The Girlfriend (The Boss 2)

“Sophie,” she began, clinking the underside of her ring against the glass in her hand.

“Do you need something, Valerie? Another drink?” I gestured to her half-full glass. “What are you having?”

“No, I’m fine. And it’s just Diet Coke tonight.” She looked down, then up again, tossing her beautiful auburn hair over one shoulder. “I’m sorry. For the way I acted the last time we spoke. I know that what Neil does with his estate is none of my concern. And that he’s smart enough not to fall in love with someone who’s only after his money.”

Crap. If she was going to be nice to me, I had to be nice back. I wanted to stay mad and jealous. “Apology accepted.”

She went on. “I must admit, after what happened at Porteras, I didn’t like you. I’d decided I never would. But Emma has been very... insistent that I have the wrong idea about you. And if you were able to turn around her opinion of you, after how the two of you met...”

“Oh god, does everyone know that story? Did she send out a mass email?”

Valerie tilted her head. “A Facebook status. But I am sorry. I shouldn’t have been so...”

“Weirdly possessive of my boyfriend?” I supplied. It still bothered me, and I was going to call it like it was.

Her shoulders stiffened, but she nodded with a slight smile and took a sip of her pop. “Well, as long as we understand each other.

“I do think you’re good for him,” she admitted after a long swallow from her glass. “And he looks at you—”

A huge lump rose in my throat. If she said he looked at me the way he used to look at her, I would vomit. Not out of spite, but because I felt physically ill during the breath she took between that part of her sentence and the next: “as if you are the only thing in this world that matters.”

And the way she said it, the subtle, wistful bending of her words told me volumes more than what she had spoken. It told me that Neil didn’t look at many people that way. And that he hadn’t looked at her that way.

“Well.” She shrugged and said pleasantly, “Enjoy your night.”

I sought out Holli and Deja again. They were talking to Emma and Michael, and the four of them seemed to be getting along pretty well. When I stepped up, Emma turned to me and said, “Everything okay?”

So, she must have known her mother was going to approach me. I gave her a reassuring smile. “Yeah, everything is fine.”

I was probably never going to like Valerie, but at least I felt like there was some kind of closure there. I appreciated that she hadn’t tried to blame me or excuse her behavior. Maybe I could stop clenching my teeth whenever she was around now.

“So, can you sneak off and show us the house?” Holli asked, her eyes darting upward. “This is kind of a swanky place.”

“Go on, Sophie, it’s your house,” Emma said, making a little shooing motion with her hands.

I took them up to the fourth floor in the elevator, because Holli had ridiculously high heels on. The instant the doors closed, Holli blurted, “Okay, show me his kinky sex room!”

“There’s no kinky sex room,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“Or do you mean every room is a kinky sex room?” Holli wiggled her eyebrows.

Deja shook her head and sighed heavily. “Baby. The man is going through chemotherapy.”

“Billionaires have kinky sex rooms,” Holli insisted. “I read about it in a book.”

“We’ve been getting plenty kinky,” I confessed. I’d had a few drinks to loosen my nerves at meeting people and having to be in the same room with Valerie. Holli knew exactly where to hit me for details.

Not that we didn’t routinely spill the details to each other, anyway. We’d had a total kiss-and-tell policy with each other ever since our second week in the dorms at NYU.

“I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone, because I wanted to see your face. We. Had. A three way.”

“Oh my god.” Holli’s eyes went wide.

Deja’s jaw dropped. “I have to work for this man’s company, you know.”

Holli ignored her. “Was it girl-girl-guy? Or guy-guy-girl?”

“He watched me have sex with another man. Or well, that was the second time. The first time was at a private BDSM club in Paris. We met this guy and Neil watched him finger me. Then we hooked up later, here, and Neil watched while we...” My face grew hot as I realized how deeply personal these things were. Then naughty laughter burst from my lungs, and we practically rolled out onto the fourth floor.

“Okay,” I said, wiping my eyes. “From the top down, here we go.”

We were having such a good time, I didn’t realize the hour. When the clock in the foyer chimed eleven-thirty, I had to check the clock face to be sure what time it really was.