Author: Elsa Duke

Both of our pants were off. Even though her shirt and bra were still on, that didn’t stop me from grabbing those titties from underneath. Her nipples were hard. Her pussy was wet. Her lips were fast and aggressive.

I shouldn’t have been thinking about how I didn’t want to be like my father at that moment. The situations may have been similar, but I was nothing like that man when it came to working. Sure I admired him just like I admired Isabella. But that’s where it stopped. I wanted to be better than him. Sure, maybe I was having sex with my assistant. But I would never hide her. I would show her off to the world if I had the chance. They would be time for that. Until then, my index finger and my middle finger were flicking her clitoris while her legs were spread open on my desk.

The office door was locked. There was no way to see him. It didn’t matter who knocked on the door. I wasn’t answering because I was taking Isabella. I was taking every inch of her.

She spread her legs open as wide as she could. That was my invitation to take her inside, please. I loved feeling her wetness on my fingertips. The more that I touched her, the more soaked she got.

“Oh yes. Oh yes, Jack.”

Hearing those words turned me on even more. My dick was throbbing. But luckily, she would be stroking me as I was stroking her.

Breaking from her lips, I moved mine to her neck. She let out these little moans with every kiss that I gave her.

While doing that, I’d stuck my two fingers inside her hole. She jolted up a little bit, but I could tell she liked it. We made this profound moment of eye contact together. I knew I was a middle-aged man, yet I had never felt closer to anyone. I spent my entire life deprived of love because I had focused on filling my father’s shoes and running a company that would eventually be embroiled in scandal because of that very man. I loved my father. I just didn’t like what he burned me with, whether he realized it or not.

In any case, I should have been thinking of that at that moment. I had a beautiful woman in front of me. Without me even realizing it, she was sucking my dick. That lasted a good five minutes before I needed it to penetrate. So I lifted her up off her knees and bent her over my desk. I spread her cheeks to where I could see both her holes. Her butthole had a little bit of hair on it, and I thought that was cute.

It took a little bit of effort to stick my dick into her as she was super tight. But once I was in, I grabbed her by the hips and started to thrust. She had to put her hand over her mouth because she was getting so loud.

Her ass jiggled so much every time I went in and out. From the sides, I could see her titties shaking. Even though her hand covered her, I could still hear her muffled noises. And it was beautiful. Who is everything that I ever wanted in my life? The other stuff I tucked away, like having a family and getting married.

I pulled out. Finishing all over, she looked as though she was exhausted as well. But I couldn’t quite tell.

She looked back at me and smiled when it was all said and done. “I can’t believe we just did that in this office.”

We wound up going on a date that night. It felt like it made up for the weird one we had the last time. The one where she seemed a little bit closed off. She was far more open with me sitting across the table that night. It probably has to do with the sex we had in my office. That was a safe bet.

“You seem like the one who’s got something on his mind today. I’m sorry for being so close off last time. It’s just not an easy situation to be in. But you do make it easier for me. I want you to know that.” Bella said while she spooned some spaghetti into her mouth.

“I’m worried about becoming my dad. It’s not that I dislike the man; I just don’t want to be him. I know it was hard for you to see all that news about him. Just imagine what I’m going through.”

She wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin. There was a thoughtful pause between that moment and when she said, ” I understand what you mean. And I haven’t known you for a long time. But just the Impressions that I get so far, I don’t think you’re anything like your father. Of course, I don’t know the man. But I see how much of a conscious effort you make to care about other people. And when someone goes above and beyond like that, they’re typically not like other people. They’re their own person. You always tell me how much you admire me in stuff like that, and to be honest in that way, that takes courage. It also takes self-awareness. You seem to have plenty of that. So I wouldn’t necessarily beat yourself up.”

I nodded. But I also had a burning question. It was one that I wanted to be stifled. And maybe Isabella could stifle it. “I know myself. And you know me, apparently. But I worry about everyone else. I worry about my public image. I worry that people will automatically think of me as my father. It’s not even so much about protecting the business for me.”

“You care what people think of you. You’re a strong people-pleaser in many ways. Despite your tough exterior.”

I shrugged. ” I care about making a difference in the world. That’s a hard thing to do when everyone’s going to think of me as an evil person.”

“At the end of the day, you can’t care what everyone thinks of you because you can’t change it. I know I should be bringing a bottle of a right now, but I gave that kid the world. I tried to be the best version of myself, but I still got burned. That’s a tough pill to swallow when you do everything right. And it just feels like you’re in the same boat. Do you know what I mean?”

