Chapter 8: Olivia
I’m wide awake at four in the morning on Monday, knowing what awaits me today and every Monday for the next nine weeks: a meeting with Davis. Thirty minutes alone with him in his freakishly intimidating office, where every little thing that he says and does will send my heart zipping along like it’s on a de-restricted section of the autobahn. It’s a first world problem, sure: being caught in the crosshairs of a rich and powerful man who clearly wants me—and who I admittedly can’t stop thinking about.
Maybe that’s not a problem. Maybe that’s a gift from the universe for good karma.
Hell no. As soon as the thought crosses my mind I begin to feel like an idiot. If anyone has good karma, it’s certainly not me.
I roll over in the plush bed that Davenport-Ridgeway provided in my corporate housing apartment, wishing I had found my own housing. Here, it feels like everything around me belongs to Davis. The bed. The pillows. The mugs with the company logo in the kitchen. The towels. He’s everywhere. His last name will even be on my paychecks. Hell, his last name is now going to live on my resume for the next decade of my career.
When I accepted this internship offer back in the fall, I knew that it might be uncomfortable for me to work at his family’s company. Still, the opportunity was truly too good to pass up, and I figured we would never cross paths. He’s a Vice President, after all, and I’m just an intern. I assumed he would never know that I was on the payroll, and I could use this summer to gain valuable experience and get a job at a VC firm after graduation.
Now I look like a stalker. A stalker and an escort, apparently.
“Shit,” I mutter as I grab one of the extra pillows on the other side of the bed and mash it over my head, trying to block out the ambient morning light that filters into the room. Some darkness in me wonders if I should just smother myself with it.
I almost went to him on Friday. I was sitting on the couch in my living room, debating if I should call an Uber or take the subway to the address that he sent me, when Charlie called to tell me about his dorm assignment for his sophomore year. Then he asked me about my internship and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was seriously considering selling my body to pay for the very dorm room he would be living in come fall.
Once the call was over, I took a cold shower and went to bed.
“This is insane,” I declare as I throw the pillow to the side and look up at the bedroom ceiling, wondering how I got myself into this mess—and how to get myself out.
First things first, I know I need to stop turning into a babbling mess around Davis. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Sometime in the last eight years, he transformed into a literal shark. It’s like he can smell blood in the water every time I walk into the room and he just radiates with lust. Intimidation. Cockiness.
He’s the opposite of the person I liked so much when I first met him. All of the softness and earnestness is completely gone, and in its place is malice. I’m not stupid; I can tell that my discomfort amuses him. The power dynamics in our working relationship certainly don’t help the situation. The lowly intern versus the VP? I already know how this story ends.
Second, I need to stop getting turned on around him. He doesn’t deserve to have my heart race when he stares at me. He doesn’t deserve to have my palms sweat when I recall that this man has seen every inch of me. He doesn’t deserve to have my mouth literally water when I notice how big and hard his body has become over the years.
So big and so hard.
Focus, Olivia.
I lower my hand under the fluffy white covers and slide my fingertips below the thin band of my underwear, where I’m dismayed to find that I’m wet. That bastard.
For once, I hate biology. My body’s innate reaction is to want Davis, which doesn’t leave me with many options. Trying to forcefully shut off attraction is impossible and won’t solve my problems. I need to make this quick—efficient, as he would say. With a reluctant sigh, I lower my fingers deeper into my folds, where I find myself soaking at the mere thought of him. With practiced motions, I press two fingertips against my clit, drawing up my wetness so that I can pleasure myself to thoughts of that wolfish sneer he now wears when he looks at me. My hips rise and my other hand drifts to my breast, where I pinch at my nipple underneath my shirt.
I imagine his lips on it, suckling attentively on that nipple with the same amount of cutthroat intensity that surrounds his every action at the office. I picture his hands clutching my hips. Him bending me at the waist over the unnecessarily large desk in his stupid, too-big office. I imagine him taking me from behind like he couldn’t care less if I enjoy it or not.
When I come, his name is on my lips and that makes me hate him so much more than I already do.
Hours later, I’m exiting the elevator on the eighty-eighth floor, wearing the demurest outfit in my corporate-approved wardrobe and ready to talk about one thing and only one thing: mergers and acquisitions.
Okay, maybe that’s two things, but whatever.
“Morning,” I greet him as I slide into the chair on the other side of his desk and open my laptop. “How was your weekend?”
“You blew me off,” Davis responds flatly.