This must be where all those Cinderella fairy tales got started, this sudden rags to riches change of life in the blink of an eye. This morning I came close to being attacked by some Eastern European looking for food vouchers and now I’m going to be earning twenty thou a month on top of whatever minimum wage style salary Mr Big Bucks is gonna pay me. That’s weekend pocket change for a dude like Hopper Grady but to me it’s a complete life changer. I can get my own apartment, as soon as I’m released from the halfway dump. And I won’t ever again be used by a man for his pleasure or illegal activity. That’s all it takes for a girl to be free, enough money. I figure it’s the least Hopper can do as payback for the human rights abuse in the coffee break room yesterday.

A flutter goes through my tummy as I remember his hard hands sliding down my back and cupping my ass. A man I’d never set eyes on. Three minutes after meeting and his tongue is inside me, his hands squeezing my flesh with all the same urgency I felt pressing against my edges. I have excuses for my lusty needs though. Hopper is just a pig.

It’s insane how much I want him. How much a tiny part of me secretly wants him to push me back across his desk. To palm my thighs with his huge hands and push them apart, no polite requests for permission. God I hate it when a man asks ‘can I kiss you?’ or ‘is that okay?’ every time he touches me. A sear of light goes straight to my clit when I imagine Hopper tearing my underwear to one side. The clench tightens my pussy, aware of the missed possibility of having my boss pulling apart my soaking folds and taking me like one of his properties right in the middle of his office.

I shake myself out of the daydream. Hopper is gazing at me with intensity. Whether he’s fascinated by his personal criminal or something else, I can’t be sure. He’s completely under wraps and not giving anything away.

Maybe he doesn't even know about my history. He hasn’t said anything about it or made any allusion to me being one of his charity cases. Why does he even do this for fallen women? Because he thinks they’ll be easier to seduce out of their wet clothes than regular unsullied girls? Perhaps the system doesn't give away all my sordid history and he thinks he’s helping some down on her luck young woman into the business world. He was pretty clear that I shouldn’t speak negatively about myself. So he does have half a redeeming quality outside of being a voracious beast.

“So what does your girlfriend do at the office?” I ask. With my new role, I’m hoping maybe I’ll be put to work in a nice office, designing some stationery or stuff like that. I loved graphic design at school but that was soon derailed after Curt.

“You’ll do what I ask you to.”

The voice behind me makes me leap out of my increasingly comfortable skin. Janice has appeared and she looks both horrified and apologetic at discovering me in Hopper’s office. Again.

“I do apologize, Sir,” she says, looking me up and down in surprise at my new outfit. I can’t tell whether she approves or is agog as her eyes linger on the designer bondage strap. Hopper shrugs like it’s no biggie but doesn’t come to my rescue or tell her that I’m now his girlfriend and am to be given a corner office.

Janice waggles her fingers at me, indicating I should scoot out of the boss’s office. I turn without a word to Hopper and leave. I do make sure to give my hips a sway as I depart, hopefully leaving him with all sorts of ideas about what kind of girlfriend he’s hired.

Not that I’m going to let him have the real girlfriend experience. I’ve laid the rules and he’s agreed to them. There will be no turning back on them. I just have to make sure I stay strong. Because there’s something about Hopper that’s seductive and delicious. Under that beautifully cut suit, his muscles seem to pump and throb with the bad boy heat of a dangerous biker. A man untamed by societal rules, who does and takes whatever he wants. That must be my own projection because a man like that obviously grew up in East coast society circles, is concerned about appearing at weddings and is the furthest thing from a wild man.

I have to wait for Janice to tell me what to do and even where to park myself. As I wait by her desk I hear her telling Hopper what calls have come in from business associates and bankers in far flung countries. Those people are the real criminals but they get away with it.

“Oh and Melinda Traverry called,” I hear Janice tell him. A muffled groan of despair comes from the boss. “She wanted to know whether you have a date for this Saturday, the Hamilton wedding.”

