The Boss by Abigail Barnette Read Free Book Online Page A

hurt.
    "Are you all right?" he asked, concern
darkening his gaze.
    I nodded, and took a sip of my water to
swallow down the lump in my throat. Setting the glass back on the
table, I said with forced cheerfulness, "Isn't it strange that
we're meeting up again now?"
    I realized the moment I said it that he would
take it for more than it was, as though I were professing some kind
of fate or destiny situation. His eyebrows rose, and he glanced
nervously away, as if he were looking for a net to suddenly
surround him. "Yes, well, I couldn't... get involved with you. Or
with anyone, right now. I'm going through a bit of a nasty
divorce."
    "I wasn't - " I stopped myself. Better to
forge ahead than try to explain away the past in these types of
conversations. "I wouldn't be interested in anything, either."
    "Oh?" Was that disappointment I heard in his
voice? "You're seeing someone, then?"
    "I'm not seeing anyone." I liked the thought
of letting him stew with that, but it seemed too dishonest, and
dishonesty hadn’t done us any great favors so far. "The truth is,
I've never found anyone who... measures up."
    And then, hand to God, Neil Elwood,
billionaire publisher and entrepreneur, giggled. It was the most
charming, teenage-boyish sound I'd ever heard from anyone over the
age of twenty. Just like that, I was utterly smitten with him
again.
    I could either work around him every day and
drive myself crazy, or I could continue on this honesty trend. I
took a deep breath and stepped off the most insane cliff I'd ever
stood on. "Look, this is going to sound... I don't want anything
serious. You don't, either. But we're obviously attracted to each
other, and now we're in this situation. If we wanted to see each
other casually, what would that hurt?"
    I swear I left my body for a second. I looked
down on the scene with the most crushing sense of self-awareness I
hope never to experience again. What was I doing?
    I had just propositioned my boss.
    I remember sitting in the back of the taxi
that day six years ago, his hand on my thigh over my jeans, his low
voice telling me, "Anything you want."
    And like that, I came back to myself, and I
was staring into Neil's gorgeous green eyes, trying to guess what
he was thinking.
    "Sophie, I'm your boss." My heart sank, but
then he continued, "We would have to be... reasonably discreet
around the office.”
    "Absolutely. I worked too hard to get where I
am." I frowned. “You don’t think I would do anything to get us
noticed? I’m not stupid.”
    He looked briefly puzzled at that then said,
"You're right, I'm not giving you enough credit. I suppose I’m
remembering you as that impulsive young woman in the airport. You
were what, all of twenty-five back then?”
    Oh. Yeah.
    I cleared my throat. "About that. I maybe
fudged a little on my age.”
    His eyes narrowed. "You fudged?"
    "Yeah, I wasn't heading to NYU for a graduate
program." He was going to be mad. Really mad. "I wasn't
twenty-five. I was eighteen."
    "Eighteen. Really?" His normally easy speech
was stilted and nervous, pitched higher than before. "So that would
make you twenty-four - "
    "Twenty-four," I said at the same time he
did. "That's not a problem, is it?"
    Neil had been forty-two when we'd hooked up.
He'd expressed some discomfort at our age difference back then, and
that was when it had been less than twenty years.
    He made a few inarticulate sounds, like he
couldn't get his sentence started, then paused and collected
himself. "It is a bit of a problem."
    "Ah." When was our food coming? How fast
could I scarf it down and get out of here?
    "You see..." He issued a short, disbelieving
laugh. "You're the same age as my daughter."
     

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
    "Your daughter?" I
must have misheard him. I was sure I had. Because if his daughter
was my age, that meant... "You were married? When you were with
me?"
    "No, no, I wasn't cheating on my wife or
anything like that," he said quickly. "I wasn't married at the
time. Emma is my