Chapter 11
Bastian
The smell of garlic bread and marinara sauce greeted me when I came back down from taking a long hot shower to get rid of the stress from the day. I paused in the hallway to listen to Joanna’s soft patter of footsteps in the kitchen. Taking my word, she had gone downstairs to make herself comfortable in the kitchen. Judging from the delicious aroma lingering about in the air, she had pulled off a decent meal before I could have my maid run to the store.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cooked in the kitchen besides a few staff members over the years. Sierra never cooked. She didn’t think it was worth learning when she had the money to have someone do it for her.
A swell of emotions rose in me. I couldn’t afford to think about how close Joanna was to me now. I had made the promise to help her get through the next couple of weeks, so I needed to keep my desires and everything else at bay. She had been through hell and back with her ex-boyfriend terrorizing the life out of her.
I pushed the door open to find Joanna pouring hot water out of a pot and into the sink. She turned to look at me when the door swung open beneath the palm of my hand. A shy smile tugged at her lips, and it took all my self-control not to rush across the kitchen to kiss her. The strands of her fair hair wisped around her flushed face as she nodded at the small kitchen nook where a few plates were set up.
“I figured you might be hungry,” she said. “I found a few things in the freezer and pantry to cook us a decent meal.”
“Thank you,” I replied, touched by the gesture. “How about some wine to go with the meal?”
“Sounds delightful to me.”
I pulled out a bottle from the wine cellar built into the pantry while Joanna set a large bowl of spaghetti noodles in the center of the table, followed by a bowl of marinara sauce. I poured us both a large glass of wine before we settled into the nook to gaze out the windows. The storm clouds on the horizon were now unleashing their fury in the form of a thick and sticky snow.
“You could’ve called in something,” I said while Joanna dished up her plate. “It’s no trouble to order food around here. Many places know where to charge to.”
Joanna smiled at me. “I prefer home-cooked meals. Your ex-wife never cooked, did she?”
“Never in a million years,” I replied, laughing. “She doesn’t even know how to boil water. We always ordered in.”
“That’s sad. I always take the time to cook a meal at the end of the day. Nothing beats the smell of a home-cooked meal after a long day in the office.”
“No shit.” I inhaled deeply as I dished up my plate. “I think I could get used to this type of thing. Easily.”
“I’m glad I’m good for some things then. It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Those words cut right through me. I looked up as Joanna sipped at her wine heartily, her eyes focused on her dinner plate. It took all my resolve not to reach out and touch her, to show her my own appreciation in the most sexual way possible. I reached for my glass of wine instead to take a long drink. If I had any hope of keeping my hands to myself, then I needed to keep my hands occupied with eating and drinking wine.
“You are appreciated in many ways,” I said. “You’re amazing at what you do in my office. Contrary to what your ex believes, you got that promotion because you’re better at your job than Roger is sometimes.”
Joanna laughed. “Don’t tell Roger that. He is absolutely terrified of you. I have to help him sometimes because he’s afraid that you are going to fire him.”
“I said that he would be fired if he didn’t do his job right,” I said with a shrug. “That was over a year ago. He’s still afraid of me firing him?”
“Half your office is afraid of your foul moods. Your temper is pretty famous around there.”
“And you’re not afraid of me because of that?” I asked curiously. “Given what you’ve been through in the past few hours, you aren’t afraid of me at all?”
“Not at all,” Joanna said. “I’ve been with someone who has a temper. You don’t have a temper in my eyes. It’s more that you get frustrated when things aren’t going smoothly.”
I set my fork down along the side of my plate to look at Joanna. “I’m not that different from most men, you know. I just don’t hit women because I can’t deal with the stress of my job.”
“How do you deal with the stress of having the biggest management firm on the West Coast?” Joanna asked, cradling her glass of wine. Her own plate of food was pushed off to the side as she looked at me. “You have all this money, obviously. How do you deal with it all?”
The question made me shift uncomfortably in my seat. How could I answer that honestly without scaring Joanna away? I fucked women on the weekends the way I had been fucked over by Sierra. I drank a lot of alcohol when I didn’t have to be responsible the next morning. None of that made me seem to be the healthy man I had a feeling Joanna regarded me as. I had my own demons attached to my back, but I didn’t take them out on anyone. That was the difference. It just didn’t make me a better man.
“I deal with it the best I can,” I answered slowly. “I get to travel a lot, so that does help a bit.”
