Page 6 of Surprise! I'm Engaged To My Boss
“Are you talking about the condominium project? Is it yours? Wow, it’s great.”
“I know. And it was a lot of work.”
“I'm going to talk to Smith tomorrow and he's going to have to explain this situation to me.”
“If you tell him I told you, he might fire me.”
“The only one who can fire someone in there is me. And I don't intend to fire anyone.”
“Not even Victor Smith?”
“Not even Victor Smith.”
“Geez ... You really are an asshole.”
Again, I wasn't expecting the impolite term to be addressed to me. I had never been treated that way by a woman, much less by an employee at my company. But I didn't care much about it. I guess I was getting drunk enough to start seeing it as a bit natural.
What was not natural was how that initial conversation at the bar had evolved into the two of us waking up naked sharing the same bed.
For starters, she called me an asshole. And in a very unsexy way.
My head hurt, filled with fog, and I couldn't remember the sequence of that conversation anymore. I tried to force my memory a little, but nothing came up.
I decided, however, that none of that mattered. I didn't want to sleep with an employee, but it was done now, nothing could change that.
Life goes on...
And mine, in this case, had a lot to go on.
I got up, picked up my clothes that were thrown on the floor, used the bathroom in the room, got dressed and left. In the hotel parking lot, I got into my car and soon realized that I wasn't in a good enough state to drive.
“What the hell,” I grumbled, feeling my head spin a little.
It was a good thing that the place wasn't that far from my house. Still, I’d have to be extra careful and drive really slowly. The last thing I needed in my life was to get into an accident or get a ticket.
“I need to be a fucking exemplary man...” I grumbled, alone.
That had practically become my mantra for the past few weeks.
Before starting the vehicle, I took a look at my cell phone.
And my head hurt even more when I saw the number of messages that had accumulated since last night.
Chapter Two
MICHAEL
Sebastian alone — my older brother — had sent me more than twenty messages. All of them so neurotic and typical of him...
Turner Architecture had been founded six decades ago by our grandfather, passed on to my father and, upon his death, taken over by the eldest of his three sons. Sebastian had a degree in Architecture and, unlike me, had always taken his career very seriously. He had a respectable resume and had won several awards in the field. Not to mention that he competed with our middle brother for the position of most responsible in the family. The difference was that Logan, our other brother, had taken a different path in life and was now a doctor.
And I confess that I was quite comfortable with someone else taking on that responsibility.
However, a few months ago, everything changed. Sebastian’s wife was diagnosed with a heart condition, and he decided to step back from his role as CEO so he could be with her during her treatments and surgeries. So, the role was passed on to me. I didn’t think much of it at first and just delegated important decisions to other people. However, something also happened in my own life that forced me to make an effort to at least appear more responsible.
Still, Sebastian seemed to not trust me entirely, which meant that, in events like last night’s, he would pester me with tons of instructions.
I ignored all his questions, summarizing everything in a single answer:
