I slipped into my suite and closed the door behind me. I might be home, but this wasn’t the New York I’d come to know and love for almost thirty years.
After a shower so long and so hot I was surprised I didn’t shrivel up into a dehydrated version of myself, I called my mom. She delivered a brief lecture on how I should have made it across town to see her this evening despite an eight-hour flight and the obligations of the job paying me to be here. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough time after the meeting to see her, but I promised to make it up to her somehow. Then I dried my hair.
I should have been exhausted, but what I wanted to do was hear some American voices and drink a Manhattan in Manhattan.
I was in New York. Back home. And that gave me more energy than I knew what to do with.
I applied a dash of makeup, slipped on a casual shift dress, and headed down to the bar. There were a thousand places I’d been to in this city, but I’d never made it to the hotel bar in the Mandarin Oriental.
I wanted to try it.
And I wanted to see if James was there, too.
Twenty-Four
Andrew
I saw her as soon as I entered the MO Lounge. She was chatting to the barman, which caused a now-familiar pang of jealousy to twist in my gut.
I didn’t want conversation. I’d just gotten off the phone from Tristan, who was also in town. We’d agreed to meet up tomorrow night. I didn’t want to drink in the Manhattan skyline; I had a better view from my room.
So why was I here?
I strode across the lounge and slipped onto the barstool next to Sofia.
She turned to me, entirely unsurprised by my arrival.
“Good evening,” she said. “My name is . . . Bianca.”
She was ridiculous.
The barman slid a glass of my favorite Barolo in front of me. I thanked him with a nod.
“How do you do that?” she asked. “It’s like everyone knows who you are and what you want. Is it Jedi mind tricks? Is that the secret?”
“If it was, I’m pretty sure my assistants would have a better turnover rate.”
“Oh, he speaks.”
I took a sip of wine while Sofia continued to complain and gripe over . . . I wasn’t quite sure what exactly. Perhaps she was nervous about the meeting tomorrow. Maybe being back here triggered something for her. Whatever it was, I didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. And I didn’t appreciate the non-stop noise. She was still in work mode.
I was not.
“Can we not do this?” I asked her. I wanted to relax. I wanted half a chance of sleep tonight. I didn’t want to be berated about my lack of social skills. I hated travelling. It was far too easy to waste a day doing nothing when you were in transit, so in every moment that I wasn’t walking from one designated area to another, I ensured I was doing something productive—emails, reviewing research, reading articles. Anything but inane chitchat and a rewatch of Mamma Mia! Once was more than enough.
“Do what?”
I didn’t respond and continued to smooth my fingers down the stem of my glass. Sofia was clever. She could figure out what I was saying if she shut up long enough to think about it. She had a combination of cognitive, social, and emotional intellect that I didn’t come across often. Most really clever people couldn’t hold a conversation at a party. Those who could read people often couldn’t focus on technical details. Sofia had the rare ability to do it all. She just needed to refine her skills, and she’d be unstoppable. The priority was surely learning to control that mouth.
An image of her on her knees in front of me, my cock in her mouth, slipped into my mind. I glanced over at her and she met my gaze; it was as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Can we go upstairs?” she asked. Her tone had shifted. Like someone had popped her bad mood like a balloon. “I need to . . . blow off some steam.”
I’d always been so good at separating my business from my personal life. I made my mistakes big and early and I learned from them, and was determined not to repeat them. But Sofia had put a spanner in the works. I probably should have left when she came into Noble Rot that first evening. I was just . . . amused by her irritation at me. It was entertaining to learn what it was my assistants hated so much about working for me.
I should have left her to it, but something kept me there until the very last moment that I had to leave for a drink with Gabriel. When it came time to pay, I didn’t know what it was that made me want to reveal myself to her—to let her know I’d been listening all along. It was only fair. And I wanted her to know that she didn’t need to worry. Maybe I was unreasonable. Maybe I was an arsehole in the office. Maybe I was just focused and I expected the same from everyone else. Whatever it was, when I turned to her and she’d heard the barman call me James, it was like she wasn’t the employee who worked right outside my office door every day. In that moment, she was a beautiful woman who’d had a bad day. A woman who wore her passion on her sleeve—and I couldn’t resist the urge to learn just how deep that passion ran. At least I’d had the good sense to leave her fully clothed. That first time, anyway.
And then when she was there the following night . . . Game over. It had left me with no choice. I had to see her eyes grow hooded as she approached orgasm. I wanted to feel her shudder underneath me as I fucked her. I wanted to smooth my hands over her soft, warm skin and feel her fingers in my hair.
I should have resisted.
I should have walked right past the bar instead of going inside to see if she’d been as tempted to see how this played out between us as I’d been.
Too late. What was done was done. And here I was—here we were—three thousand miles from home and all the rules that kept our relationship in balance. She wanted me again, just like I wanted her. We were still in limbo between my personal and professional lives, but the doors to each world were ajar. It felt like they were about to come off their hinges.
“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea.” The words curdled in my mouth as I spoke.
Out of the corner of my eye, Sofia took a sip of her cocktail. “Because you’re my boss?”
In my head, I could hear doors slamming and car tires screeching to a halt as James and Andrew morphed together in some kind of Terminator-type amalgamation.
“And you like to keep things separate. Hence you freaking out like a bunny in a fox pen when you got a social invitation at work.”
“Foxes don’t live in pens. The bunny would be in the—”
“You get what I’m trying to say.” She swiveled on her stool so she was facing me. “We both know your name’s not James. And technically you’re my boss but—”
I couldn’t keep my chuckle silent. “Technically?”
“Yeah. You’re my boss as much as Mr. Romano at Emilio’s Cucina was, the summer after freshman year. He thought he was in charge of me, but I was only there for the summer. How much authority did he really have?”
“This isn’t about authority.” I didn’t want to abuse my power. I didn’t want any part of Sofia to think she had to sleep with me because I was her boss or because she thought she might be fired if she said no or if things went wrong. “I’m not Mr. Romano. Everyone has different boundaries.”