The Boss (The Boss 1)

“Where’s Neil?” he asked, peering past me at the open door to Neil’s office.

“He said he had to make another stop on the way back from lunch.” I pulled up his schedule and checked the time. It was two-thirty-five. A meeting on cover design had been planned for two-twenty.

Rudy stood beside me and leaned over my shoulder. “What is going on with him?” he muttered to himself. To me, he said, “If he were Gabriella, what would happen?”

“It would end with someone jumping out a window on fire,” I snarked before I could stop myself.

Rudy straightened. “Well, that person is not going to be me. Could you let Neil know that I handled the meeting, and I’ll fill him in when I get back from Betsy Johnson?”

“Sure.” I pulled up my company email and typed the message.

Rudy was almost to the door when he stopped and turned. “I like the way you did your eyes today.”

I didn’t get a chance to say thank you before he was gone. I chuckled to myself. I actually liked people like Rudy. I view the whole “not knowing where you stand with them,” thing as a challenge.

Neil and I crossed paths only briefly during the rest of the day, and I was thankful for that. The shock from my borderline poetic car confession hadn’t worn off yet. Since he’d never mentioned his unscheduled stop, I assumed Neil had just blown off his after-lunch meeting to be driven around the block a few times so he could avoid riding in the elevator with me. Unfortunately, that messed up his entire afternoon, and he mentioned sheepishly that we might be working later than my usual six o’clock. As the day ticked on into the evening, I kept myself calm and on track with the promise of another hot bath – sans sexual fantasies about my boss – and waited patiently for him to tell me I could go home.

At around seven, he emerged from his office with Rudy and Hope Foley, Porteras’s senior stylist.

“Sorry to have kept you so late, Sophie,” Neil apologized. “We’re going to dinner; will you be available should we need you?”

“Of course.” I was dying to get home to tell Holli what had happened at lunch, but it looked like it was going to be a long night playing Bubble Spinner and waiting for my boss to get back to the office from a dinner meeting. Maybe Neil wasn’t so different from Gabriella, after all, from a work perspective.

“You don’t have to stay here,” he added quickly. “I hope you didn’t think I meant for you to—”

“Gabriella would have chained her to the desk,” Hope laughed. She had always clashed with Gabriella, and was often the only person at the magazine who dared to push her contrary opinions. I’d often found Gabriella’s calm reactions to Hope’s impassioned arguments wildly entertaining.

Rudy laughed with her, and Neil did, as well, but I noted a distinct flush creeping up his neck.

“Yes, well, I’m hardly going to expect that of you,” he mumbled.

Hope and Rudy didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, but did I ever. I wondered if he had the same mental image I was having re: chains and desks.

I forced myself to maintain eye contact and said evenly, “Well, have a good night!” Then they were— thankfully— out the door. I waited for them to enter the elevator, then jumped up and grabbed my coat.

* * * *

When I got home, I wanted to launch directly into my bizarre day, but Holli was in a state. A totally understandable, enraged state.

“Look at this!” she fumed, thrusting her iPad into my face. “Can you fucking believe this?”

“Ohhhh no.” I dropped my bag and shrugged out of my coat as my eyes scanned the magazine page on the screen. A beautiful photo of Holli— her long legs rising like Grecian columns from a pair of Yves St. Laurent boots, her hipbones jutting from a simple pair of black lace panties, skinny arms covering her non-existent bust— was superimposed with the words, “How Thin Is Too Thin?”

“I did that shoot last year. I’d just had that gastrointestinal thing! Of course I looked emaciated. This is totally unfair criticism!” She handed the iPad to me when my hands were free, and stalked to the kitchen.

I scanned the article, but it was the same ignorance as usual. Models were too skinny. All of them were on the verge of dying from eating disorders. What kind of example were they setting, blah blah blah. Holli wasn’t so famous that she’d become the target of stand-up comics’ jokes yet, but I feared that time wasn’t too far off.

Since Holli and I have been friends for so long, I’ve learned, through trial and error, exactly what one should not say in this situation. Trying to see the bright side in the career benefits and the envy of other women was absolutely unwelcome. Suggesting she might be ignoring some deeply rooted eating disorder she didn’t even know she had? Even worse. Expressing my jealousy of her ability to eat a cheeseburger the size of her head and actually lose weight while doing it? That was the worst.