The next morning, I woke up thinking about Lucian and our little game. I'd figured out what he meant. The game is that we have to do things to try to bed the other person. If the other person gives in, the first person wins. In simpler words, I must seduce Lucian. And that's nearly impossible.
But as long as I don't give in, I'm a-okay.
I got out of bed and took an amazing shower in the large and amazing guest bathroom before quietly going into his sister's room. I paused when I saw a bag on the bed, with a note. I grabbed the note and it said in Lucian's small swirly cursive; '
I furrowed my eyebrows. Why would he mention the game in a dumb note about clothes? I didn't know the answer to that question until I actually saw the newly-bought outfit.
It was a black very deep v-neck, buttonless blouse. There was a pencil skirt, and just by looking at it I could tell it was gonna be tight around my butt. I didn't have a big butt, but I wasn't flat either, it was more in the middle. I didn't have big boobs, but they weren't small either. I was skinny--like wide thigh gap skinny. I had what seemed a bit short of an hourglass figure.
I also saw heels, which were actually my size, and they were shiny. And gorgeous. I put the entire outfit on and the v-neck was deeper than I thought. It almost reached down to my belly button.
But I loved this outfit. The skirt came down to my lower thighs had a tiny slit in the side, and I didn't wear my tights because I kinda wanted to show off my legs. Plus, I shaved yesterday.
I found a curling iron in his sister's bathroom, and it was the best iron I'd ever used, and not once did I burn myself. My hair was shiny and bouncy, and it would look better if didn't have this stupid yellowy blonde color in it. I just wanted to take off my dull blue color contacts, wash out the yellow blonde and look at myself in the mirror to see my bright green eyes and ash blonde hair.
But no. He's keeping me from that.
I wondered if Lucian gave me this sexy business outfit on purpose. He has a great fashion sense, so he knows what he's doing when he goes shopping for either gender. Maybe this is part of the game. He's trying to give me a head start because he thinks he knows he's gonna win. He's not. I was great at flirting, and I wasn't shy at all.
I checked my watch and it was 7:29. I always got to Lucian's study at 7:30, so I had to hurry. I took off my shoes in the house because he's a stickler about it. Then I speed walked down the large and long hallway, and right as the big hand ticked onto the six, I reached the study, putting my hands on either side of the doorway to stop myself. The sound of my hands hitting the walls made him look up.
"Ms. James?" He called, quickly scanning my appearance before looking down at his work with no reaction. He acted as if we'd never even talked about the game.
I sighed. "Will you show at least a tinge of emotion?"
He looked up again, leaning back in his chair, which meant he was ready for a serious debate-like conversation with me. "Why?"
"Because. I don't know if you're doing this on purpose, but it's starting to get to me. You never say anything nice 'oh Ms. James, you look nice today' or some other statement such as. You just look, stare, then pretend you never saw anything. I mean, it's flustering enough that you never smile." I walked over to sit on my special spot on his desk.
"What do you expect from me? I'm just not one for smiles and complements, and you know that. Like you said yesterday, we are polar opposites. I'm not as happy and bubbly as you constantly are." He referenced.
"I just want to know how I look in your eyes. I mean--you're my boss, but if I'm dressed too over the top or too exposed and you don't say anything, I won't know and that'll made me look stupid working at the Monte L. You don't say anything, so that must mean there's something wrong." I tucked locks of hair behind my slightly pointed ears. I was talking some bullshit, because there was a real reason I wanted him to react to me.
He stayed silent for a moment. "Wait. The 'boss' thing has nothing to do with it." Dang it, I keep forgetting he's not as dumb as a bag of hair. "Do you think by my not saying anything, I don't find you attractive?"
"It does seem like that." I shrugged, making a frown form on his emotionless face. "Do you find me attractive, Mr. Montenegro?" I started to smile and his ears burned red.
"Peyton, it takes a simple eye to see beauty. Your beauty to me is insignificant. Actually, anyone's beauty to one specific person is insignificant because we all have different feelings about everyone else." He said. I understood what he was saying, I just didn't know what he meant.
"That doesn't answer my question. I don't care about anyone's opinion but yours right now." I shook my head.
"Well in that case, Peyton," he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked me in the eyes and I blushed before he even spoke. "You are beautiful. And you always are. I mean it." His ears were redder, and the red was starting to spread over his cheeks. His voice was incredibly sincere, or at least way more sincere than he's been.
I just stared at him. This was so odd, because he's never said anything to me like that before. And by his blushing reaction to himself, he'd never said anything like that to anyone ever in his life. And I didn't know how I felt about it.
He looked away and cleared his throat before changing the subject. "Uh, this summer, when we start the apartment project--do you want to do interior design?"
