Entry-Level Mistress

chapter 2



He drove a Porsche, which wasn’t all that surprising, and in some ways the smaller car made sense with how difficult it is to find a good-sized parking spot in Boston. I didn’t even have a car, hadn’t in the four years I’d lived there. His was manual, and he drove it like he loved to drive, even with the stop-and-go traffic.

There was no way I was going to be back at the office in an hour. Not with the usual Boston crush and Hartmann driving in the direction of the pier. Even worse, every single person on the third floor, and the security guards in the lobby, knew I was having lunch with Hartmann. If I actually cared about office politics, I would be mourning the loss of my reputation and under-the-radar newbieness. As it was, I was gladly trading in the certainty of office rumors for the chance to excavate beneath Daniel Hartmann’s cruel exterior. Or handsome exterior. Handsomely cruel?

Of course, I had no idea what we would talk about. Perhaps I could dazzle him with the scintillating details of my Excel document skills.

Of course, if this was the shakedown and he wanted to know why Mark Anderson’s daughter had taken a job in his marketing department, I’d have plenty to say. I was already biting back the thousand caustic references to my lineage on the off chance that I could still damage his life in some way, that he hadn’t already made the connection between me and my father. Maybe after so casually ruining my father’s life all those years ago, he’d put my whole family out of his mind. Maybe that model from Brazil had helped him forget.

Which brought up another issue, wasn’t he dating someone? A model again. Tatiana from the Czech Republic.

Daniel kept up a casual patter as he drove, pointing out other restaurants and buildings, or random pieces of information that clearly he considered safe territory. Through it all I managed to respond with words other than monosyllables, but inside, I was a jumbled mess. A week into this job and I was sitting next to Hartmann. In his car. He had even commented on the way I’d admired his body. Heat rushed through my body again. How much more embarrassing could life get?

The conversation paused after we stepped out of the car. In tense, anticipatory silence we walked down the wooden boardwalk of the wharf to an average-looking Italian restaurant. Why this particular place? Was it some sort of underground hot spot I’d just never heard of before? Maybe it was hip among the professional crowd. Or the villainous billionaire crowd.

Yeah. Maybe there was a dungeon beneath, or at least a watery grave.

He held the door open for me, almost negligently. Any of the boys who had held the door open for me in college had done it as a show of manners, nearly comically. As I slipped past him into the restaurant, I could smell the faint spicy scent of cologne. Just enough to be appealing, to make me want to move closer and know the scent of his skin beneath that fragrance. I was crazy, no doubt about it.

Inside, two old men sat at a table on the far right of the otherwise empty room. A waiter came out from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. I half expected the man to come up and say, “Welcome, Mr. Hartmann!” as if this were a place that Hartmann frequented regularly, but there was no kiss on the cheeks, merely a polite welcome and a gesture to sit where we liked.

Hartmann liked a table on the left side of the room by the window overlooking the water. He ordered a bottle of wine and then after the waiter left, looked sideways at me.

“You are old enough to drink, aren’t you?”

“Maybe you should have asked before you ordered the bottle,” I teased, enjoying the flicker of response at the corner of his mouth. “I’m twenty-one.”

“A bit young for graduating college.”

“I have a summer birthday. It’s par for the course.”

The waiter brought out the wine, and without ritual poured us each a full glass. Hartmann didn’t protest and I wondered if he wasn’t a wine connoisseur at all. Weren’t billionaires supposed to be experts in all things luxury?

“To … ” He let the space hang there and finally, just as I was about to speak, he said, “twenty-one.” He had a small, ironic twist to his lips and I thought I would melt right there from the absolute gorgeousness of that expression.

Ridiculous. I was going to have to bring this strange lunch date to a head because I was out of my league at the moment and I had no idea what he wanted from me. He wasn’t flirting, but had I really mistaken that interest in his eyes?

Perhaps a better question was, what did I want from him? Why was I here? Why had I taken a job working for him in the first place? Was it really for some vague scheme of revenge or was it because I just wanted to see the man up close? Because if it were the latter, then here we were. There would never be a better time.

“Mr. Hartmann—”

“Daniel,” he interrupted with a murmur. I stopped. Closed my lips. Looked back to my hands, and then looked to my wine glass. I took a much-needed drink and then I wondered if I’d have brown teeth from the red wine.

“Daniel,” I said, emphasizing his name and meeting his eyes. I stopped again. Because saying his name while meeting his eyes was much too intimate. There was that something again, that intensity. Maybe this was flirting, the flirting of a thirty-something man of the world and I had no idea how to deal with such subtlety. College boys were as subtle as … well, who cared about them when what mattered really was that Daniel had these amber flecks in his otherwise green-as-glass eyes. Why didn’t that show up on the magazine covers?