For once, she and I didn’t seem all that different. It was utterly ironic that what brought us together was my job and my stepson. To find common ground with one another, no, that was special. That was one of those milestones you don’t forget.

For the rest of the night, the spark between us remained. We chatted over dinner, we took our time going home, and I even took her to a boardwalk.

“This is really nice. It’s not every day that I’m beneath the moonlight with the guy who kind of understands me.”

“I like how you say kind of.”

“Well, you know, I can’t give away all my cards. I still have to play hard to get a little bit now, don’t I?”

I smiled. As great as the night had gone for the both of us, and as much as her words had made me feel better when it came to my situation at work and with my dad, I still had it in the back of my head that I had a big problem to deal with. It wasn’t going to be an easy one to figure out, but I was going to have to make it work.

Somehow.

Instead of thinking about sex with Jack, which I had still been doing, I thought about our last kiss. It might have honestly been our real last one. Because I still felt wrong about it. I still felt closed up. Now and then, Oliver would pop into my head. He came up whenever I would think of Jack in a romantic light. He would appear in my mind and tell me to slow down, buddy, don’t forget I just got hurt. I wanted to forget. But it wasn’t going to happen. Even with time apart from Jack, I still felt guarded. I thought I owed it to myself that time alone was needed. Jack could thank Oliver for that.

“You just seem super conflicted about everything. And Jack does seem like a rebound man.” My friend Marissa said that she ate her panini. We both went to a panini grill because it was another way for me to decompress. There was nothing like hanging out with my friend and escaping the rest of the world for a bit. It was so easy to get consumed with work because I always wanted to do my best. That was my gold in life. To find out one thing I can control and double down on. I may have just been an assistant, but I always took my career seriously. No matter what the role was.

“I am conflicted. I do really like Jack. I don’t want to think of him as some rebound man. But every time I think of him, Oliver pops into my head.”

“Maybe you should listen to that. Maybe it’s time after this long relationship with Oliver that you take some time for yourself. Think about it this way, and you know Piper, right?”

“Yeah, of course, his sister. Well, stepsister. What about her?”

“They can’t stand each other. She hates him. And I mean, if they’ve known each other this long and she can’t stand him–”

I was taken aback by that comment. “Piper had always made it seem like she–”

“Tolerated him. I know she always tried to make it look like she liked him, for your sake. She didn’t want to make him look bad in front of you. But the truth of the matter is Piper can’t stand him. It’s because he’s egotistical. He’s got a complex.”

I laughed. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“I’m sorry now that you no longer date Oliver. I can kind of let loose on everything, and I hated him. I wouldn’t say I like how he treated you. I hated how it was loveless for you. Do you know? You deserve better than that.”

“I appreciate that. It really makes me think about Jack a little bit more. Only because he admires me so much, that may sound weird, but I appreciate that he doesn’t try to hide it. He doesn’t try to be macho or whatever it may be. He’s very open about how he feels about me. It makes me feel like a goddess.”

My friend Marissa shook her head. “That’s no excuse to take things fast. You should still use your brain while interacting with this man.”

All I did was shrug at her comment and begin to work on my panini.

It wasn’t fifteen minutes when Marissa looked up at me after looking at her phone. “I’m guessing you don’t know what’s happening with Jack and his father. His late father.”

“I know Jack’s dad is dead. You don’t have to tell me that.”

I took the phone from her hand. That was when I read the headline. Seconds later, I realized I was in the same situation as the woman in the relationship with Jack’s dad. I was in a relationship with my boss. The only difference was that he wasn’t paying me off.

“Are you okay?” Marissa asked me.

I looked at her. Words couldn’t come out of my mouth at that moment. She seemed to understand that because she didn’t press on when I didn’t say anything. Eventually, I did say, “I don’t know when I’m feeling right now. This is a lot.”

---

That sentiment continued until I was working with Jack and his office the next day. For the entire shift, neither one of us said a word to one another. That sounds crazy, but I had an outline list of what to do on my excel sheet plastered on my laptop.

“I know you know about all the news. And I know I want you to feel the way you do.”

Looking up for my laptop, I said, “How do you know when I’m feeling?”

“If I were in your shoes, I would feel like the woman who my father pays off. But I would never pay you off. If you were to come forward and say that we had sex, I wouldn’t have denied it, and I would deal with it. That’s the difference between my dad and me.”

