Page 7 of The Boss
“Heaven forbid we do anything inappropriate.” She rolled her eyes and then ran her pinky finger along her bottom lip, as if she needed to smooth out her burgundy lipstick. “You don’t really want to sit here staring at videos of people desperate for attention and then have to write some massive report like we’re in high school. I’ve got some seriously juicy gossip. It confirms a lot of what people say about him.”
I ignored her and opened my desk drawer to get my earbuds. Ms. Lamas had given us both this task, but if Flora wasn’t going to take it seriously, I’d have to do it myself.
Unfortunately, my earbuds weren’t in my right drawer, which meant they were in the left one, and Flora was in front of it. I’d just have to try to block her out. That, however, was easier said than done.
“My best friend, Naima, is cousins with this girl who dated Nate for a few weeks last summer, and the things she told Naima about what Nate likes in the bedroom…it’s like something straight out of one of those kinky erotic novels.”
She said it with disgust, like she didn’t have one of those novels in the bottom left drawer of her desk. If she wasn’t gossiping with her friends when she was supposed to be working, she was reading.
“Naima said it’s not just like handcuffs and blindfolds either. I guess he tied her cousin up with ropes until she couldn’t move, and then he did all sorts of things to her. He even made her give him a blowjob in a restaurant.”
I stared harder at the screen and pretended that my entire face wasn’t burning with embarrassment. I wasn’t a prude, but this wasn’t workplace conversation. Besides, I didn’t want to think about my boss that way. Sure, he was gorgeous, but I’d have needed to be blind or dead not to realize that.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Flora watching me and wondered if the entertainment had turned from her gossiping to her trying to see how far she could push me. She was going to be disappointed. I wasn’t a combative person. I’d told her I didn’t think the conversation was appropriate, and now I was going to ignore her. If she couldn’t get a rise out of me, she’d most likely stop.
“Could you imagine it? Being at a restaurant with him, and then he tells you to pretend you dropped something under the table, get down on your knees, and go down on him right there?” She sighed. “I get horny just thinking about it…”
Her voice trailed off on the last word, and I raised my head, assuming that she’d decided that we needed to get our work done.
That wasn’t it at all.
The reason Flora had stopped was the glowering man in the expensive Italian suit.
Shit.
“You two. My office. Now.”
Fuck my life.
Six
Nate
I never pretendedto be the boss everyone loved, and I certainly wasn’t the boss known for having close, personal relationships with his employees. I didn’t ask for ass-kissing, and I quite frankly didn’t want it, but I did believe in respect.
And what I’d just heard wasn’t even close to respectful.
“You two. My office. Now.”
I didn’t wait to see if they would follow me because, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t even get the chance to try to save their jobs. Not that they had much of one anyway, but any chance was better than no chance.
“Shut the door,” I said as I walked around my desk and sank into my chair.
I left them standing as I gave them both hard looks. The short one with the long, henna-red hair looked mortified, her eyes darting everywhere around me but never actually looking directly at me. Her friend’s face was red, but there was a defiant jut to her chin that told me she wouldn’t go easily.
“Names?”
“Flora Watts,” the taller one said, folding her arms.
“Ashlee Webb.” The redhead’s voice was soft.
Their names were enough to confirm that it had been the first young woman who’d been speaking. I hadn’t heard the other one speak at all, not even to tell her friend to be quiet. She could have been speaking before I’d gotten there.
“That was quite an interesting conversation I walked into.” I started in without asking either of them to sit down. “Would either of you like to explain? Or perhaps just give me a reason why I shouldn’t fire both of you right now?”
Flora didn’t wait more than a few seconds to start talking. “I don’t know what you think you heard, Mr. Lexington, but Ashlee and I here were just talking about this book she was reading about this employee sleeping with her boss.”
Ashlee’s head snapped up, eyes wide enough for me to be able to identify the color of her irises as turquoise. “I-I–”
