The Intern: An MM Office Romance Page 6

  “What bullshit? I didn’t lie,” Rhode snapped. “He’s a marquee thriller author!” Her snooty nose soared into the bloody air. “And I’m a professional. Give me some credit. I didn’t say anything to his people.”

  “No, but everyone around this table knows exactly what you’re thinking, am I right?” I shook my head in disgust. “You called him a fag. There’s no place in Astley Publishing for someone who’s stuck in the 1970s.

  “If I hear of you dropping any homophobic or racial slurs again, then you’re out on your ass, Rhode. Let’s face it, that can be proved.” And along to the lawyers this sordid scene would go too.

  Her eyes flashed wide at that, and I watched her shoulders round in, her posture changing as she went from aggressive to defensive.

  She knew exactly what I was talking about, and while I might have just given away my Ace in the hole, it was worth it. This woman thought because she was a ‘New York’ Rhode her shit stank like roses.

  It didn’t.

  Astley Publishing wasn’t the company my father had managed anymore. It was mine. All fucking mine, and if I wanted it to be a diverse workplace, where people of any and all backgrounds could gather to give the public the books they needed to escape, then that was my fucking prerogative.

  Her lips straightened into a line, the slight muscles there tensing with her agitation, but I ignored her and demanded, “I feel like this entire meeting has been bullshit. Someone had better start talking to me before I really lose my fucking temper.”

  Singh from Accounts cleared his throat, drawing my attention his way. “As far as I’m aware, Rhode hasn’t said all that much to his people. His agent, Sandra McGee, and I have been friends for years. If anything had trickled down the river to her about this, then she’d have told me.”

  Shoving my chair back so that it slid halfway across the floor, I ignored them to start pacing.

  The boardroom had phenomenal views that were usually wasted as everything that went down in this room was centered around the table. Everyone’s world was insular here, and that was how it needed to stay, but goddammit, I was fuming.

  I already hated the bitch, but even as I was calculating if this—on top of everything else she’d done over the years—was enough to convince the lawyers that we could fire her ass without facing the threat of litigation, my brain was trying to figure out a way of containing this situation.

  I didn’t want to contact Trevelyan over this, because if Rhode had managed to act with professionalism with his people, then I’d be stirring shit that had yet to be thrown. But if I didn’t get in touch with him and the bitch had fucked things up for us, then I needed to instigate damage control.

  Because Kirkland was the spin doctor in the room, I pointed my finger at him and snapped, “Talk our way out of this one, John.”

  He grimaced. “Rhode, have you said anything at all that might indicate you—”

  “Are homophobic?” I inserted gruffly, watching as, with another grimace, he cleared his throat.

  “Well, yes.”

  “I haven’t spoken to his people since this entire mess began,” was her retort, one that came complete with a sniff. “Cassandra’s been dealing with them. I’ve been far too busy working on the campaign. What with the changes to the original launch, it’s been a nightmare.” Her eyes narrowed at me, and though she didn’t say a word, I knew she was thinking it. Knew she was tossing in slurs left and right.

  If a woman was capable of talking with her eyes, she’d just turned the air blue around us all, gassing us with her poison.

  Her attitude was enough to make me want to wring her neck.

  Especially now I knew what she was capable of.

  This woman wasn’t just a narcissist, wasn’t simply a shark in business, she was dangerous.

  And blood had already been shed because of her.

  Constrained by labor laws and the fact that she could afford to sue us if we didn’t have a watertight reason for firing her ass, my hands were tied. But the knots were beginning to unravel.

  Before the year was out, I’d be hauling her out of the building myself.

  That was a fucking promise.

  Eight

  Devlin

  A few hours later

  Still agitated from my Veep meeting earlier, I plucked at my bottom lip as I stared into my vanity mirror, pondering if I could be arsed shaving or not.

  I had no real desire to do it, didn’t even feel like showering, not when I could still smell him on me.

  Him.

  Micah.

  Lemongrass and citrus.

  Maybe it was stupid to think I could smell him in the air around me when he’d left my office eight hours ago, but I thought I could.

  Or maybe I wished it.

  In twenty minutes, a new squeeze of mine was supposed to darken my door.

  Emma.

  Big tits, blond hair that streamed down to her ass, a face like a porcelain doll... she looked like a genteel porn star. At least, she had the figure for it.

  I couldn’t be the only guy who looked at a person and thought about their facial expressions when they came, could I?

  If they were quiet or loud, rough or timid.

  Her abilities in the sack, I had a feeling, wouldn’t live up to Emma’s body.

  I bet she was too busy worrying about whether her ass looked tight or if she needed to squeeze in her stomach to actually orgasm.

  The prospect wasn’t enticing.

  Which was why I wasn’t sure if I should bother shaving or not.

  A woman’s hopes in a date could be revealed in whether or not she shaved her legs—front and back. Mine rested with my chin because having a model bitching at me over stubble rash was annoying. For whatever reason, the Astleys didn’t lose their hair even into their seventies, and their beard made an appearance about two hours after a grooming session—such was my fate.

