Ms Jenner

5

"Ok"

"Goodbye y/n" she said

"Bye bye" I chirped and she hung up "she's sick"

"Oh. Much ado about nothing" Rebecca said and took a long sip of her tea "I' have to tell you sweetie, I feel like Pablo Picasso when I quote his plays"

"That was Shakespeare" I said

"Ooh, aren't we clever" she mocked me for correcting her and I sipped some tea "so what are you doing while she's gone?"

"Normal stuff, fetching mail, paperwork, emails and everything" I said

"Sounds crazy" she laughed "ok, my boss is coming so take your tea and leave like a normal person"

"Ok, bye Rebecca" I said and walked away calmly with my tea. I went back to my office and watched some Netflix while I did paperwork and chilled out all day.

The next Monday, she was back, and she had her head in her hands when I got in. I knocked on the door softly and she looked up at me with tired eyes and beckoned me inside "hey Ms Jenner, are you feeling better?" I asked and gave her a coffee

"Much better, thank you" she sighed

"Good. It's been weird without you here"

"It's been a weird week" she said

"Do you know what you had?"

"I wasn't sick" she said

"Oh. Were you just feeling burned out? I feel like that sometimes, especially after a lot of work"

"I don't get burned out. I love my job" she said

"Are you ok?"

"I would rather not talk about it" she said "it's personal"

"Ok, of course. Would you like anything?"

"Paperwork from last week" she said and I brought her the pile "you did a good job, considering you took Friday off. Did you enjoy your long weekend?"

"I did. Thanks for the rest" I smiled

"I'm glad someone enjoyed their time off, then" she said

"Are you sure you don't wanna talk about it?"

"Maybe another time honey, but right now I need you to go get my mail" she said

"Ok" I said and went to the mail room and carried a large box of mail and sorted through it in my office into piles and gave her the relevant ones and put the other ones in my rack for me to read. "Are you feeling any better?"

"I'm feeling fantastic" she said and I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or for real

"That's good" I said "do you want anything else?"

"I want you to bring your paperwork in here and listen, I have to rant" she said

"I have to get it from the copy room" I said

"Hurry up, in case you haven't noticed I'm not a patient person" she said

"I'll be right back" I said and hurried along to the copy room to get the paperwork and then hurried back. I wondered why she was suddenly being so nice to me, maybe all she needed was a break from work to feel more positive. But she said she needed to rant, so I suspected she was too distracted by the thing that was on her mind to be mean to me. "I'm back"

"No shit, have a seat" she said and I sat down in an armchair and put the papers down on the desk "just do the paperwork and listen, ok?"

"Ok" I said and she handed me a pen which I started writing with

"I got home on Friday night a little late, I was expecting dinner on my table in my apartment. I liked my apartment. It was a nice apartment, penthouse that looked over the city. At night I liked to have a glass of scotch and ice and look over the lights from all the surrounding buildings and talk to my wife about my day. So I got home, and put my coat away as usual, said hello to my dogs, and I normally go see my wife in the kitchen where she'd be dishing up the food and she wasn't there, but I was home a little later so I thought nothing of it, she'd probably put it on the table already. So I went through to the next room and I heard some... some noises" she paused and ran her fingers through her short brown hair

"What noises?"

"Some noises that one only makes when they're... never mind. So I go to investigate, and instead of finding dinner on my dinner table, I find my wife with a man. Not just any man though. My old employee. Turns out she'd been having an affair with him for two years" she said

"Two years?" I repeated

"I don't know how I didn't notice. But I do work a lot so I know how it could have gone over my head quite easily. As it turns out we both didn't love each other anymore, I never really liked her but I married her because I thought she was what I deserved, but I've seen the world since I was 21 and I know I deserve better. Much better"

"Why did you stay married to her?"

"Because I thought she loved me, I felt bad. But now I see she was a gold digging slut who had her legs open all the time when I was out at work. She had a few different lovers, apparently, I asked the guy who works downstairs and she's been having all sorts of randoms in my house. I kicked her out early Saturday morning after we fought all night and on Wednesday we're finalising the divorce"

"I certainly wasn't expecting that at all"

"Neither was I. I've sold my apartment already and bought myself a penthouse that looks over Central Park, seems like a lovely place although I've not fully moved in yet. She's moved in with her parents and I took everything away and sold her cars. She deserved it, money hungry bitch" she muttered

"She did. What a bitch" I said

"Mhm. And she lied and told me she was fully gay when we got together, so she's a lying bitch too" she said

"That's awful. I'm so sorry, that shouldn't have happened to you. I'm sure you're a really nice person"

"Why would you say that?"

"Say what?"

"I'm a nice person? All I've done is be completely vile to you since I got here" she frowned

"Yeah. Why?" I asked shyly

"That doesn't matter. But what does matter is that I'm sorry and I will make an effort to make you feel more comfortable and um... liked" she said

"Don't worry about it, it's fine" I blushed. She could turn on the charm alright, and she could make me feel great just by treating me like a human being. Now that was powerful.

"You have an adorable smile but you're distracting me from working, go back in there" she commanded so I went back to my office. I felt like I'd achieved something now she'd given me her approval, but I still wanted to keep it.

The next few weeks were spent getting more comfortable working with and around my boss, and we'd have the occasional casual conversation about meaningless things, and I'd admittedly developed a bit of a crush on her, but she was just recently divorced, and she was my boss so I told myself to keep cool and keep it professional and friendly. I don't know what it was. She certainly had a very masculine demeanour, and that was something I'd never seen close up before in a woman because it made me nervous, so maybe it was the mystery and novelty of her presence. She was also considerably older than me, 9 years was a lot more life experience if you thought about it and I thought that was pretty hot too.

Then I realised it was just her dominance, and the way she exerted it on me without even being mean. She was in charge in so many more ways than any boss I'd had before, and she was attractive to me because of that. I knew nothing could ever happen between us because of many reasons, but I so wanted it to even though I couldn't do anything about how I felt about her.