A Mutually Beneficial Secret: A Spicy Secret Office Relationship RomCom (The Unexpected Book 3), page 4
“Where?” Ella asks.
I bite my lip before answering. If I say what I’m about to out loud, this whole situation is going to become a whole lot more real, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I realize I’ve only made out with Colin, but damn it if the kiss hadn’t been the best I’ve ever had.
“At work. He’s my new boss. The chief editor I’m supposed to be reporting to now that I’m in the office.”
The knot in my stomach builds into a boulder, and I wait anxiously for one of them to say anything to make me feel better, but for the first time ever, neither has anything to say for too many seconds.
Kenzie’s face turns serious before she breaks the silence first. “You like him.”
I shrug. “I like how I felt on that dance floor. I don’t even know him.”
“But you want to,” she quickly counters, and I barely manage a nod. “Then, what’s the problem? Was he a dick when he saw you today? I’ll fly there and kick his ass if so. Nobody insults my Piper.”
My heart warms at her threat.
“I’m tempted to lie just so I can see you in person,” I lightly joke.
Ella frowns and adjusts her blanket around her shoulders. “We miss you, too. Like crazy.”
Kenzie rolls her eyes. “Enough mushy. What happened with club guy, now known as sexy-boss guy? Unless he has a name you’d prefer I use. Though, no promises I will.”
I sigh and begin recounting how everything went down earlier and how I hid in my office for the rest of the day, besides when I left for lunch with Shannon, then ending with the email I received about the meeting.
Kenzie lets out a low whistle. “First off, kudos on finding an English guy. I bet his accent alone melted your panties, didn’t it? Never mind. Don’t answer that. Yet. As far as him being your boss and the intra-department dating rules, can’t you just switch departments if you two actually end up dating long term?”
I frown and shake my head. “Our floor is the only one with romance editors. If I moved, then I wouldn’t get to do what I came out here for, and I can’t accept that.”
“Neither would I, so I’m glad you think that way,” Ella says. “As far as having to see him in the office, I’d pretend nothing happened, honestly. If there’s nothing that can transpire between the two of you, then just move on. That seems to be your only option that you can live with.”
She’s not wrong, but given I can still remember the feel of Colin’s body pressed against mine, I have a really hard time accepting that’s the option I should go with.
Kenzie holds up a finger. “Or…” She grins widely. “You could toe the line with him. See what happens, and then maybe he’d be willing to switch departments. Men do crazy things for women, and you, Piper Lucille, are priceless. If this guy is smart, he’ll see that, and things just might work out.”
Shit.
What if Kenzie could be on to something? The fact that I hope so scares the hell out of me, and now I’m even more confused than I was before calling them.
Chapter Six
FORBIDDEN ROMANCE
Colin
What have I done? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself ever since I sent the email out before leaving work yesterday.
I have no real reason to meet with the other editors. My only plan as of now is to pull a Steve and have it be more of an editors-only meeting where I tell them a bunch of stuff they should already know.
Though, there is the latest batch of submissions we’ve received from agents. Normally, I only go over those with the editors they’ll be assigned to, but I could use those to fill up some of the time.
Steven appears in my doorway, knocking on the metal frame about ten minutes before I’m due to head to the small conference room I reserved.
I glance up and smile, no longer annoyed with him for putting me in the spotlight yesterday. “Good morning.”
“It is a good morning, isn’t it? I wanted to stop by and see if there is any way that you can work with the other editors on getting through more of these queries. I received an email from Jameson that he’s concerned with our response times and wants to make sure we’re not missing out on content that could be good for the company.”
Well, isn’t this the best news I’ve ever heard.
“Absolutely. I’m already meeting with the group this morning. Tell Jameson we’ve had some bumps with the transition into the new building, but I’m certain things will move a lot faster now that we have everyone here working together.”
At least I now have real content to go over with everyone instead of floundering like an idiot who only wants—no, needs—to see how the woman he made out with will react to his nearness.
Yeah, I’m acting like a teenager, but I don’t care. I’m too damned curious about Piper, given how she ignored me yesterday and kept her door shut all day.
Steve lingers and steps inside my office. “I know you’re good at what you do, so don’t take this the wrong way. We really are glad to have you here, but if I can suggest an idea to you…”
I smile even though dread quickly fills me. “Of course.”
He nods and takes a seat in the chair across from my desk. “What if you teamed up with each of the editors? I know you prefer emails to one-on-one time that takes away from work, but you have a lot of experience, and not everyone on your team does. You could coach them and build trust between the group individually, then all together by having weekly recap meetings of things you’ve learned until things are moving along a little smoother.”
Normally, I’d be annoyed with someone butting in on how I run the staff I’m in charge of, but Steve has just given me everything I need to remain levelheaded about my unique situation with Piper.
