Maliciously Obedient Part 13

That had ended it immediately. She wouldn't aid anyone in cheating on their spouse, and even though she wasn't in a committed relations.h.i.+p that didn't mean that he was not. He seemed to have no problem, however, with violating his vows. When she'd called him on it he had simply smiled, looked at his fingernails, paused, bought himself a little bit of time and then said, "You're really not my type anyhow."

Lydia had spent the last year working under his thumb, fetching his d.a.m.n lattes and trying to find a way to get a transfer out of there. The romance project had been a big part of that. With Dave gone, though, she had more options. Having Krysta bring up the past with Dave, though, made her cringe. Suddenly Matt's scent flew out from under the small crack in the door, the tiny closet becoming a great, cold, white light abyss and all traces of intimacy in memory or in real life faded at her sense of outrage and shame.

Shame driven only by her own naivete. How she had let herself fall for so many different lines and for such a jerk like Dave was something that she just couldn't understand and really couldn't forgive herself for. But, she wasn't going to focus on that right now and Krysta wasn't going to make her.

"So," she whispered, "the good news is that I've got another opportunity."

"But Lyd, Matt has your job."

"Yeah, but you know what? I bet Matt is gunning for Dave's job and then I can have Matt's job."

"Matt's been here a week Lydia a a week. You've been here for over two years. Why can't you have Dave's job?"

She went silent. How could she have a and then slowly Lydia began to bang her head against the metal shelving in front of her. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! How could she have missed it? Some part of her had become submissive, schoolgirl-like, giddy at sc.r.a.ps. And Matt Jones had been some sort of integral part of that.

"You're right," she told Krysta.

"I know."

"And you're modest."

"Yeah, that too."

"I need to go for the director's job, which means Matt is no longer an ally. He's the compet.i.tion."

"Mike, it's Diane just calling to check in and see how you're doing. You've been on my mind lately and I've been thinking a lot about you. Call me. You know where to find me." Click.

He'd ignored the last three text messages from her and now she had resorted to voice mail. She must have some enormous event where she needed him on her arm. Why had he ever played this game?

Joanie had delivered about twenty-seven hours worth of work to his apartment and here he sat, on a Sunday, when most of his co-workers a no, Matt Jones' co-workers a were catching up on errands or playing, going to the movies, hanging out with family.

Bleary eyed, already on his fourth cup of coffee and it was, he looked at the clock, 10:11 a.m. a he faced a day of dull work.

Diane. Just what he needed. Diane was a Kardas.h.i.+an wannabe, which Mike had found charming when he first met her. Not charming in a cute or an appealing sort of way, but charming in a 'pat the woman's head in a condescending manner' kind of way because if being a Kardas.h.i.+an were the height of Diane's dreams then he'd hate to know what her nightmares were. As tux candy, she'd been fine, but just as she used him for status, he had used her for public relations.

As he stared at all of the work and all of the decisions that other people were afraid to make, choices that he was pushed against a wall to execute, he faced a growing sense that profits were not going to meet what he had hoped in order to achieve his coup. He felt himself simultaneously tightening and loosening, the drive to win so great, so overwhelming inside of him that he could not let go of the goal.

Something new, a release within him, was a counterweight to that burden of success.

It teased him like a Siren on the seas, calling out to him, offering a different view, another life. One with swells and soft curves and flesh that went on and invited his hands, his mouth, his heart. And that, right there, was the problem.

She was derailing him.

From that frantic kiss in the supply closet to a very unprofessional but succulent moment in the dark, in the elevator, Lydia invaded his thoughts, his fantasies a and his business.

To that night in the bar, taking her home, tucking her in, his decency the only protection from tipping over and going full on, full blood, full wild with her.

A less respectful man would have gone for it. A man with a killer instinct would have gone for it and, until a couple of weeks ago, Mike would have called himself the ultimate alpha male with a killer instinct that put would put him into the Fortune 500 and would eventually make him the CEO of a top-ten company.

Her panties were now tucked away in his glove compartment, never failing to bring a smile to his face whenever he saw them. d.a.m.n it.

Decency threatened everything. The decency that said Bournham Industries bonuses weren't good enough. The decency that saw the impact of cheap paper towels and horrible coffee on the workers. The decency that kept his body from hers, from taking advantage of someone who was so dependent on him but didn't realize it a her career, her self esteem, her emotional state so wrapped up in what she did at Bournham Industries and her personal state so wrapped up in this fictional character Matt Jones, that he had created. So much of Lydia intertwined with him.

