Page 44 of Dirty Boss

The ceramic clattered against the stainless steel of my sink, and I slapped my hands over my face. I’d screwed up. I shouldn’t have kissed Vaughn. I shouldn’t have reacted that way to seeing Yvette and James.

Yvette and James. My God. She’d smiled at me last week, pretending like she didn’t remember his name. How long had they been sleeping together? How long had it taken him to jumpfrom me to his next gravy train? Had they been fucking when I was with him? Why did that sting as much as it did? I didn’t evenlikehim anymore, let alone love, and we hadn’t actuallybeentogether. But we’d spoken like we were. I’d been wrapped up in the dream of having my own independence, of finally feeling like I had agency over my own life. And he was just playing me.

How had I been soblind?

A buzz sounded from my purse. I looked over my shoulder at the table where I’d dropped it. Desperate to get out of my own head, I clawed at the zipper, opened my purse, and pulled out my phone.

Vaughn had messaged:

Vaughn

I’m sorry.

As if it was all his fault. As if I hadn’t leaned on him, clutched at him, kissed him back.

As if I hadn’t enjoyed it.

I threw the phone down on the bedspread and paced my apartment. It was one room, and it only took five long strides to cross the whole space. I paced them, over and back, over and back. My skin was on too tight. My heart beat far too fast. For the first time since I’d left both my jobs, I missed having something to do. There were hours ahead of me with nothing to do butthink.

Frustrated, I marched to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I stripped off my clothes—expensive, designer clothes from my old life—and left them crumpled on the linoleum floor. Steam filled the small room, fogging up the window that had been sealed shut by some overzealous landlord with a gallon of white paint.

I stepped over the lip of the tub and yanked the curtain shut, careful not to let the wet, nasty bottom of it touch my legs. I missed glass walls, huge cubicles, luxurious rain showers overhead. But this one would do.

I’d be red as a lobster by the end of it, but I tilted my head toward the spray and let out a breath.

And I still wasn’t as warm as when I’d been in Vaughn’s arms. I still felt like I wanted to burst out of my skin, like I’d never be able to sit still. I could still feel the band of his arm around my back, the force of him tugging me closer. Shivering, I leaned my head forward to wet my hair.

His palm on my cheek, thumb brushing under my eye. His stubble against my temple. His lips, soft, demanding, delicious.

The light in his eyes when he’d promised to murder everyone who’d hurt me.

I wasn’t sorry he’d kissed me. I wanted it to happen again. My hand was between my thighs before I could think to stop myself, and then my imagination ran away from me.

Those big, scarred hands spreading my knees. Ice blue eyes flicking up to meet my gaze, his dark head framed by my thighs. A wicked tongue, flat and hot as he tasted me. A low, satisfied groan. Fingers delving. The weight of him on top of me. The stretch of him inside me.

I gasped as heat washed through me, my hand scrabbling at the wet tile in front of me. Water pelted my back, my sodden hair shielding the world from me on either side of my face. Gulping down steamy air, I trembled under the spray and tried to remember the reasons I wasn’t supposed to want him.

I stayed in the shower until the water went cold, and then I bundled myself in my comfiest clothes and slept.

I wokeup the next morning and immediately wrinkled my nose. The musty odor in my apartment seemed to be getting worse. Flopping onto my back, I stared at the ceiling, then cast my eyes around the single room that made up my home.

There were drifts of laundry gathering in the corners of the tiny two-seater sofa along the wall next to the front door, and drifts of dust in the corners of the room. When I turned it on, the light flickered overhead, as it had since I’d moved in. There was a persistent chill in the air and that now-familiar musty dampness that made me think of abandoned places.

But it was mine, paid for with money I’d earned myself. Besides, it was all I could afford.

I shifted in bed, and my thoughts turned to Vaughn. The ghost of his touch lingered on my back, my cheek, my waist.

I should never have kissed him, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to regret it.

He was my boss now, my ticket out of instability. I couldn’t go and ruin it by hooking up with him. And more importantly, he wanted entry into the life I never wanted to live again. The glittery, empty existence of a Manhattan socialite.

We were on different paths.

And yet—I was drawn to him. I wished he were here, so I could roll into him and spend the next three hours in his arms. I wished I could taste his lips again, lose myself in the warmth and safety of his arms.

Snorting out the moldy odor that seemed to cling to the inside of my nostrils, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stretched. My hip clicked, pain shooting up my back. Wincing, I curled in on myself and breathed through the pain.After almost a year and a half, I was mostly used to it. It would dull to a throb eventually, and I’d be able to move again.

It was yet another reality that had taken me a long time to accept, but I finally had. I’d be in pain for the rest of my life, because I could no longer afford adequate medical care. With a deep breath, I forced myself to straighten and used my arms to push myself off the edge of the bed.