“You know, that sounds brilliant. Thanks for the suggestion,” I say sincerely, and his face lights up.
“Really?” he asks, voice filled with a bit of shock. “I knew we were going to make a great team. I’m glad to see I was right.”
Steve gets more interesting as a boss every time we chat. He almost seems unsure of himself at times like now, but when he’s talking about projects, there’s no denying how passionate he is for what we do and how much knowledge he has to share.
I just have to remind him of one little thing.
“As long as you don’t put the attention on me like you did in the meeting yesterday, then I agree,” I say with a slight laugh, even though I’m not joking at all. I don’t want to come off as an arsehole.
Steve gets up and lightly slaps the top of my metal desk as he chuckles. “We’ll see about that.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have played that off so coolly.
He leaves before I can say anything else, which is good, because I only have a few minutes to get my act together for the meeting I don’t really have planned out yet.
I quickly jot down some of the things that Steve mentioned, then add a few of my own that come to me as my mind starts churning with ideas that will help our team immensely. At least, that’s what I hope.
When I arrive to the conference room right on time, I’m impressed to see all six editors there with notepads, talking quietly amongst themselves. Three of the six present—including Piper, who has seemingly found the pen in her hand very interesting—hadn’t worked in the building until the last week or so.
Steve had offered to let people stay where they were for Christmas, even though the building has been done for over a month now. At the time, I’d thought it was kind of him. Piper was the last of them to arrive, which now makes me wonder what and who she might have left behind from wherever she came from.
I take my seat and set my papers down on the table in front of me. “Thank you all for joining me on such short notice. I hope not to take too much of your time, but I spoke with Steve about some things and would like to go over them now that we’re all together.”
Nobody says anything as I meet the eyes of each person in the room, beginning with Brian on my left, followed by Michelle, Kasey, Mikey, Shannon, and then Piper, who is finally looking up.
I smile when our gazes connect, and her green eyes widen before blinking several times. It’s not my intention to make her uncomfortable, so I continue.
“With the holidays, settling into the new office, and adjusting to a new team, it’s clear our timelines for moving through submissions have slowed down considerably. I’ve told Steve we’ll have no problem increasing the amount of queries we get through each week, and I’m hoping we can all settle on a number to strive for.”
Mikey jots a few words down, then looks up at me. “We need to be reading less in order to get through more books.”
My head cocks to the side. “Explain.”
“Alliteration has always strived to be different from other publishing houses by making what we do more personalized than some of the other bigger companies, but certain things are going to be hurting us, like not getting to certain books quick enough. Agents aren’t just sending manuscripts to us when we receive them. They’re shopping them several places, and unless we start only reading the first few chapters like most places, then we’re never going to get caught up.”
He has a point, and it was something I’d mentioned to Steve when I first came on. He said that the editors at least skim all the way through the books before making a decision. His reasoning was that some authors need to shake off their nerves with those first few chapters or they simply overthink them. If we never get past what might be the worst part of the book but is also fixable, how will we know if we’ve passed on the next bestseller?
I hadn’t been able to argue with him then, but now it seems we need to find a compromise.
“How about we settle for this, and I’ll let Steve know this is the plan myself? We only read the first five chapters moving forward. No more skimming the remaining chapters. Books that have potential, you can make the choice to read another five chapters or the whole thing. I trust you to make the right call on that. This should allow us to move through them rather fast, yes?”
Several nods of approval go around the room.
“How much of our day do you want spent on editing books we have contracts with and then reading new submissions?” Shannon asks, clicking the end of her pen several times as she speaks.
I make a note about the first five chapters I need to tell Steve about before answering Shannon. “I think we need to decide on our goal of how many submissions we want to get through each day or week before we finalize the balance. If each of you will think about your schedules and give me a number based on only reading five chapters, then we can discuss that in further detail later this week or early next week.”
She nods and smiles, seemingly satisfied with my response.
“We’re the biggest team on this floor, and I want us to find a workflow that makes everyone’s jobs easier. With that being said, we can’t figure that out until I’ve seen what everyone does exactly. I know your roles, but I also know that we each get to the end result a little differently. Steve mentioned it might be a good idea to have some one-on-one time with all of you, and I agree with him.”
I pause for objections, but nobody says anything.
“I’d like to spend a few days meeting more closely with each of you individually. I’ll spend that time asking about your process and noting other things that I see. I’ll compile notes when I’m done with each person, then hopefully find ways where we can streamline things to make workloads feel a little lighter.”
Quickly, I write a list of the order I’ll go in, so I can give them each a heads up before we’re done here.
“I also want to say, even though I’ve been mostly observing these last couple months, now that we have our team together, that will be changing. I want our first quarter of the year to be strong and for us to feel prepared for the spring releases we have scheduled. I know our department doesn’t handle the releases directly, but without our editing, they wouldn’t happen. Let’s show the other departments how efficiently we can work and maybe get ahead of schedule before summer rolls around.”
