Maggie appeared in the crack of the door, looking hesitant, frightened of him. She pressed her lips into a smile, waiting for his “okay.”
“I said come in, Maggie. Don’t hang around out there all day.”
Maggie scurried in, clicking the door closed behind her. She bowed her red head, her bangs fluffing over her eyes. She hadn’t been this way as a teenager: a rough and wild woman, stripping her top from her breasts and rushing through the city streets.
“I’m sorry to bug you, Q. But we have a few advertising meetings early this afternoon. I was hoping to bring a few of the new interns into the meetings, as well. Just so they can get a feel for the business side of things. So many of them are just writers, coming out of college.” She rolled her eyes and laughed nervously, her shoulders quivering.
Interns. Shit. That meant Charlotte, didn’t it?
“How many interns?” Quentin asked, closing his magazine spreads with a swift motion. “I don’t want to fill the office. These ad meetings are kind of delicate.”
“Right, of course. I mean, I’d obviously like to bring in the sales interns. Maybe a few of the social media ones, so they can get a sense for what our brand image is and which advertisers we promote, which we don’t.” Maggie paused, leaning heavily upon his desk. She swept her breasts toward his face, pushing them just over six inches from his nose. He could see the darkness between; he could imagine fondling them.
“I’d like to bring in a few of the writers myself,” Quentin said then. “Some of the aspiring music journalists. Because I know they want all of this life. They crave it more than the others.” He swept back on the wheels of his chair, moving away from her breasts. He looked at her sternly, making eye contact.
“Oh. Do you want me to just handpick a few, then?” she asked him.
“No, no. I took a look at their writing samples,” he lied.
Maggie looked shocked. Her eyebrows rose high, recognizing a difference in him. “You’ve never done that before.”
“I want to take a vested interest in my interns this time around,” Quentin said firmly. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Of course not,” Maggie said softly. She swept a single leg over the front side of the desk, showing a bit of her inner thigh. “Do you have a problem with this?” She began to move her skirt upward, revealing the paleness of her skin, the softness of her pink underwear.
“Yes. I do,” Quentin said gruffly, not moving a muscle. He didn’t want to alarm her, didn’t want to enrage her. His heart hammered in his chest. “I have the no-fraternization policy in place for a reason. And you know that.”
“I know that I can’t resist you,” Maggie said, her eyes flashing. “I know that I think about fucking you and sucking your cock during business hours, every fucking day. And I know you’re lonely. You aren’t the man you used to be.”
Angered, Quentin burst from his chair, causing Maggie to back away with shuffling steps. With a single motion, he swept past her, blasting the door open, and standing, huffing, in the center office. His writers stared up at him, sensing his dominance and anger over them. A girl in the center of the room dropped her notebook and leaned down quickly to get it, revealing a large, unattractive ass to the air. Calming himself, inhaling slowly, Quentin raised a hand.
“Sorry, everyone. Adrenaline about this next issue. It’s going to be a fucking great one. Thanks for your hard work.” He continued his trek down the hall, toward the intern office. He sensed a growing strength in his chest, one that insisted he make a scene, cause disaster. One that wanted him back on his bad boy streak.
Maggie rushed up behind him, taking small steps and whispering, “I’m sorry about that back there. Won’t happen again, sir. I totally understand.”
But as she tittered, Quentin burst open the door of the intern office and strode to the front of the room, forcing all eyes upon him. Ten in all, the interns were mostly women, with a few high-fashion, writerly men, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and suit jackets. Charlotte sat in the center of the room, her brown hair flowing evenly down her back, her smile faltering as she eyed him. She’d been speaking in whispers to one of the men, beside her, whose bright yellow hair burned holes in Quentin’s eyes.
“Hey. You. What’s your name?” Quentin asked the boy, who was probably around twenty-three and unaccustomed to being spoken to so gruffly.
Maggie looked on, aghast. Quentin knew she hadn’t seen him so riled up. Not since he’d taken the first writing gig at MMM. Not since he’d made it his own.
“R—Randy,” the yellow-haired boy said in a sweet, flamboyant voice.