Except those were thoughts I couldn’t indulge.
There was absolutely not going to be a repeat of that encounter. She was at my company now, and the company was my life. I’d cut my own arm off before I risked it for a woman.
“Where will I be working?”
“Under me.” I was speaking without thinking. Under me? No. Send her to HR. To the front desk. Your dumbass doesn’t need to be tempted by seeing her every single day. I could already feel the foundations trembling. Somehow, some way, I was going to regret this. I knew it. “You’ll be my personal assistant. Coffee runs, printing, faxing, deliveries, dry cleaning, and anything else I decide I can use you for.”
Idiot.
She hesitated. “Anything else?”
I decided not to acknowledge the shared secret between us and how it might have colored my words. “Anything.”
“And what will I be paid for this work?”
It was tempting to insult her with a low offer. Ten grand a year, for example. But I realized it’d be more satisfying to make the offer as juicy as I could. Because I was going to test her patience more than it had ever been tested, and the harder I made it to walk away, the more fun I could have. “Three hundred thousand a year. Full benefits.”
To her credit, she kept a straight face, but her leg started shaking a few seconds later. “I assume I’ll get that in writing?” Chelsea was speaking slowly with a controlled edge to her voice.
“You’ll get what you get,” I snapped.
“I want it in writing. A contract.”
I had to take deep breaths. I’d obviously intended to give her one, but I bristled at having her demand it from me. “Fine. Your first task is to walk your ass down to HR and tell them to draft it up. They can call my office if they need confirmation. Happy?”
The stony look she’d been wearing since she walked in finally cracked. She jumped up from her chair, rushed over to me, and gave me a tight hug while jumping up and down giddily. “Thank you so much,” she whispered. Then she rushed out of my office, leaving me to stare at the wall with the most confused erection of my life.
As if he could have worse timing, my brother stuck his head in my office a moment later. Annoyed, I put my hands in my lap. “Yes?”
“Look. I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to try my best.”
My heartbeat quickened. “What is it?”
“Worchestershire. Worsher? Worchester sauce? Fuck. See what I mean?”
“Get out of my office.”
“Well, there’s none in your so-called break room. I can’t eat spaghetti and meatballs without a dab of it. So what do you expect me to do, exactly?”
With my brother, sometimes the only thing to do was wait quietly until he lost interest. So I looked down at my computer and waited until I heard the door close.
Idiots. I was surrounded by idiots.
6
Chelsea
I made my way to HR while I’m a Bitch, I’m a Boss played in my mental stereo system.
Three hundred thousand dollars a year. Full benefits.
Hell. Yes.
I ran through the things I could do with that kind of cold hard cash. It was like playing that game where you thought about what you’d do if you won the lottery. A new bra. A nice bra that fit right. Socks without holes my big toes poked through. New clothes for Luna instead of the second-hand stuff we had to settle for. Some real food for my brother.
And bills. God. I could slap my bills around like they were my bitch with that kind of money.
Still, I had to be careful not to go into full blown celebration mode. I’d need to reserve the double birds aimed at the sky and maniacal laughter until the check actually cleared. No matter how much I wanted to believe it, I had to remember who we were talking about here.
Damon Rose. He was the dickbreathed, cockfaced, assheaded guy who was luring me into his trap with piles and piles of money. It was either a trick to break my heart when he pulled it away at the last minute, or it was a sign that I was in for far worse than I could imagine. If he really planned to give me that money, he was challenging me, and I had a feeling the challenge was to find out what I’d put up with before I’d quit. He was just sadistic enough to do something like that, and I knew it.
I had to wait while the guy at HR called to confirm the details of my salary and position, but within an hour, I was signing my name at the bottom of a spicy contract that would take me straight from the ramen noodle diet to the name brand pasta diet. Yeah. You bet your ass Luna and I were going to be celebrating with some fancy pasta tonight. Fettuccine? Those little ones that look like helmets? The harder it was to spell, the more likely we were to buy it. It was going to be that kind of fancy. I might not even bring my coupon book to the grocery store just to flex a little bit.
I was leaving HR with a giant smile on my face when a young woman with red hair and tired eyes stopped me. She was breathtaking, even though she looked like she’d rather be punching puppies than at work. “Hey,” she said dryly.
“Hi, I’m Chelsea.”
“Daria.”
I stuck out my hand for a handshake. She looked down at it, then grinned crookedly, taking it and giving it a quick shake. She looked over her shoulder, then stepped a little closer. I noticed she had the most gorgeous dark blue eyes and skin so perfect I couldn’t help being jealous. “Damon is fucking obsessed with the color yellow.”
I crinkled my nose. “What? I was just in his office and didn’t see anything yellow.”
“He doesn’t like people to know. But if you wear yellow, he’s always nicer.”
“Oh, wow. Really?”
Daria nodded, then shot me a thumbs up. “You’re welcome.”
I smiled and waved goodbye to her. Apparently, part of my giant new salary was going to go toward adding a little yellow to my wardrobe.
Luna sat across from me that night with red sauce covering her face and a satisfied, tired look in her eyes. I’d invited Grant over as well as my best friend since high school, Milly.
Milly wore round, Harry Potter style glasses that I always found cute on her petite face and frame. Her brown hair was pulled back in a double braid that fell to her back, and she was dressed like she’d just gotten off the tennis court. Unlike me, Milly’s tennis career hadn’t come to an abrupt halt when she got pregnant. More accurately, Milly hadn’t been careless and irresponsible enough to get pregnant. But that was always a strange thing to think about.
I hated that I was dumb enough to let it happen to me, but if you gave me a time machine and sent me back ten years, I’d agonize over how to make sure everything happened exactly the way it did because I’d lose my mind if Luna never happened. Go figure.
Milly was still clawing and fighting to get high enough in the rankings to earn a decent living, but at least she was out there.
Grant was unusually quiet, so I tossed a piece of the crust of my garlic bread at him. He grinned distractedly.
“Okay. Spit it out,” I said.
On cue, Luna spit a mouthful of chewed up spaghetti onto her plate and grinned like a lunatic. We all let out a collective groan.
“Follow the rules for once,” Luna said cheerily, reminding me of a talk we’d just had yesterday after I spoke with her pre-K teacher.