Rodney
By Wednesday, I knew I had to get back to the office. One personal day had turned into two. I hadn’t had what it took to face Danielle, not so soon after what we had done. I wasn’t sure what scared me more: that we had fucked, or that I wanted it to keep happening. I didn’t know how I felt about it all, and it made it difficult for me to face Danielle.
She seemed to know exactly what she wanted, and her confidence and defiance was intimidating in this situation. So, like a coward, I hid out at home. I had told everyone who asked that I had come down with a bug that I didn’t want to spread to everyone in the office. They had bought it, of course, but I couldn’t stay away for another day, no matter how much I wanted to.
They needed my guidance at the office. The development team needed my input and my opinions. The investors wanted another meeting, and I had to show face at some point. It wasn’t only about keeping things together behind the scenes. I needed to start making public announcements about the release of the new program. In short, I had a lot of admin I couldn’t avoid, just because of what had happened between me and Danielle. It would become a nightmare of epic proportions if I kept his up.
The silver lining of taking time off from work was that I had spent time with Tommy for a change. It wasn’t something I was able to do often, and it had made me realize how important it was that I made time for him. He wasn’t a toddler that only needed physical care anymore. He needed a relationship with me, and I owed it to him to give him what he needed. When Chrissy had died, I had drowned myself in work, running away from the tragedy. Somewhere, it had changed from running away from my sorrow, to running away from Tommy.
And that was wrong.
I was grateful that underneath everything that had gone wrong in my life the past couple of weeks, one thing had gone right. I had managed to reconnect with my son again. It made me feel like there was hope for me as a parent, at least, even if I wasn’t sure if there was hope for me as a friend, as a boss, or as a businessman.
I put on a suit on Wednesday morning, dropped Tommy off at school, and headed to the office, ready to face the music. It would have to happen at some point.
I had gotten emails from Danielle on Monday and Tuesday, giving me an update on how things had gone in the office while I had been absent. There had been nothing more from her than the facts, and I was glad she hadn’t made anything more of the tension between us.
I had felt the need to leave that note, going into the office on Sunday especially to put it there, because I hadn’t been able to talk to her. I knew that if I called her, she would have drawn me in again. Just hearing her voice would have been the end of me. I felt something for her, and no matter how I rationalized it, she was my downfall, my weakness. I had feared that if I so much as spoke to her, I would have fallen down that rabbit hole and thought about things I shouldn’t.
If we kept going like this, I could lose everything. My best friend, my company, and my reputation. I couldn’t afford that. If anyone found out I was fucking my secretary, who happened to be half my age, it would be over for me.
I was nervous to see Danielle in person. If I had bitten the bullet and gotten it over with on Monday, I wouldn’t have been so stressed about it now, but there it was. I went in to the office later than usual so I could avoid being in the same elevator as her.
When I arrived at my office, the door was unlocked, and Danielle sat at her desk, typing something on her laptop. She glanced up at me. She didn’t flash me a brilliant smile, and she didn’t look surprised to see me. Her lips were pursed together, and her green eyes, usually brilliant, were neutral.
Maybe she had gotten the memo. Maybe she had finally taken the hint.
My eyes slid down her body as I walked past–I couldn’t help myself with her– and I realized she was wearing a tight little outfit, something that she had used to seduce me before. It was a body suit that would pass for a women’s dress shirt if it weren’t for how low her blouse was buttoned and how much of her cleavage I could see.
I didn’t doubt that she only wore it like that in here with me. If she walked to the ladies’ room or the coffee station or the copy machine, she would button it up. It was only for me that she was being inappropriate. But it had to stop. I had to talk to her about it. She couldn’t keep doing this. It wasn’t only about her attitude toward me, it was about how she dressed in a corporate office. She couldn’t act like this and not think there would be repercussions. Any other man would have fired her for her behavior ages ago.
Then again, any other employer wouldn’t have fantasized about her, fucked her, and encouraged her to break the rules the way I had. Still, something had to be said.
I picked up my phone and called her into my office. She wasn’t staring at me the way she had in the beginning, so waving at her to get her attention now would take too long.