I pause and take a deep breath. Speaking with a smaller group is much easier than being the center of attention in a room full of mostly strangers.
“So, without further delay, this is the order I’d like to go in when working with each of you. I’ll start with Piper, then Brian, Shannon, Michelle, Mikey, and Kasey. I’m going to start tomorrow instead of at the beginning of the week so that we can spend some time together, have the weekend for a break, and resume on Monday. Does this work for everyone?”
Every editor nods in agreement except for Piper. I’m sure she didn’t expect to have to be alone with me, but the more she resists acknowledging me, the more I’m drawn to her. Her nervousness tells me I’m not the only one who felt something the other night. That draws me to her more, even though I know I shouldn’t allow anything more to happen.
Now, I can’t imagine not at least trying to connect with Piper to see what might happen. Nothing like a little forbidden romance to start the year off right.
I grab my things and push my chair back from the table. “That’s it for today. Please feel free to come see me if you have any questions, and don’t forget to think about the amount of submissions you believe you can get through in a week based on our new changes.”
Everyone begins to get up, and Piper is nearly out the door when I call her name. Slowly, she turns back to me, letting strands of her long hair hide her face just like she had yesterday morning.
“Yes?” Her voice is smooth and sure, but the white on her knuckles where she’s squeezing her notepad gives away her true feelings.
“Would you like to meet in my office or yours tomorrow morning?” I ask casually while grabbing my things and standing so I can step closer to her.
Her throat bobs before she answers. “Mine would be better if you want to see my process.”
“Agreed. What time would you like me to join you?” I step forward, and she moves further away from me until her back presses against the door.
“Eight would be fine with me.” She pauses and stands a little taller before continuing. “How long will you be observing me each day?”
The room has mostly cleared. I’m tempted to mess with her, but I don’t want to push her away so quickly.
“Only for a short time in the mornings these next two days, then maybe an afternoon on the third day if that works with your schedule.” I raise an inquisitive brow, towering slightly over her maybe five-and-a-half-foot frame.
I expect her to cower back even more, but she surprises me by lifting her chin and meeting my steady gaze head on.
“Absolutely. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Mr. Adamson.” Piper spins on her three-inch heel, and I watch her sweet ass walk out of the room.
My dick begins to harden. Half because of the way she addressed me and half from watching her go.
Damn it. Maybe I hadn’t thought this through properly.
Alone time with Piper Fitz could be dangerous, but if she wants to pretend nothing happened, I’ll play along.
For now.
Chapter Seven
DELICIOUSLY WRITTEN PORN
Piper
Colin has started a game he’s not going to win. I don’t know what he’s up to, but whatever it is, I’m not falling into his trap. No freaking way. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself while I changed outfits four times this morning.
First, it was a red dress that made me look like a prostitute. Then, I somehow managed to overcompensate and turned myself into my grandmother by donning an ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved blouse. Next, I tried to be more business-oriented and still failed. Well, halfway. The slacks made my ass look perfect, but the matching shirt screamed “look at my boobs!” Not the message I was trying to present with my clothes. At least not consciously…
Now that I’m in my office, wearing a skirt that hangs loosely at mid-thigh and a black blouse that’s neckline plunges a little lower than is probably appropriate for work, I feel like maybe I’ve already lost.
But then, Colin walks into my office while I’m standing at my filing cabinet grabbing folders, and he has to pick his jaw up off the floor before he’s able to speak.
“Good morning, Ms. Fitz,” he says with a bit of a stammer in his voice.
I stand and face him while offering a sweet smile. “Good morning. Have a seat. I was just getting organized for the day.”
When I expect him to sit on the opposite side of the desk, he surprises me by pulling the chair around to position himself only a foot away from me.
I do my best not to react to his closeness, and when I sit and meet his heady stare, there’s a spark of mischief there.
I groan internally as I turn back to my computer. I’m not meant for games. There’s no way I’m going to survive working this closely to Colin without saying something about New Year’s Eve at some point. Maybe not right this second.
At least, I hope not.
“So, what’s first on the agenda?” he asks, and I have to squeeze my thighs tighter together.
Seriously. What is wrong with American women when it comes to foreign accents? Especially when the guy is hot, the accent is like sprinkles on an already delicious sundae. Just not freaking fair.
I pick up my pen and roll it between my fingers more than necessary as I try to find the words I want to use.
“I have a to-do list that I create every Monday. When I get into the office, I take a look at that and my email to make sure nothing has changed priorities, then I dive into the most pertinent file,” I say with as much professionalism as I can muster when his heat is beginning to brand my skin.
Stupid skirt. I don’t know why I thought this was a good choice in attire.
Oh, yeah. Because I didn’t think the sexy bastard was going to be sitting right next to me. For multiple hours and several days.
