Page 25 of My Possessive Billionaire: Our Fake Marriage

The exec sheepishly raised his hand.

“Me, sir.”

“All right, James Brody. You’re the guy for Welshie Subs now. You’d better eat, sleep, and shit Welshie Subs. You’d better turn this company around and give me a profit or you’re going to be looking for a new job next. And I don’t give good referrals for incompetents who fail me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice breaking at the end.

“Good. Next.”

I went back to working on the heavy bag as the next exec stepped up to bat.

“Sir, it looks like our payroll problem has worked itself out. More than fifteen percent—”

Bam!

Amanda was determined to act like an employee, just an employee. Certainly not a wife. I suppose perhaps I’d expected her to at least act like a lover, even if it was a fake marriage. I couldn’t get through to her. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get through to her.

But every once in a while, when she was in an unguarded moment or perhaps feeling a bit cheeky, she would call me sir in just the same teasing, snarky way she had right before and during our wild sex on the airplane. In those moments, it took every ounce of self-restraint that I had to keep myself in check.

I wasn’t used to having to keep myself in check. That was foreign, unfamiliar territory for me to begin with. I was used to being able to get whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.

Then, factor in the fact that I never felt such an intense desire for a woman before, and I was really confused by the whole affair. I’d had desires, even strong desires for women, but they were always over after the first time I slept with them. I wasn’t much for repeat performances. I was an original event sort of man.

Or so I thought. Now all I wanted was to take Amanda again, just as I had on the plane.

Most of my life, I’ve seen people as being like chess figures on a black and white board. I moved them around at my whim, and if I was playing against someone else, I tricked them into moving their pieces where I wanted them to go.

Only now, there was a rogue queen on the board. Not black or white, blazing red. Before, I was the king of the chessboard in a figurative sense. Now I felt like I was a chess king in the literal sense. Like I was slowly plodding after her while she remained forever out of reach.

It infuriated me to no end. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t get her off of my mind. Normally I could easily put any woman, no matter how desirable, completely out of my thoughts and concentrate on business.

Now, I was finding it hard to think about anything BUT a woman. How had she done that? When had she sunk her claws into me so deep and so well?

Sooner or later, I would figure out a way to outplay her. Sooner or later, she would be mine and do what I wanted. I was still the king of the chessboard.

Bam!

“—and that’s the complete summary of our fiscal quarter,” the exec finished up. I glanced over at Jenna, and knew from the dull, bored look in her eyes that I had missed nothing of importance.

I pulled my gloves off as the next exec in line started up his spiel. I unwrapped the tape from my knuckles and saw it was bloody. I knew I was going a little bit hard. Slight abrasions burned between my knuckles. That was always the thing about the heavy bag. It didn’t tear up the skin on your knuckles, it split the skin between them.

I sprayed some saline solution onto my knuckles, ignoring the sting, and then wiped my hands on a towel before moving over to the lat rowing machine.

“The revenue report and aging detail are included in the packet I emailed to you this morning, sir,” the executive droned on. I glanced over at Jenna, and she nodded to show I had received such an email.

I slapped the metal pin below the hundred- and fifty-pound mark. I usually worked out at around one hundred and forty, but I was feeling froggy that day. Or maybe because of the situation with Amanda, I just had extra aggression to work out. I wasn’t sure.

I pulled back on the handle with a smooth motion, drawing out the tightly wound steel cable. My arms ached after the tenth rep, but I kept on going, just like the exec desperate to please me with how thorough and detail-oriented he was.

Every time the weights clanked back on top of each other,though, I felt drawn into my own thoughts again. And every time I visited there, the queen of the chessboard awaited me, mocking me with her presence. Taunting me with her absolute mastery of the board. She constantly had me in check, making me flee around the board instead of taking the initiative.

And when I did go on the offensive, I found myself outplayed at every turn. I never knew a woman to have such power over me. I didn’t want to think about it that way, though. I tried to convince myself that she was just being snotty because of the transactional aspect of the relationship.

The exec finished up his spiel, and I turned to him. He looked to be ninety-eight pounds soaking wet, but he was very tall and had a definite presence to him. He struck me as a leader, and I could already tell from his performance he was above average in the competency department.

“Who are you again?”

“Dilbert Messing, from—”

---