“You know, you always say that you admire me. But I admire you for saying that and understanding how I feel now.” While I spoke, my heart started racing, and I couldn’t understand why. I had to sense of adrenaline coursing through my body.

“I’m glad it doesn’t go unnoticed.”

“Really, nothing like Oliver. And I’m having a hard time figuring out how to navigate that.”

“I have an idea.” Jack left his desk and then walked over to mine. He grabbed both my hands and lifted me from my seat. “Look me in my eyes, and don’t stop looking. We’re only a few inches apart. What do you feel right now?”

My kiss happened without my permission. My lips did what they wanted. Before I knew it, our tongues weren’t in each other’s mouths. His hand was on the side of my face. His other hand was pulling me in by my back. This was the last thing that I had anticipated happening. But I was kissing the man I was aiming to push away. Were we going to have sex in his office? Was this all really about to happen? And what was going to be the fallout if this did happen? I guess I was only about to find out.

They say some animals consent when a tornado is coming. I fancied myself as one of those animals. Deep down always felt like I had a sense of knowing when something wrong was going to happen.

It was all probably because of the tipoff that I had gotten from my brother, but there was some news to be dropping about the company. But then again, there was also the matter of Isabella. I had fallen for her rather quickly, relatively too soon, if I might add. That put me in a vulnerable position. That opened up a lot of potential pain for me. I had no idea why I enjoyed her company so much. I also had no clue why I found her so beautiful. The problem was that I did. With that type of energy, what do you do? She had just broken up with Oliver; I could have just been a rebound man. Maybe it was my negativity seeping in and taking over, but I had no way of telling. It’s just sitting in my rumination while in my office, worried that things will hit the fan. Why couldn’t things be simple for once? It sucked being the owner and CEO of a company because it always felt like the buck stopped with me. It made my personal life half the time feel non-existent. But whatever. I would take it as it came.

It came from Bella being more closed off at my house. It made me question why she didn’t even come in the first place.

“You’re right and everything?” I asked her, hoping the answer had nothing to do with me. We were on the couch at that moment. We weren’t sitting as close as I’d hoped.

“I’m all right. I just have a lot on my mind.”

I hated the next question I was going to ask. Sometimes, there was no way around it. “Do you want to talk about it? The one thing I did admire about you crying that one time once was that you could get everything off your chest. You don’t have to bottle things up with me. I’m a big boy.”

I got no eye contact from Bella. It radiated an uncomfortable feeling into my chest. Had I already lost a girl who I was falling over? That would be my fault. I would never blame her for that.

“There’s nothing I want to talk about. I just kind of want to decompress from things, if that makes sense. Sometimes inaction is the best action.”

I didn’t agree with that one bit; as a CEO, action was always the best course for me. She deserved to have her opinion respected, though.

We sat there watching Dear John, a movie based on a book by Nicholas Sparks where the main character, a soldier who was heavily in love with his girlfriend, had his heart broken. That was the gist that I got from it. I was only half paying attention. It wasn’t easy to focus on a movie while wondering what was wrong with Isabella. My hyper fixation on her got the best of me. That was how I knew that I was in trouble. I shouldn’t have been falling so hard, so fast. I continued to blame myself.

“I think I’m going to head home,” Isabella said once the movie had ended.

There was no expectation of having sex with her. But there was an expectation somewhat that we would have been more social than we had been. Being pushy was not an option, though. Support was all Isabella needed. “Okay. I’ll walk you to the door.”

When we approached the door, the wonder of whether or not she would kiss me popped into my head like a firework. If I wasn’t going to get a kiss, I knew we were probably destined for doom. If she was going to kiss me, then there was a good chance that we had a future.

Hate.

That was what I felt towards myself for wondering all that.

The door opened, she looked back at me, my heart raced, and the kiss happened. It was a longer kiss than I had expected. I was over the moon just from that little touch of her lips. “Get home safe, Isabella.”

Isabella flashed me a smile, and she was on her way.

So it wasn’t that which made my Spidey sense go off. At least not at that moment. Isabella and I seem to be in good standing. That meant that my gut feeling was pulling from somewhere else. The answer to that would come while I was in my office.

It was my brother Levi who came in with a solemn face. Right off the bat, I knew something was wrong. Levi was usually always in good spirits. He was the quieter one of us brothers. Even when he went down, he had a way of showing the world that he wasn’t. I often wondered what was going on in his head. He always seemed to be in a different world while still in the present moment. I admired that about him.

