wanted to just blot out of my memory.
Besides, I have a real job now. I don’t need to carry a drink tray around while wearing my stupid cloth. Mr. Raines says if I keep doing a good job, he’ll find a place for me in the organization once Mary comes back.
Organization. That’s what he calls it. Not the company.
Fancy.
So I don’t need Jimi…but there’s something stopping me from blocking his number.
Here’s the thing.
I know it’s stupid. One handjob does not a relationship make. And I’m a little appalled at how I reacted the second time Mr. Raines and I met, how eager I was to go to him, to let him do anything he wanted with me.
My friends were right. I had a tendency to take really, really stupid risks.
This job may have been one of those risks. I just can’t tell.
I mean, everything’s fine. Mr. Raines is treating me like a real human being, not like a waiter he picked up off the street.
It’s just…
It’s the way he looks at me sometimes.
It does something to me. And I worry that the only reason he hired me was to seduce me.
I don’t even know what I would do if he tried that.
I’m not convinced I’d say no.
But that would change things.
It’d make it less safe to be here.
The thing I keep in mind is that he has now seen me in the bright light of day. The scar is obvious. The fact that I’m not in his league is also obvious. So he’s not going to want me. Because I’m ugly. And that is both disappointing and a relief at the same time.
And so… So I’m keeping Jimi’s number. As a backup plan, in case everything goes wrong, in case I’ve totally misread Mr. Raines’ intentions, in case slinging drinks half-naked is really the only career path I have.
I hate it, I just don’t know what else to do.
That doesn’t mean answering the voicemails though.
Not yet.
That’s what I’m thinking about, when Mr. Raines emerges from the office. I’m sitting there looking at the appointments on the computer, trying to look productive, while the words ugly ugly ugly repeat inside my mind in Jimi’s voice, until they’ve gone beyond a chant, to just this wet guttural noise like a fish slopping against a wet pavement over and over, trying to get back to the water.
“Busy?” he asks.
I hope my face doesn’t show anything but professionalism. I point at the screen. “Mary makes things very easy for me. You don’t have anything else scheduled this afternoon, it looks like—”
“Thank god. This new plant is going to kill me. If Dalton would get his head out of the clouds long enough— Anyway. Not important. Look, I’m starved.”
“Want me to make you a reservation?” Mary has thoughtfully left a list of which restaurants Mr. Raines prefers.
“How about you? Hungry at all?”
“…me?” I try not to stammer. Temp assistants don’t eat with CEOs.
“Is that out of line? Mary and I would go out to eat sometimes, talk over work. No, I see you’re uncomfortable, I’ll order in—”
“No! Gosh, no, it just surprised me. I mean…I hate cooking, and my roommates are always clearing out the fridge without replacing things, so yeah, I could eat. Just… You have to let me pay my own way.”
His whole face lit up and he laughed. “C’mon, kid, I’m not paying you enough to eat at the places I like to go. Get your damn jacket. I’m paying.”
Kid. He called me kid. That’s safe, right?
I thought maybe we were going to take his limo, but no. We go down to the garage—I haven’t seen this part of the building yet, because I take the bus to work—and there’s a special spot just for executives. And, it turns out, an even more special spot—literally roped off—for Colby’s car.
“Oh my god,” I say, and it makes him laugh.
“This old jalopy?”
“It looks like a shark.”
“Shark for a shark, that makes sense, right?”
I know what it is, an Aston Martin, one of the newer models, sleek and dangerous like something James Bond might drive.
I know this, because when you’re around a lot of guys whose life goal is to sleep with as many billionaires as possible, cars get discussed almost as much as designer watches.
Someone is already unhooking the ropes that separate Colby’s parking spot from the world. “Mr. Raines,” says the man deferentially, and Colby hands him some kind of money in a motion so quick I can’t tell how much, but it