  Of course, fate had more cruelty in mind for me than just an unnatural attachment to my razor. True vindictiveness on a serendipitous level came in the form of an irate Brazilian model with a bigger ass than she had a brain.

  Naturally, Carolina’s mental acuity hadn’t been of much interest when I’d decided to date her. That ass was what had interested me in the first place…

  A fact she was taking advantage of because my phone buzzed, and a picture flashed up of said booty.

  Complete with a shot of her pussy too.

  Cartier obviously hadn’t worked its magic on Carolina. Apparently, she wanted more. Undoubtedly a wedding ring... ha. As if.

  If I had to marry, it would be to an Englishwoman who understood that noblesse o-goddamn-blige still existed. Someone who was well at ease with being lady of the manor, even if I never visited the damn manor in the first place.

  The thought had me frowning and I stopped playing with my bottom lip, stopped staring at my beard in the mirror, and left my phone on the vanity—there was nothing of interest on there anyway.

  Heading out of the bathroom, I wandered into the hall and directly down to the living room.

  There, I ignored the grandeur of my Park Avenue penthouse, veering directly to the wet bar. I held a lot of parties, so this took up the entire back length of the space, and had enough alcohol to make a bodega look understocked.

  I grabbed a particularly nice vermouth, poured myself a shot into a glass that sparkled when I held the crystal tumbler in the light, and savored the rich aniseed as it blossomed on my tongue. The pale honey-colored liquid held no answers to my conundrum.

  A quandary I had no desire to really resolve, because if I resolved it, there’d be repercussions.

  Repercussions I couldn’t deal with right now. Maybe not ever.

  The thought had me frowning into my drink.

  Emma would be here soon.

  If I wanted her to, she’d drop to her knees and suck me off much as Micah had. But I still had him on me. And I didn’t want her to clean that up.

  There was my issue.
<
br />   I couldn’t want a man.

  They were for the night—for the dark. A secret. My secret. When I was stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed, to VICE I’d go, and that was where I could accept some hard truths about myself.

  As well as accept some hard other things...

  I wasn’t gay.

  I just liked variety.

  At least, that was what I’d told myself all my life, preferring not to think about how whenever I was down, I always sought out a guy to fuck away my troubles. I had a dozen women on speed dial, each of them booty calls that would drop everything—not their knickers because they rarely wore them in my presence—to fuck me.

  Leaving my penthouse, heading into a club, putting myself in danger... none of it was necessary. But I still did it.

  Every time.

  The thought was a prompt I didn’t need.

  Heading over to the landline which was propped on a side table over by the windows, I picked it up, leaned against the molding as I looked out onto the park. It was a miserable day, still so molten hot that I didn’t understand why anyone was sitting on the grass. As if this was enjoyable.

  Insanity, that was what it was.

  The dial tone rang a few times before it connected.

  “Again already?” He heaved a sigh. “I’ll be around to take some bloodwork in the morning. You really need to put me on a retainer. It’d be cheaper.”

  My nose crinkled. “I prefer to pay over the odds for discretion.”

  “What, rather than have me go to the National Enquirer to tell them that the owner of Astley Publishing has a fetish for going bareback in gay clubs? I’m sure that would sell like hot cakes.”

  I’d known Jeff Michaels since Eton, so even though his words were aggressive, I didn’t take them to heart. He was a doctor, a damn good one, and while he wasn’t my personal doctor, I used him for these little contretemps.

  Though he was gay and hadn’t come out to his family back in the UK—his parents still believed his partner Jamie was a woman—he was the only one I could trust to do this for me.

  What I had on him would give his father a heart attack. Not that I had to threaten Jeff with that. But it was always good to have information on a friend.

  Eton had taught us both that.

  Secrets... they made a country go around, had governments tumbling to their knees, and were capable of burning democracy into dust.

  No word of a lie.

  The Old Boys’ Network ran as rife as ever it had, and laws could be made, deals could be broken, all on secrets that were forged from our time spent at school together.

  I could count a prime minister as an old classmate, and there were at least four aides to high ranking ministers in the government in several countries who I classed as ‘friends.’ In the loosest sense of the term, anyway.

  “As much as I’d love you to out me to the tabloids, actually, that isn’t why I’m calling.”

  He paused. “You don’t want a blood screen?”

  It was my turn to heave a sigh. “No.” I winced.

  “Then why are you calling me?”

  His suspicion was strong enough to make me bark out a laugh. “Here was me thinking we were friends,” I told him, tongue-in-cheek.

  “Do any of us have friends?” he asked, the question close to rhetorical.

  I hummed, knowing he was right even if, for the first time, I found myself saddened by that particular truth. “Perhaps not. But we know when to lean on people, don’t we? That has to count.”

  “Having to lean on someone in the sense that you’re pressuring another person into doing what you want? Yes. Leaning on for support? I doubt it.”

  At least he was honest.

  “Well, tomorrow… if you could fit me in for a blood screen, I’d appreciate it. But that wasn’t why I called. I-I had a question for you is all.”

  “Go ahead. I retain the right not to answer.”

  “I’d expect no less,” I said, unoffended even if my tone was dry. “Why haven’t you come out to your parents?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?”

