Under My Boss's Authority: Office Romance Collection by Jamie Knight (free e novels .txt) 📗

The guards dropped me off three blocks away from where I lived, because traffic prevented them from getting any closer. I thanked them once again and they nodded at me casually in response, as if it was part of their job duties.

The inside of my house smelled the same: lemongrass tea and macadamia nut cookies. There was no one to hug me, no one to say hello to. I was alone in the middle of rising chaos all around me.

Apparently, I had learned while skimming the news on my phone in the car, a global pandemic called the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, had made its way to our country and everything was being shut down so that people could stay safe. We had to isolate, or we could catch and spread this very contagious virus.

I thrust myself inside my beanie bag and let out a long, exasperated sigh, wondering when or if the world would ever be normal again.

And when or if I would ever see Henry again.

I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I had lost my opportunity to be than just an employee to him. I had fantasized about being with him but had never gotten up the nerve to try.

Well, except for a couple times, and I was pretty bold about it. But I didn’t go nearly as far as I wanted with him.

And now I might never be able to.

Chapter One - Julia

I stand still and pace around the small, crowded space, anxiously listening. The woman on the other line, who owns a dog I have been walking, has a lot to say with very few words, and I think it better to bite my lip and cool my tongue. She hangs up.

I will not be getting paid, it seems.

Ever since the pandemic broke out in the United States, life completely spun around for me. I got up, dressed up, baked a fruit pie, sat on the balcony for some good old Vitamin D, binged on a TV series for a whole three minutes, which was the most my brain could take in before it gave up, then tried reading. I had no better luck focusing on the book, though.

It was crap. I had chosen to keep dog walking as a gig ever since the Era of Charlie, as I like to call it. It was a poor choice.

Almost all of New York is covered in brick and cinder. It made sense at the time to alleviate the burden that dog owners upstate had, and I would take my old clients’ dogs out to smell some flowers and feel free. As it turns out, it’s the dog owners that are having such a hard time adjusting to life indoors. The frustration, always, rubs off on me.

Today I had hoped to get some extra cha-ching going. I need to make more money.

Henry coughs from the other room. Instinctively I push three bangs off my forehead and breathe for composure’s sake.

It turns out I had the opportunity to see him again. He wanted me to work for him at his house during the quarantine, so of course I said yes.

I push the phone into my back pocket and pinch my cheeks. I move with ease past the pantry door, through the kitchen and to where he is at, behind his dining room table. He is totally focused on me.

‘Everything alright?’

He pays me, of course, but most of that money gets used up at home back in Arkansas, where my ma and pa live. I could ask the billionaire for a raise, but that would get the plan undone. Who goes ahead and asks their crush for a raise?

I guess the real question should be, ‘who has a crush on their boss for three years and does nothing about it?’

Or, almost nothing about it.

Certainly not nearly as much as I’ve wanted to do.

But I can answer that one at least. I wanted to do everything with him today. Right here in his house, where the fireplace is still lit from last night and where he could throw me on the table, rip my pointless-at-this-point dress apart and fuck me silly.

But my mind is in disarray. I need to make more money. I need to think.

‘Yeah it is. I just need to go home.’

He slides his strong arms across the project we’ve been working on all morning and takes his thin-rimmed glasses off. He licks his lower lips.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I have some personal issues that just came up that I need to work on. Is that okay?’

He mulls on it for a minute. A stray hair lingers atop the bridge of his nose. I can almost see his mind racing. Please accept. Please. Say yes. Don’t take it further than it has to go…

‘It’s alright. I’ll see you tomorrow if you’ll be feeling better, okay?’

You could have said no and locked me up, you know.

‘Thank you, Henry. I will let you know when I get home.’

The mask is hanging by the sanitation booth. It’s this little black and blue door frame that he had installed awhile back. Every time anyone walks in through the thing, it sprays a sweet-smelling brand of sanitizer from head to toe.

It makes me feel violated, no lie. But it was part of the deal we had agreed upon. And I do hate going back on my word. I put the damn blue thing on and blink for a few second when the sun hits my face.

I stop by the cherub statues for a minute to nod at them, and then I resume my trek. The walk down the tarmac is sullen and broken.

I see the car, but I also wish I could turn back and see him watch me through the window. Like in those Nicholas Sparks books. Romantic, and the like.

Nope. Not today. Today I am afraid I will find him watching. I would not know what to do with that.

The gate buzzes me through, and I wave to