IN BED WITH THE BOSS

“You’re not responsible for his actions and if you don’t want to become another version of Bruce, you should find a way to forgive yourself and him too. Do it… not for me, but for yourself…. And maybe Vivian too. Whatever relationship you have with her, you don’t want to have any kind of hate in your heart. It eats you up from inside and before you realize it, you have no emotions and no boundaries left. I’m not sure that’s the kind of man Vivian or any woman would want to be with”

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Coordinating their diaries.

It wasn’t the most romantic way to begin a relationship, though Vivian supposed that it was the practical way, particularly because of the fact that he was still her boss. Sometimes she didn’t quite believe that she was actually doing this. Dating the boss.

“I’m going to be pretty tied up next week, so I won’t be coming to the office” he had said as he’d bent his head to kiss her goodbye at her apartment. “But I’ll call you.”

And immediately she was catapulted into that unwilling state of waiting for the phone to ring. He didn’t call until Wednesday, which she supposed was about right for the kind of relationship they were obviously going to have and the kind of man he was. Monday would have seemed like the behavior of a man in love-which he wasn’t.

Tuesday, ditto.

Thursday would have made her seem like an after-thought and Friday an insult. So Wednesday it was.

“Vivian”

“Hi!” she replied.

His voice was soft. “How are you?” he asked.

Imagine if she told him the truth-that she had spent the last three days worrying that he wasn’t going to call at all!

“I’m fine,” she said lightly. “How’s is it going over there?”

“Busy.” he replied.

“Oh.” She waited.

“Going to come up and see me this weekend?”

“You don’t want to come down here?”

“Can’t. I have a big, glitzy ball to attend on Saturday night-it’s a work-related thing and I wondered if you might like to be my guest?”

She gave it just the right amount of consideration. “I’d love to.”

There was a pause. “And you’ll stay?”

“If you like.” replied Vivian.

Scott gave a wry smile. She certainly wasn’t over-eager. “I’d like that very much,” he said evenly. “Let me give you my address.”

Vivian felt stricken with nerves as she drove to his location on Saturday evening, having tried on about seven dresses before finally deciding on the one she had started with.

He was staying at a flat. The first two floors of a period town house in one of the smartest roads. He opened the door to her knock, looking nothing short of devastating, even though his dark hair was still damp from the shower and the snowy shirt, which contrasted with black, tapered trousers, wasn’t buttoned up.

Vivian’s nervousness increased tenfold as his eyes narrowed. Maybe all the other women would be wearing long and she would be the only one in a knee-skimmer? Would it have seemed gauche and naïve to have checked with him first?

She smoothed her hand down over a silver-silk-clad hip. “Will this do?” she asked.

“Do?” He pulled her into his arms and resisted the temptation to let his hand slowly travel the same route, because if he started doing that, then they would never get out of the door.

She looked as exquisite as some cool, gleaming moonstone, with not a hair on her head out of place. He liked the don’t-touch-me air-the contrast between the ice-queen of now and the fire-cracker she would later become.

“Oh, yes, you’ll do. In fact, you look so gorgeous that I imagine I’ll have to chain you to my side all night.” He smiled and dropped a light kiss on her lips. “Mmm. Better not spoil your lipstick. Come and talk to me while I finish getting ready and then I’ll pour you a drink.”

It was an urbane and sophisticated line but this was not what Vivian wanted at all. She would have preferred if he had dragged her straight upstairs and ravished her to within an inch of her life-but she couldn’t just rely on sex to stop her feeling insecure, could she? She had fallen for the urbane and sophisticated man-so she could hardly start complaining that he wasn’t acting like a caveman!

“That sounds lovely,” she said calmly and followed him through to a large, airy sitting room. There were squashy sofas and restful water colors on the walls and a bottle of pink champagne stood cooling in an ice bucket.

“I’ll just get my tie.” Scott said. She nodded, watching while he went into the bedroom , where he picked up a bow-tie and began deftly knotting it.

He could see her reflection in the mirror as she looked around the sitting room. “Like it?” he asked.

She turned her head towards the sound of his voice and she could see that the bed was invitingly yet hauntingly vast and there were fresh flowers beside it.

But he wasn’t asking about the bedroom and so she concentrated on the view over the square in the sitting room instead. “It’s lovely. Peaceful and pretty.”

“Isn’t it? I’m only renting though but I’m considering buying it. It is on the market, but I don’t know whether it would be big enough.”

For what? For a resolutely single man who had the occasional visiting girlfriend? She focussed like mad on a tree, aware that if she spent the whole time concentrating on how completely separate their lives were, then it wouldn’t work at all. And this was only the beginning, for heaven’s sake.

He finished knotting the tie and came into the sitting room, and Vivian’s stomach flipped. If there was any chaining to do, then she imagined it would be entirely mutual.

“Shall we have a glass of champagne? There’s a car collecting us at seven.”Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“Yes, please.” They were, she realized, acting as if they had just met. And why hadn’t he kissed her properly-lipstick or no damned lipstick?

He popped the cork, poured two glasses and handed her one. “What shall we drink to?”

“I don’t know… ”

He smiled and shook his head. “Well, I know. To beauty.” His eyes glittered with unspoken promise. “To you, Vivian,” he said softly, and chinked his glass against hers.

The compliment made her feel quite dizzy, and the wine, taken on an empty stomach, only added to it, but at least it relaxed the knot in her stomach a little bit. “Why, thank you,” she murmured.

The ball was predictably glamorous and there was a giant ice sculpture of an eagle, keeping pounds of finest beluga caviar at just the right temperature.

“Slightly over the top,” whispered Scott as he guided her by the elbow to their table.

So were most of the women-wearing dresses which made her own feel positively understated. Some of the women gave her openly envious looks and Vivian didn’t have you wonder why. She played her part of sophisticated partner to the full. She chatted animatedly and laughed at jokes- some funny, some not. She delicately but politely fended off the advances of a senior banking figure who had been hitting the bottle hard for most of the evening.

Scott watched her, a pulse beating steadily at his temple. She had barely looked at him all evening and the novelty factor of that was driving him crazy. Not that he needed any added incentives. He glanced at his watch surreptitiously.

“Vivian?”

She looked up, caught in the cross fire of his dark eyes. “Mmm?”

“Ready to go home now?”

“Sure.”

In the darkened seclusion of the car, he drew her into his arms as he had wanted to do all evening, drinking in her perfume and reveling in the softness of her skin. “God, that evening dragged, didn’t it?”

With his lips on her neck it was hard to think about anything, but she maintained the demure air of the corporate companion. “I rather enjoyed it.”

“Did you?” He slipped his hand beneath her coat to cup her breast, his mouth against her hair as he whispered, “Tell me what else you enjoy, honey.”

And it was madness itself on the one hand to have wished that he had kissed her instead of talking to her at the beginning of the evening, and then to wish that he would talk to her now instead of kissing her! What the hell did she want from the man?

Vivian gave up thinking-it was much easier to go under the spell of his kiss and slip into a relationship which gave her some, though certainly not all, of what she wanted.

A moan clawed free of Scott . Damn, he’d been aching-literally aching-to get his mouth on her all evening. To taste her. “Are you good?” he asked.

His dick throbbed, and he gritted his teeth. He could wait until they reached their destination, but fuck if he or his dick wanted to. He needed to be inside her.