Admit You Want Me (Irresistible Billionaires 3)

I looked up from my fingernails tapping the table in front of us. Maggie was looking at me quizzically. I froze for a second wondering whether she had asked me something and I had completely zoned out on her.

“What? Sorry, I just blanked for a second.”

“That's okay. I didn't say anything.” On the table was a spread of open magazines. I might have been the only person on Earth who still bought fashion magazines but I was a collector. Shoes, bags, clothes, and magazines; those were my kryptonite. I thought of it as my way of supporting journalism. I always loved magazines. The pictures just looked better on the glossy pages than on a backlit screen. They were relevant to my industry anyway. I like to look up trends and match them to clients. Maggie was helping me.

I had said goodbye to my last assistant, giving her a generous severance package, far more generous than she deserved and I wasn't even sure assistants got severance packages, but I was worried about how easily she would be able to get another job. For all her flaws, she did enjoy fashion. Maggie on the other hand knew nothing about fashion. She was a champion at administration, only left me the most professionally drafted text messages and emails, and she knew accounting which meant she was taking on two roles rather than just one. She had quoted me her desired salary and it was way too low for the value she was giving me. I had thrown in two thousand extra dollars on top because she was literally a lifesaver. Fashion, however, not really her strong suit.

Not the industry and business side of it, at least. She dressed well and knew basically how to style outfits and match colors. She was curvy, with generous breasts and she always dressed to compliment her figure. Today she was in an A-line dress underneath a leather jacket. I felt that dressing yourself and being able to dress other people were two different skills though.

“Should we get back to work?” I asked, looking down at the magazines like I wasn’t the one who had just been daydreaming. I grabbed one and purposefully flipped through it. We were going into autumn, and stripes were supposedly making a comeback.

“Missy?” I looked up again at Maggie.

“Yes? What's the matter?”

“Is something wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“I realize this may not be the most professional way to engage with my boss, but I think it's pretty clear that something is bothering you.”

I flipped the page in the magazine like it had done something to me. Something was bothering me, yes, did I want to discuss it? Yes, to be honest.

I hadn’t said anything to anybody yet about what happened with Easton. Neither Brenna nor Eddy knew, and I wasn't sure that I was going to tell them yet. It would probably come out sooner or later, but I had barely processed it myself. Certain things were harder to say out loud than others. In addition to that my emotions over it were a mess.

There was regret, that was the main emotion. I knew that I shouldn't have done it and I wished that I hadn't. We had passed the rubicon already and I felt like there was no going back. We could never truly go back to the way we were now that things had changed in this way between us.

What did that mean when it came to working together?

We were working together, that was the whole reason why we were even in each other's lives. It was my first time trying to do this career thing and what had I done? I slept with one of my clients.

The other big emotion was shame. What I had done was wrong. There was no way around it. I was not supposed to do this with clients, but I had. I had come to New York for a fresh start and all I had managed to do was make yet another bad romantic decision.

I knew that Eddy and Brenna wouldn't necessarily judge me for what I had done, but I didn't need them to. I was already judging myself.

Talking about it would rehash all the emotions that I was trying to get over but maybe it would help me sort through them. I was stuck.

“You're right, it isn't the most professional thing you could ask your boss,” I said. I kept flipping through the magazine.

“I'm sorry for bringing it up but it just seems to be weighing heavily on your mind. I was just thinking that you would feel better if you talked it out. With all due respect, we've been staring at these magazines for twenty minutes now and nothing has happened.”

I closed the magazine in my hands. She was right. We were at my house. I was renting a townhouse not far from Brenna and Eddy's places. Office space would be a waste of money since most of what I did happened out of the client's homes and various clothing shops. The magazines were strewn across the dining room table where I liked to have meetings. Calling Maggie for a meeting this morning, I never expected it to turn into an intervention. Part of me was very glad that she had asked though. I looked up at her.

“You're right. I'm sorry for making you come here when I was in this kind of headspace.”

“No problem. So, do you want to talk about it at all?”

I took a deep breath. She was my employee, so she wasn't allowed to judge me. That was how it worked, right?

“Okay but you have to promise not to judge me.”

“What did you do?”

She hadn't promised not to judge me, but I was already on a roll, so I just kept talking.

“I slept with one of my clients.” Her eyes widened, but she didn't say anything immediately. She seemed to take a minute to measure her response.

“Which client was it?”