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If I’m right, then like me, she was in my inner circle, and that’s how our paths crossed, but she never heard my name. She didn’t know me. She doesn’t know I’m here now. This is going to get interesting. If of course, this really is my Lori. The woman whose pretty little ass I spanked. I’m damn sure ready to find out.
Lori
I wear my most professional blue pinstriped suit, and the only pair of expensive heels I have left in my closet. When I arrive at the office, and step into HR, I’m ready for this day and this challenge. I exit HR in time for a meeting I’m to attend with the new partner with the comfort of knowing that while we won’t be leaving the rat trap soon, by the time I finish school, my mother will be debt free and in a nice apartment. To achieve my dream and take care of my mother is everything. Excitement fills me as I grab my notepad and pen from the cubicle I will call home for the next year, and I head toward the conference room.
I near to find the table already lined with a good dozen people, none of whom I’ve met, as of yet. Reese is in the front of the room. “Welcome, Lori,” he greets, and motions me to the only remaining seat at the end of the right side of the table. “Everyone welcome Lori Havens,” he announces. “She’s here as a special program intern. She’s been granted a full scholarship by the Merrick Foundation with only nine months left to complete at Stanford.”
There are murmurs of congratulations, and obviously, a sense of that being an honor. It feels good. “Thank you everyone,” I say, claiming my seat.
“As you all know, my new co-managing partner officially made his new home here with us in New York City. His highly successful Texas-based operation united with our operations. Coming off a hell of a win in court back in Texas, please welcome Cole Brooks.”
Cole.
The name radiates through me and I can’t breathe. It can’t be him. It can’t be—He walks in the door, tall, dark and good-looking in a perfectly fitted, ridiculously expensive suit, and oh God, it’s him. It’s Cole. My new boss is the man I let spank me.
He’s my dirty little secret.
Cole and Reese shake hands. There is clapping. I sink back into my seat and scoot a bit behind the person sitting next to me who is thankfully a rather broad fit, large man.
“I’ll leave you all with Cole,” Reese says, giving Cole a nod and then heading for the door.
Cole turns his attention wholly on the room, and I slink back behind the profile of the giant man to my right, out of Cole’s line of sight. “Let me tell you about me,” he says. “I like to win; however, we do not take cases solely for financial gain. Don’t expect me to accept any case you bring to me based on the payday. And you know why? Every day when I look myself in the mirror, I want to like what I see—which is an undervalued quality in this profession. I, we, take cases that we defend passionately.” He gives us all a few moments to absorb his words, and then says, “I’ve reviewed your files, but I’d like to put names with faces. Please introduce yourself, and tell me your job title, as well as your best asset.”
Dread fills me with the realization that soon all eyes will be on me, his eyes will be on me, and he’ll know I’m here. I’ll have to tell him what I didn’t want to tell him that night: I’m not an attorney. I’m an intern. I’m now his subordinate, and he’s my boss, my boss who is free to fire me. Who will think I knew who he was that night, that this is some big scheme.
Thankfully, I am given a moment to breathe through this idea as he indicates the man closest to him, on the opposite side of the table, to begin. For now, I hyper-focus on the other speakers, willing myself to calm, learning about my new co-workers just as Cole is. I quickly surmise that this room is literally his support staff that includes a mix of administrative staff, interns, and a few junior-level attorneys, who I assume will second chair with Cole on cases.
Slowly, so very slowly, and yet too quickly, the introductions lead my direction until there is only the very large man in the seat next to me, who until this point has been a shield that kept me hidden. “Michael Nortan,” he states, while I remain blocked by his big body. “Attorney, recent Yale graduate, joined the firm six months ago. And my biggest asset is I too like to win and win with integrity.”
And that’s it. It’s now my turn to declare myself. I inhale and lean forward on the exhale, and I say, “Lori Havens.” My eyes meet Cole’s. His meet mine, and there is a punch of electricity between us that I pray no one else feels. I dread what comes next, the admission I avoided in that hotel room. “Merrick Foundation recipient,” I say, and then, “Intern.” I pause a moment on my best asset, and then I decide I’m here, I’m me, and I can’t be anything else, and that means I don’t take the safe route. “I know how to size people up with incredible accuracy.” In other words, I sized him up. “I never quit,” I add, “and I know how to set priorities and limits with great discipline. For myself and those around me.” The message in those additional comments: I’m not leaving unless he fires me. I can’t. I won’t. But I also won’t be bending over his lap again.
He doesn’t immediately speak. He just looks at me, his eyes an unreadable ice blue, seconds tick by before he cuts his stare, and speaks to the masses. “That’s all for today. I’ll be in touch with each of you individually over the next two weeks. Lori. Come with me.”
Chapter eighteen
Cole
Side-by-side, Lori and I walk down the hallway toward my office. Neither of us speak, but the charge between us is combustible, a fuse slowly burning to the moment of imminent explosion. I want her. No. I’m obsessed with this woman, like I have never been obsessed with anything but winning. A part of me had thought that was about losing with her, but I now know it’s not. It was about her, just as it was the night I fucked her; about how different she is in ways definable in her beauty and spirit, and others not definable at all. My interest, our attraction which sparked off the damn walls in that room back there, is now complicated by the fact that my company represents her dreams and her future. More so, I’m not only the man she dared submit to, when she doesn’t submit, but I’m now her boss, and regardless of reality, the man she’s certain to believe controls that destiny.
Which means that I can’t just shut her in my office, pull up her skirt, and fuck her the way I’ve wanted to fuck her since the moment I met her, no matter how hard and hot I am for her. And that’s damn painful right about now.
We reach the executive offices and I hold the door open for her. She doesn’t look at me, but there is a moment before she passes, a moment neither of us move, where we are right back in that hotel, the air crackling with sexual tension. Her chin lifts slightly, defiance in the act that tells me she intends to push me away. That defiance does nothing to derail my appreciation of her perky little ass hugged by her skirt, and soon to be hugged by my hands, again.
She pauses just inside the lobby area to wait on me. And I’m damn glad Maria isn’t present, while her and my secretary’s desk remain unoccupied since I have yet to find one that comes close to filling Ashley’s shoes. I turn toward my office, and Lori doesn’t miss a beat, keeping pace with me, but again when I open my door for her she doesn’t look at me. She enters, and I follow her inside expecting that explosion, and the minute I shut us inside she’s whirled on me. “I didn’t know,” she says.
“And yet you left.” I don’t wait for her reply. I walk around her before I walk right to her, and I do it before I pull her to me and lick my way to her submission again when that would be highly inappropriate of me, at least at this very moment.
I’m not willing to put the desk between us, so as I walk toward it, I turn to lean on the wooden surface, between the visitor’s chairs. “That had nothing to do with the here and now,” she says, facing me now, and dogmatic enough about her response to close several steps between us. “I didn’t know,” she repeats, grabbing the back of the chair just to my right. “I had nothing to gain by sleeping with you,” she adds. “The scholarship program is independent of you. As for leaving, I’m not leaving now. I need this opportunity. I deserve it.”
“I read your file,” I say. “You do deserve it and I wouldn’t let you leave if you tried, which makes me your new boss and mentor. I’ll be in charge of your program completion.”
“No,” she replies instantly. “No. You can’t—we—”
“Fucked? That has nothing to do with our jobs.”
“I can’t work for you. Transfer me.”
“There are two people here who can sign off on your program. Me and Reese. I’m the only one of the two of us that needs staff.”
