Chapter11
Brianna tried not to fidget as she waited for the elevator to arrive on the ground floor, so she could leave the office for the evening. She was supposed to meet Ethan in the next thirty minutes, to get early dinner and then go to Hamilton. She smiled to herself, thinking about the fact that Ethan had gone to so much trouble to give her a treat after she’d been feeling under the weather for about a week.
It was strange; she felt as though she’d come down with a cold: achy, tired, and faintly feverish—but no cough or runny nose, nothing that she thought she could really bring to a doctor. She’d been nauseated the next day, but not so much that she couldn’t go to work. Brianna had felt better the day after that, and had felt nauseated again—but in the afternoon—the following day.
All in all, she was looking forward to the week being over, and to spending an evening with Ethan. The elevator chimed, and Brianna smiled to herself as she waited a moment longer for the doors to open, and then stepped through them. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and Brianna took it out, glancing at the screen. Can’t wait to spend the night with you.
The words sent a little warm tremor through her body, and Brianna quickened her steps to the front of the building. She knew the car would be waiting for her, Dylan waiting to take her uptown to the restaurant she and Ethan would be having their quick dinner at—which she hoped wasn’t too fancy, in spite of the high level of dining she’d gotten used to with the billionaire.
Then they would go on to Richard Rodgers Theater to catch Hamilton, and from there they would only be a few blocks away from Ethan’s apartment—barely far enough away to justify letting his driver take them from the theater.
She walked around the corner, shivering a little—it was definitely getting chillier as the weather headed closer to winter—and spotted the car waiting for her, parallel-parked halfway up the street. Brianna hurried her steps again, brushing past the people going in both directions through the busy rush of after-work East Village traffic, headed to bars scattered around the corporate buildings, and saw Dylan get out of the driver’s seat to let her into the back seat.
“Thanks, Dyl,” Brianna said, climbing into the back. He’d been running the heat on a low level, just enough to cut through the chill that had wrapped around her, for which Brianna was grateful. She settled into her seat as Dylan walked back around to the front, and looked around at the flowing traffic around her.
It was almost like—temporarily—being a stone in the midst of a river. It was strange to Brianna, even after months, how the people of New York City seemed to sometimes act like a viscous liquid and sometimes like a firm obstacle.
The car pulled away from the curb, and Brianna settled in, letting her mind drift as Dylan inserted them into the flow of traffic. If this weird nausea keeps up, I should go to a doctor, she thought idly; it kept coming and going, and Brianna had had the kind of tenderness in her breasts that usually came with PMS in the past day on top of it—she would be relieved when she got her period and could put it behind her, but if she was feeling so run-down, she thought, she might as well put her benefits to good use.
The really beautiful thing, Brianna thought, was that she knew that if she told Ethan she wasn’t feeling up to having sex, he would happily just hold her on the couch next to the fire, or even let her go home at the end of the night. Even before he’d put an end to the contract between them, Ethan had been good about giving her plenty of relaxation during her period, or when she wasn’t feeling well. You have to admit that he never actually made you feel like you were obligated to have sex with him, even when you were basically under contract to do that, she thought.
That brought up another concern: the ongoing investigation that HR was doing. The company was being slowly—but tidally—turned upside down as more and more reports came in about managers and supervisors at various levels using their authority to abuse their employees sexually.
Brianna thought grimly that technically, Ethan had done that with her: after all, he’d held the threat of firing one of her former coworkers over her head to convince her to go along with his desire for a personal assistant that he could have sex with on a nearly-daily basis.
But he’d made it clear also that she could veto any physical intimacy at any time and she wouldn’t be punished for it—which Brianna strongly suspected was not the case with the other people being investigated. Not that it would matter much if it came to light about her and Ethan.
Dylan pulled up to the curb once more just outside of Scarlatto’s, and Brianna thanked him again before climbing out of the back seat, pulling her coat around her a little tighter. The sun had gone down while she’d been in the car, and while the skyscrapers and big buildings and subways managed to keep some of the heat in the air trapped, diminishing the chill, the lack of sun had brought the temperature down a few degrees.