“I do,” Hopper announces and a flare of something shivers down my spine. That’s me.

“Oh,” Janice almost squeaks in surprise. “You do?”

“Yes I’ll be taking my girlfriend. You can tell all of them the same thing when they call. My girlfriend will be accompanying me.”

“Oh,” Janice murmurs again. I can tell she’s itching to ask or is lingering for her boss to give her some details. But clearly he’s gone back to work.

She comes out of his office and pulls the door closed with a glare at me. It’s all I can do not to gloat with a creamy smug smile. Perhaps she wouldn’t snap at me so much if she knew how being that girlfriend was my new job description. It’s not that she’s mean at all. I think she’s probably one of the kindest women I’ve ever met, judging by a day’s acquaintance. But she probably thinks she has to keep me in line because my character is so bad. Or like the other do-good types, she assumes I need to be retrained, like an out of control puppy let loose.

I’m probably going to always feel the stigma of the arrest and imprisonment attached to me. No one is ever going to believe I’m not that girl.

Except Hopper. I don’t know what he believes, of course. But if he does know my seedy history, at least he isn’t letting it influence him. Unless I really am a novelty toy. A crazy item you blow a ton of money on even though you don’t need it or even want it but you just have to have it because it’s so unusual. Owning it says something about your own need to be different from the crowd. Everyone’s going to be fascinated by your latest purchase. Or revolted.

“You’ll be over here,” Janice says, leading me to a desk behind hers. It’s distant enough that I can’t overhear her confidential conversations with Hopper’s clients. But close enough that she can call on me to do this and that all day long. And I get a side view of Hopper Grady at his huge desk through the last sliver of glass wall dividing him from the rest of us. “Interesting outfit,” she adds as she dumps a stack of files on the desk once I’m seated. “Did you shop for a selection?”

“Nope,” I say. “This cost more than normal people earn in a month.”

“I suppose you’ll have a chance to do some personal shopping now.” She just manages to leave off the words ‘you’re out’ but still, I feel them hanging there. “Maybe something a little less, avant-garde, tomorrow please, Grace.”

“No problem,” I say. “All I’ve got is old style white trash clothes.”

Janice goes to deal with her phone and her important papers. I do as she told me and put the files into alphabetical order before stapling them and stamping each one ‘closed’ then finally noting the date on a computer spreadsheet. Mind numbing work but it leaves me the more pleasant option of watching Hopper through the glass. I keep my head bent so he won’t know and just look up from under my lashes. But I study him so closely, my eyes constantly drawn back to his gorgeous face, that I note how his chiseled jawline gets darker throughout the day as his beard grows in. At one point he gets up to take off his jacket and throw it over the arm of the sofa. As he walks back to his desk, I can’t take my eyes off the row of back muscles flexing under the white cotton. Or the black belt around his taut waist that edges the perfect rise of his hard round cheeks.

As the tedious afternoon wears on, he looks up from his work and crooks a finger at me. I immediately comply, jumping up and heading into his office. I breeze past Janice who knows better than to say anything. When Hopper orders me to undo my pants, I do so immediately. My knees are close to buckling from their sudden jello consistency being so close to the man again. Heat comes off his broad chest as I drop the new pants and he spins me around then pushes me over his desk.

“I can’t wait any longer, Grace,” he growls. “You’re driving me crazy.”

I go sprawling and have to catch myself on the edges as he yanks my underwear down my thighs. The exposure sends my pussy and heart skittering in rhythm as I pulse hungrily, ready for his touch.

“That’s okay grace, you can leave now.”

I look up from my daydream and Janice is calling across to me, on her way into Hopper’s office. My eyes bat to the clock on he wall and I see it’s already five. I’ve managed to lose the late afternoon in my fantasies of the boss spreading me across his desk buffet style. Janice is dismissing me but she gets to go into the office. Is there any way Hopper could be into an older woman? The age difference between him and Janice is about the same as that between him and me so why not? As I leave the building, I return the cockney concierge’s wink and my brain goes into overdrive.