“Good morning,” Erin said.
“Morning, boss,” Abby chirped.
“How was your weekend?” I asked, wondering suddenly what Abby got up to when she wasn’t here in the office. She had to have some sort of hobbies, but we had never talked about anything like that, not in all the hours we had worked together already.
And there had been a lot of hours together already. I knew I was working her hard. I didn’t expect her to keep the same long hours as I did; I knew she probably had a life away from work. Unlike me. But she didn’t seem to mind the work, and whenever I tried to send her home early, she just shrugged and settled in on the couch in my office, studying whatever business deal we were currently considering.
To be honest, it made me want to leave early more often, just so she wouldn’t feel obligated to stay there with me. She was salaried, so it wasn’t like she was even getting paid overtime. The trouble was, I hated those long, lonely evenings by myself, and so leaving early never seemed like an appealing option to me.
Maybe I needed to find some hobbies of my own.
“My weekend was good,” Abby said. “Didn’t do much, just a little bit of housework, and then I went over to my brother’s place yesterday. He was on a business trip last week, so he wanted to tell me all about it.” She paused and then grinned. “He also wanted to tell me to be careful around you.”
Erin giggled. “My parents told me the same thing when I started working at McGregor Enterprises,” she confessed, looking amused.
I frowned at both of them, not sure what to say in response to that. I didn’t like that their families felt they should be concerned about their working here. What did they think I was going to do, take advantage of my position of power? Make them do things they didn’t want to do?
Probably. I k
new my reputation was against me here. I had never forced a woman in my life, but the paparazzi liked to go on and on about what a player I was, about how I had “spoiled” half the women in Chicago. And I supposed there was more to it than that. Their families were probably worried that these young ladies would fall prey to my charm and spread their legs willingly. And then I would fire them or whatever.
Wouldn’t that be an HR nightmare? Anyway, Abby’s brother definitely didn’t have to worry about her. As far as I could tell, she was 100 percent impervious to my charms.
“Sorry,” Erin said, as though suddenly realizing how her words must sound to me, her boss. She was blushing, but it wasn’t as cute as when I had seen Abby blush before. “They don’t think you’re a bad guy or anything—you’re just in the news so much, and they were afraid I might end up in the news as well or something. Or that, you know, when I go back to school, people in the admissions office are going to raise their eyebrows when they find out I’ve been working with you. For the wrong reasons.”
“I think my brother just wants to make sure that I’m doing my job and not just out partying with you every night,” Abby said, grinning ruefully at me. “He’s all settled down and married, so the clubbing thing is totally foreign to him.”
I forced myself to laugh, trying not to picture Abby out at the club with me. Trying not to imagine what her body would feel like if she had been the one grinding against me. I winked at the two girls. “All that stuff in the media is just a marketing ploy anyway,” I told them. “Keeps the ladies calling and the men wondering what I’m up to. And it keeps the company’s name in the news. I don’t even have to worry about search engine optimization or anything; we’re always at the top of Google and every other search engine.”
It was a joke, an attempt to hide another bout of guilt. I shouldn’t have to worry about going out and having some fun. I shouldn’t have to justify those pictures that they’d seen of me. Were my free-time pursuits professional? No, and there had been plenty of people over the years who had told me that I should probably tone it down now that I was CEO of a multinational company.
Maybe it was time to start toning it down. I didn’t want to lose good employees because they were afraid that my reputation might somehow rub off on them.
Abby laughed, though. “That is a pretty brilliant strategy,” she said, “but I don’t know, you seem pretty enthusiastic in all the photos they post of you.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you didn’t read those types of things,” I said.
That got a small flush out of her, and I laughed and winked at her. “Always using everything to my company’s advantage.” I glanced at my watch. “But speaking of my company’s advantage, there are some documents I wanted to look over before our nine-o’clock meeting.”
“Sure thing,” Abby said, trailing after me into my office. But she gnawed at her lower lip, and I could tell she wasn’t ready to let the conversation drop just yet. “I’m sorry for my brother’s judgment of you. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”
“It’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m used to it, honestly. It’s not like the media ever has anything good to say about me.”
“That’s not fair, though,” Abby protested. “You’re not what I expected. Not at all. If I had just gone off the stories about you, I would have been sure that you were someone different.”
“Is that a good thing?” I asked, unable to hide my amusement.
“It is,” Abby said, nodding. She paused, and for a moment, some nameless emotion flickered in her gaze. Then, she looked carefully away from me. “But you don’t need my assurances that you’re a good guy,” she said. “And I know that you aren’t trying to sleep with me. I told my brother as much. Because that’s what you have your girlfriend for, isn’t it?”
I stared blankly at her. “Girlfriend?” I asked.
Abby looked back at me, and I wondered if I was imagining how unhappy she looked. “That’s what all the tabloids have been saying about you,” she said quietly. “That you have this new girlfriend that you were at the club with. And that you took her for dinner last week too.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Grace is probably the one they mean,” I said. “Grace Kellinger. Daughter of Hugo Kellinger, who you might remember from our meeting with Aurora Industries. He asked me to show her around Chicago; she’s never joined him on a trip here before.”
Abby’s mouth opened on a silent oh of comprehension. I couldn’t help pressing my advantage. “Did it really bother you, thinking I had a girlfriend?”
This time, Abby’s face went as scarlet as a tomato. “No,” she muttered, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “I shouldn’t have said anything. What you do in your own time is your own business.”