And she was completely oblivious to it all and certainly had been with more alcohol coursing through her than ought to have been the case. It was her vulnerability that made him realize he had to withdraw. Yet he had to get back in touch with that killer instinct, because that killer instinct a that was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

He'd agreed to do Meet the Hidden Boss with Jonah because his killer instinct drove him to find ways to make new profits. His killer instinct drove him to date women like Diane because it got him on the socialite pages, into the newspapers, on social media sites, on TMZ and Perez and all the crazy places with his face here, there, and everywhere. Branding was something that guys with a killer instinct knew.

Decency? Decency had no place when it came to branding.

What he needed to do was go back to being that guy who tapped on her gla.s.s, who met her that first day, that guy she joked a or didn't joke a was trying to be Christian Grey. Mike might not have been a billionaire yet, but he was going to be.

Lydia was the only thing standing in the way.

The script was already sitting on his desk before he'd had a chance to take off his coat. The smack of the thick packet of papers. .h.i.tting the surface as he whirled around to find Jonah standing there, back against the wall, trying hard not to be noticed filled the air.

In a twelve-by-fifteen office, it wasn't easy to hide.

"Hey there, Mike. Good morning. I thought I'd catch you kind of early." His hands out in a gesture of supplication, Jonah clearly had an agenda but was trying to act like he didn't.

"What do you want Jonah? I don't have a lot of time and you really shouldn't be coming in here."

Jonah looked at his watch. "It's 7:30, none of the other doo-bies are going to be in and they don't know who I am. I'll just leave out the staircase and avoid the.." he paused for drama, or so it seemed to Mike. "...elevators." A hard, wry look that made Mike stand on alert.

"You shouldn't have to worry. The elevators don't have cameras. Isn't that right, Jonah?" Hard look back.

"Nope. No, no cameras in the elevators, Mike. That's part of the agreement, right?" There was a subtext here that made Mike very, very uncomfortable. He didn't like being uncomfortable. It was a state he'd been in too much, too often lately and so he cut Jonah off at the knees.

"Get to the point or get out."

All pretense of friendliness smeared off of Jonah's face within seconds. "You need to follow the script more. You need to become a harda.s.s with Lydia and crack the Don Draper look. That is the only thing that is going to get ratings up. Right now you look like mister new-agey funky s.h.i.+t and that, let me tell you a I've been doing enough of these shows to know a that doesn't sell. Not among the core female audience."

"And who is that?"

"Women 26 to 44."

Lydia's target. Hmm. "What do you want, specifically? Give me detailed behaviors that you're looking for that you think will ping the audience, that you think will drive ratings up through the roof ,because that's what I want. You said that production on this thing will be wrapped up in a total of six weeks and that the first episodes would be two weeks later. I am a man with very little time, so make this worth my while. We're in week two now. Where is this going?"

The evil grin that spread across Jonah's face soothed Mike on some level because it meant that they were getting back to business. This wasn't about Lydia. This wasn't about Matt Jones. This wasn't about finding true love, or even, true s.e.x. This was about money and they both wanted to make it, Jonah even more so than Mike.

He tabled that thought, for it troubled him. Jonah sat down, flipped through the script and pointed to a few key sections. Mike handed him a pen. "Just star the points that you want me to focus on."

Furiously scribbling, Jonah did as instructed and then stood. "I'm glad we're on the same page."

"Oh, I was always on the same page," Mike insisted. "You're the one who was confused."

A dark look pa.s.sed over Jonah's face, his brow furrowed. "I'm in this to have a show skyrocket to the top, to be carried by some of the shows that have become iconic c.r.a.p, like American Idol, or The Voice, or The Bachelor."

"If that c.r.a.p," Mike said, "can get me the boost in sales that you stressed, then bring on the c.r.a.p."

"Oh, you'll get that boost. Ten percent is nothing to a "

"Ten! Ten percent?" he interrupted Jonah. "You told me twenty."

The weasley look on Jonah's face made Mike groan inside. "Twenty a of course! That's what I said. Twenty."

"Jonah, you showed me demographic proof. You showed me statements from previous partic.i.p.ants."