  He was too surprised to be sarcastic. Too shocked to be anything other than candid.

  “Well, perhaps, I’m just not certain why Jamie deals with it.”

  “Because his coming out was atrocious. That’s why. My in-laws are heathens. They make our parents look friendly. Americans do puritanism far better than our folks ever could.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He snorted. “Bullshit.”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. Something happened to me, and I don’t... it’s knocked me for six.”

  A long pause ensued, then he rumbled, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I could tell he didn’t want to, and again, I wasn’t offended by his lack of interest. We were cronies, not bosom friends. Still, for all it sounded shitty, he was the only gay man I knew from a similar background to me. Someone who knew about my little dalliances, someone who was tied into secrecy with an NDA I’d had him sign, and whose personal experiences as well as his fortune would keep him from ever being interested in whatever the tabloids had to offer...

  That kind of discretion was priceless.

  “You dated Jenny Heatherwood for years.”

  “I did,” he agreed.

  “Do you consider those years to be a waste of time?”

  “No. They were part of making me the man I am today. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be able to love Jamie as much as I did if it weren’t for her.” He let out a soft laugh. “She was how I met him, did you know that?”

  “I didn’t actually. Wasn’t that awkward?”

  “It hurt her at first, but she forgave me after a while.”

  “You’re still friends with her?”

  He cleared his throat. “More acquaintances. Enough for her to smile at me and not grab a voodoo doll out of cold storage to torture me later on. After the engagement... things became more entangled than I should have let them get.”

  “That’s right. You had one foot down the aisle, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Would have been the worst mistake of my life.”

  “You love Jamie that much?”

  “I do, but mostly, the freedom to be me is what I appreciate far more.” He heaved a sigh. “What’s this about, Devlin? You and I aren’t close enough to talk about these things.”

  He wasn’t wrong, and because he’d been truthful with me, I found myself wanting to be truthful with him. “I met someone.” Staring down into the vermouth, I murmured, “It’s strange.”

  “Why? Because it’s a he and not a she?”

  I blinked. “I suppose.”

  “How long have you known him? Are you dating him seriously?”

  He asked that just as I was taking a sip of my drink, as a result, I choked on the question because my answer felt like a foolish one. “A day,” I rasped.

  “Twenty-four hours?” Jeff asked, seeking clarity, because, I assumed, he thought he’d misheard me.

  Who could blame him?

  Sheepishly, I replied, “Probably not even that.”

  “Are you taking the piss?”

  His anger was understandable, even if it was unnecessary. “No. I met him in my usual haunt,” I told him earnestly, when I’d never been earnest with him before in my life.

  With anyone, truly.

  Apart from Micah today.

  When I told him I didn’t have a clue what to do with him, that was the genuine truth.

  Perhaps being honest brought out the worst in me.

  “A one-night stand?”

  “Yes.” I finished off the vermouth before retreating to the bar to pour myself another one. “He works for me.”

  “Awkward.”

  “Very.”

  “Scared of a sexual harassment suit?”

  I thought about Micah’s verdant eyes, that honest smile. A genuine wholesomeness that spoke of someone who was eager to live, eager to love... “No. I’m
not worried about that.”

  “Perhaps you should be,” Jeff said cautiously.

  “Perhaps. But that isn’t my issue.”

  “No? What is?”

  “I want him.” The admission encompassed three words. Why did each one feel as if a lead weight tumbled off my tongue?

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “I don’t suppose it is.” I sucked in a breath. “I’ve just never—”

  “Admitted to yourself that you might want a man for more than just a fuckfest that triggers an adrenaline high?”

  The words were blunt, but that was what I needed. I tightened my hand around the glass as I thought about today’s meeting, and how it had veered down a path I hadn’t anticipated.

  I wasn’t sure how time had passed so quickly while we were together, but bare moments after I’d tucked his dick back into his pants and done the same with my own, after a final kiss that still made everything inside me clench, Sadie had called.

  My two o’clock meeting was early, and because it was with my VPs, there was no delaying them, not with the full agenda that would take us most of the afternoon to get through.

  He’d gone with a soft smile, without any awkward goodbyes. No recriminations. Nothing.

  So why had I gone digging into his file to find his mobile number?

  Why was that number burning a hole in my phone as the urge to call him overwhelmed everything else?

  “Devlin?” Jeff muttered, impatient now and I supposed he’d been talking and I hadn’t been listening.

  “Sorry, Jeff—” The buzzer sounded, probably my doorman calling me to ask if it was okay to let Emma into the building. “Christ, I have to go.”

  “Okay, well, I’d say I’m here to talk if you need to, but really, try not to.”

  Another person might have been insulted, but I snickered. “Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate the coddling.”

  “I’ll come by your office tomorrow.” He hesitated, then he gulped—enough for the swallowing sound to be audible. “Just—sometimes, Devlin, even though they tried to teach us we didn’t have one—we do. You have to go with your heart, because if you don’t, it won’t serve you well.

  “I’m not like you. I don’t have a title to inherit, and my parents don’t harp on at me about duty, but we live a long life, and that’s too long to be with someone who makes your skin crawl.”