The Boss's Orders: Alpha Male Billionaire Office Romance (10 page)

I
don’t go
to my meeting because — fuck it. I’m the boss and I don’t have to go if I don’t want to. I don’t care if that makes me sound like a petulant child. I know that sitting through a meeting with that fucking prick Larry Ogilvie would make me want to gouge my eyes out with a pen.

I still have to get out of here though, and I know just the place to go.

Claire is sitting at her desk when I come out of my office but I don’t look at her even though I can feel her soft brown eyes following me with every step I take. I’ll deal with that situation later.

I drive like a demon to the club and head to the change rooms. I keep extra clothes there so I put on shorts and a t-shirt, glad to be shedding the structure and stiffness of that suit. I make my way to the punching bag. There’s already a guy there but I elbow him out of the way.

“I need this more than you do right now,” I tell him, by way of apology. He swears at me but he stalks off, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I wail on that bag until every part of my body hurts. My shoulders, arms, biceps. My knuckles are bloody, and I’ve even cut the corner of my lip when I swung at the bag so hard it ricocheted back towards my face.

But despite the pain and the physical fatigue, my mind is still racing, turning over and over again to Claire’s words from earlier.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Could it?

Everything was so similar to the situation with Lila. Lila had fooled me into believing she’d had feelings with me — and then she’d used that against me. She’d tricked me into leaving her tied up in my office, only to be ‘discovered’ by my secretary.

That dalliance had cost me. And even though it had been a piddling amount in the grand scheme of things, it was the principle that mattered.

No one played me like a fool. No one.

But I had never felt this riled up about Lila. I had been pissed but not livid the way I am now. I never got that boiling feeling in my gut that I have right now, the kind that makes me want to throw up and punch something at the same time.

I walk over to the juice bar and get a bottle of water that claims to contain electrolytes, a hundred and eight vitamins, and the tears of elven princesses. It tastes just like regular water and does nothing to settle the acrid burn in my stomach.

I decide to call my lawyer. If Claire is involved in a lawsuit — maybe even the lawsuit from Prescott & Bailey — he may have heard something.

I shower quickly and half-assedly, then change back into my suit and go sit in my SUV. It’s quiet out here and now that I’m alone with my own thoughts I find myself getting riled up again.

I don’t know why this has got me so on edge. If she
is
plotting something against me, I’ll just deal with her the way I’ve dealt with all the rest of them. Bitches always take cash.

Claire wouldn’t…

The little voice inside me is quiet but I can still hear it.

Claire wouldn’t do that, it says. She’s different.

Maybe.

I dial James’ private cell and he picks up right away.

“Will! Nice to hear from you.”

“What do you know about Claire?” I demand, cutting right to the chase. I have no time for pleasantries.

“Claire?”

“Claire Hearst. My secretary.”

“Oh. Nothing. Why? Is there something I should know?”

For the first time since I finished fucking Claire several hours ago, my shoulders finally start to relax. Maybe it really was a coincidence.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing.”

“Okay, well, I’ll keep my ears open. Hey, by the way, little update for you on the Kurtz, Marsden and Park case. Looks like they’re pretty serious. They have at least one official complainant. A Kelly Diamante. Ring any bells?”

My balls just about suction up into my body. Fuck yeah, it rang a bell. I didn’t know who she was but I knew Claire knew her.

In fact, I knew Claire had just recently made plans to see her.

I’d walked by her desk the other day just as she was getting off the phone with someone. She’d called her Kelly.

Fuck.

That couldn’t be a coincidence.

I was a fucking idiot.

“James, I got to go. Let me know if you hear anything else. From now on, consider this your number one fucking priority.”

“Got it, Will. Take care, okay?” James sounds concerned, but I don’t care. I hang up the phone and punch the SUV’s horn.

“Fuck!” I say into the interior of the car.

“Fuck!” I slam on the horn again and listen to it echo through the parking lot, sending a flock of pigeons sailing off into the twilight sky.

* * *

E
ven though it’s late
, I go back to the office. I can’t wait any longer to figure this out.

Claire is long gone. Everyone is. I storm through the office like a rodeo bull unleashed. God help anyone who gets in my way right now.

When I get to my office I go straight to Claire’s desk. I have an override password that gets me into her computer. I’ve never felt the need to use it with her and I’ve tried to respect her privacy, but now I think, fuck her privacy. I scan through her emails but they’re all work related. The only personal ones are to or from me. I cringe now, to look at our flirty exchanges.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I will fucking come at you.

I don’t have Claire’s personal email information, but I open up a web browser and surf around to a couple of the more popular free email providers. Sure enough, she’s still logged in on one. There are all her personal emails, right there for me to read.