“You look like you missed your cup of coffee,” I said to him it’s he sat down at my desk. The way he had closed the door had given me pause. Despite that, I’d still try to have a positive mindset while he sat across for me. Maybe I could will whatever he was about to tell me into something good.

“The news finally hit Jack. And it has to do with Dad.”

He slapped the newspaper down on my desk. The article was circled in red.

My heart started the pound as I grabbed the newspaper and pulled it towards me. Before I could look at it, Levi briefed me. “Our Father engaged in a couple of flings with employees over the years. One of the longest ones he had was a relationship with the secretary. When things went south, he paid her off and made her sign an NDA. He used company money to do so.”

As he told me the story, I kept telling myself: please don’t let him use company money because that would make it a scandal. Not that paying a woman off with your own funds was the scandal in and of itself, but the fact that he used company money to do so what’s a big deal.

My brother continued. “Apparently, behind all of our backs, our father cleared things up with the government. But the fact that this is leaking out and that he kept it a secret doesn’t look good in our public image.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“This will fall on you in the category of damage control.”

He was right. It would all fall on my shoulders to ensure that the company rebounded from my father’s mistakes in the past.

It was going to be tricky, to say the least. I wasn’t about to let my company tank because of a scandal like that. But would I be able to handle it? I wasn’t sure.

Cloud nine wasn’t a strong enough term to describe my feelings. Jack had made me single-handedly feel better but in a way that I had never expected. It was on my mind. The sex, there was no getting rid of that out of my head. For the first time in my life, I was thinking about sex a couple of days later. I guess that spoke of what the relationship that I had with Oliver is. He wasn’t bad in bed. But we definitely didn’t have the spark that Jack and I had.

Speak of the devil. Their Oliver was walking through the hallways at work. His suspension must have been up. Or whatever Jack had done to keep him away from me, that was over. I guess I shouldn’t have gotten too comfortable that he was gone for a bit. He did work there, after all. And he was Jack’s stepson. No matter how often I had sex with Jack, Oliver was his family. Anywhere I stood. I just had the hope that I meant more to Jack than I thought.

“Hi, Isabella. I heard Jack hired you back.” His tone was cold. His eye contact was minimal. My mind had played the hypothetical situation of bumping into him numerous times before I had actually done so. So everything that was happening I had expected. Maybe I had even expected it to go a little bit worse.

“He did hire me back as his assistant. It’s going great. I couldn’t be happier.”

“He’s probably not going to be happy that I’m in the building.”

Realization. It struck. “You’re not supposed to be here. And why are you?”

“You actually care?”

“I care because I don’t want to see you. I care about you leaving. So yeah, that way, I do. Do you actually think that I want to be standing here talking to you? There’s a reason that Jack made sure that you weren’t in the building for a good while.”

“Yeah, well, frankly, I think he should have minded his own business. That was between you and me. He should have stepped in.”

I was trying to hold back my smirk. There was something funny about him having a problem with Jack. Jack was such a man, and he felt like such a boy. His immaturity was the only reason he had an issue with his stepfather. “All he did was off for me a job.” Sex flashed across my mind. “It’s his business choice, not yours. I think you’re just salty because he owns the company, and you feel a little small right now. You fired me for absolutely no reason other than you didn’t want to date me anymore, which had nothing to do with the job, and then your stepdad hired me. That’s got a sting a little bit, no?”

“I’m just here to get my things,” Oliver said before pursing his lips. “You won’t have to worry about seeing me after this. Because I don’t know what Jack will do with me.”

I almost chuckled at that but restrained myself. The last thing I wanted was to look as immature as he did. “Am I supposed to feel bad for you or something?”

He shook his head. “Not at all this, Bella. Just telling you why I’m here.”

“Cool.” I walked off and felt my independence following me. He was a reminder that I didn’t need a man. Oliver was a reminder that pain happens in relationships.

This thought process that crossed my mind was why I started to doubt everything that had happened between Jack and me. It sounded rash and a little bit impulsivity. But if I was just going to fall for another man right after being dumped, that sounded foolish to me.

I needed to figure out what I was going to do moving forward. Because I certainly didn’t want to get hurt again. Maybe Jack wasn’t good for me. Perhaps I would need to start pushing him away a little bit.