I didn't respond, but I tilted my head to the side, still staring. One might say this was creepy as hell, but I was dazed. His words kept ringing in my head, and I didn't know why. Why he got so bashful and blushed was a weird mystery. It was just a seven word compliment. The big question this week so far: Why? Well no, it's more like: what the fuck is going on?
He analyzed me before calling my name. "Peyton?"
My brain screamed at me, 'Answer the man, would you, dumbass!'. I shook myself out of my thoughts. "What?"
He pursed his lips, still not looking me in the eye as he usually does. "I asked if you wanted to do the interior design for the apartment projects this summer, Ms. James." He said 'Ms. James' in kind a cold and flat manner, as if he were annoyed at me. He acted as if this whole 'beautiful' thing didn't just happen, which made me kind of mad.
"Sure. Thank you." I said through gritted teeth. I hated the fact that he avoided any emotional confrontation possible, and if he didn't avoid it, he'd pretend it never happened in the first place.
Seeing me rarely pissed off for the third time since I've started working for him, his entire demeanor changed. "Are you okay--"
"I'm fine. I'm gonna go eat breakfast." I said, although I knew he still had other work to discuss with me. I stood up and headed out and downstairs without looking at me. I knew that I made him angry now, because one: he hates when I cut him off, and two: he hates when I disrespectfully go AWOL.
But I also knew that he needed to process what had just happened. Anything with emotion, he had to process first. I reached the kitchen and plopped into a stool at the island counter. I huffed, which got Amos' attention.
"What's wrong?"
"Your boss."
"He's your boss too." He put a plate of cinnamon toast, eggs, and bacon on my plate, knowing I loved that breakfast combination. He also gave me a glass of orange juice.
"Fine. Our boss is so insensitive. He avoids all emotional confrontation, and when he fails to avoid, he pretends nothing ever happened in the first place, and that infuriates the hell out of me. I've never met such a person who puts me through all this agitation." I rolled my eyes.
"Well, he says the same about you. On days you're not over here, he talks about how you annoyed him that day, or how annoying you can be."
"You're really not helping debunk my opinion about our boss." I said, and I'm sure Lucian heard that, he walked into the kitchen as I said it.
"Well it helps my opinion about you." He mumbled. What? He looked at my offended expression. "Well it's not like you're not annoying as hell."
"Well you--" I tried to offend him, but we both knew I was horrible at being offensive. He raised his eyebrows and nodded mockingly, like he did the day I quit.
"This is the reason I quit in the first place. So fucking insensitive." I mumbled into my glass before takings sips of juice, but with his bat hearing he heard it, which made him change completely. Now he looked offended, and a little guilty.
"I'm sorry." He stated, which started a series of cough-inducing choking on orange juice from me. Amos looked surprised, and Vito barked from my sudden coughing. "Jesus, Peyton, don't die over an apology."
I started to laugh and snort, which didn't help the choking. I coughed it out eventually. "Mr. Montenegro.''
"Well, I'm serious. I'm sorry. If what I say makes you want to quit, then I won't say it again." At this point, Amos put earplugs in his ears so he wouldn't have to leave the room.
"It's not what you say, it's what you do!" It flustered me that he missed the point.
He furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"
"You pretend that things don't happen. You don't wait around to discuss it like an adult, you just pretend nothing ever happened. You gave me a compliment and now there's something weird going on with us and it's awkward, so what! At least let us talk about it instead just forgetting about it! It's insensitivity! That's not how feelings work, Lucian!"
"I pretend like it doesn't happen because talking about it leads to all sorts of shit that I wouldn't want to happen." He sighed. "You gave me this look. It was strange. It gave me the hint that maybe we should forget about it. I give no emotion because it leads to that same look. And emotion isn't relevant to me, also it gets in the way of--"
"Work. I know. Everything's about work."
"No. It gets in the way of us. Or that person and I. I don't want our friendship to be altered because of something one of us says." I started to smile and he gave me a weird look. "Why are you looking at me like that? See, that's exactly what I'm talking about."
I giggled. "You said we were friends."
He gained a dull look on his face. "Well, obviously. You're annoying as hell but I still like you." That was about as touching as it was insulting.
"Thanks, Mr. Montenegro."
He nodded. "You know, I'm friends with Lucas and he doesn't call me that."
"I'm not gonna call you Lucian. I work under you." I took a bite of toast and loved it.
"You called me Lucian a minute ago."
"Yeah, but I was annoyed at you."
"So you'll only call me by my first name when you're mad and/or annoyed at me? That makes no sense. Just call me Lucian."
"Nope."
We continued to go back and forth about calling him Lucian, but it was too weird. He's my boss, and I can't do that. That's like calling my old teacher Sally, or calling my parents Argus and Lucie.
******
Lucian shortly won the argument by default, because after a few minutes I gave up. But what triggered me was his smug sentence.