She walked into my office. When she stood before me, I had to look her up and down again. She may have dressed inappropriately for the office, but God, she looked good. The outfit traced her curves beautifully, and I flashed on what she had looked like naked, standing in the middle of my room, letting me study and explore her body as much as I’d wanted to. Her perfume was in my nostrils, and it reminded me of the sex we’d had right here on my desk. I would never be able to look at my desk the same way or see my office as a place of work alone. Danielle would forever have a space here in my memory.
“You wanted to see me?” Danielle asked after I was silent for too long.
I shoved the thought of her naked body, her touch, her smell, and her taste out of my mind. She was smiling at me, a little smugly and a little too confidently. It was this defiance that I found so attractive, but it couldn’t carry on.
“Yes, I want to talk to you about how you dress around the office,” I said. “It’s not professional. Consider this your first verbal warning. If you keep dressing like this, I’m going to have to inform HR, and you’ll be brought under review.”
Danielle’s smile faded. She frowned slightly.
“That’s not fair,” she said.
“Why not? We have rules around here. You’re not exempt from them just because I know your father.”
Danielle’s eyes tightened. “Really? You didn’t seem to mind how I dressed when you were fucking me on your desk.”
Her words hit me like physical punches. I shook my head, ignoring her comment about what had been acceptable when we’d been fucking. She was right, and I had no defense against that.
“I’m your boss, Danielle. When I tell you that you’re doing something out of line, it will do you good to take note of it.”
She was angry now. I had never seen her angry before, and I had to admit, I was surprised. I had always known she had fire in her, but seeing it firsthand was a different story. I should have known that it would only make her more spectacular.
“So, that’s what this has come to?” she asked. “You take what you want, and once you decide you’re done with me, then we’ll pretend like nothing happened?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have an answer. What was I going to say to her? That I didn’t want her to dress seductively because I didn’t know how to stop fantasizing about her? That I was being hard on her now because I was scared my feelings for her would jeopardize everything I had built from the ground up? I couldn’t admit any of that to her.
“I’m sorry I have to do this, Danielle,” I said. “But rules are rules, and this is how it’s going to have to be. I’m not singling you out. I have the same policy for everyone in the office.”
“Yeah, you’re not singling me out now,” Danielle snapped. “But you did before. So, that makes this thing you’re doing that much worse. I thought you were bigger than this. Better.”
Her words stung. Like any woman, Danielle knew just how to nail my ego. But she had a right to be angry. I was being a dick, and I knew it. But I didn’t know how else to handle it.
“Like I said, this is a warning,” I said. “If you fix it now, it doesn’t have to go further than this.”
Danielle glared at me, and for a moment, we were caught in a staring contest. I was the first to break eye contact, and I looked at my desk. I told myself it was because my mind was on whatever I had to focus on next for work, not because I had lost the staring contest and deferred to her dominance. We weren’t animals, after all.
“That will be all,” I said, dismissing her.
“Yes, I imagine it will,” Danielle answered, turning on her heel and marching to her desk.
I didn’t look up at all until I knew she was seated. I considered drawing the blinds between us so that I didn’t have to worry about being caught staring at her at all.
I felt terrible about what I had done. I knew that I was just as responsible for this situation as she was. I hadn’t told her not to act this way. In fact, I had encouraged it. I had enjoyed it, and I’d wanted her to keep doing it. Now that I couldn’t handle it, I expected her to change, threatening to punish her for the very thing I had encouraged her to do. I felt like a complete asshole for it, but I had to do it. There was no way around it. I had to put my foot down and take back control of the situation.
Because even though I hated to admit to it, I didn’t have control over the situation, not in the least. My feelings betrayed me, and I couldn’t stop them. Not unless I put iron rules in place to do what I wasn’t able to do emotionally. I didn’t doubt that Danielle would start to despise me if I was a dick about things all the time. But maybe if she stopped liking me, I would stop liking her, too.
Maybe it was the only way I could save myself from falling for a woman I couldn’t afford to fall for.