"Of course I did. Whatever. It's...you know.. ten, twenty a let's not quibble over details."

"Get out."

Jonah looked as if he'd been slapped. "What?"

"Get out. Get out of my office. One day. You have one f.u.c.king day to prove to me that I need to waste the next four and a half weeks on this c.r.a.p. One day. Show me today that it's worth it. Go do a promo spot, go. a I don't care what you do. Do something that's going to get Bournham Industries out into the chattering ma.s.ses. Make us hot on Twitter, make us hot on Facebook, get us on all of the gossip sites. I don't care what you do. Just do it because right now I don't have any reason to stay in this at all. Give me a reason."

"Why should I give you a reason?" Jonah's voice went up an octave. "You need us as much as I need you."

"Because f.u.c.k you. Because. f.u.c.k. You," Mike repeated. "If you fudged those numbers and this is all a sham and you've been trying to pull one over on me, I will have your career so far in the s.h.i.+tter that you will be lucky if you can get a job changing VCR tapes at some ancient storage facility in the middle of b.u.t.tf.u.c.k Indiana. And that'll be the closest to a video camera that you ever get."

Jonah cut his eyes away. Mike could still see the gears turning, the manipulative sociopath in the man trying to turn this around to his advantage. "Get out," he repeated.

He was about three seconds away from standing up and shoving the guy out when Jonah did it on his own, quietly, without another word. He slammed the door shut and Mike gave him that. He needed to feel like he had a shred of a t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e left.

Mike's heart pounded in his chest, not out of fear, but out of anger, and he took a few deep breaths to calm down. He grabbed the phone and texted Joanie: Joanie, verify data on Meet the Hidden Boss profits for companies involved.

He knew she had done this in the beginning; he'd requested that information a long time ago. He never would have gotten involved in this mess without quantifiable evidence. And yet, now, here he stood, tongue rolling between his cheek and teeth as his body worked to release all that tension. Decent guy, huh? His decency kept getting in the way of his life's goals. Being a harda.s.s with Jonah hadn't been difficult a in fact, it hadn't even been a blip. The real test would come when Lydia walked in that door.

"Bring me a cup of coffee," Matt ordered, not even bothering to gesture, as if he were so accustomed to ordering women around that he accepted it as second nature that she would be his little errand girl. Whatever happened to Mr. Decency? This guy blew hot and cold like a diva.

"Please," he added, shooting her a glance that was as close to sheepish as he seemed capable, but that looked more like a man closing the deal than anything else. A perfunctory social nicety intended to secure his getting what he wanted.

Get your own d.a.m.n coffee, she thought, and then she stopped and grinned, a tight flicker of a smile as she realized how she would interpret this to her own satisfaction. Week two and I'm coffee girl already? FML.

"I will be right back," she said, as formally as she could stomach. Where was the guy so incensed that Dave made her get his precious lattes for him? Oh. That's right. Probably with her panties. Giving up so much of herself was turning out to be one of the biggest mistakes of her f.u.c.king life. Worse than dating Dave, even a because she actually cared about Matt. And that's why this hurt so much.

Clearly, he'd come to the same realization a they were compet.i.tors now. Career over c.l.i.t, right? For him it would be career over c.o.c.k. Ah, how she wanted to have her c.l.i.t over his c.o.c.k. No! Wait! That's not what she was supposed to be thinking. Down, girl.

Going down, girl.

Augh!

Coffee? You want coffee? I'll give you exactly what you asked for.

At the coffee counter in the tiny office kitchen she bent down, careful not to split her too-tight pantyhose as she bent down to the bottom of three shelves, dug and a bit and...ah. Yes. There it was. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and proceeded to open the jar, pouring half a coffee cup's worth of instant coffee into a paper cup.

He asked for a cup of coffee. And that is exactly what she would deliver.

The walk back to his office felt so light, like a giddy moment of fluff and air and freedom. What could he do? Fire her for delivering exactly what he asked for, with no creativity, no initiative, no extra ideas or inferences?

Here's your f.u.c.king cup of coffee, you smug a.s.shole, she thought as she put the cup down in front of him and turned around to walk back out the door.

"Thank you," he muttered, and she heard the cup sc.r.a.pe against the desk, the m.u.f.fled sound of his lips closing over the cup, and then a Gagging and sputtering. His shout of "What the h.e.l.l?" came through the door, more a roar of indignation than a phrase of surprise. She smirked, glad to be turned away from him, and started to close the door.

