He says gruffly, “Please excuse my manners, Simone. It’s been a difficult morning. I’d like a word alone with Shay.”
Simone glances at me, sending me a look I understand to mean that she’s within shouting distance if I need someone to call 9-1-1. Then she withdraws, closing my office door behind her.
Cole’s back faces the cubicle field, so he can’t see what I see through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls: a sea of people gaping at us.
Great. What a way to make a first impression. Next maybe I can barf on someone’s shoes.
My face red and my heart thudding, I stand my ground under the blistering stare Cole sends me.
His voice less controlled than when he spoke to Simone, he demands, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I believe we already established that. I’m working.” Just to dig the knife a little deeper, I add a sarcastic, “Sir.”
It’s the wrong thing to say for several reasons, but mainly because the vivid memory of me on my knees in the hotel room with his hard dick in my hand when he suggested I call him Sir for Chelsea’s benefit now sits there between us, supercharging the air.
I can tell he’s thinking of it, too, because he shifts his weight from foot to foot and growls. Then he snaps, “How?”
“How what?”
“How did you come to be working here?”
“The usual method.”
“Which is?”
“I was hired.”
Obviously annoyed by my short answers, he demands loudly, “How did you know it was me you’d be working for?”
“I didn’t.”
When he only stares at me in disbelieving silence, it dawns on me that he thinks I purposely took the job as his assistant to get close to him. Not only that, he thinks my reasons for that were nefarious.
“Wait,” I say hotly. “Wait just a minute. I didn’t know it was you I’d be working for, okay? Nobody told me your name.”
“I find that extremely hard to believe.”
“I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth.”
He folds his arms over his chest and stares down his nose at me.
What an asshole. If murder were legal, he’d already be dead.
“Whatever story you’re concocting about why I’m here, it’s BS.”
“Sure it is.”
Exasperated, I throw my hands in the air. “I heard about this position from a friend!”
“What friend? The same one who you’re planning on splitting your settlement money with when you sue me for sexual harassment?”
I already knew he was thinking something bad about why I’m here, but I didn’t know how bad. This takes the cake. “You think I set you up?”
When he doesn’t say a word but only continues staring at me with that same look of disdain, I have my answer.
“You do. You think somehow I found out who you were, and I followed you into that bar and propositioned you that night, all the while planning to get hired as your assistant so I could turn around and sue the pants off you.”
“Or blackmail me, yes.”
Outraged by the suggestion, I gasp.
“Well, what are the odds, Shay? You and your friends just happened to be at that particular bar that night? And you just happened to decide you wanted to demand sex from me?”
“Demand? I did no such—”
“Then, out of the blue, you show up in my office, and the first thing out of your mouth is a threat to sue me?”
He glances down at my outfit. His eyes flare. His cheeks grown even more ruddy than they were before.
“While wearing the blouse I bought you?”
I wish I’d put this stupid Balmain blouse down the garbage disposal. It’s the nicest thing I own, and I wanted to look my best today, and now I just wish I’d shoved it down the garbage disposal where I should also shove all my pleasant memories of the evening I spent with this jerk.
“I didn’t threaten to sue you. I said I’d file a complaint with HR if you continued to treat me with disrespect.”
“Followed by a threat to sue.”
“Okay, fine, yes, but only if you fired me in retaliation. Which, now that I’ve seen you in your native environment, seems exactly like something you’d do.”
He tries to interrupt, but I raise my voice and talk over him. “I shouldn’t have been surprised by your behavior because literally everyone warned me about it, but given that it was you standing in the doorway and not some stuffy old guy with dandruff on his shoulders and halitosis that could kill a camel like I imagined it would be, I was. So you’ll have to forgive me for playing into your ridiculous farce of a self-serving story, but in no way did I scheme to get this job.”