Hate Notes: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy, page 19
It made me feel as though some alien presence had woken inside me and was gradually taking over the controls. Maybe that should have terrified me, but I couldn’t deny the changes Roman was talking about. It wasn’t just the office that felt a little… brighter, either. It was everything.
"I heard laughing from your office earlier," Roman continued. "During the Davenport meeting. Actual laughing."
"Is there a point to this, Roman?"
"Just that..." He hesitated. "Some of us have noticed Miss Hartwell's influence on—"
"That will be all."
He nodded and practically fled, leaving me alone with the damning paperwork and thoughts of Ember. Always of Ember lately.
I couldn't stop remembering how she'd looked in that closet, flushed and wanting. How she'd gasped my name. And then her mere presence during the meeting with Davenport felt like it had encouraged that new side of me to come out. Instead of tanking the meeting, her influence had saved it.
Ember made me want to be better, and I hadn’t even realized there was anything wrong with my approach before she showed up in my life.
Speaking of chaos incarnate…
I saw Ember approaching my office with something tucked under her arms. Unlike the last few weeks, she was smiling and exchanging a few words with other employees on her way to my office. One by one, they were embracing her as one of their own.
Of course they were.
Ember entered carrying a stack of papers, looking professional except for the slight darkening of her cheeks when our eyes met. I wondered if she was remembering the closet, too.
"So," she said, closing the door. "I have some thoughts about Davenport's factories."
"I'm sure you do."
She narrowed her eyes at my tone. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." I gestured to the chair across from me. "Please, enlighten me."
She sat, crossing her legs in a way that made me grip my pen too tight. "First, we need to talk about…”
I listened as Ember outlined her vision, watched her eyes light up as she described community programs and historical exhibits alongside profitable renovations. She saw so much potential—not just for profit, but for actual good.
The folder with the property transfer documents felt like it was burning a hole in my desk. Those documents outlined the legal steps we would need to take to guarantee Davenport’s properties would transfer to Foster Real Estate the moment he died. All I had to do was sign in a few places and hope Davenport officially contracted us for the project. After that, it was as good as done.
But…
I watched Ember’s eager and beautiful face as she continued to talk and read from her paper. She genuinely cared, and she was excited to make Davenport’s dreams a reality. She cared about him, the properties, and Foster Real Estate. Somehow, her plan was good for all three, too. Sure, a relatively minor contract to do some renovations and maintenance on old factories would hardly move the needle on our profits for the year, but it wouldn’t be a loss. It would also look good for future clients and potentially bring us more business in the future.
Davenport would obviously be happy and so would anybody who still cared about those old factories.
But signing those transfer papers… that would take Foster Real Estate and launch the company into financial orbit. We would instantly go from “one of the top ten” real estate companies in Manhattan to the top company. If any part of me still felt like my mission to reach the top was in progress, it would be put to rest the moment we took ownership of those properties.
"You're staring," Ember said suddenly.
"You're remarkable," I replied before I could stop myself.
Her breath caught. "I—do you—" Ember cleared her throat and composed herself slightly. “Professionally speaking, or?”
“Both,” I admitted.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about anything but work when we weren’t, you know,” she added, cheeks reddening and voice lowering.
"This arrangement of ours… it has proven more complicated than I anticipated.”
“You’re the one who suggested it,” Ember said.
"I know." I stood, walking to the window.
“Are you saying you want it to stop?” she asked. I felt a guilty touch of relief to hear the fear in her voice. She didn’t want it to stop, either. She was desperately hoping I wasn’t about to end things.
“No,” I said. “I’m only… worried that we’re moving too quickly. Making it too hard for our brains to separate feelings from our arrangement.”
There was a long pause and I didn’t turn to look away from the window.
“Is that your robot way of saying you’re starting to develop feelings for me, Orion?”
Now it was my turn to stay silent for too long. “There’s the matter of your secret,” I said. And mine, I thought. Was that the real reason I told her to keep holding on to whatever dirty secret she had? Was it just a way to alleviate my own guilt for not telling her the truth about the Davenport project?
Maybe.
“You asked me not to tell you,” she said carefully.
“I know. And people who casually sleep together don’t bare their souls to one another.”
“We haven’t slept together,” she reminded me. “I’ve… thoroughly sucked your cock, jacked you off, and let you do all sorts of amazing things to me with those talented fingers of yours. But we haven’t… done the whole thing.”
Hearing her speak so plainly about the things we had done was oddly arousing. Until now, we had at least stuck to the terms of our agreement. When we weren’t fooling around, we more or less pretended everything was normal. If anything, we over corrected toward stiff formality.
“I’m aware,” I said. “And even with the limits of what we’ve done, we both appear to be struggling with the terms of our agreement.”
She was grinning when I finally turned to face her. “Are you implying that I have caught feelings, too, Mr. Foster?”
My nostrils flared.
“Easy,” she said, smiling wider. “You’re not the only one struggling. I was just teasing.”
