Nicholas pried her hands away and looked at her for just long enough to make her heart begin to pound in earnest before flipping her over one of his shoulders.
“Nick! The fire!”
“I don’t care,” he said, striding towards the house. “I think need to deal with you.”
“No.” Jay slapped at his back, kicking her legs ineffectively. “Put me down.”
“Why?” But he set her roughly on the ground, standing in a way that let her know that she wouldn’t get far if she tried to run. “Do you want me to fuck you in the pool?”
“No.” She reached into her bodice for the condom she’d plucked from his bedside drawer. “I want you to do it here. Under the flowers.”
He stared at his hand when she put the wrapper in it.
“Fuck me,” she said to him. “Please.”
This time, when he lunged, she let out a little scream as he half-pushed, half-tackled her to one of the loungers beneath the patchy shade of the flowers. She did fight him, and he fought back like he promised, kissing her into submission until all she could taste was smoke.
They fell asleep out there beneath the balmy skies, with the sweat of their exertion chilling on their skin. Flower petals had blown over them in a light shower, carried by the wind.
Jay opened her eyes. The fire had died to a few faintly glowing embers and Nicholas was tracing a sprig of jasmine around her breast, the feather-light touch raising goosebumps.
“That tickles,” she said.
“I keep thinking you’ll vanish.” He ran the flower up her throat. “I’ve had too many dreams that you were in my arms, only to wake up and realize it wasn’t real.”
“I’m real,” she said.
Nicholas tucked the flower into her hair and leaned over her again. “Show me.”
???????
Jay had already received three compliments on her “necklace” and after the first two, she had even managed not to blush. It really was exquisitely crafted. The semi-precious stones on the stainless-steel chain looked so demure, threading through the handcrafted leather band. Nobody looking at it could have guessed that Nicholas sometimes fucked her with that citrine bead in his fist, with six inches of its extended chain wrapped around his knuckles.
Don’t think about that now. She could feel the threat of a blush warming her cheeks and recentered the necklace absently, making the little stone spheres clatter against the citrine.
“The number of international clients in our portfolio is up 4.3% from last quarter,” Jay said. “And our retention is good. Customer Success sent out a survey: seventy-percent of our clients would be willing to work with us again.”
Everyone clapped politely and despite the nerves fluttering her gut, and an upcoming audit that she was very nervous about, she felt a flicker of pride. She had worked so hard for this, living and breathing this data. It wasn’t all that different from the work she had been doing for Arthur and Nicholas behind the scenes, but now it was her face up front, her name on the dotted line.
Justine Beaucroft, VP of Operations.
“All in all, it’s been a very successful quarter,” she finished, handing the remote over to Arthur, adding into the mic, “And things are looking even brighter for Q4.”
“Thank you very much, Jay,” he said. “Now I’m going to talk to you all about your favorite subject, OKRs.”
Jay glanced subtly at her phone screen as she took her seat up front, hiding her smile when she saw that she had a text from Nick.How was your speech?
It went well, I think. Thank you for practicing with me.
I saw it on the live-feed. It did go well.
After her promotion, Nicholas had stepped back into a consulting role. His choice—which surprised everyone, considering his ire when the option had been given at HR’s suggestion. “I think it’s time the company took a new direction,” was all he said. “I want to step back from managing and focus on maintaining a decent work-life balance.”
On paper, Nicholas was still the owner of the company, but he had hired a new CEO to take his place: a no-nonsense woman named Katie Chang, who had moved down from Silicon Valley to take on the new role.
Now, he ran his own schedule and came into the office on an as-needed basis, which seemed to please him. Jay wasn’t surprised—he seemed to relish the control. What did surprise her was the way he seemed to throw himself into managing the house. In the absence of a maid, it was not uncommon to come home to find him cleaning or staring down into a pot of boiling soup while adding ingredients with the contemplation of an alchemist at work.
Damon would have been rolling in his grave if he could see his son now.
