“Why did you have to be here?”
He hesitated before answering, a full beat, the time it would take to puff on a cigar. I pictured him exhaling, a fog gathering around him as he perched on his windowsill looking out over the city.
“You know why I have to be here,” he said finally. “Goodnight, Sabrina.”
The phone clicked off before I had a chance to make him clarify. Because I didn’t know why. Not really. Was it because he had to help out the team? Because Reach had gotten too busy to run with just two presidents? That was the story that had been told around the office.
But there was another story. One I told myself once the phone was safely on the ledge of the bathtub and my eyes were closed and my hand was under the water stroking my clit, turning it into a ripe little peach like Donovan had described into my ear. In this story, the reason he’d come home was the same reason he’d come to the party late, which was the same reason he’d left the party early. It was the same reason he’d made Weston marry Elizabeth Dyson instead of volunteering himself.
And it was the reason he’d called.
Because of me.
Thirteen
Monday was a chaotic stream of activity. Between team meetings, project deadlines, and staff introductions, I barely had a moment to breathe, let alone think about anything that didn’t have to do with A/B testing and calls to action. This job was going to be a test of my abilities, but I was ready for the challenge.
But although I was committed to my new career—or maybe because I was committed—I had walked in the building that morning wearing what I considered was my power suit, with the specific intention of speaking to Donovan Kincaid.
Saturday night should never have happened.
Saturday night could never happen again.
I’d had to work harder than those who had graduated from Ivy Leagues, but now that I was where I wanted to be, I was not going to do anything to jeopardize it. Including messing around with the likes of Donovan. Particularly when I knew what he brought out in me.
The only way I could be sure our current trajectory was corrected was by facing it head-on.
The power suit, a gray skirt with a tailored matching jacket, was important not only because it gave me confidence, but also because it was not an outfit that said sexy.
It said mastery.
It said domination.
It said determination.
It did not say girl against a bookcase with her pants down around her ankles.
So just before my lunch meeting with the head of media—a hard-nosed Princeton graduate who didn’t seem to like the idea of taking orders from a woman—I made my way to see Donovan.
Since we worked in completely different departments, Donovan and I hadn’t had a reason to interact at all since I’d arrived, and this was the first time I’d sought him out. His office, as it happened, was the one that I’d seen on my first day with the opaque glass walls.
They were still clouded when I arrived today, but his door was open. I peeked in from the hall. It looked like he was preoccupied. He was bent over something on his desk. His jacket was off, so when he brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck, his arm muscles stretched taut against his shirt. He was intense when he worked, and it reminded me of watching him in class as he studied at his laptop at the front of the room. It was something that I knew about Donovan, and while in so many ways he was a stranger, it was oddly satisfactory to find I still knew this.
It also made me wonder what kinds of things he still knew about me. The thought made me even more nervous. Made me want to turn around and walk back to my office.
It also made me strangely irritated. Because how dare he think he knew things about me. Whatever he thought he knew, he was wrong, and I intended on telling him just that.
I walked up to his secretary’s desk. She was an attractive woman with black hair and dark skin, but her ethnicity wasn’t immediately recognizable. She looked up from her computer when I got near and gave a welcoming smile, though her expression said she was still lost in whatever project she’d been working on.
“We haven’t met yet, but I’m—” I started to say but was cut off.
“You can send Ms. Lind in, Simone,” Donovan called from his office. He always noticed me. Even still.
I glanced in at him and found he was leaning back in his chair, waiting, whatever he’d been working on put away.
I turned back to Simone. “…and I guess I’ll just go on in.”
“Yes, Ms. Lind,” Simone said, still smiling, then turned back to her computer.
I hesitated just long enough to take a deep breath. Ninety-five percent of confidence is looking like you have it when you don’t feel like you do, I told myself. I didn’t know if that was true, but it sounded true, and I was going with it.
Now I just had to hope I looked confident.
“Sabrina,” Donovan said as the door shut on its own behind me, “to what do I owe this pleasure?”
Great. He had both the walls and the doors on an automated system, probably something he controlled from behind his desk. I bet it made him feel superior to have such power at his fingertips. Likely a useful tool when he was dealing with wayward employees. He could psychologically subdue them without even opening his mouth.
It psychologically subdued me as well. Especially when he took advantage of my hesitation and turned that intense gaze on me.
“Don’t tell me you have a grade you need to discuss.” His wicked smile said he was remembering in detail the last time we’d been closed in an office together. When I’d given him my virginity.
Bye-bye confidence. There went my dry panties as well.
No, I wouldn’t let him get to me. If I didn’t go through with this, it was going to be like this forever—him with the upper hand, turning every encounter into another perverted version of our past, never letting me live up to my full potential.
I couldn’t live like this. I wouldn’t.
“No, I do not have a grade to discuss,” I said boldly. “I thought perhaps we could talk.”
“Go ahead and have a seat. I’m all ears.”
I shook my head. “Not here.” Not where he had the obvious power. I’d done that before. I wasn’t doing that again. And the conference room wouldn’t work. I didn’t want other people from the office seeing us and gossiping. “I was thinking we should have dinner.”
“Dinner?” he asked, arching a brow. “Or do you mean dessert?”
His devilish grin was distracting. Really distracting.
But I’d been prepared for that type of response, and I kept my spine straight. “Dinner. I think we have things to say. Don’t you?”
His smile faded slightly. “I suppose we do.”
He tapped his fingers across his desk. Two times. All five fingers in succession.
Then he said, “Eight o’clock work for you?”
“Tonight?” I’d expected we’d pull out our calendars and schedule for something like Thursday or maybe the Wednesday after. Something that wasn’t less than twenty-four hours away.