Waiting for her answer made my heart race. I had yet to see her reciprocate any of my admiration for her. There was so much to wonder about when it came to her. When you know a girl only by her workplace status, your mind wanders in a million sexual directions. What does she kiss like? What is she like in bed? Is she high-pitched when she moans? Or is she coyer with it? My desire to be a gentleman for her with strong. So, it’s no sense admiring a girl if you were just going to be a pig. But at the same time, it wasn’t easy to handle because she was just so damn beautiful.

“I think you’re attractive. But that could mean many things. Especially for a woman. Women can find the man attractive on different levels, you know.”

I chuckled. It was such a politically romantic answer. Those were the best on the first date. It was nothing like a little bit of tension and a little bit of uncertainty to keep things interesting.

But with all that, I sensed that there was a little bit of discomfort there. She wasn’t entirely at ease with me. And so, I didn’t want to push it. After what my stepson had done, she deserved better. “I hope you’re all right, Isabella. I don’t mean to go off subject here; I think we’re having a nice time. But I also feel terrible for what you’ve been through, and I hope you’re okay.”

Her eyes darted to the table. “Thank you, Jack.” Then they glanced back up at me. She looked like she had made a connection. And that was all I needed.

On the car ride home, there wasn’t much said. But I had expected that. We spoke a lot at dinner after a little moment. It was all superficial stuff. I could still tell that there was plenty on her mind. So once again, I didn’t want to push anything. I also had it in my head that I was driving her home, she was in my car, and she was in my world. Therefore I had to go above and beyond to make her feel like she still had control and wasn’t in the same situation as in the office. Because being broken up can strip someone of their identity and power.

Pulling up to her home, I realized that something wasn’t right. She wasn’t getting out of my car. And as much as I was happy to have more time with her, it was almost as though she was frozen in time.

“Is something the matter?”

“After what happened with Oliver, I don’t really want to be alone right now. I don’t know if this is weird or not, but would you mind coming in?”

I was over the moon with her asking me that. But as a man, you don’t let the woman see that. You keep your composure and act nonchalant. “Yeah, of course. I don’t mind at all. I don’t have anything else on the agenda for tonight.”

She flashed a smile, but even that seemed a little broken.

Following her in, I wondered what would happen when we were inside. I had goosebumps because I definitely didn’t expect to be going inside her home on our little first date. Was it even a date? I had so many questions looking to ask one. I looked at her ass while walking through her front door. It was plump. I couldn’t imagine what squeezing that thing would have felt like.

It was when she closed the door that I knew that my focus couldn’t be on her butt, but it what’s going to need to be on what was bothering her. Because her eyes were immediately teary, perhaps she needed a private place to just vent because those sad eyes turned into her crying completely.

“I treated him like gold. I didn’t deserve what he did to me.” Her crying got worse the more that she spoke. And the more that she said, the more inaudible she had gotten. I couldn’t remember the last time I had dealt with someone crying like her.

“Isabella. Isabella.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “I understand. You need to relax just a little bit. You’re doing one of those hyperventilating cries.”

Catching me off guard, she rested her head on my chest. Her warmth gave me goosebumps. At first, I didn’t know where to put my hands. If words got me clocked in the face, what if my resting hands on her shoulder had me killed or something? It was a foolish thought, I knew. But it was a valid one. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t invading her personal space. In any case, I did rest my hands on her shoulders, and when I saw that it was okay, I pulled her in for an even bigger embrace. The hug felt right.

She looked up at me with a face full of tears. Her cheeks were drenched in saltiness. I hated seeing her like that. But at the same time, I sensed something coming. I was correct.

She had to get on her tippy toes to let her lips touch mine. Once they did, they were warm, wet, and soothing. Never had I known a kiss to change my physiology the moment. I still had my hands on her shoulders. Without even thinking, I pulled her in closer to me. To my surprise, she pressed her lips against mine even harder. I couldn’t believe things were happening. The things that I had been dreaming about the second that I saw her in the office.

It wasn’t just her lips that were aggressive. Her hands rubbed up and down my chest. That was when I knew things were going to progress. I wasn’t going to fight it, either. Her hands were free to do whatever they wanted. My eyes only opened for a second to see my surroundings and where I would eventually take her. Because there was no way, we would just stand there and make out the entire time. It was going to escalate.

My hunch was correct again because her hands went directly to my pants—the belt buckle, to be exact. The adrenaline coursing through my body could have made me pass out if I wasn’t careful. That was how strong it was.