Brianna stepped quickly into the restaurant and spotted Ethan waiting for her, not at a table yet. “Right on time,” he said, stepping up to meet her as she approached. He kissed her lightly on the lips and took her hand in his, nodding to the hostess.
“I was worried I’d be late,” Brianna said, glancing around. The restaurant was pleasantly warm, with a cozy atmosphere, and the smells of cooking tomatoes, meats, fresh seafood and pasta were like a breath of home—even though her own parents had never been too much into Italian food. “Traffic was a damn bear today.”
“It was,” Ethan agreed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” Brianna said. The hostess led them through the dining room and to a two-person table, and Brianna let the woman take her coat and scarf, and sat down.
“Maybe you should get a checkup,” Ethan suggested. “It seems like you’ve been feeling under the weather all week.” It wasn’t a complaint; it was genuine concern.
“I might hit an urgent care over the weekend,” Brianna said, shrugging. “If I don’t feel better after getting a full night’s sleep, I’ll see what a doctor says.”
“We can make it an early night, if you want,” Ethan suggested as they sat down at the table together.
“I feel fine now,” Brianna said. She was surprised to realize it was actually true: her nausea from earlier in the day was gone, and she didn’t feel nearly as tired or run-down as she had in the previous days.
They ordered the antipasto misto, shared an order of the carpaccio, and Brianna chose the pumpkin ravioli while Ethan got veal saltimbocca. After the waiter left the table, giving them privacy once more, Brianna looked at Ethan for a moment. “Are you worried about the investigation?” Ethan shook his head.
“Not at this point,” he replied. “They aren’t even really interested in me—and I think I’ve been forward enough in encouraging it that they won’t think to come after me.”
“It’s kind of amazing how many men have been fired so far,” Brianna said. “And—it’s actually a little weirder that a couple of women have gotten ousted too.” Ethan chuckled wryly at that.
“It’s not as common for women to abuse their authority and power but it’s not unheard-of,” he pointed out. Brianna shrugged. Ethan met her gaze steadily. “Do you feel like I’m abusing my power over you?” Brianna shook her head.
“Definitely not since the contract stopped being a thing,” Brianna replied. “Before that…” She tilted one hand from side to side, indicating the uncertainty. “But you’ve never made me feel like I would get fired if I refused to have sex with you.”
“I would never fire you over that,” Ethan said. “Even when the contract was in place.” He grinned wryly again. “I wouldn’t have even punished you if you’d refused to wear lingerie under your work clothes.” Brianna chuckled.
They dropped the topic again as their food started to arrive, and began talking about other things: with the holiday season around the corner, their schedules were going to be different, with more days off and accordingly the need to schedule their work around those days. The company recognized most of the week of Thanksgiving—from Wednesday until the following Monday—and she and Ethan had agreed to take the entire week from Christmas Eve until January second off.
In spite of the fact that Ethan had gotten her accustomed to the high standards of fine dining, Brianna thought that she would never get over the textures, tastes, and sights of delicious food served up in New York restaurants. Even a place like Scarlatto—which was not amongst the most expensive locations they’d been to together since starting to see each other—still provided a feast for the eyes as well as the mouth and stomach, and Brianna couldn’t help the carnal kind of pleasure she got from the food.
They couldn’t linger over the meal, however; they had to be at the theater a few blocks away before the show started. As they walked into the theater, Brianna had time to think about how incredibly lucky she’d been, in spite of the way that Ethan had gone about courting her; he had been aboveboard, at least, and had apologized for throwing his weight around to convince her to be a sort of “special” personal assistant to him.
The sex was amazing, and they had reached a level where their partnership both as colleagues and as people who had regular sex together was hitting an undeniable groove. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to say that she was in love with him—she hadn’t even mentioned him to her family back in Florida—but she definitely hated the possibility that they might have to stop seeing each other.
