Chapter 2

Ava

I was fortunate to be starting my first day at my first professional job only a week after graduating with my MBA. I mean, it wasn’t like I hadn’t worked my ass off in college. My father had instilled in me, from the time I was a child, that it was important to decide what I wanted before I was married, before I had kids, and before I had other people relying on me. He told me it was my life, and I could decide how to live it. He was a very smart man and had started a business with his best friend right after college.

The money was amazing, the potential of the business growing all the time, but in the end, he wasn’t willing to give up his time with his family for the company. So, he and his best friend, Tanner, broke things off and went their separate ways. My father was brilliant with money and had saved enough to support us, keep us in the same lifestyle, and even have enough to leave in a trust fund for me whenever I wanted to have a family. My mother wasn’t thrilled at first, but once she realized she wouldn’t have to change her lifestyle, she went back to being only half as unpleasant.

Tanner, however, had taken the business all the way to the top. He, as far as I knew, had a wife at one point but chose his company over family. I felt like I was more like him, worried about the future more than I was about other people. Of course, that could also be because I had never actually been in a relationship that lasted more than a few weeks. I was too busy trying to make it to the top of my class to be worried about guys, and their immaturity and inability to decide on a goal-oriented future left me dumping most of the guys I dated after only a few weeks in. A relationship like that just wasn’t something I wanted to consume my mind at that point. Building my future was much more important to me, and it was already paying off. Tanner had given me a job with his company at a time he was getting ready to merge with another large financial firm, and I was going to get to be on the ground floor of it all. It was really freaking exhilarating, to say the least.

I walked toward his office, excited to get my first day started. He called me in, and I stood in front of him, remembering doing the same when I was in my teens. He looked up and smiled, walking around the desk and embracing me as if I were family. He didn’t speak to my father anymore, but I knew he still cared.

“Ava,” he said, leaning back. “I am so happy to have you here with us. I heard what an amazing job you did at Design Corp, our sister company, and I couldn’t help but get you here with us to do amazing things and bring the future of MJ into the next stage.”

“Thank you so much for having me here, Mr. Johnson,” I said, smiling.

“Call me Tanner.” He laughed. “And please have a seat.”

I sat down in the chair facing his desk and looked around the room. His office looked like a giant bedroom without a bed. It was decorated in mahogany shelving, the rugs were dark reds and greens, and there were two couches and a coffee table facing the wall of televisions that he’d put up to follow the stock market. To the right was a shelf that had crystal vases filled with an assortment of whiskey and a painted self-portrait hanging above it. The only thing missing was a fireplace with a bear skin rug on the floor. An upper-class hunting lodge came to mind.

I was nervous to start a conversation, but I knew I had to talk to him about my father. To this day, my father had blamed Tanner for the fact that he was not still part of MJ. I hadn’t told him where I was working, and I needed to be sure Tanner kept that to himself as well. I didn’t want to cause any problems at home, but I knew this kind of experience could catapult my career.

“Tanner,” I said, folding my hands in my lap.

“Yes,” he said putting down his file and looking at me.

“I know that you and my dad, well, you aren’t on the best of terms,” I said nicely. “I wanted to know, well I guess, I more wanted to tell you that I haven’t let him know this is where I’m working now. I don’t plan on telling him either.”

“I completely understand.” he chuckled. “Your father still has hard feelings toward me?”

“Well, you know how he can hold a grudge.” I laughed. “I’m pretty sure he’s still mad from the time I spilled grape juice on him, and I was nine back then.”

“I do miss him sometimes,” he said, laughing hard. “He would have loved where the company went, but his choice was family, and I can respect that.”

“He’s happy,” I said, smiling. “Sometimes I think he wonders what could have been if he’d stayed at MJ, but then he sees me. We laugh and talk, and he remembers why he made the sacrifice.”

“How’s your mother?”

“Grumpy and snobby as always.” I chuckled. “I thought she would soften as she aged, but I was wrong. She’s a brick house now.”

“She never liked me,” he said.