With her going straight to my belt like that, I grabbed her breasts. Even with a bra and a shirt covering them, they were still so soft. I had to stop her from opening my belt for a second so I could lift her shirt off.

As we kissed, we moved back towards her couch into the living room until she fell back on it, and I got on top. My pants were open at that point, and she was able to maneuver them off me. I was in just my boxers. And of course my shirt. But it didn’t stay on me for too long.

When it was off, she ran her hands over my chest again. That time she got a nice feel for my hair. She bit her lip as she ran her fingers through my mini forest.

I took my time taking her bra off. I wanted to savor the moment of not knowing what her breasts looked like. That savoring didn’t last long, though, because I quickly slipped my hands behind her back and unhooked the bra.

Her nipples were bright red and almost covered the entire breast. I couldn’t help but put one in my mouth. They were so hard and felt so good between my lips. Sucking them caused her to moan. I had my answer to that question of wondering whether or not she was high-pitched. She wasn’t, though. She had the sweetest sound. It would snow, mistaking that it was coming from a place of pleasure. The more I heard her react to me sucking on her breasts, the more I got revved up.

She stopped my momentum by taking my cock and putting it in her mouth. Her eyes closed, and she looked like an entirely different woman with her lips wrapped around my manhood. The way she sucked was like no other way that I have that or felt. I could feel it on my entire cock. She’d sucked with aggression, and yet it was somehow gentle at the same time. She got the whole thing in her mouth, and I was almost eight inches long; that was a big feat. When her entire mouth wasn’t on it, she wrapped her hand around it and did a little twist. At one point, she would be jerking me off and sucking me simultaneously. The second I watched her titties jiggling while she did all that, I felt like I would come right then and there. I had to think about something else for a moment.

When she was done sucking me off, I laid her down with a racing heart. I was seconds away from seeing what her pussy looked like.

I wasted no time and pulled down her yoga pants with her underwear at the same time. Before my eyes was a glistening pink pussy, completely shaved. When she opened her legs, her little clitoris poked out at me, and I could see the entirety of her lips.

I couldn’t help but lick between those beautiful lips of hers. Warm, salty, and wet, I licked away. My eyes were closed, but I could sense that her whole body was moving around the way my tongue swirled and went up and down her clit. I was playing her like an instrument. She was mine for the taking. For once, I could show her my admiration instead of just telling her.

I lifted my tongue off, and in when my cock. There came out a little moan when it thoroughly went in. Her mouth remained open the entire time that I thrusted. But her eyes remained shut. She bit her lip now and then as I mixed my thrusting patterns between gentle and aggressive.

She stopped moving entirely except for clutching her pillow. She was finishing. It was the most beautiful sight that I had ever seen. She could forget about all her issues at that moment. Oliver didn’t matter. Isabella was in a place of euphoria.

And it was all because of me.

What on earth was Jack thinking? He was not only the owner of the company that I worked for, but he had been my boyfriend’s stepdad. He came right out of the left field with those comments. And yet, I didn’t find them necessarily creepy. I enjoyed hearing them. I wanted to hear more of it. Oliver had never praised me like that. He rarely ever told me any compliments. There was a lot of growing to do when it came to Oliver. He would still be a boy in many ways, even though he was twenty-five. Sometimes Jack’s fifteen-year-old daughter seemed more mature than he was. But I digress. I had a job to do whether or not Jack had come on to me. I was his personal assistant. Sure, I was a little weary that he would come out of left field and try to get me to suck his cock again, but I was on the fence. Neutral like the Swiss. Barron Luxury Resorts headquarters needed to be a safe space for me at that time.

9 am hit the following day, and Jack entered his office. He flashed me a charismatic smile while holding his coffee.

“Good morning, Isabella. How are you today?” It was at so nothing had happened between us. I enjoyed that, but at the same time, it felt somewhat anticlimactic. Maybe some of me wanted him to continue to say what he had said. I couldn’t tell. I was an emotional wreck after being broken up with Oliver; all I was trying to do was throw myself into work. But my work had a man who called me beautiful. He made my curves seem sexy. No one had ever made my curves seem sexy before. Oliver had always made me feel fat in a way. He had never said I was fat but made me feel like I was.