To my surprise, Joanna let out an undignified snort. She clapped a hand over her mouth and nose when I looked at her in surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean to do that out loud. It came out.”
“It sounds like you don’t believe me,” I said. “Was that a disbelieving type of snort?”
Joanna downed the rest of her wine in one steady gulp. I immediately reached for the bottle between us to pour her another glass before doing the same for myself.
“I’ve been your secretary for a while now,” she said. “I’m having a hard time believing that you of all people say traveling is the best way to deal with your stress levels. I know what you do outside the office.”
That piqued my interest. I leaned across the table, pushing away my plate in the process, to rest my elbows on the tabletop with my glass of wine in hand. I smiled in amusement when Joanna’s cheeks visibly reddened. The wine, I realized, was pulling out a side of Joanna that I never got to see inside the office. It was a pleasant experience to see a more carefree side to her—not the orderly and controlled one that she maintained in the office.
“How do you think I deal with my stress levels then?” I asked curiously. “I’m interested in hearing a few theories, because there are many of those going around the office.”
“Well, for one, everyone says that you love to drink when you don’t have to work the next day. A bit of a partier who likes to go to the clubs and—”
“Wrong,” I interrupted with a shake of my head. “I like alcohol, but I don’t go party. I don’t like clubs, either. They’re too loud.”
Joanna blinked at me as she sipped at her wine. “So you were acting out of character when going to that club on Friday night then?”
“Sort of,” I said.
I didn’t want to go into detail about only going because I needed someone to fuck hard that night but then how seeing Sid drag Joanna into the unmarked car like a rag doll had squashed my sex drive immediately. Until now. I could feel it roaring back to life with the temptation of Joanna enjoying a glass of wine across the table from me.
“You were there with that woman,” Joanna stated. “That’s another theory going around the office you know. A few people warned me about your reputation before I started working for you.”
“What sort of reputation do I have?” I asked.
“That you’re a tiny bit”—she pinched her fingers together to exaggerate her point—“of a womanizer. A ladies’ man. A player, if you want to be gangster about it.”
I shrugged my shoulders because I couldn’t argue with that theory. “Never claimed to be a nice guy, so I’ll say that last part is true.”
“It’s true?” Joanna straightened up in her chair. “What am I doing here with you alone then? Is this all some sort of plan on your part to get me alone?”
You have no fucking idea. The thought of dragging Joanna up onto the table to kiss her madly and go crazy on her delicious-looking body ran through my blood hotly as I squirmed in my chair to hide the fact that I was rock hard imagining it. The wine was hitting Joanna in ways that I’d never seen before, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.
I could feel the edges of my own self-control starting to deteriorate. My inhibitions were lowering like Joanna’s with each sip of wine, but I couldn’t stop myself even if my life depended on it.
“I care about you,” I said. “I know how dangerous your situation can get. I didn’t want to think about you going home to that piece of shit just to show up at my office again with even more bruises.”
Joanna’s hands shot up to touch the dark marks around her neck. “It wasn’t always like this you know. It used to be good between him and me.”
“Let’s not bring it up right now,” I said. “Okay? Just let the idea of him go. I don’t understand why women think that men like Sid will ever change. It’s like you romanticize the idea of a bad boy with some real fucked-up demons in him.”
“All of us have demons,” she said. “Don’t you have some?”
“More than I’d like to admit,” I said with a painful grimace. “The point is that you have to let go of what you think people are and see them for what they actually are. You don’t deserve a guy who makes you feel like you aren’t worthy enough to be loved, because you are worthy. More than you think.”
Joanna didn’t say anything for a long time as she mulled over my words. Instead, we sipped wine together in silence before she suddenly looked up at me with blazing eyes. It wasn’t the intensity that startled me, but the lust I could see dancing clearly in her eyes. I felt myself harden even more as the air between us sparked with energy.
“You aren’t who I thought you were,” Joanna said, setting her wine glass down. “You claim to be this womanizer prick, but I don’t think you are. I think you hide behind that façade to protect yourself from what happened with your ex-wife.”
I tensed at the sharp accuracy of those words. I didn’t get a chance to recover, though, because Joanna slipped out of her seat to stand in front of me with a mischievous smile tugging at her lips. She swayed a bit on her feet, so she used the kitchen table to steady herself for a moment.
“I know I won’t ever be able to fully repay you for what you’ve done for me, but I have an idea for repayment that you might like.” She leveled a surprisingly sober glance at me. “If you’re up for the challenge that is.”