"What are we doing, Ember?" I sighed.
"Currently?" She stood and looked out one of the smaller windows overlooking the office itself. The building was already clearing out because it was late, and only the true over-achievers were still at their desks working. Ember pulled the blinds shut and turned toward me, walking closer. "I’m feeling tired of rules and agreements. My body knows what it wants, and I’m pretty sure yours does too.”
There was something different in her body language and voice. Something less primal and hungry than usual. I felt it, too.
It was as if the complete release and abandon of our last few physical interactions were meant to drown out any possibility of emotional connection.
The way she was looking at me now was… not that.
I moved to the rest of the blinds, pulling them closed. Ember watched me, visibly swallowing as she came closer to me, one hand hesitantly lifting toward my face.
I hooked a hand around her waist and pulled her close. I shouldn’t be touching her now—not when our emotions were so obviously malfunctioning. I shouldn’t have backed her against my desk and kissed her until we were both breathless.
But I did.
Unlike the last few nights, we only kissed. It started hard and heavy, but it turned into something new. It was slow, passionate, and tender. She kissed me softly, her tongue sliding across mine as she smiled so close to my face I could feel it. She held onto me like I was a rock and she was trying not to be dragged away in a hard current, and I let her.
When we finally pulled back, from our long series of kisses, her eyes were heavy and her lips were pink. Her cheeks flushed when our eyes met.
“That was nice,” she breathed.
“Yes,” I said stiffly.
“Okay, then… I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“You work here. I imagine you will.”
She reached up and straightened my already straight tie—as was her habit. “Bye, Orion.”
“Good night, Ember.”
She stood on her tiptoes and gave me one last, tender kiss, then touched her fingertips to her lips before turning and rushing out of my office.
I flopped into my chair with a hard sigh when she was gone and stared for a very long time at the folder with the property transfer papers.
Two problems: One, whatever the hell that was definitely felt like it violated our “physical only” agreement. Sure, the words we exchanged weren’t exactly dripping with emotional energy, but that kiss was more than physical. It had felt like a connection. I could still feel it even now, as if an invisible tether had formed between us, keeping her actively on my mind even as she retreated through the office to her desk.
Two, the whole goddamn reason I wanted to avoid this was because I knew she was hiding something that would crush me, and I was hiding something that would crush her. Opening ourselves up to these… feelings was asking for disaster.
If I signed those papers and Ember found out what it meant, she wouldn’t ever forgive me. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could even forgive myself if I signed them.
I lifted the folder and let it hover over the trash can. My thoughts swirled as I held the papers, considering what it would mean to let them go. It would mean changing myself and my vision for Foster Real Estate. It would be a decision of people over profits. It would be a completely different take on the legacy I had been trying to build for the company and the dream I’d been pursuing since my dad passed.
I watched in stunned surprise as I opened my fingers and let the folder thump into the trash. I felt a sickly weight slide off my shoulders as soon as I did—a weight I hadn’t consciously known was there until it was gone.
The gesture was largely symbolic, I knew. Roman could reprint those and have them on my desk in minutes. But he also wouldn’t know I didn’t sign them. I was supposed to send those to legal and have things finalized. Roman would assume I did exactly that until the day Davenport died, I assumed.
I leaned back in my chair and let out a sigh of something like relief. For the first time in a very long time, I also felt a budding glow of warmth inside that was dangerously close to happiness.
35
EMBER
"Remind me why we're doing hot yoga?" I asked, trying to wipe sweat from my eyes without face-planting into my mat.
"Because," Kora said from the pose next to me, "you said you needed to clear your head, and nothing clears your head like trying not to die in hundred-degree heat while pretending to be a pretzel."
She wasn't wrong. It was hard to obsess about Orion when I was focused on not sliding face-first into a puddle of my own sweat. I was also desperately trying not to look at the shockingly large package of the old man in front of me. He was wearing skin-tight, neon blue yoga pants and it looked like he was smuggling a small produce aisle's worth of goods between his legs.
He was also spread-legged and swaying his ass toward me as we all dripped with sweat.
If hell was real, I thought this might actually be it. Maybe I died? Maybe Orion glared at me too hard while I wasn't looking and fried my brain.
"Besides," Kora added as we moved into child's pose, "you kept saying we needed to do something different than sitting around eating ice cream and talking about your love life."
"It's not a love life," I whispered. "It's a... complicated physical arrangement that's becoming increasingly less physical and more complicated."
The woman in front of us snorted.
"Sorry," I muttered. Then I lowered my voice further. "And we haven't even... you know. Gone all the way yet."
"What?" Kora's head whipped toward me so fast she nearly toppled over. "But I thought—"
"Shhh," the instructor called. "Feel the peace within."
We managed to stay quiet through the rest of class, but the moment we hit the locker room, Kora rounded on me.
"What do you mean you haven't had sex? You've been sneaking around for weeks!"
