She looked as good in the underground car park as she looked in her office. But back when I saw her walking past me when she took her lunch, I thought she looked so fucking spankable, I nearly dragged her in and booted the lawyers out.

I was in the meeting room along the corridor from the main office. In with me were three of the lawyers we had on retainer. They wore identical grey suits but that was as far as the similarity went.

Gary was in his sixties and had worked here so long, he knew more about the company than I did.

Next to him was Winnie, she was a little younger but had just as much experience. She had been personally responsible for clawing back enough advances from missed deadlines to increase our stock value by one and a half percent in two years. Authors who didn’t get their manuscripts in on time were terrified of a call from Winnie.

With Malcolm at the far end, I had a crack team assembled. If anyone could sort the Marty Berghaus situation out, it was these three.

“So,” I said when we were all sat down. “What do we do?”

The meeting had been going on for an hour when she walked past. I was facing the glass panels that showed the corridor beyond. People occasionally strolled by but I barely looked up, I was too entrenched in the details of the contract. Sandra had put in all kinds of clauses that were outside the norm and it was like untangling a giant knotted ball of string with gloves on and your eyes closed.

But something made me look up. I don’t know what. Maybe my neck was hurting from being in one position, maybe I was stretching my back. Whatever it was, I glanced up and there she was.

She was striding like a giant, taking enormous angry steps along the corridor. Then she took too long a step and stumbled on her heel, almost falling, her hand landing on the glass.

She righted herself quickly and hurried off, leaving me smiling at the memory of what I’d just seen. It was such a charade, acting like the big tough boss. She was a sub if ever I saw one, a natural too.

I had no idea why she was fighting her nature but that didn’t matter. I knew the truth. All the shouting and bluster couldn’t shield the reality from me. She was aching to submit to someone. That someone was going to be me.

I just had to find out a way of doing it. But fate played a great hand for me at the end of the working day.

When I finished the meeting with the lawyers, I headed back to the main office.

I’d not been back long when I noticed that Jessica wasn’t there. I called Ellie over. “Where’s Jessica?” I asked.

“Miss Rhodes let her go home. Cathy’s been sent home sick from school and there was no one else to look after her. She was going to ask you but you were in the meeting so she went to Miss Rhodes.”

“Interesting.”

So the big tough boss had a heart after all. If I’d doubted it was all for show before, I had the proof I needed from what Ellie told me. Letting Jessica go home to look after her sick daughter was not the action of a cruel or strict boss, it was the action of a compassionate boss. No matter her facade. I had made the right choice in hiring her, if I could keep my impulses under control.

“Did Jessica tell her who I was?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“So the new boss has no idea who I am?”

“No, I’m sorry, should I have told her?”

“No. For now, keep that piece of information between us. In fact, make sure no one tells her. What? Why are you smiling?”

“Are you doing this so you can spy on her, see how she treats us all?”

“Do you like her?”

“It’s too early to say. She’s only been here a few hours.”

“That’s very diplomatic, Ellie.”

“Do you like her?”

“I hired her.”

“That’s not answering my question.” She narrowed her eyes.

“Yes, I like her and I think she’ll be good, when she gets this weird strict act out of her system. Does she know about the conference yet?”

“I was just about to tell her.”

“Then don’t let me stop you.”

Ellie headed over to Lucy’s office. I watched out of the corner of my eye, unable to stop smiling as I looked in at her. She was clearly acting mean as best she could but she wasn’t very good at it. I wondered how she’d handle finding out about the conference at short notice.

I was called in to see her towards the end of the day. Before then I had another meeting, this time with Marty Berghaus, conducted over the phone. The lawyers had called him this time, Winnie taking the lead as I listened, making it clear to him that the contract was not as infallible as he thought.

Sandra had given him ridiculously favourable terms and I couldn’t work out why until Marty let the truth slip out on the phone.

“You have the same contract as me, Marty. We get to terminate it if you haven’t met the final deadline chosen by me.”

“Only if you have another book lined up to take my place.”

“How do you know about that?” Winnie asked. “You never look at contracts properly.”

“Sandra told me.”

“Sandra doesn’t work here anymore.”

“I heard. She gives favourable terms to your biggest author to keep him on board and you show your gratitude by firing her.”

I held my temper. There was favourable terms and then there was screwing over the company. She had given him a contract no author should get, no matter how big they were.

I heard a voice in the background of the call, a voice I recognised. Marty lived alone.

“Have you got someone there with you?” Gary asked, his voice cutting into the line. I was glad I wasn’t the only one to notice. “Are they aware this is confidential?”

“They know all about the contract,” Marty replied. “They’re my new muse.”

Malcolm said, “You are legally bound to keep the terms of your contract private, you know that.”

“Do I have to keep it private from the woman who wrote it?”

All of a sudden it made sense. Sandra was there with him. She’d lost her job over the contract and decided to head over to his to try and get revenge on us that way. “Just one second, Marty,” I said, muting him and speaking only to the lawyers. “Does this change anything?”

“The terms still stand,” Malcolm said. “Her being involved doesn’t change that. It was all signed before she went.”

“Are they fucking each other or just us?”