“All right, look,” Jack said it’s he sat down at his desk. “I don’t want to live in the past and allude to yesterday. Yesterday happened, you were broken up with me, and I said some things that were out of line. But I must tell you that I’ve given Oliver a leave of absence. One of my brothers will be taking over human resources for the time being, and you won’t have to deal with Oliver for a while. I want you to be comfortable at work.”

I pursed my lips while somehow smiling. Seeing him go above and beyond to make me feel that way was nice. I wondered whether or not he was just trying to save his ass, though. “Will you get in trouble for unjustly removing Oliver from his position?”

He chuckled while sipping his coffee. “He’s family and my son. But this is also my company. I can do as I please. It’s not as though he didn’t do anything wrong at the end of the day. He unjustly fired you. And it’s clearly based on a romantic relationship. I never want a romantic relationship to get into anyone’s job description. Work and pleasure should remain separate.”

Oh, how I wanted to roll my eyes. It was like he was convincing himself that he hadn’t said what he said the day prior. Or maybe he was trying to convince me that he wasn’t just a hound dog who thought I was beautiful. If only I had a wake of knowing what his true intentions were. Did I only have a job because he didn’t want me to complain? Or did he feel bad for me that I had been broken up with? I tried my best to keep my focus on work, but it was hard.

“Well, I must admit that I’m happy that I won’t have to see Oliver for a while. I just need some time to get over how he treated me. We had been really close despite our ups and downs. I didn’t want things to end the way that they did. But I didn’t have a choice. He made his bed, and I will never get in it with him again.”

I watched the wheels spin in Jack’s head. He was probably thinking about getting in bed with me. I couldn’t blame him. My guard was lowering just a little bit.

“Look, I know I was unprofessional yesterday, but maybe I can take you out to show you that I’m not a creep.”

“After work?”

“If you’re free.”

I smiled.

---

Jack took me to a Tex-Mex place. He had asked beforehand where I had wanted to eat, and I told him how much I loved Tex-Mex and how much Oliver hated it. It was crazy to think that at 42 years old, Jack had never even had Tex-Mex. In some ways, at my ripe young age of 24, I felt like I had a lot to show the man. But even that felt wrong. It felt wrong he was admired by someone twice my age.

When we sat down, there was a spark between us. I felt the attraction instantly. Jack had dark hair that was in a faux hawk style. He had stubble on his face but a goatee that centered it. The goatee was peppered with gray, making me feel like I was sitting across from a silver fox. He wore his collared shirt unbuttoned at the top; over his chest was a medallion that I couldn’t quite make out and didn’t want to stare at. The last thing I wanted was for him to know I was attracted to him. I tried to keep my cards close to my chest. The jacket he wore was silk which kind of looked like wool at the same time. Whatever it was, it was crazy expensive. And I could smell his cologne from across the table, but this is a good way. It tickled my nose with spice.

The way that he looked at me, it was like I was staring down into a lion’s eyes. His face was always so serious, yet he was equally as charismatic. “Why are you looking at me like that?” He asked me.

I was completely caught off guard. “Looking at you like what?”

“Looking at me like you find me attractive.”

And there it was. There was a sentence that could change everything. But how was I going to answer it?

It was her curvaceous body that had stopped me in my tracks. Her curves were to die for. And I knew that I couldn’t resist such a beautiful woman. There was just no way, no matter what the circumstances were. And that was why things escalated pretty quickly with Isabella; escalated in a way that I never thought would happen in my place of business. I did make an attempt not to tell Isabella how much of a stunning woman she was. But how could I not? There she was, standing before me with that blouse with the top button open to reveal her cleavage. She was distraught and covered in tears. Whoever hurt her, the work they did needed to be undone. Isabella needed to know her beauty and her worth. She needed to be praised.

“Isabella, I hope you know that you’re one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. And you shouldn’t be upset like this.”

Stop right there. It’s essential to know just how we got here– right before an employee of my company was told to suck my cock. That employee also just so happened to be my twenty-five-year-old stepson Oliver’s girlfriend.

It all started with some news.

When I heard the news, it didn’t feel real to me. But I knew that it could turn into something. And in a way, I had been predicting that the shoe would drop ever since the day that I inherited the company. We were too big not to be a target. And now I was going to have to remember how to fill my father’s shoes as best as possible if the rumors were true.”What do you mean scandalous?” I asked one of my brothers, Levi, who dabbled in PR and human resources at the company. He was the second oldest out of us at 37. Leo was 35. We were all up there in age—even my wife Lola, who was 45. Oliver, my stepson, was the one who oversaw human resources ultimately. But Levi was the one with the tipoff. The tipoff that would potentially change everything.

