Gregory picks me up at seven sharp, his eyes taking in the red, scoop necked cocktail dress with pleasure. I’d vacillated for a good twenty minutes about wearing the thing and taken it off and put it back on at least three times before finally just swallowing and accepting that I have stolen Margery Farns’ dress and am indeed going on a date in the thing.
They’ll never find out, right?
As we get into the car, this time a chauffeured black town car, he breaks the silence and leans back to peruse me slowly.
“Did you do what I told you to do, Hannah?”
The question is a soft caress against my heated skin, and I swallow back a shiver of longing. And trepidation. Of course I hadn’t listened. I’m wearing another woman’s dress; no way am I going to go commando in the thing. Talk about adding insult to injury.
“No.”
His eyes narrow slightly, and I see the displeasure he tries to hide. It brings a smile to my lips, knowing that in this one thing at least I have control.
It’s not much, but it’s enough to put me back on a more solid footing.
“You should know I hate being disobeyed,” he says darkly.
“It’s okay, you’re just not used to it. You’ll get over it,” I assure him in a steady voice that belies the butterflies fluttering around in my belly.
I see his lips twitch at my confidence, and then he’s holding his hand out, waiting.
“Give them to me.”
My breath stalls, and I glance nervously at the driver, relieved when he doesn’t turn or even bat an eye. Of course he wouldn’t, he doesn’t know that Gregory is demanding the removal of my panties.
“No.”
“Yes,” he hisses, and I notice the way his nostrils flare and the thin slash of his lips. “Now, Hannah.”
I can’t tell you what makes me do it. Maybe I want to. Maybe it’s the total command in his voice. Maybe I’m just an idiot who’s spinning out of control. I don’t know, but I reach down and discreetly push a hand beneath my dress, hooking my panties to pull them off.
When I reach for my purse, intending to stash my panties so that I can put them back on in the bathroom at some point, he stills my hand and plucks them from me, shoving them into his inner jacket pocket.
“That’s better. So tell me, did you like Jordan’s presentation? I assume you know what he came to the table with.”
This pisses me off a little, because it suggests I am so brainless that I either don’t know what a moron Jordan is or I don’t do my job properly.
“I didn’t like it, no. I preferred the one I put together, but he obviously didn’t agree.”
This surprises him, and I watch his eyes narrow as he considers my crisp words.
“What did you put together that he didn’t present?”
It’s asked softly, but I can see I’ve piqued his interest, so I throw caution to the wind and tell him, going into as much detail as I can before the car stops and I am following him into Starlight.
It amuses me that I am eating at a place with a waiting list so long I hadn’t been able to get Jordan a reservation earlier than two months.
We’re seated in a booth near the back, and I scoot to the opposite side, not trusting him and my pantie-less ass right beside him.
“I want to see it,” he says suddenly, and it takes me a beat to realize he’s speaking about the presentation and not—
Get a freaking grip, girl.
“But…he’ll know I told you about it if you say anything. I don’t want to lose my job, Gregory.”
Jordan will fire me so fast for undermining him my head will spin.
“Don’t worry about it, Hannah, I can guarantee your boss won’t fire you because Jordan throws a tantrum.”
“How? How can you promise that? You’re not my boss. Mr Yates is a decent guy, but I’m just a PA, and if they find out I’m dating a client, a big client, and discussing business with you, I can guarantee you, I’ll be beating the pavement.”
The waiter arrives with our drinks, a white wine this time, and we order before he answers me.
“Yates has been looking for a reason to get rid of Jordan,” he admits. “That man plays golf three times a week and uses company funds to finance his pursuits. That would be fine if he’d actually had a good pitch, in the last year but he hasn’t. He’s lazy and incompetent, and Yates isn’t blind to the fact that you’ve been carrying him for months.”
I’m shocked and appalled at my lack of guilt over this. Sure, Jordan isn’t my idea of a dream boss, but he’s…I’ve got nothing to defend his lack of effort in the last months, but I don’t exactly relish the thought of him losing his job.