I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,315

have to force you to do piano.”

“It’s up to you.” She shrugged. “Seems like a sweet deal to me.”

“A month. And you have to drop the whining about the hair dye.”

She grinned up at me. “Deal.”

Anything to keep my daughter happy—well, anything but a short, tight, or low-cut dress for her eighth grade dance.

Chapter 5

Harper

Max. Fucking. King.

I thought I’d hated him before but his assholyness had reached dizzying new heights. I stomped into my bedroom, threw the lid off my laundry basket, and started pulling out things to take to wash. I needed to channel my energy into something productive.

Okay, I had to take responsibility. I’d fucked him. I’d wanted to fuck him. And it had been great—a release, no more than that. It had been amazing, as if he’d known what I needed before I did. And he’d had all the right equipment and he’d known how to use it. But he hadn’t spoken to me since that night two days ago. Hadn’t even looked at me. We’d agreed on Vegas; I’d suggested it. But he didn’t have to ignore me.

Arrogant men should be illegal. Or sent to an island without any women on it to die of sexual frustration.

Coming to my rescue in the gym suggested he wasn’t quite the asshole I thought he was. Then seeing him shirtless, and the way he’d growled at me, like an animal? Well, I don’t know what had come over me, but any willpower I’d had just dissolved, and I’d wanted him.

But what had I been thinking? Fucking my boss was a bad idea for so many reasons. I desperately wanted him to think I was good at my job, not just know my depilatory habits. I’d worked hard for this position, and I didn’t just want him to see me as a piece of ass. I certainly didn’t want it getting out and people to start gossiping about how I was sleeping my way to the top or an easy lay.

Thank God it was Friday and I wouldn’t have to see him for two whole days. Not that I had to worry about that—he’d canceled three meetings with me just to avoid me. Which was the behavior of a fifteen-year-old boy.

It wasn’t as if I’d expected a ring, or dinner. But, hell, a “Hello, how are you, thanks for the hot sex” was surely only polite.

I grabbed my clothes, piled them into a huge Ikea bag, and dumped it by the door, ready to head down to the laundry room. I just had to find the bra I’d taken off in front of the TV earlier that week. As I entered the sitting area, the ceiling rattled with the clip of heels. Jesus, it had only been two days since Max’s dick had been in me, and now he was banging some other girl. I pitied any girl dumb enough to fuck Max King. Which, apparently, included me.

I let out a yell of frustration, then covered my mouth. Had he heard that? I didn’t want him to think I cared if he had another girl in the apartment.

I didn’t give a shit.

But the last thing I wanted to do was sit here listening to my boss fuck someone else. Maybe it wasn’t another woman. Maybe Max liked to dress up. Nothing about that man would surprise me anymore. I smiled, happy with that particular constructed reality.

Feeling under the couch cushions, I grasped a bra strap, then pulled it free and threw it over to join the rest of my laundry. I grabbed my keys from the side table, a report from work, and the detergent I’d bought on my way home from the office. I had at least three loads to do and if I stayed down there, I’d avoid the sexcapades of Max King. As I headed for the elevator, dragging the bag of clothes behind me, the clitter-clatter of heels seemed to follow me out of the door.

The elevator didn’t take as long as usual, and I realized it had come straight from the penthouse. When the doors pinged open I came face to face with the knowledge it hadn’t been Max wearing the high heels after all. There was only one apartment above me, so the woman Max King had just fucked would be standing before me.

I wanted the kind of superpower where I could stop time and rearrange things. Then I could hide and ensure that when the elevator stopped on my floor, the beauty in