“In legal terms, just each other. But he’s right. You can only end the contract if you have another book lined up to go out. Have you got anything?”

“I’m hoping I might hear after the conference this weekend. The new boss is going.”

“Oh, yes. Miss Rhodes. Do you trust her judgment?”

“Better than Sandra’s.”

“That’s good to hear.”

I got Marty back on the line but there wasn’t much more to say. He knew our position. He got the book in by the end of the week or we went with another author. He also knew he’d get to keep the full advance if we didn’t have another book lined up to take his place. He’d even get a hell of a severance for us not taking his work and that would be the killer.

I needed a book. I needed a book that would be a hit. There had to be one out there somewhere.

I also needed to get off the phone as hearing Sandra grumbling in the background about what an incredible author he was and how he wasn’t appreciated enough made me want to throw the receiver on the floor and stamp on it.

Then I got called into Lucy’s office. That restored my good mood. She wanted me to be her assistant at the conference. She wanted to be alone in the hotel with me. Did she think she’d be able to resist me there? What was she thinking?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was going to have a weekend with her. I could still keep work and pleasure separate.

I could take her to her room at the end of the night. I could spank her for hanging up my phone call, for yelling at the staff, for just having an ass that needed spanking.

Then I could come back to work on Monday and act like it never happened.

She looked at me when she told me I was coming as her assistant. She looked as if she was trying to be firm but her eyes kept flickering from left to right, her head nodding as if she was seeking my approval. I gave it to her. I was happy for her to think she was in charge for a little longer, until we got to the hotel. Then she would find out who was really in charge.

By the end of the day, Marty and Sandra had been pushed out of my head completely. I had given up trying to concentrate, all I could think about was the things I was going to do to Lucy when I got to the conference. I was going to make her strip. I was going to tie her to the bed. I was going to give her the best orgasms she’d ever had, but only if she obeyed my commands, if she showed me how good she was at sucking cock. I needed to know how soft those lips were.

It was just after six when I realised I’d been daydreaming too long. I had someone to see.

I took one last look in her office. She was staring into the distance, clearly thinking hard. Then I headed for the underground car park. It was only when I got there that I found out how she had found a place to park, leaving her car directly behind mine, blocking me from leaving. It was amusing to see how spiteful she’d been, like a spoilt brat.

If I didn’t have a reason to spank her before, I did now. But I had to wait until the conference, keep work and pleasure separate. That was the rule.

She appeared not long after me. She even apologised for blocking in my car. That was a good sign, the facade of angry boss was already cracking.

Once she was gone, I headed off, arriving at Paddy’s Bar half an hour later. Ted, my oldest friend, was already there, a pint in front of him, a Scotch on the rocks waiting for me. “Ted,” I said, lifting the glass to my lips. “Good to see you.”

“You’re late,” he replied. “Let me guess. A woman.”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said with a smile.

“Pray tell.”

“In a minute. First of all, I need your advice.”

He knew about Marty already so I filled him in on today’s call, about Sandra appearing in the background. “What do you reckon?” I asked when I was done.

“I reckon she’s in cahoots with him to milk as much money from Snow Day as possible. I reckon she saw the writing on the wall about her job before she even wrote the contract and I reckon her plan is to split the money with him, dump him, then take the money.”

“That’s why I like talking to you. You cut the crap.”

“Because I know people, Bill. Like I know you and I know that smile on your face means you met someone. So, come on. Who is she?”

“Lucy Rhodes.”

“Sandra’s replacement? Seriously?”

“It gets better. She doesn’t know I’m her boss.”

“You’re lying to her already?”

“I haven’t lied. It just hasn’t come up yet.”

“You want to be careful, Bill. Fucking the boss can get you in trouble. And her.”

“Who said we were going to fuck?”

“It’s written all over your face. What’s so special about her anyway?”

“I don’t know. There’s just something there. It just keeps hiding and I want to see what it is.”

“So you’re not just horny then?”

“There is that.”

I drained my glass. “Another? I’m going to need to get the car picked up if we do.”

“What the hell. I can tell you about her parents again.”

“What did they do this time?”

Ted had a longstanding farcical relationship with his wife’s parents. When he had first got married to Marie, I had been jealous, seeing how happy he seemed. But then as each story came to me of the in-laws, I became more grateful I was single. I would never get married. It sounded awful.

From insisting on having input on the wedding songs to trying to redecorate his house while he was on his honeymoon, through to now, them taking his car and managing to crash it then putting it back in his garage for him to find just that morning.

“Did they think you wouldn’t mind?”

“They don’t care. Limited edition Ferrari and bumper half off, made me want to cry.

“Tell them where to go, Ted.”

“I can’t. If I complain, they tell Marie and I get it in the neck. Christ, Bill, sometimes I wish I’d never got married.”

“But you have Marie. You two have been inseparable since that cage night.”

“I suppose so. I just didn’t think she’d come with them two thrown in as well. Did you know they’re thinking of selling up and moving closer to us?”

I shook my head. “I think you need another drink before you tell me anything else.”

He talked and I listened, the beer flowing. I did my best not to get distracted but something he’d said kept bouncing back into my mind. Fucking the boss can get you in trouble.

I should have listened.