a sudden. He was right and I knew it.
“I was nominated for a fellowship,” I said, hating the defensive tone in my voice. “It starts in mid-August. The Barrows Farm Art Colony.” He seemed to recognize the name and despite all my other conflicting emotions, I appreciated that.
“And you naturally didn’t inform Lance of this when he hired you.”
I sighed, and then rolled my eyes at the amusing stupidity of the whole situation. Here I was with the head of the company, admitting that I had taken the job under false pretenses, that I had never intended to work there more than the summer. I was also sitting there in a towel with drops of water from my damp hair dripping on the sheets.
Unreal.
I had a billionaire sitting on my bed.
And not just any billionaire.
Which reminded me of why we were sitting there, and the fact that I didn’t have to feel this way, like the one who needed to make excuses. I tilted my head, studied him, let the desire I always felt for him well up and show in my eyes. His own narrowed, as if he understood that my mood had shifted.
I leaned closer to him, reached out and slid the leather tongue of his belt out from under the metal. He didn’t stop me so I pushed him backward until he was flat on the bed.
“If you don’t want me to get dressed,” I whispered, unzipping his pants, “then you’re just going to have to get naked instead.”
• • •
By Sunday, I was exhausted, sore and happy. We sat in his living room like a couple that’d known each other for