She was right, of course. Time felt like it was slipping by too fast lately. It had already been two weeks since that first time Orion took me in the closet. It had been days since the tender, confusingly perfect kiss in his office. And now our interactions had taken on an entirely different flavor.
He had softened toward me, losing some of the overtly hostile and cold over-acting from before and landing somewhere on respectful cooperation. It was as if he respected me as an employee and valued my opinion, which was equally weird after working for Cole so many years.
By day, we continued to poke out our plans for Davenport’s factories. Ever since the night of the kiss in his office, Orion seemed like he flipped a switch on his approach, too. I could tell he was finally pouring his efforts fully into putting together a plan of action Davenport would love—not just a plan that suited Foster Real Estate or Orion Foster.
I busied myself with my gym bag, pulling my thoughts back to Kora and her question. "We've done... other things. But not that. It's like we keep getting close and then one of us pulls back."
"Why?"
"I don't know." I tugged out fresh clothes, thinking about how Orion's kisses had changed lately—slower, deeper, like he was trying to memorize me. "It's like we're both afraid crossing that line will make it real. And after that night in his office…”
"What happened in his office?”
"Nothing. Everything. We just... kissed. But it was different. Like neither of us was pretending it was just physical anymore."
"Honey," Kora said gently. "It was never just physical."
I slumped onto the bench. "I know. And that terrifies me. Especially with Cole getting more aggressive."
"What do you mean?"
"He must have heard Davenport is leaning toward Foster Real Estate, because he's getting intense. He even hacked my cloud account a few weeks back to steal my research and plans. He's used my own work to keep his foot in the door with Davenport.”
Kora pulled a disgusted face. "Why do they both care so much about one client?"
"That's the thing—I'm not sure. The contract isn't even that big compared to some of our other projects. Like Eleanor Golding just signed on for this massive contract a few weeks ago and nobody batted an eye. I feel like there has to be more to it."
"Have you asked Orion?"
"No,” I admitted. “I get the feeling I won’t like the answer. And I guess I’m afraid to ask him for the truth because he might give it to me. It’s probably the same reason he isn’t pushing me to come clean about Cole.”
“Girl…” Kora said. “You’re both so right for each other because you have equal talents for making simple things super complicated.”
I glared at her, but smiled. “I’ve just been hurt so many times before. And it’s like we both know it’s not going to last, so we’re trying our best to make what we can out of this point before it all comes apart.”
“You’re setting yourself up for heartbreak, Em.”
“I know. But that ship sailed weeks ago. And lately, he has seemed so different. More open. Like I'm starting to understand why he pushes himself and everyone else so hard. There's this whole other side to him that he keeps hidden, and sometimes when it slips out..." I groaned and buried my face in my hands. "God, I'm in so much trouble."
"Breathe," Kora commanded. "You're spiraling."
"I'm allowed to spiral! I'm sleeping with my boss while hiding the fact that I originally took the job to spy on him, all while my psycho ex is potentially using information I gave him to steal a huge contract, and oh yeah—I think I might be in love with said boss who will definitely hate me when he finds out everything!"
An elderly woman who'd been quietly changing nearby gave me a sympathetic look. "Men," she said, shaking her head. "I knew a man like that once. Turned out he was running a pyramid scheme with my inheritance money. He was also very into some... unconventional bedroom activities. Butt stuff,” she added with a stage wink.
"See?" I told Kora. "Even random strangers think I'm screwed."
"Actually," the woman said, "I was going to say I married him anyway. Been together forty years now." She winked. "Sometimes the complicated ones are worth it, dear. And sometimes their... quirks... grow on you. Besides, you get used to the feeling of a butt plug. Now I won’t even leave home without one in.” She finished changing, smiled, and walked out without waiting for comment.
I turned to Kora. "Did that really just happen?"
"I think we'll both be better off if we pretend it didn't. But you heard her point, right?”
“The one about butt plugs?”
“The other one,” Kora said, smirking. “About how you should stop making things so messy and just go for it.”
"I'm not sure I want to take life advice from someone who—you know what? Never mind."
As we walked to get smoothies, my phone buzzed.
Cole: I need back in your cloud account. None of your old passwords are working. I need to see what you have been working on so I can wow Davenport. I’m meeting him one last time today. Come on, Em. Don't let me down. And hey, pull this off, and I might think about letting us start things back up again.
I deleted it without responding, but my hands were shaking. I still couldn’t believe I had been dumb enough not to change all my passwords after the breakup. I changed the important ones, like my streaming TV passwords and bank passwords. But somehow, I hadn’t thought Cole would bother to get into my boring old Google Docs files.
Every time I thought about how my stupid careless comment about Davenport started this whole stressful mess, I wanted to bury my face in my hands.
"You okay?" Kora asked.
"No," I admitted. "But I think it's time. I don't care if Orion doesn't want to know. I need Cole to know I'm not helping him and I'm never getting back with him. I just... need all this off my chest. I'm going to come clean, and if Orion hates me for it, then so be it. But I'm going to explode if I don't just get this out."