Silly naive Claire. Did you really underestimate me?

Right away I see it. An email from Kelly Diamante.

Fuck. I pound the desk with my fist.

I knew it. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it.

I click on the email. Unfortunately there’s not much there — just Kelly saying she couldn’t put anything in an email and asking for Claire to call her. I scroll down and see the multiple emails Claire had sent to her before that one came in. They were all a mix of chatty and concerned. Basically Claire checking on Kelly and wanting to know if she was okay.

I take a deep breath, trying to make sense of this. I still don’t know exactly what Claire’s role is in all of this.

I scan the rest of her emails but there isn’t anything of note. I sit back in her chair. My gut is still rolling but my breathing is somewhat back to normal. I swing around in her chair the way I’ve seen her do so many times.

Her desk is as tidy as ever. There are only a few neatly stacked papers and file folders off on the corner, and a jar of yellow tulips off to one side. I flip through the folders idly, not expecting to find anything.

Something slips out of one of folders and flutters to the ground. I reach down to pick it up.

It’s a business card. White and burgundy.

My heart stops for a second. Maybe three seconds — one for each name on the card.

Kurtz, Marsden and Park.

Fuck. Me.

I
get
to work in the morning, but barely. After lying awake until four in the morning, I finally got up and threw back a couple of shots of Vanessa’s tequila to try to help myself get to sleep. It sort of worked, but when my alarm went off at seven I felt groggy and out of it.

Of course, that’s sort of how I’ve been feeling since yesterday.

I still have no idea what happened with William. How he went from hot to cold so suddenly. I’ve gone over every single thing I did and said and I still can’t see a path from here to there. One minute he was William, with fire in his eyes, and the next minute he was a cold dead version of that.

It was fucking terrifying. He’s always been somewhat temperamental, but I had written it off as a side effect of being the head of a multi-billion dollar company. I couldn’t exactly claim to know what that was like, so I was willing to cut him a little slack on occasion.

But this was something else. My gut was already telling me that.

I could only hope that whatever it was had passed, and that today we’d be back to normal. Or maybe that he’d just tell me what was bothering him and we could talk about it like normal people, but I figured I didn’t have much chance of that happening.

I stop at Aroma and pick up William’s usual order — cappuccino with one raw sugar and a blueberry oatbran muffin. I grab my usual too, moccaccino and ginger cookie. Cookies are probably not a breakfast food but today they will be. I need all the sugar and caffeine I can get.

When I come around the corner to my office, I almost drop the coffees.

William is sitting there, in the chair behind my desk. He’s still wearing the suit he was wearing yesterday and I have the crazy thought that he’s been sitting there all night.

“Got your coffee,” I say, holding up the two cups. “Muffin’s in my purse, let me just put these down.”

I set the coffees down on the desk but William’s arm shoots out explosively and sweeps them to the floor.

“I don’t want your fucking coffee.”

“What…?” I am sputtering in disbelief. My heart is thumping in and out of my chest. The coffees went off the side of the desk, so I wasn’t scalded, but there’s now coffee drenching the desk and the cream-colored carpet. I look at William with wide eyes. “What has gotten into you?”

“Tell me about the lawsuit, Claire.”

An icy cold spiral of fear twists up my spine. So that’s what this is about?

“What lawsuit?” I lick my lips. I don’t know how much I should tell him. I don’t want to lie but I don’t want to sell out Kelly either. Not when she’s obviously having such a rough time.

He flicks a business card across the desk towards me. Fuck. It’s the card Kelly gave me, for Kurtz, Marsden and Park. I thought I had thrown that stupid thing away. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You betrayed me.”

“No, William, I…”

“Shut the fuck up. You betrayed me. Just like all the others. It was all just about the money. I should have known.” He spits the last words out bitterly.

“Betrayed you?” I spit back. I’ve gone from afraid to pissed. How dare he? “I have never — nor
would
I ever — betray you.”

He sneers. “Right. So it was just a coincidence that you tried to nail me the same way Lila Saunders did. And that you then just happened to have a business card for the snakes that are planning to sue me.”

I take a deep breath. “I have no idea who Lila Saunders is or what you’re talking about. And I had that business card because …” Another deep breath. “Because yes, some of the people from Prescott & Bailey are looking into filing a wrongful dismissal suit against you. But I told them I wasn’t interested in participating. In fact, I defended you.”

“Bullshit. I can’t trust you, Claire. I never should have trusted you.”

“You can’t trust me? That is bullshit, William. I have done nothing but defend you and respect you and —“ I cut off, almost choking on my words. I’m so infuriated right now, and I feel hot salty tears stinging my eyes.

“You want to talk about trust?” I force myself to continue. “How about the trust it took to let you do all those things to me? To tie me up? To cut my underwear right off of me? You think I let just anyone go near me with scissors sharp enough to skewer me? That’s called trust, William.”

He glares at me. He doesn’t say anything back, even though I want him to, just so I can continue to point out how ridiculous he’s being. I fold my arms.

William’s gaze has gone from steely to icebergy. He folds his arms in mirror of mine.

“You’re fired, Claire.”

“What?” Despite everything, his words come as a shock. Fired? I’ve expected to be fired a million times over the course of this job but not for something I didn’t even do. “But I didn’t…”

“I demand complete loyalty from my staff. I’m afraid I can no longer trust you.”

“You are a complete and utter asshole,” I spit back. “You wouldn’t know loyalty or trust if they were right in front of your face. In fact, you wouldn’t know any feeling at all unless it had a set of tits and climbed into your lap.” I am shaking with rage now. The smell of the sickening sweet coffee seeping into the carpet is starting to turn my stomach.

“You should go.” He steeples his fingers together. That was William. Always so in control. He hasn’t even flinched.

“Fine.” I can’t stop the tears that are streaming down my face now. I am sad and mad and scared and pissed all at once. And the irony is, William seems to feel nothing.

Nothing at all.

S
trangely enough
, vodka isn’t helping.

I order a fifth shot, just to be sure, and slam it back.

Nope, still nothing.

I’ve been distracted and uneasy all day. Thinking about Claire. About her betrayal. About how stupid I was to have trusted her. About how egregiously wrong I was to even think that maybe I was …

Well, that was all in the past now.

I’d have a new temporary secretary in tomorrow. I’d done the unthinkable and asked for a man this time. The thought made me slightly nauseous but it was better than making this same mistake yet again. I couldn’t afford to go through this again. Financially, yes — but emotionally, no.

Because as much as I hated to admit it, Claire had gotten to me. With those stupid big brown eyes and those perky fucking tits and that ass…oh, that ass. Slapping my hand against that curvy white ass had been the greatest thing I’d experienced in months. Years, maybe.

And it wasn’t even just her body or the sex. It was her stupid smile and the way she laughed at my jokes and the way she called me on my shit and the way she … yeah, the way she seemed to trust me.

It had been different with Lila. The sex had been good but the rest had been just tolerance. On both my part and hers, I realized now. I actually enjoyed Claire’s company, and she had seemed to enjoy mine.

But I guess she was just a better actress than I had given her credit for.

I look around the bar. It’s strangely empty — actually, I guess it’s not that strange considering it’s not even noon. There are a couple of sad sack guys sitting at the bar, and I have a moment of chagrin when I realize that now I
am
one of those sad sacks.

What’s gotten into me? William Godrich doesn’t pine over women. It’s not my MO.

The waitress comes by and I order another shot of vodka. Sixth time’s a charm, right?

When she brings it back to me, I notice her lingering beside the table.

“That suit looks too expensive for this place,” she says, twirling her finger through her hair.

I grunt as I down my shot.

She smirks. “Another?”

I shake my head. “Not just yet.”

She leans in close, making sure her ample cleavage is right in my face. “I know something that’ll make you feel better than booze.”

I grab her arm. “Be careful who you make that offer to, darling. You don’t know me. You don’t know how rough I like it.”

She holds my gaze. “I can handle it.”

I think about doing it. God help me, but I do. I think about taking her into the bathroom, throwing her up against the wall and taking her from behind. Maybe up the ass, just to show her how serious I am.

But when I look at her face, a bit rat-like and tired, all I see is Claire’s smooth pale skin, her pert lips, her perfect cheekbones. Her smile. I see the waitress’s dark hair pulled up into some messy round knot on top of her head, and I think of Claire’s gorgeous blonde tresses and how they would tumble down over both of us when she was on top of me.

I am so fucked.

I shake my head at the waitress, who looks disappointed.

“Just bring me another shot,” I tell her.

She nods, as if she’s not surprised or bothered by the fact that I rejected her offer. It makes me even more glad that I did.

After that next shot, I settle up and my bill and head out. I realize I’m absolutely ravenous — not to mention hammered — so I stop at a greasy fast food chain and get a burger and fries to help me sober up. I feel more than a little pathetic being in there at noon, among all the teenagers and the office workers on their lunch hours. Here I am in a five thousand dollar suit, drunk off my ass, and eating a burger with no less than three patties in it.

How the mighty have fallen.

By the time I get back to the office, I’ve sobered up enough to be at least presentable.

I stand at the main door of the office space I shared with Claire. I stare at her desk. HR has already come in and cleared out all her stuff, so the desk is as empty as it was the day Godrich and Associates first moved into this building.

And yet now the space is haunted.

