Page 12 of Tempt the Boss

With my mind wandering, I’m not paying attention to what’s going on around me. I turn a corner on my way back to my penthouse apartment and bump into a man talking on his phone.

“Watch where you’re going, asshole,” he spits, giving me the stereotypical New York dirty look.

“Sorry,” I say, but he’s already moved on. The rudeness is something I wouldn’t miss if I ever left the city. I bet everyone is really nice in a small town. Bumping into someone on the sidewalk would probably end in an hour-long conversation, not a rude look and swearing.

I keep walking. I won’t let the jerk ruin my good mood. My mind struggles to make sense of what happened in my office earlier. But not too much because if I go down that road all the way, I’ll embarrass myself in public. Not the weirdest thing anyone would see in New York today, but I’d rather not put that impression out there. My job requires me to be respected, not laughed at.

After twenty minutes, I reach the glass doors of my sleek, modern apartment building. I live about a mile from where I work, and I like it. It’s convenient, especially in the city. Some people have to commute for an hour to get to work. I can walk in pretty much any weather or take a car service if needed.

“Welcome back, Mr. Carmichael,” my doorman says as he pulls the door open for me.

“Thank you,” I respond.

I stride through the marble lobby to the elevator, my wingtips squeaking on the polished floor. A bellhop in a gold tasseled uniform pushes the button for me. It’s ridiculous. I am fully capable of hitting an elevator button myself, but I guess that’s what people pay a ton of money to live here for.

Because this is a stark difference from how it was when I was growing up. My parents gave me up when I was a baby. My mom left me at a fire station with my birth certificate and one thin, cotton blanket she’d probably gotten free from the hospital. I was only a few days old.

The elevator dings, and the doors open into my penthouse apartment. I throw my coat onto the rack by the door and loosen my tie. With a grunt, I collapse onto the couch, losing myself in thought.

Because the thoughts come swirling back. I spent my entire life not knowing who my parents were. My birth certificate wasn’t signed by either of my parents, so my mother always planned to give me up. It didn’t matter that much, to be honest. I grew up in foster care, but I had it better than most. Never having a stable place to call home sucked, but I dealt with it. I kept myself busy by reading. No matter what foster home I ended up in, I always had books to keep me company. In fact, some of the families had shelves of books in the living room, and I would work my way through them, no matter what genre. Other times I spent my days at the library reading everything I could get my hands on. The librarians always knew me by name and would save me new releases, so I could have first dibs.

When I went to college, I majored in English. It made the degree easy because most of the assigned reading were books I’d already devoured at age ten. I got to look at those books in new ways and learn more from them than I ever did reading on my own.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I started looking for my birth parents. I had aged out of foster care when I started my freshman year, and while I’ve kept in touch with some of the families I lived with, none of them were my family.

With the help of some helpful city employees, I searched relentlessly for my parents. We found my birth mother pretty easily. She was a prostitute in the streets of the city. Not a high-end prostitute who was hired out by rich business people on the Upper East Side, either. Nope. Michaela was a street hooker who literally walked the stretch of Morningside Avenue between 143rd and 144th streets, day in and day out. A prostitute who slept with anyone who paid her fee. She did what she had to do to survive, but she couldn’t afford a child.

Knowing who she is was enough for me. I didn’t try to contact her, or look for her. Now, I knew where I came from on the maternal side.

Because my father was harder to find. I haven’t been able to locate him, and I doubt I ever will. He could be any of the guys my mother slept with for business or for pleasure. I’ve made peace with the fact that I won’t know who my father was because sometimes, you have no choice. Life gives you peanuts, and you can only eat the peanuts and be grateful.

Besides, I guess I’m a chip off my mother’s block in a way. I’ve never paid a woman for sex, but I’ve slept with a lot of women. Does it make me a male hooker? No, because I wasn’t paid. But am I a male ho? Yeah, sort of.

Through college, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a ladies’ man because frankly, I wasn’t interested in charming the women. All I was interested in was fucking them until they screamed. And as I got more successful, it only became easier. The women flocked to me when I started making money a few years ago. Being the owner of my own wildly successful publishing company attracted attention from ladies all over New York City.

But hopes springs eternal because even though I’m crystal clear about the fact that I don’t do relationships, still the women try. They hope to change me, to turn me into the marrying kind. They don’t love me. They don’t even care about me. They just see green, and they want that green for themselves. Women sleep with me in hopes that we’ll get married and they’ll get my money. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these women were already planning our divorce a couple years down the line.

So yeah, to each their own. I’m not offended by their rapacious ways. It just is. Maybe because I was thrown from family to family as a kid, I lost that longing for a family. I’ve never wanted to have a wife and kids. Play dates, soccer games, school plays, parent-teacher conferences. None of that was me.

But maybe it could be?

For the first time in my life, I think I could do the family thing. I could be a dad and have a wife to kiss every night when I get home from a long day at the office.

And all because of one woman I’ve known for less than twenty-four hours? What the hell? This is delusional for sure, and yet I can’t help how I feel.

I knew it the second Ali walked into my office and took my breath away. It was even clearer when we were having sex on my desk. And when she left my office, it felt like there was something missing in my heart. Ali is the woman who could change it for me.

The thought freaks me out because I don’t know the first thing about being in a relationship. Ali was a virgin when we had sex earlier, so she’s probably not an expert either. Would I even be good at it? I know I’m good at the sex part. It’s the rest I need to work on.

I sigh and find the TV remote from the coffee table. I flip on whatever channel I last watched, but I’m not all that interested.

I need to get my mind off Ali before I make any major life decisions. I don’t even know how she feels about me, let alone how to interpret my own feelings. I’ll be seeing her again next week, so I have a few days to get my mind in order.

Until then, I mindlessly watch TV, but my head’s not in it. Instead, I’m remembering those sweet curves and that generous smile … and counting down the minutes until we meet again.