“As much as I appreciate you taking interest,” I began again, forcing the words out. Why was he taking an interest? If he knew who I was, why hadn’t he had me tossed out on the street the minute he found out I worked for him?

“What did you major in, Emily?” he interrupted again. I let him. Postponed the inevitable confrontation. What else was I supposed to do?

“Studio Arts, with an emphasis in sculpture.” Another sip of wine. All right, a gulp. Perhaps the Excel document would swim in front of my eyes when I returned to the office.

“You sculpt, then?”

“A little.” Understatement, of course, considering my fall fellowship, but he didn’t need to know that.

“And why not advertising, or marketing, graphic design, or any useful skill?” I bristled at his words, and then realized from that small quirk of his lips that he was teasing me.

“I have a position in your company without benefit of any useful skill,” I reminded him.

“And why is that? Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” There was that quirk at the corner of his lips again, but also his gaze was moving over me, as if he thought I was plenty grown up. Which, from the heated reaction of my body to his words, I knew I was. A thin, thrilling tendril of pleasure wrapped itself around me, tightening my awareness. I had never, ever known this before, this visceral attraction. But then, considering half the models he’d dated hadn’t been over twenty-three, he’d had practice seducing young women.

“Anything you want to know about me, what I studied in college, my ‘objectives—’” And I had made up some serious bull about my future goals. “—is there on my résumé.”

“Which I haven’t seen,” he replied.

I stared at the plate of linguine in front of me. Why had I thought ordering a pasta dish filled with four kinds of seafood would be a good idea?

“I feel like I’m being interviewed, but for some other position,” I whispered, wishing, just after I had done so, that I could take the words back. What was my problem? I couldn’t bring myself to discuss the real reason I was there, and yet I blurted out that I thought he was hitting on me?

I felt more than saw him lean forward. His hand—long, well-shaped fingers with the lightest dusting of hair visible beneath the cuff of his shirt—entered my peripheral vision, reaching for my hand. He was touching me and there was nothing in my head except the warmth of his hand on mine and the sharply exquisite and surprising sensation of desire.

“A position you might want?”

Time stopped. Or slowed. Or something, because the clatter of dishes in the background was painfully loud and yet right there at our table, everything was thick silence. I was hot and cold and drowning in something way bigger than I could handle.

“Isn’t this against the rules?” I said desperately, looking for some way to take control of the situation.

“Am I harassing you?” His hand tensed as if he were about to pull away.

“No,” I said softly. He relaxed, the tension in his wrist easing. Although maybe this touch, his hand on mine, maybe that wasn’t fair. But it wasn’t fair because this Daniel Hartmann wasn’t fair, not because he was my boss. “But interoffice dating?” I pressed. “Isn’t it verboten?” He let go of my hand. Cold air rushed in, as if I had lost something.

“Dating,” he repeated, studying me over his wine glass.

I flushed. That’s what I got for trying to be sophisticated, a set-down for making assumptions.

“You move faster than me, Emily,” he said with that same deep, caressing murmur. “I’m impressed.”

I wanted, needed, to get away from him. To collect my thoughts, to remind myself that Hartmann was dangerous, that I shouldn’t want him, shouldn’t be thinking about how the skin at his neck would taste.

“Obviously I was mistaken,” I returned coldly and gave my meal all of my attention. Well, almost all. OK, nearly none, but I did focus intently on swirling spaghetti around my fork. I knew nothing about business. How had I ever thought I would bring this man down by taking a position in his marketing department? And was that really what I had thought I would do?

I almost dropped my fork, stunned by the truth of my actions. Maybe at twenty-one, Hartmann had been driven enough to do just that to my father, but I was a sculptor for goodness’ sake. An artist! Not some Machiavellian schemer.

What I needed to do was quit, accept that the games Hartmann and his ilk played were clearly beyond me. Do as my dad had and find some Buddhist Zen about it all.

Hartmann laughed. I looked up, startled, found his expression open, charming and boyish, as if he were any other guy I’d ever known.

“I want to get to know you, Emily,” he said, and warmth crept down my spine despite myself. So maybe there was a simple explanation to this lunch. He was as curious about me as I was about him. After all, our lives were intertwined in a strange way. “I’d better get you back to the office before we compromise your job.” I still had a job? I opened my mouth to speak, but he was still talking. “ … but tomorrow night. Tomorrow night, I’m going to kiss you.”

I must have looked like some anime figure at that moment with comically wide eyes. Kiss me?

All right, then. There really wasn’t a simple explanation for that.