I can still see Claire sitting there, twirling around in her chair as she thought something through. I can see the yellow tulips she always kept on the side of her desk.

And of course, I can still see the dark stain from the coffees I’d tossed on the floor earlier today.

The smell of old coffee is so rancid that I want to puke. I march into my office and pick up the phone to call Facilities.

“Why is that carpet still here?” I bark into the floor as soon as someone answers.

“I’m sorry?”

“This is William Godrich,” I say slowly, as if she’s stupid. “The carpet in my office is covered in coffee and I would like to know why it wasn’t removed yet and who I need to fire.”

“Eep! We’ll have it gone right away, sir,” she squeaks.

Sir. Even the word makes me think of Claire. Of her sweet innocent mouth wrapped around my cock, obeying my every command.

“Get it done,” I growl, before I slam down the phone.

I thought that would make me feel better, but much like the vodka, it does little to chase away this ache in the pit of my stomach.

The phone rings then and I pick it up immediately.

“What?” I snarl, thinking it’s the girl from facilities calling with some excuse.

“Will! Hey. James here.”

“James.” It takes me a second to switch gears. “Hello.”

“Everything okay, man? You sound … stressed.”

I wave my hand dismissively even though I realize he can’t see me. “I’m fine.”

“Well, prepare to be even better. I just heard from a reliable source that Kurtz, Marsden and Park is dropping the suit. It sounds like it’s dead in the water. They don’t really have cause. The merger paperwork gave you full rights to get rid of duplicate positions and everyone you let go had at least one equivalent in your existing company structure.”

“Oh.”

“Will? Come on, that’s great news.”

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks James. Listen, did you ever hear anything about Claire? Claire Hearst?”

“Oh yeah, I asked around about her. She’d never spoken to them. The case was all under this Kelly Diamante gal. But I guess it was mostly just her — they didn’t have nearly as much additional support as they were making it out to be. I think it was all smoke and mirrors, probably just to try to scare you.” He laughs. “Guess they didn’t realize who they were messing with.”

“Yeah, that’s great.” I am still sorting through all those words, trying to get at the sweet acorn in the middle of them which is that, as far as James knew, Claire was not involved in this. She had never spoken to the law firm. So she could have been telling the truth about the business card.

I drum my fingers on the desk.

I don’t like being wrong. It’s a new feeling for me, and one I’m not fond of.

Then again, just because she hadn’t actually gone to meet with anyone at Kurtz, Marsden and Park didn’t mean she hadn’t lied. She’d known about the lawsuit and not said anything.

And there’d been that time I’d seen her coming out of HR.

Even if she wasn’t involved in Kelly’s suit, she could still very well be preparing to mount a case against me on her own. Lodging a complaint with HR would be the logical first step towards that.

I know what I have to do.

I stride out of my office and down the hall towards HR. I don’t bother calling because I want to see Tom in person when I ask him this question.

I show myself into HR — the admin girl at the front looks up to greet me but blanches when she realizes who I am.

“I’m here to see Tom,” I tell her and she just nods, mutely, and waves me in.

Tom’s door is partially closed but I open it without knocking.

“Mr. Godrich! Always a pleasure!” He stands up from behind his desk, plastering a smile on his face. He may say it’s a pleasure but I can see plain as day that it’s anything but. I’m not exactly his favorite person.

“Claire Hearst,” I bark.

Tom rifles through some papers on his desk, pretending he’s looking for something. I can see his mind turning. Then he looks up. His face is pale.

“Your new secretary.”

“My old secretary. I fired her yesterday.”

“Oh dear. Another one down…”

“She was here the other day. In your office”

He adjusts his glasses. For once he meets my gaze. “Yes. She was. But you know the topic of our conversation is confidential.”

“You know that I’m the person who signs your checks right? In fact, I’m the person who signs the checks for everybody in this department.” I flick my gaze out the door of his office meaningfully. His admin girl outside catches me looking and glances quickly away.

Tom hastily goes to close his office door.

“Mr. Godrich, you are putting me in a very uncomfortable position.”

“You’re uncomfortable? You should see how I feel right now. I have a right to know if someone has taken issue with my conduct in the office. I want to know what you talked about.”

He adjusts his glasses, and I notice a look of surprise cross his face. “Your conduct? Oh no, sir, quite the opposite. I thought you had things … under control. Ms. Hearst was here to discuss a relationship she was having with someone at the company. She felt it was getting serious and wanted my advice on when and how to disclose the relationship.”

I swallow. My throat feels like it’s filled with cigarette ashes. I cough and then thump myself against the chest to try to catch my breath. A thousand thoughts are rushing through my mind right now, but they all revolve around one central idea:

I’m a fucking idiot.