“I don’t know. It’s some Staten Island newspaper, and they’re saying that they have scandalous dirt on our company. They won’t give any more information than that, but we’re being told to expect some sort of news to hit the internet and papers.” Levi looked down at his phone as if he had answers for me. But I could tell he was just reading the same email.

In my head, I ran over every possible thing that could be considered scandalous in my company. And nothing came to mind. Since I took over from my father a few years back, I have tried to use my integrity with every turn. That was why I ensured my brothers were in human resources and dealing with the employees. We had a nice checks and balances system. Gone were the days were business in town was like the wild west, and things got swept under the rug. We were a luxury resort brand. You were looking to expand it to the mainstream, and my dream was to make it more affordable for the lower class. So, where on earth would anything scandalous fit into that notion?

“I don’t know, Levi. Maybe it’s just rumored. Whatever it is, if there’s truth to it, then it has to be with the lower-level employees, or there can also be a whistledown somewhere whether a she or he. Something that we all don’t know about. Because our hands are clean.”

Levi stood there for a moment with a thoughtful face. “Maybe you should go check with Oliver. I couldn’t find him before.”

He was passing the buck to me. And I was okay with that. I was the owner and CEO. Sometimes I needed to get my hands dirty.

So first, I went to get myself a cup of coffee to get a little pep in my step before dealing with whatever was going on. And then when I came back, I went towards Oliver’s office, where I saw his secretary, Isabella. The first thing that I noticed was obviously her curvaceous body. There was no missing that. Instantly, I wanted to take her clothes off and look at them in the flesh. But we were in the workplace, and that was my stepson’s girlfriend. That could never happen.

She was cleaning out her desk and drowned in tears. My heart started racing at that moment because just seeing one of my employees crying in the building was startling. I didn’t want anyone in my business crying or worked up, especially in the face of allegations that could come to the forefront.

I walked up to her and had no idea why this came flying out of my mouth at first, but I said, “Isabella, you’re usually flashing a bright smile; go with the rest of your beauty; what are you crying about?”

I shut the door behind us to give us some privacy. I had no idea why she was crying, but at the same time, I didn’t want anyone else getting into her personal space and bothering her even more. My heart was still racing.

“Your stepson doesn’t think I have a beautiful smile. He said he was no longer sexually attracted to me. He’s broken up with me. And fired me.” She shook her head and wiped a few tears from her cheek. Her expression was on her face as though she’d become aware of something. It was how much she had revealed. “I’m sorry for elaborating like that. That’s unprofessional, and given the fact that you’re his stepdad, I shouldn’t have said all that. I’m just angry and upset.”

I paused for a moment. There was a lot to unpackage there. As much as I wanted to think things through, something inside me was being driven by impulse. “I don’t think you said too much at all. It’s okay to be vulnerable. I hope I’m not too forward with this, but my son is wrong. I’ve been admiring your curves since day one. Again, I shouldn’t be saying something like that, but I just want you to know that my son is an idiot. He should have said anything close to that to you. Because, Isabella, I hope you know that you’re one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. And you shouldn’t be upset like this.”

She looked at me with wide eyes. I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong for a moment. It felt right to tell her how I felt. “Do you really think so?”

It felt good to praise her. But at the same time, I thought of my wife at home, Lola. Lola and I haven’t slept in the same bed for two years. We no longer had sex, either. We pretty much stayed together for my daughter Piper. But Piper knew that our marriage was on the fritz. I couldn’t help but wonder what she would think if she knew I would praise Isabella so much.

“I do think that about you, Isabella. And I need to make you feel like the woman you are because you’re a special woman. And I know what could help you feel that way. It may sound crazy, but you need me inside you. You should suck my cock like a very good girl. And then you’ll feel like a woman.”

I could tell that she liked what I had said. It was that split second of acceptance in her eyes. But then, given the situation, she rewound her arm and clocked me right in the face. It was a stiff shot too. I instantly felt my lower lip go a little numb.

“I appreciate the kind words. But you’re not to talk to me like that right now. Not after your stepson fired me and broke up with me.”

“I apologize for being so forward. Don’t worry about any of that because I want you as my personal assistant. If you’ll have it.”

I wasn’t sure what her answer was going to be. But I definitely knew what I wanted her response to be.