HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Adrian

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Monday morning came too fast for how little sleep I had managed over the weekend. Felix brought the envelope in just after seven, before the office had properly woken up, before the elevators started filling with people.

Bianca was not at her desk yet, which made things easier. I had spent the whole of Saturday night writing that contract myself, the moment I got home from the club, still halt undone from everything that happened in the back of my car.

I wanted it finished before I lost the nerve to write it at all, by Sunday the lawyer had it, and by Monday morning it was pack in my hands, clean copies, proper signature lines, everything in order on paper.

“Legally it could pass as fair,” I told myself that more than once while I sat there reading through it again at my desk, waiting for her to walk in. Personally, it was absurd.

Her time outside work hours was barely defined, certain clauses gave me more reach into her schedule than any normal employer should ever have, and there were a few lines in there that even I had to admit sounded less like business and more like something else entirely. I knew it was controlling, I knew it wasn’t how people were supposed to work together.

But somewhere between writing it and printing it, I had convinced myself it was rational, that it made sense, that any reasonable person in my position would do the same thing if they had a company to protect and an assistant who somehow knew too much about both my schedule and my personal life already.

She walked in not long after, hair slightly damp from the morning heat outside, a folder tucked under her arm from whatever site visit she had just come back from.

“Good morning, sir,” she said, heading straight for her desk like any other day, dropping her bag down before she even looked up properly.

ry

I didn’t answer right away. I was still looking at the envelope in front of me, turning it over once before I finally called her

name.

“Bianca.”

She looked up and walked over, when she reached the desk, I slid the envelope across to her.

“Read that,” I said. “You wanted a salary increment, right? That will do it.”

Her eyes lit up the moment she heard the word increment, she picked up the envelope fast, almost eager, and I watched her open it, watched her eyes start moving down the page with that same brightness still sitting on her face but it didn’t last.

I saw the exact moment it changed, somewhere around the third paragraph, her eyebrows pulling together slightly, her mouth losing whatever smile had been forming there a few seconds earlier.

She kept reading anyway, all the way to the end, and then she set the paper down gently on the desk, much more gently than I expected given the look now sitting on her face.

She looked at me straight across the desk. “Respectfully, I don’t agree with that, sir.” She paused, just long enough to let the words settle. “So it’s a no from me.”

I wasn’t surprised that she said no, I was surprised by how fast it came, no hesitation in it at all, no soft maybe, no I’ll think about it, none of the things people usually say when they want to leave themselves room to change their mind later.

“Why?” I asked, keeping my voice calm.

“Because that contract isn’t anywhere near good,” she said simply.

Chapter 18

I stood up from my chair slowly, and she didn’t move an inch.

“So you think it’s bad for you?” I said.

She didn’t answer that one.

“Do you think an increment comes easily around here?”

“I don’t want the increment if that’s what…”

“I’m not done talking, Bianca.”

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She closed her mouth, though not out of fear, more out of the kind of patience someone gives when they’re letting another person dig their own hole a little deeper.

“You think I wrote that contract carelessly,” I said, walking around the desk slowly, not toward her exactly, just enough to close some of the distance between us. “I sat down and wrote every line of that myself. I didn’t hand it to legal and tell them

to fill in the blanks. I wrote it.”

“That’s worse, sir,” she said, and for a second I almost laughed, except the look on her face told me she meant it fully.

“Worse how?”

“Because then you knew exactly what you were putting in there,” she said. “The hours outside work, the part about being available whenever you call, no matter the time. The part where I’m not supposed to take on outside jobs without your approval, even personal ones that have nothing to do with this company, that’s not an increment contract. It’s not favorable for me at all.

I felt something tighten in my chest, not anger exactly, but the fact that she wasn’t ready to make this easy for me at all was beginning to get to me.

“Every company has terms like that.” I said. “Confidentiality, availability, none of that is unusual for someone in your position.”

“Maybe for someone handling classified deals, you already have someone who does that.” She said, “Not for someone booking your flights and managing your calendar sir.”

I didn’t answer that right away, because she wasn’t wrong, and we both knew she wasn’t wrong, and there was nothing particularly satisfying about winning an argument by pretending otherwise.

“You’re allowed to disagree with terms,” I said instead, choosing my next words carefully. “But walking away from a raise because of a few uncomfortable lines feels less like a business decision and more like running.”

Her expression shifted slightly at that, something sharper coming into her eyes. “Running from what exactly, sir?”

I knew I was standing too close to the real answer for comfort, close enough that if I said one more wrong thing, the whole conversation would turn into something neither of us were ready to have in an office at eight in the morning. So I backed off the question instead of answering it.

“Forget it,” I said. “Take the rest of the morning to think it over before you give me a final answer.”

“I already gave you my final answer,” she said, picking her folder back up off the desk, the same one she came in with. “I don’t need the morning.”

She turned toward the door, trying to leave the office. “Bianca, stop there,” I said, and something in my own voice surprised me “Where do you think you are going?”

She stopped right there, her hand already resting against the door, her back still turned to me, and for a long second she didn’t move at all, didn’t say a single word, just stood there completely still like she was deciding whether to pretend she

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