I sat back, talking to him about the family, reminiscing about the times he would come over and barbecue when I was a kid and about all the memories he had of my dad and himself. He was really a great guy when you caught him at the right moment. He was also an incredibly handsome man. I had always had a thing for older men, and I could even remember crushing hard on Tanner when I was about sixteen, just about the time he and my father had parted ways. Sitting here in front of him, it was like he hadn’t aged a day. He was almost fifty years old, and I was half that age, but he always had some sweet young thing on his arm. It was no secret he was into the younger women.

Tanner was never one to slack on his appearance, and from the look of how his muscles filled out the arms and chest of his designer shirt, he was still going to the gym on a regular basis. He had dark brown hair, almost black, with just the tiniest hint of silver when he turned his head toward the light. He kept it longer on top and pushed back, with the sides trimmed perfectly, as if he went by the barber’s every single morning. But that wasn’t the only thing that made him hot as hell. It was the kind of man he was, too. He was ambitious. Surrounded with the future of marketing and finance, he was goal driven, and work was what satisfied him about life. He didn’t take much of anything else seriously, including his relationships, and I kind of felt like I was the female version of him.

Tanner’s strong will and desire to succeed was sexier than his biceps, and I couldn’t help but picture him close to me as I sat in the chair. I mean, there was no way I was going to have an affair with Tanner. He was too old for me and the head of a billion-dollar company, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t daydream about it. I had to get my kicks somewhere since my dating life was null and void except for the guy my mom had tried to set me up with from the country club. He was the most boring rich boy I had ever met, and I ended up leaving him at the restaurant and grabbing a cab while he was in the bathroom. I really didn’t know what I expected out of someone my mother had chosen.

I went through the rest of the day following either Tanner or the head of finance around the building, learning what my role would be. The learning curve was steep, but I had enough education between college and my internship that I was only slightly overwhelmed. When I left that evening, I waved at Tanner, and I almost thought I could feel him staring at my legs as I walked. Maybe all the times throughout the day when I thought he’d been flirting, I might not have imagined it all. I put the thought out of my head, trying to keep myself on task, and took the elevator to the lobby where I walked outside and grabbed a cab to Pier 49, the bar where I was meeting my best friend, Brianna.

Brianna was my voice of reason, the girl who kept my ambitious feet firmly planted on the ground. She didn’t let me get too far ahead of myself when I was running toward the edge. She was sassy and smart and always had men falling all over themselves for her, though she never really noticed. She was athletic with curvy hips, a tiny waist, and huge tits. Her long brown hair spilled out over her shoulders, and she hadn’t needed anything more than a touch of blush and a smile since we were in college.

When I walked into the bar, I looked over at her and laughed as two guys were leaning against the bar, smiling at her flirtatiously. She had obviously gotten them to buy us our first round but quickly disposed of them as soon as I sat down. She was too funny, telling them I was her soon-to-be wife, and I was a man-hater so they should probably run off. She used that excuse every time, so I knew what face to give them as I walked toward them. They moved faster than I thought two drunk idiots could go.

“Hey, beautiful lady,” I said, sitting down and kissing her cheek.

“So.” She turned toward me. “How did the first day go at MJ?”

I sighed with a bit of satisfaction. “It was awesome. A lot of information to take in.”

“Was it weird working with your dad’s arch nemesis?”

“No.” Her terminology cracked me up. “It wasn’t that bad actually. And it didn’t hurt that he was still hot as hell.”

“You and older men.” She laughed. “But seriously, I remember him from your dad’s cookouts. He was pretty damn hot, even from a sixteen-year-old’s perspective.”

“I know, right?” I stuck a cherry in my mouth and looked up at the television. “I mean, he was flirting with me, and when I left, I was pretty sure he was checking me out.”

“Oh, my God,” she said, eating her cherry and staring at me. “You need to jump him.”

“No,” I said with feigned shock. “I can’t do that. He’s my father’s old best friend and my boss for that matter.”

We went off into a conversation about him more, but my mind lingered on that thought. What if I did jump him? What if I had the nerve to start some kind of sexual adventure with Tanner? I was being crazy, though. There was no way I could start my first professional job by fucking my boss. And God, if my father found out about that, I might just send him to an early grave. I needed to stay the course and focus on the job at hand, no matter how many times I imagined him naked.