"Lydia!" he thundered. She halted. Too slow. Might as well accept her punishment. Heh. Spinning on one heel, she faced him with a neutral expression.

"Yes, Matt?" he seemed piqued my her calling him by his name. She refused a adamantly refused a ever to call him Mr. Jones. Not that he had asked, but his unease whenever she called him Matt seemed to compound by the day. Something was not quite right, but she couldn't put a name to it.

Smirk. "I see. Coffee. I asked for a cup. Cute. A little beneath you, but cute."

Beneath her? "Is that all? I have work to do." She wasn't going to play this game by any rules but her own.

"No a that's not all." Typing furiously, he hit the "Enter" key on his keyboard and looked up. Why, oh why, did he have to be so attractive? Intense and bold, his shoulders spread nice and wide as he stretched, the b.u.t.ton-down oxford looking slightly out of place. He should be in runner's clothes, in soccer shorts, wearing something lightweight and form-fitting. Underneath his business casual attire she knew he had hot, sculpted abs, a washboard she wanted so desperately to scrub herself on.

He was staring at her as if he'd said something and was waiting for a response. "Lydia?"

"Yes?" s.h.i.+t. Had he said something? Those green eyes peered at her, evaluating her, sizing her up.

"My trip? You'll book the travel arrangements." A command. Reaching to the left, he plucked a piece of paper out of the printer. "Here."

The words danced on the page, her heart thumping so hard it bounced her eyeb.a.l.l.s. The guy was a middle management n.o.body, but he acted with the precision of a four-star general. In his mind, evidently, she would do exactly as he asked.

Right?

"Detroit?"

"Yes, one of our suppli a " For the first time, he faltered. "Uh, there's a..." Slowing his speech, as if crafting the thought in real time, millisecond by millisecond, Matt seemed to spin in thin air, right before her eyes. He was clearly disturbed by his own behavior, a mix of ten different emotions a all of them some version of of cunning, frustration, or piquance a crossing his face.

"There's a company that is really strong with data mining," he declared, the words coming faster, his voice deepening with confidence. "I need to meet with their owner to talk about some list buys."

Blinking hard, she struggled to cover up her skepticism. "Don't we normally buy lists online, or just use calls and web conferencing for a "

Rolling his tongue between his cheek and teeth, Matt barely concealed his annoyance at her question and interrupted her mid-sentence. "Just make the travel arrangements and remember we're trying to economize."

Cold air slapped her lungs as she gasped from the sting of his manner. What a jacka.s.s. Narrowing her eyes, she forced herself to take two slow, deep breaths. He stared back, the look between them deepening uncomfortably, electricity crackling as it spread and strengthened.

"I'll go make the reservations right away, Matt." Add a patronizing pat on the head, why doncha, Boss?

He scratched his cheek and averted his eyes, ignoring her in a way that made it clear she was dismissed. "Good." As she turned, she swore his eyes looked up, surveying her body, but when she glanced back he looked away. The door was twelve football fields away, her legs tree trunks filled with lead as she left the room, feeling diminutive and p.i.s.sed, needing to lash out.

Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it and let the hot, angry breath evacuate her lungs.

What an a.s.shole.

"Remember we're trying to economize," she mimicked, using a fake, mocking voice. As if she didn't know that. As if she weren't single-handedly responsible for cutting overhead for the advertising department by thirty percent last year. Something Dave had praised but that hadn't helped her get the job she'd been so focused on.

Matt's words morphed in her head, blending with his lush lips, those strong hands she imagined on her, that washboard a "And get me a real cup of coffee." Out of nowhere, as if conjured by bad magic, his voice was in her ear, startling her, the door opening as she leaned against it. As her upper body tilted backwards her feet flew out from under her, Matt saving her with one arm snaking around her ribs, the other behind her knee, his quads working overtime to keep them both in balance, palm splayed against her breast, a fingertip landing squarely on her nipple.

Seeking her center of gravity, her body pressed into his chest, face just under his chin as he stabilized them. Ah, he smelled even better than she remembered, her earlier whiffs of musk and cologne now full aromas that filled her with a cloud of pure man. Inhaling, she took in his scent, her mind forgetting why she was in his arms. Not caring why, actually.