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Her eyes clear a bit and she leans in, divulging in crisp, enunciated speech, “Besides, they talk more when they think I’m drunk. You can learn a lot.”
When she pulls back, her glassy eyes are back and her smile is a bit knowing. Ooh, she’s a smart one. I like her even more.
“Besides, it’s not like we’re a hookup den. But a little flirting to get through the long days at the office? No harm, no foul,you know?” she teases.
I shake my head. “Uh, sure?”
She’s stepping into dangerous territory… dangerous for me. And I want to back away from it entirely.
Shanna tilts her head, considering me. “Oh, I thought you were the one getting ‘Sharped’? My bad, sorry.” She takes her drink from the bartender, completely oblivious that she just upended my entire life. “Excuse me, better get back to the boys,” she says, sashaying toward the table across the room.
She knows.
I look around, seeing the smiling, laughing faces of my coworkers.
They all know.
I’m fucking the boss. I’m fucking Dylan. I’m getting ‘Sharped’. I didn’t even know that was a thing, but it rolled off Shanna’s tongue like it’s something she’s said before, so it must be.
They probably think that’s how I got my position, which is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I thought I was being so sly, that we were being so careful that nobody would notice. Yet apparently, it’s taken less than a month for me to be labeled as Dylan’s personal plaything.
They probably knew all along, those rumors they never mentioned getting to them even before we met. Every interaction where I thought I was making a friend at work comes back to me rapid-fire. They were probably cozying up to me in the hopes of garnering favor with Dylan. I thought I was getting further and further away from the consequences of that night at the fundraiser, but the truth is, it’s been following me like a shadow cloud just outside my field of view.
The realization makes my stomach churn.
I have to get out of here.
I flag down the bartender, hoping to tell him I don’t need that beer after all, but he sets it down in front of me right asHector stops at the bar. “Here, this one’s on me,” I tell him, pushing it his way. “I’m heading home.”
“Oh! Thanks, but you’re gonna miss my much-anticipated return to the stage,” he teases with a grin.
“Next time,” I promise, knowing there won’t be a next time.
I weave through the crowd toward the door, feeling alone in the sea of people. People I thought were becoming my friends.
That’s fine, I tell myself. I have friends—Maggie and Ami—and they’re great. In fact, they’re probably sitting at home on the couch right now, eating whatever Ami pulled the birthday card on to talk Maggie into ordering. I can go home and join them, knowing they care about me and don’t give a shit about who I’m sleeping with as long as I’m happy.
And I have Dylan, who would spread me out on his desk, his bed, or any damn place and remind me that I’m beautiful, desirable, and his at a moment’s notice.
In the big scheme of things, the fact that my co-workers know isn’t all that catastrophic. But outside, as the night air blows through my already cold body, it feels like a big deal. A big, ugly, cringey deal that’s going to ruin my reputation again right as I thought I was rebuilding it.
CHAPTER 21
DYLAN
“Tamara,” I muse as she sits across from me at my desk, “have you heard anything about the Faulkners?”
“You mean like have there been any declarations of blood vendettas or swearing that you’re going to have your head mounted on a flagpole outside the Faulkner Building?” she asks wryly, her eyes never lifting from the tablet in her lap. When I don’t answer, she glances up. “Nothing more than usual. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just… curious,” I reply, and Tamara slides her glasses down her nose to peer at me pointedly. “What?” I ask.
“Mr. Sharpe, you have me in this position because I do good work,” she says, which is an understatement. Tamara’s worth twice the money I pay her, and she’s already compensated at a rate higher than anyone else in an equivalent position in the Financial District. I know this because she knows this,and whenever she’s come to me with a request for a pay raise, I sign off on it without question.
“You do good work. I would agree.”
“I’m able to do that because you keep me in the loop on things,” Tamara continues, “and in the years we’ve been working together, you’ve rarely kept me out of the loop without good reason.”
“That you know of,” I counter.
