Dear Wicked Boss

6. An i***t I Want to Screw

“I’m waiting for you downstairs,” murmured my boyfriend through the phone.

I smiled, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. He had arrived early as promised. After canceling our plans three times, this felt satisfying. It meant that things were starting to get back to normal. With him being the new manager of his father’s real estate company and me as Evans Garret’s personal secretary, we had very little time to see each other. However, things had been a bit strange over the last few months, more than usual.

We had grown distant, our calls were becoming less frequent, and our messages even scarcer. Considering that we hadn’t been able to see each other much, the least I had expected was for him to stay in touch with me through technology. After I confronted him about it, he promised that we would spend the night together at his apartment, watching movies and eating junk food like in the old days—just him and me.

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. It had been so long since we last made love that I felt like my s*x could very well be covered in cobwebs.

Leaving the office, taking advantage of the fact that my annoying boss was still away on a trip, I got into my boyfriend’s car and kissed him on the lips, so energetically and lovingly that I surprised even myself. I had missed him. It had been two long weeks since we last kissed.

“Hello to you too,” he said, smiling at me.

There was something I loved about my boyfriend—it was the simplicity that surrounded him. Dustin wasn’t the type of man who stood out in a crowd. He was quite average, almost boring. But I loved that because I was exactly the same way. We were both so alike, our lives so calm and relaxed. We didn’t have any tumultuous pasts, and we didn’t like problems either.

Dustin, with his blonde hair and dark brown eyes, didn’t attract excessive attention from women. He didn’t like partying much or drinking too much alcohol either. He spent most of his time working at his father’s company, and when he wanted to relax, we would go out to eat or watch a movie. All his friends were married with kids, so their gatherings were always at barbecues or at the park with their families.

Delia often said that I would get bored of our relationship someday, but I didn’t believe her. I liked that things were this way—calm, without conflicts, and giving each other space. I didn’t want a bad boy, one who could break my heart.

“I’m going to stop by the café to buy a coffee before going home,” he murmured while driving. “Do you want one?”

“Please, I haven’t had a good coffee since this morning because my boss kept me busy all day,” I said. I grabbed an Ed Sheeran CD and put it into his player. I had bought it for myself because he knew Ed was one of my favorite singers. “He wanted me to stay late today to work on some budgets, but I told him I had plans. He got mad, but I don’t care, I’m excited for tonight.”

He didn’t respond, just kept driving. A part of me felt uneasy at that moment—his mood was strange. But I hoped it was just the stress that came with being the manager of an important company. Dustin and I had been together for four years, long enough to know this was something new and exciting for him. He probably just needed a little time to adjust to the changes.

*Give Me Love* by Ed Sheeran played from the speakers as we stopped in front of Starbucks. Dustin loved coffee, maybe even more than I did. Especially because we had met at a café. He spilled his coffee on me and was so horrified at ruining my white linen shirt that he gave me his number to pay for the dry cleaning. I called him, but for something very different than that debt. A month later, we were dating, and two weeks after that, we made it official.

“A vanilla latte?” he asked, even though he knew the answer was yes. It’s what I always ordered.

I nodded. He unbuckled his seatbelt and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before stepping out of the car and heading into the café.

I sighed and stared at the setting sun, content because, after all, things were good. I had a good job, an amazing boyfriend, my family was doing well, and soon I could rent my own place. The only thing clouding my happiness was the i***t Evans Garret, but I didn’t want to think about him in my free time.

Dustin’s phone started ringing with the tone of *Mirrors*.

I frowned. It was rare for him to leave his phone behind. He always had it with him because the company called him constantly.

I picked it up and looked at the screen. A woman’s name appeared along with a photo of a pretty girl with blonde hair and green eyes, smiling at the camera. She must have been a friend or a regular client.

I put the phone back between the seats after the call ended and looked toward the café, but Dustin hadn’t come out yet. Not surprising—Starbucks could get hectic when too many people came in for coffee.

Dustin’s phone rang again, startling me.

When I picked it up again, it was the same girl calling. I hesitated for a moment before answering. It could be an emergency; they wouldn’t be calling insistently for nothing.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Who is this?” came a high-pitched voice from a girl. “Where’s Dustin?”

Something tightened in my chest at the sound of her voice.

“He’s busy right now,” I clarified, not wanting to sound rude. “Who are you?”

She didn’t hesitate with her answer.