As they made their way to their seats, Brianna caught sight of someone out of the corner of her eye; she thought she recognized the person—but it was so brief a spotting that she couldn’t even be sure if it was someone she knew, much less identifying who it was. She shook off the impression and followed Ethan to their seats, down close to the stage and at the center. “It’s amazing to me how you always manage to get amazing seats for us,” Brianna said.
“Money will buy a lot of things,” Ethan pointed out. Brianna laughed.
“I know—but I guess I always imagined that there were things that were beyond even any budget.” Ethan snorted.
“As long as there are ticket scalpers, there’s almost nothing that’s out of reach, if you have enough money,” Ethan pointed out. Brianna raised an eyebrow at that.
“In that case, why didn’t you just hire someone you could pay directly?” Ethan looked at her sharply.
“I didn’t know that was still bothering you,” he said. He took a breath. “I wanted to hire someone who liked me before I hired them,” he explained. “I’ve found that the...shall we say, ‘professionals,’ are good at faking it, but at the same time there’s always that element of disconnection from their feelings.” Brianna considered that as more and more people came into the theater, searching for their seats.
“I guess I can appreciate that,” Brianna said. She pressed her lips together. “It doesn’t bother me anymore—not really. I’m more just worried that the fact of it will make things more complicated later on.”
Before they could rehash the discussion any further, the lights flickered, alerting everyone in the theater that the play would be starting within fifteen or twenty minutes, and that they all needed to get to their seats and settle in. Brianna took in the beautiful theater as she waited for the play to begin, reaching out blindly and taking Ethan’s hand in her own. She would just enjoy the musical, and then they would go back to Ethan’s apartment, and from there, depending on how she felt, they would make love until they were both ready to fall asleep.
Brianna lost herself in the production, smiling with the same kind of awe that she had when Ethan had taken her to the Nina Simone tribute weeks before. The music swirled around her, and the characters came to life in the talented actors’ hands, and for a while any thoughts at all about her real life—about the company, about the difficulties she might face with Ethan and their illicit relationship, about Cassidy’s pettiness and even her uneasy health the past several days—all disappeared, cast out by the magic of music and actors and lights and set design. It was as if she’d tumbled out of her own life and into a world where her troubles had never—and could never—exist, a welcome break from everything.
When the play ended, Brianna was more than ready to go back to Ethan’s apartment and spend the rest of the evening making love, and having conversations about the play and the dinner they’d finished in between bouts of sex. She’d lost the faint buzz she’d gotten from the glass and a half of wine she’d had over dinner, but Ethan had more than enough alcohol—and in more than enough varieties—for her to get it back before they went to sleep for the night.
“How are you feeling?” Ethan gave her hand a squeeze as they walked towards the exits, and Brianna gave him a quick, knowing smile in return.
“Feeling pretty fine,” she replied.
Just then, the sense that she’d seen someone familiar came over Brianna again, and she looked around, determined to locate the source of it if only to ease her mind. She scanned the crowd leaving the theater and had just started to think that she had been imagining things when her gaze fell on one of her former coworkers, a man named Dean Jackson who she’d met on her first day, with whom one she’d been meant to work closely.
Brianna’s heart skipped a beat in her chest as the man looked back at her blandly, not even blinking. Was he staring at her because he thought she was vaguely familiar, because she was staring at him and he didn’t remember her at all—or was it because he remembered her, recognized her, and knew exactly what he was seeing?
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Brianna tore her gaze away from Dean to look at Ethan.
“Yeah—just thought I saw someone I knew,” she said. Ethan frowned.
“Who?” Brianna looked around to try and point the man out to Ethan, but Dean had disappeared into the crowd pressing through the doors to exit the theater.
“Someone from the Creative Department,” Brianna told him absently. Ethan’s hand tightened on hers for a moment.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said quickly. “He probably didn’t even see you—and even if he did, I doubt he was paying that much attention. Let’s go back to my place and get you out of those heels.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Brianna said, but she couldn’t ignore the sense of foreboding that had come over her.