1
Olivia
Consultant Manager. That was my official job title. But really, I was working for Brett Greyson, CEO and owner of Greyson Consulting. I didn’t like working for him. Or underneath him. I needed the job, though. Badly. I interviewed for the position and was hired on two weeks ago, and I had yet to run into him.
The boy from my childhood.
My first two weeks on the job was for training purposes. A pompous man with a pimply face despite the fact he was almost fifty years old took me around, trying to show me the ropes. He walked me through how to turn on a damn computer. Like I didn’t know how to work an inkling of technology at the ripe young age of twenty-six. Everything was explained to me as if I were a child, and the only thing that made it bearable was the fact that it was paid training. Thankfully, after the first two weeks it was done. Which meant I got to settle into my office.
It wasn’t much. Four walls, a heavy wooden door, and a dark wooden desk. I had a couple of bookshelves, a couple of small windows to make it seem like I wasn’t in prison. The carpet was rough underneath my feet as I slipped out of my heels and sat down in the worn leather chair. Somehow, the leather was still smooth despite how often the chair had been used previously. I sat back in the wrinkled leather and drew in a deep breath. That was my task for the day, getting settled into my office, which meant putting my whopping four books on the bookshelf and hooking my laptop up to my desktop computer so I could sync information between the two devices.
It took me all of an hour to accomplish.
I sat back and closed my eyes, allowing my mind to wander. Ten floors above me was the penthouse floor of the office space, the top floor of Greyson Consulting. And there, in his cushy office, sat Brent—the boy I’d met at a Halloween party when I was eighteen years old.
It had been my first college party. My roommate, Katie, had persuaded me to go. She was the girl that would eventually become my “ride-or-die bitch.” She told me it would be the “party of the semester” and that if I didn’t go it would “solidify my social status for the rest of my college days.”
It wasn’t that big of a deal. But the boy I met there was.
I drew in a deep breath and smiled. Even for twenty years old, Brett had been gorgeous. His steely gray stare had pierced me the moment I’d walked into the party. His thick black hair fell into his face back in those days, swooped off to the side, contrasting how pale his skin was. I giggled at my first words to him when he approached me at the party, offering me a drink.
“I didn’t know they made costume makeup that pale. Where’d you get it?”
I’d made an idiot out of myself that night, and yet he’d still stuck around. After wrapping his hand around my wrist and placing my palm to his cheek, I felt like an idiot. He’d rubbed my skin along his, proving to me without words that he wasn’t wearing any makeup. Then, he’d kissed the palm of my hand before easing my arm back down to my side.
A hell of a move. And it worked that night.
We spent the entire night in that small little corner. Him in his jeans and his T-shirt and me in my slutty bunny costume my roommate had stuffed me into. I couldn’t stop staring at him that night. Couldn’t stop fantasizing about what his plump lower lip would feel like on my skin. And despite his lanky stature back in college, he had an enormous well of strength. I figured out that night that he could put me into a wall. Fuck me properly without ever having to take my costume off my body. I went to that Halloween party a single, curious college girl and left as the apple of a man’s eye.
I left that Halloween party as Brett’s dedicated little sweet treat.
I leaned back in my leather chair and slowly opened my eyes. Memories bombarded my mind as my computer dinged. It was done syncing and loading whatever bullshit onto my laptop I needed in order to work from home. And yes, I was required to work from home for my job. No sick days for me. No weekends of my own again. It came with overtime pay, but money wasn’t everything. Sometimes, a girl just needed a day to lie in bed in the same pair of clothes from the night before and sleep the day away.
Gone were those days, I guessed.