Page 8 of The German's Guilty Pleasure
I tipped my head. "I haven't told them I'm moving out. After seeing the apartment today, I suppose it's time I do that."
"Maynard is aware of what the benefits are for this position. It was posted on the website he had access to. He will not be surprised, but yes, it would be wise to tell him you will be staying here now."
I sighed and did the palms up. "I guess so since I no longer have a car."
He held up his finger and pulled the laptop over in front of us. "That is the first item on the agenda for today.
"We're going car shopping? You don’t have fleet vehicles?"
He started tapping buttons while he answered. “No, you will choose your own car. Luckily, we can buy the car online, and they will deliver it. I do not want you going out today.”
For the next hour, we sat at the table and narrowed down cars until we settled on an Audi A7 with all the bells and whistles. He literally paid for it online and scheduled the delivery for this evening. I had objected to the price every time he brought up a car, but in the end, he told me if I didn’t choose, he would. After much discussion about what cars were German-made, we settled on the Audi, though I was open about my discomfort with the expense.
He closed the laptop and settled it back on his desk before he turned to me. It wasn’t the first time I noticed how nicely he filled out both the back and the front of his pants. The pants hugged him in all the right places, and it was easy to tell he didn’t buy his clothes off the rack. Those pants were tailored for him. Even though I shouldn’t stare, I decided someone had to appreciate them.
“Are you feeling up to interviews this afternoon? I have several lined up for my personal assistant position as well as the downstairs receptionist and building manager. If you are not well, you may retire to your apartment.”
I held up my finger. “About the apartment.”
“Do you not find it acceptable?” His tone was cordial with a hint of displeasure.
I stood and limped toward him. He leaned against his desk casually, and his German God look had never been stronger. “It’s a beautiful apartment, Lars. I simply wanted to thank you for the furnished space. I wasn’t sure how I was going to furnish a place, but then you probably knew that, right?”
“It was logical considering you did not live alone previously, which is why I put it in the contract. The contract that you have not signed yet.” This time his tone was unsure even though he had just purchased me a seventy-thousand-dollar car.
“You’re right, I planned to do that when I arrived, but …” I waved my hand at the windows. “Should I sign it now?”
The look that crossed his handsome face was one of relief, and I made a note of it. He may not have been lying when he said he had no one else for this position.
He held up the contract and lowered it to the table before handing me a pen. I scrawled my name on the bottom of both pages and patted it twice. “I guess that makes me an official employee of Kontakt.”
He accepted the pen when I held it out, and his fingers caressed mine when he slid it from them. His skin was soft, warm, and left little pinpricks of sex across my skin. I wondered what it would feel like to have those hands wrapped around my hips while he called out my name in ecstasy.
Oh man, what did I just do? Now I had to work with the sexiest man alive while strategizing how to sell sex toys. I also had to pretend to know everything about sex when the exact opposite was true. While he continued to gaze at me with those sexy and searching blue eyes, I was sure of one thing. If you checked the dictionary for the termhot mess, you’d see my picture.
The last three months had been a bit insane. Truthfully, they’d been completely mad, but fantastically so. My graduation was an event to remember, made possible by Babette and Maynard. They had brought their extended family in to fill the bleachers for the event. They all held signs with my head on them while they clanked cowbells and generally carried on with love and encouragement. Walking across the stage and accepting my diploma from Maynard was the best possible way to end that part of my life. The degree was a new beginning, and I was ready to grasp it.
When I stopped for the obligatory picture at the end of the stage, my eyes had drifted to the stands, pulled by an unseen force. My gaze met his where he sat, his Jil Sander suit hugging him like a glove. He sensed the moment I saw him and let that confident smile tip his lips upward. His head nodded once and I smiled without thought. The resulting picture now sits on my mantle. Only he and I understood how that picture had come to be the best one ever taken of me.
The afternoon of my accident, we’d managed to hire Lexie, as an assistant for Lars and a building manager, Seth, who would also be the receptionist. I preferred to call SethThe Lean Mean We’d Be Screwed Without You Machine. He made sure Lars and I could keep working on our end of the business by taking care of the rest of the team as they arrived from Germany. He was the reason they were already set up on their respective floors and in full swing this quickly in the process. Seth had also organized the catering company to come in and get the café open on the first floor. While all of that was going on, he prepped and stocked the gym for anyone who wanted to use it.
Since Lars had four apartments on the top floor of the building, all the major players had one. I lived next door to Lexie, his assistant, and she lived next door to Seth. We were across the hall from Lars, who, for all purposes, was either alone behind his office door or alone behind his apartment door. No women, or men for that matter, came in or out, and the only people he ever ate dinner with were Lexie or me.
Lexie was a godsend to both of us when it came to running the office of the CEO, which spilled over into marketing, at least right now. Lars and I worked so closely together she was always able to predict what we needed before we needed it. I could say she had become the first close friend I’d ever had in my life. We spent many nights laughing together while drinking wine in one or the other’s apartment. She talked about men and her dates. I mostly bit my tongue to keep from saying something inappropriate about our boss. It was easy to admit to myself in the dark of night, lying in my empty bed alone, that I had a massive crush on the man who controlled my life. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I would never be able to fulfill those fantasies. There was no way I was screwing up this dream job to scratch an itch. I’d sooner use a sensual aid before I did that.
I shuddered and then snickered. Thus far, I had avoided that awkward situation, and I was glad for it. The last thing I wanted to do was admit I didn’t even know how to turn one on. My phone rang and I grabbed it, answering while I stacked the folders I would need when I arrived at Lars’ office. “This is Serenity.”
“Serenity,” my boss’s deep voice said my name in a way that always sent shivers of sex down my spine, “would you come to my office?”
I cleared my throat before I spoke. The last thing I wanted to do was croak like an idiot. Then he would know exactly how much he affected me. “I was just on my way.”
I didn’t wait for a response, just dropped the receiver in the cradle, grabbed my papers, and sashayed down the hallway with a sassy spring in my step. I was about to make his day!
Four
I rapped once on the door, and his deepcome inmade me shudder again. I waited for it to pass before I closed the door behind me and set the folders on the table by his desk.
“My littleblauer vogel,you must be quite excited to have hung up on your boss.” When he stood, I noticed his sleeves were rolled to his elbows, giving me a clear shot of his muscular forearms sprinkled with fine blond hair. He was hot as hell, and his silver Cartier strapped to his wrist, added to the mystique. The watch was his grandfather’s, that much I knew. His mother had given it to him on his twenty-first birthday. It hadn’t left his wrist in the nine years since. It was when I realized he was six years older than me that I vowed never to let on about the crush I had on him. That was more experience than I could handle. Not that experience is bad, but a thirty-year-old man with extensive sexual knowledge and a twenty-four-year-old virgin weren’t going to be compatible. Besides, I’d heard there were plenty of guys out there who liked nothing more than to take a woman’s virginity and walk away. I couldn’t say Lars was one of them, but I certainly didn’t want to find out after a roll in the hay. Don’t get me wrong. It would probably be a star-studded, toy-filled, mind-blowing roll in the hay extravaganza, but I wasn’t about to find out.
