Page 18 of My Hot Boss

“Probably because you don't know how amazing you are. You're one of those rare women that have no clue.”

“No clue about what?”

Derrick sighed and shook his head. “You don't even have a clue about what you don't have a clue about. You're very innocent, Augustine, has anybody ever told you that?”

I agree that I had heard that before, but it usually wasn't said in good context. It was said in an accusation-filled tone, like my innocence was directly there to upset people. Derrick acted like it was a good thing, when I knew most people did not feel that way at all.

“It doesn't bother you?” I wondered aloud.

“What? That you don't have that much experience?”

I agreed, even though it was a bit of an understatement. I had no experience and it seemed to me like the older I got, the weirder it was. What would he think if he knew the truth, that touching me was the first time that I had come? Would he still want me if I didn’t know what happened between a man and a woman? Derrick was the first man who ever made me wonder what it was that I’d been missing all this time.

Derrick said that he liked that he could teach me new things. I didn't know what all there was to learn, seemed like everything had already been done. It really just came down to what did I want in a marriage. Should I want to find love and excitement, or did I want to play it safe? I thought safety was important to me, but when it came down to it, I realized more than anything that I preferred a thrilling life to one that was boring. The man chosen for me to wed would certainly keep me bored to tears. I didn't see how Derrick could ever do that. He would always be exciting, I bet.

I bit my lower lip, unsure how I was going to do this. How could I say yes, when he hadn’t properly asked? I wondered that out loud, and he said that he would take care of it. I wanted to talk about it some more. This was all just happening too fast. I hoped that talking about it would make me feel better about such a decision.

I saw Derrick again at the end of the day. He’d been gone most of it, and I had no idea what it was all about. I knew that there was something going on between us, but I had no idea what exactly it was. My family complicated things because we should be talking about dating, not marriage. The stakes were too high for me. I felt like no matter what, I was going to make a bad decision and ruin everything. I hated feeling that way, like it was all going to go bad.

“Come into my office, Augustine. I want to chat with you about something.”

I went to his office, not even thinking twice about it. I didn’t think that he would be dressed up in a suit and have music playing in the background as he went to his knee. He was asking me properly, and I felt tears coming to my eyes when I realized what he was doing. He was asking me to marry him, and he was doing a damn good job of it.

“I mean, I never imagined that I would marry a woman that I hadn’t even bedded yet, but it must be love,” Derrick said offhandedly. I didn’t know why his words bothered me so much, but they did. He thought that he knew I was innocent, but I had a feeling he had no real idea. I wasn’t too enthused to tell him either. How embarrassing would that be?

He was going to find out though…

“Well, you are going to answer me, aren’t you, Augustine?”

I agreed that I was, but the words were stuck in my throat. “It’s just a big ask.”

He pulled me in for a kiss, and I swear that I could no longer think straight. I was pretty sure that he knew that and was grinning when he pulled away. I mumbled my answer very lightly, but he was close enough to hear me, and he kissed me harder. I was lost in his arms and when he let go, I could barely stand on my own two feet.

22

Derrick

She agreed to it, even if Augustine was a bit begrudging. She said yes and that was all I was going to worry about. The rest of it was just noise. Something inside of me melted when I heard the word yes, but it took me a minute to get over the feel of her in my arms to begin with. Augustine submitted, but she still pulled back when the kiss started to go somewhere else. I had a lot on my mind, so I didn’t think about that as much as maybe I should have. I knew that there was nothing more that I could do, but what was asked of me. She needed some space and I agreed, because soon she would be my wife and she wouldn’t have anywhere to run. Her response was still a bit of a surprise, but I was ready and willing to figure out where it was all going to end.

Now, we had to get married as quickly as possible. Considering that I just wanted to feel her and taste her, it wasn’t hard to give me incentive to move as fast as I could toward marriage. It was crazy, because I never would have thought that marriage was something that was in the cards for me. Now, I was supposed to be the happily ever after guy and that was a hard one to swallow.

Work was different because we still had to work together. I told Augustine that she didn’t have to work for me or for anyone if she didn’t want to, but that got me a dirty look. That was apparently the last thing that she wanted to hear. That’s what Dalian had tried to get her to agree to. Augustine didn’t want to give up what she liked to do. She liked to work, grow, learn, make her own money.

That was a big part of the pull to me. She cared for me, had maybe even fallen for me, but I was going to take her as is, not ask her to stay home and be a housewife, waiting to get knocked up. If that’s what happened and what she chose, great, but Augustine didn’t want other people making that choice for her, whether it be her husband or anyone else for that matter. She had told me several times that she wasn’t going to give up her freedom. I’d tried to tell her that it was all up to her, but she was adamant. Augustine was afraid to lose something, and I kept trying to tell her that she was going to gain, not lose.

I tried to keep my head away from the sexual parts, and all Augustine could think of was losing herself. It was a strange situation to be getting married, but I think both of us were doing it for our own reasons. I was afraid of losing her to another man before I got the chance to get to know her, and Augustine had to get married to someone for her family to continue accepting her. I didn’t understand why her culture was that way, but I didn’t think that it really mattered. She was born into it and had to follow the rules whether she liked them or not. I could only imagine, whereas I could do whatever I wanted. I had no rules or else I would not be able to have her.

The ceremony was not as hard to work out as I thought it would be. Usually, Augustine would take care of setting up such things, but it was my responsibility and I wanted it to happen as soon as possible. As soon as she said that she would marry me, I was willing to go out of my way to make it happen. It was hard to focus on much of anything else, when I knew what was going to come to be soon enough. All I had to do was make it all come together and it was ready that evening. I told Augustine that we were ready, we were about to leave for the night, and she laughed like I was joking.

“What do you mean we are ready?”

I shrugged and told her it was just what I said. “I have everything set up downstairs in one of the conference rooms. You told me that you didn’t want anything too big, just something legal and between the two of us. So, let’s go downstairs and see what I have come up with.”

She just sort of looked at me and then down at what she was wearing. It was the first super-girly thing that she had done, worried about how she was going to be dressed when she married me. It was sweet and it made me smile inwardly.

“I have a dress for you, if you would like to change before we go.”

Augustine launched into my arms and told me thank you for doing it. It was all worth it in that moment, feeling her in my arms and knowing that tonight, I would have her in my bed. I knew that it wasn’t the only reason that we were getting married, but I would be lying if I couldn’t admit that I’d thought about it a time or two.

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