"If you gave in that easily, it should be easy winning the game." He didn't smile, but he was still smug.
I scoffed at him. "As if. You haven't even made your move."
After we finished breakfast, we went to work. I asked him if I could stop by the post office, and he said I could if it was important without asking any questions. I had to send a letter to Judge Mathis, my case judge, to let him know in my words that I'm safe right now and I haven't had any problems. I wrote it last week when I was unemployed but forgot to send it.
It took almost two hours because there was a long line and some crazy guy with anger issues got mad because they wouldn't let him send a dog to his girlfriend as a gift. Stupid. By the time I was up front at the counter, Lucian called me. "Hello?"
"Where are you? What's taking so long?"
"Some crazy ass guy trying to mail his dog held up the line. I'm on my way."
"Uh, okay. Bye." He hung up. He always hangs up first. I told them it was for the FBI, and to make sure there wasn't a problem with it getting to Washington DC. I didn't have my case heard at the Bureau in New York, but in Washington DC where his first attack was. He's a wanted man for about 37 murders, and yet no one found him yet. It's been four years, and I've changed my identity four times. This is the only time that I've stuck with my real name. Well, my real name is Noemi, but my middle name is Peyton and everyone calls me that. He doesn't know about the name 'Peyton'. He only appears when he attacks.
After my post office stop, I headed back to work, only to be pissed off again.
When I reached the top floor, Lucas wasn't there. I assumed he was doing errands downstairs. I knocked on Lucian's door, and he told me to come in. "Lu--hi?" I cut myself off to greet a woman I've seen around here before. She was pretty and had long light blonde perfect Barbie hair.
But I could only see her back. Because she was sitting on his desk. In my special spot. Which infuriated me. She turned around, being more drop dead gorgeous then I thought. "Oh. You're the new PA?" She snorted nasally. "A good PA is never late."
I took a breath. "Hello. Who are you?" I asked, trying to be calm but it bothered me how she was sitting in my spot so close to him.
"I'm Jenna Pieterse." She said before full out ignoring me and continuing her conversation with Lucian.
I huffed, and I could tell he heard it because he leaned to his side to look at me. "Is there a problem, Ms. James?"
"No. I'm just wondering when your unrelated-to-work conversation will be over so I can talk to you about my actual work." I sneered.
He clenched his jaw, and I knew I made him mad because of my disrespectful smart remark. "That will be all, Ms. Pieterse."
She stood up and out of my spot before handing him documents. "Here are the files you wanted me to retrieve from Mr. Goldstein." Oh no. I forgot about old man Goldstein!
"Thank you." He said, narrowing his eyes at me. Although it was my fault, it only made me madder because of the whole situation. She walked past me with a smirk and when she left, closing the door, I stormed over to his desk.
I went into his drawer and pulled out his cleaning wipes, wiping down my special spot. "What's your problem?" He growled a bit.
"You--you and that lady!" That must've come out wrong.
"What absurdity are you talking about?"
"You let her do my job!" I threw the wipe in the trash with a 'yuck' from me.
"Well you should've done your job when you were supposed to yesterday." He said, standing up.
I stood in front of him. "I forgot, okay?! Why didn't you just have your assistant, Lucas, to get it instead of some woman who works no where near this floor?"
"Lucas is out sick, Peyton." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Oh. "Why are you so mad about it?"
"Because she sat in MY special spot and you let her!" I pointed my index finger at his chest.
He went back to his neutral calm state. "That's what you're upset about. Your 'special' spot on my desk?"
"Yeah. It's my spot on your desk. Which means only I sit on it. That's the only reason you leave that part of your desk clear. That spot is Peyton's spot." I pouted. He stayed silent, because he knew it was true. I sat in my spot and he watched me.
"Fine. Next time, I won't let anyone sit there. Okay? Happy now?" He quirked an eyebrow, amused.
I smiled. "Yeah." I thought for a moment while he adjusted his watch. "Do you want to come over my house after work?" I asked.
He looked up in surprise. "You're inviting me over your house?"
I shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, why not, you've only been over once. My place isn't that bad, you know." I said, fidgeting with his Newton's Cradle.
He shook his head. "That's not what I meant, Peyton. Your place isn't bad at all. I'm just surprised."
"Like how surprised I was when you asked me to stay over last night. Are you coming over or not, Lucian?" I chuckled, but still felt weird calling him Lucian more often.
"Sure." He shrugged. "So when are you gonna make your move?" He asked, and I smirked.
"When you make yours. I want to know what I'm dealing with first."
________________________________________________
I know you're probably wondering who He is. He won't be revealed until she decides to tell Lucian about her dark past. I mean, if she decides to tell...but who'd want to put good ol' Lucian in danger? Not her.
Bye, loves!
- COA