HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Bianca

“Exactly, arghhhh Bianca. What the hell am I even doing?”

55 vouchers

The thought arrived late, Iny hands had already moved and the damage was already in progress. My palm was flat against his chest now, fingers curled slightly into the fabric of his shirt, and I could feel the warmth coming through it like the shirt was barely there.

He leaned in further and that was what did it. That small movement, like he had already decided how this/was going to go and was simply waiting for me to catch up.

Something snapped back into place inside me and I remembered several important things all at once and all of a sudden, this didn’t look right.

I pressed my palm flat and pushed him back softly. It was enough to create some distance, we were standing inside a glass office in a building full of people who were somehow still at their desks.

He didn’t stumble, of course he didn’t. He just shifted his weight slightly and looked at me with a smirk on his face.

“Doing that much work on a salary like that might be counted as an abuse and wrong use of power.” I said.

“So that’s a petition to increase your salary?” he said.

I blinked. “I mean…” The words were there somewhere, I just could not locate them. “That is not… I wasn’t…”

I fumbled through about three and half sentences before giving up entirely, and he watched me do it without offering any help. He smiled and he moved away from me.

“As much as I want to bend you over that desk,” he said, completely calm, like he was discussing something normal, “I am a very patient man.”

Hearing him say that did a thing to my belly. “It’s still too much work.” I repeated, because I needed to say something and that was the only sentence I could construct at the moment.

“And you will do it,” he said, professionally looking at his screen like the last two minutes had not happened at all.

I stood there for one more second, mostly out of courtesy, and then I turned around and walked back to the desk I had been assigned against my will and sat down.

About an hour later, I walked out of the office to pick up my bag from my colleague’s desk, the one I had dropped there during my brief mental spiral when I thought my career was being quietly erased.

The desk was empty now, the whole row was starting to thin out as people packed up and left. I went back to my new workspace inside his office and sat down.

At first I could not stop glancing at him, it was involuntary, the kind of thing you do when something unfamiliar is in your line of sight and your brain hasn’t fully accepted it yet.

He was just there, across the room, working, completely unbothered by my presence.”Get your brain working bianca.” I told myself as I tried to focus on the laptop, it didn’t work at first but after an hour or so, it got better.

The sounds of his typing became background noise, the occasional shift in his chair stopped getting to me, I got into the work and stayed there.

“We will consider the salary increment option,” he said at some point, standing up and adjusting his jacket, getting ready for what I assumed was his seven o’clock meeting.

22

O

000

O

Wed, Jul

Chapter 35

I looked up but he was packing files to fit into his back and before I knew it, he walked out.

I stared at the door for a moment after it closed and then went back to what I was doing.

55 vouchers

By/half past seven there were maybe five people left scattered across the open area. By eight it was two, me and someone from finance who was fighting her own private war with a spreadsheet three desks away. I could hear the soft, frustrated clicking of her keyboard from where I was sitting and it was oddly comforting.

I had given myself a target before I sat down, at least one full section of the investor report cleaned up, sourced, and formatted properly. If I went home now I would sit on my couch and think about the last hour of my day and that was hot something I wanted to do with my evening. The work was safer and it made more sense so I stayed.

By nine the finance woman had packed up and left, giving me a small tired wave on her way out. I waved back. Then it was just me, the hum of the building’s ventilation system, and one floor lamp that someone had left on near the printer bay.

I was deep into the third section of the report when I heard footsteps. They were unhurried, coming from the direction of the elevator bank, before I could look up, the office door opened.

Adrian stopped in the doorway, he looked at me very surprised. “What are you doing here?” he said.

“Working obviously,” I said. “I have targets.”

He didn’t respond to that, he walked into the office and went straight to the side of his desk, crouching down slightly, searching for something. I watched him for exactly as long as it took me to decide that watching him was not productive and then I looked back at my screen.

“Ah.” He straightened up, holding a small USB between two fingers. “Great.”

He turned and walked toward the door and I went back to my paragraph but after some steps, I heard his footsteps stop.

I finished the sentence I was typing then looked up because the silence was almost deafening. He was still standing by the door, not moving, just looking at me from across the room with a blank face.

“Is something wrong, sir?” I said.

He didn’t answer right away, the lamp near the printer bay threw a thin line of light across the far wall through his body. He looked at me for one more time, “You’re still here.” He said

“Yes,” I said. “I told you, I have my targets.”

“It’s nine at night, Bianca.”

“The deadlines are tomorrow,” I said. “You set them.”

He took one step back into the room, toward the desk, not toward me specifically. Just back in, like he had made a decision about something.

“Go home,” he said.

I looked at him. “I’m not done.”

“You can finish it in the morning.”

“You said tomorrow morning”

“I know what I said

Then you should understand why I’m still here sir,” I said, and I kept my voice very even.

213

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify