Boss I Love to Hate: An Office Romance(17)

I tried to recall my early years as a teenage boy, but then I clamped those horny teen memories down. That thought backfired because, now, I wanted to lock Sarah up in a tower, just like that Disney movie I had watched with Mary.

“Do you want me to call your dad?” Because, if she really did want to talk to her dad, she could. This was a major change in a young girl’s life, as Mason had said … or Google, whichever.

“No.” She dropped her head, staring at the hands wrapped around her pillow in a tight vise.

“So …” I cleared my throat, dreading the words about to come out of my mouth. “When a woman hits puberty … there are changes—”

“We’re not talking about this, Uncle Brad.” She let out a low laugh. A laugh that eased the tightness in my shoulders. At least she wasn’t crying anymore.

“All right.” I let out a giant breath. I was about to ask her if she knew what a pad was because we were not taking the tampon route. I was not about to give a tutorial. I wasn’t explaining where to stick it in. Nothing was going up there until she was thirty, as far as I was concerned.

“I looked in Becky’s room, and she had only one pad left.” She peered up at me with confusion and nervousness and all things teenage girls going through hormonal changes had. “Uncle Brad, could you take me to get some pads?”

I cringed inwardly, trying not to let it show. Why was teenage life so hard?

With confidence I didn’t have, I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Sure. Get ready. We’ll get you some right now.”





Chapter 5





Sonia





I stared at the time on the bottom left of my computer screen. Brad was late to work, and he was hardly ever late. Something was most definitely wrong. He had a meeting, one that would start via teleconference in fifteen minutes, and I wasn’t going to cancel unless I heard from him first.

I was about to pick up the phone and call him when he stormed straight into the room with two girls trailing behind him. If I had to guess, I’d say they were his nieces.

“Sonia. In my office.” He stomped to his desk without a glance and left the door open.

Great. He was in a good mood this morning. I never knew what type of Brad I’d get every day—sad-’cause-my-date-sucked Brad, angry-at-the-world Brad, cocky-and-I’m the-king Brad.

“Have fun at the waterpark, boss?” I strolled into the office and shut the door behind me.

I smiled at the girls. One looked about middle school age, the other preschool or kindergarten. I’d only seen them in pictures on Brad’s desk. There were only three photos on his desk. One of his parents, one of him and his brothers, and the other, in the largest frame, of him and his nieces.

“Sonia, this is Sarah and Mary, Charles’s kids.” His whole demeanor softened, the crease between his eyes disappearing as he introduced them. He was holding the younger girl’s hand, Mary, and she smiled, revealing dimples on her cheeks.

“Best. Weekend. Ever,” Mary exclaimed, hopping in her spot.

Her eyes were the bluest I’d ever seen. None of the Brisken boys had blue eyes.

The older one’s eyes were puffy. As I examined her closer, I realized that she’d been crying. Automatically, my eyes shot to Brad’s.

I’d seen him make women cry before and even grown men, but looking at the way he softened when he looked at them, I doubted he was the source of her problems.

I waved toward them, took a Jolly Rancher from my skirt pocket, and handed them each one.

Brad tipped his chin toward me. “Do you carry candy everywhere you go?”

“Yes,” I replied, opening the wrapper for Mary when she let go of Brad’s hand. “Here you go.” I smiled, wondering why they were here with him. Didn’t they have school today? It was a weekday.

Then, slowly, realization slapped me in the face, first one cheek and then the other, and reality punched me in the nose. There was only one reason he’d bring the girls to the office. My shoulders tightened, the tenseness rising to my neck. I could predict what was going to happen next. He wanted me to babysit.

As cute as the kids were, no. The definition of secretary did not include babysitting.

We had crossed so many boundaries already, and once he had me babysit them, there would be endless errands that would include his nieces. Picking them up from school, taking them to practice, feeding them lunches. I wasn’t ready for that.

Brad paced the room, one hand on his hip, the other pinching the bridge of his nose. I recognized this stance, the anxiousness and frustration emanating from him. I’d worked with Brad long enough to know his tics and how he tocked.

“Sonia, I need you to cancel all my morning meetings.” He rubbed at his temples and continued to pace the room.

I clenched my teeth together in a forced smile. “Sure.”

“No school. No school. No school!” Mary bopped up and down and danced, her blonde curls bouncing side to side. She was like a hopping bunny.

“Are you doing something with the girls this morning?” Because I sure as hell would not be. I had work to do, and it did not include babysitting his nieces.

He shook his head and looked at Sarah, and then his eyes landed on me again. “No, no, I’m the only one here to take care of things. But I’ll need to make my afternoon meetings.” Then, he began to stare at me in that expectant way, as though he were going to ask me a very important question but wasn’t sure how to frame it.