“Who are *you*?” she shot back.

“I’m Angela, Dustin’s girlfriend,” I said with all the pride I could muster. I’ve never been the jealous type, but something about this girl didn’t sit well with me—perhaps the way she answered the phone, as if she had some kind of right over him and who could respond to his calls. I wasn’t stupid; something inside me was telling me that she wasn’t a client.

“Oh, so you’re *her*,” she said after a few seconds. I stayed silent, so she spoke again. “Dustin said he was going to break up with you this week, so I don’t know what the hell you’re doing with him.”

My face paled.

“Excuse me?”

I pressed the phone tighter against my ear, as if that could help me hear better.

“To be honest, I don’t understand why the hell he’s taken so long to break up with you. Your relationship has no future, and he’s much better off with me,” she spat venom, stabbing my heart. “I give him everything you don’t. When are you going to stop manipulating him into staying with you? Your illness can’t hold him forever.”

The air left my lungs, and instinctively, I touched my chest, as if I could shield it from everything I was hearing.

“I don’t understand,” I murmured, hoping for an explanation.

She sighed in frustration, but she wasn’t the one who should be angry right now.

“Dustin and I have been together for a year. A few days ago, taking advantage of his father making him manager, we decided to take the next step and got engaged. The wedding will be in a month.”

“What?” My breathing was ragged, and I felt like I might suffocate at any moment. I needed air, I needed to hear that this was all a joke because what I was hearing couldn’t be real.

“And just so you’re the first to know, I’m three months pregnant. He doesn’t know yet, but I hope you give him the news,” she added, and with that last remark, she hung up.

I stared at the phone for several seconds until the screen went black. I turned it back on and went to the messages, finding a conversation between the two of them. I never had before because I always respected his privacy. After all, if you don’t trust your partner, you shouldn’t be with them. But now it was simply necessary—I needed to confirm that what the woman was saying was true.

There, I discovered that he had been seeing her on the same days he had canceled our dates, using the excuse that his father had kept him working late. He also told her that he loved her and that she was the woman of his life, and that he was only with me because of my terminal illness.

**Terminal illness? But I was in perfect health!**

Leaving there, I entered the gallery again, finding a thousand photos of them together. Kissing, hugging, in the park, at the movies, in his apartment, and even with his friends—the same ones he had introduced to me. Was I the only i***t who never realized? A whole year! A stupid year of him cheating on me, and I never knew until now. The worst part is that if it hadn’t been for that call, I would still believe my boyfriend was completely faithful.

Suddenly, the driver’s door opened, and Dustin entered with a smile and two coffees in his hands. As soon as he saw me, the smile died on his lips. His expression of fear when he noticed I was holding his cell phone in my hands was almost funny. Hands that were shaking from shock and pain. There was something about his fear that comforted me a bit because it meant he wasn’t prepared to end things with me, and now I was about to do it.

I threw the phone back where I found it and looked at him, letting him see how hurt I was.

“Your girlfriend, Samantha, called,” I murmured. He didn’t tell me her name, but I could read it on the screen before answering.

“I can explain, babe, I…”

“I didn’t know I had a terminal illness,” I continued, ignoring him. “And that’s why you couldn’t leave me, even though you just got engaged to your girlfriend of a year.”

I tried to stay calm, even though he started stammering excuses. I was never one to be hysterical, most people found it terrifying how calm I could be in difficult moments. When my father and brother died, the news was delivered to us by a doctor, and while my mother and sister-in-law collapsed, I just looked at the doctor with the sincerest pain and asked to see them. The same thing happened at their funeral—tears simply fell. I didn’t scream, I didn’t wail, and I didn’t lose control. Always calm, always collected.

This was no exception—I wasn’t going to start crying or yelling, demanding explanations because the only explanation was the most obvious one. Dustin was a cheating, lying i***t. He didn’t care about anyone’s feelings but his own, least of all mine or that other woman’s. He wanted both of us, didn’t want to break up with me, so he preferred to deceive me. There was nothing more to say about that.

“I love you, Angela, it’s just that I love her too, and well, our relationship has been so boring lately,” he muttered, his lips trembling, a sign he was about to start crying soon. But I wasn’t going to stick around to watch. He couldn’t act like a victim; he wouldn’t use the excuse of our monotony. “Please forgive me, I don’t want to lose you.”

I smiled, a cold, humorless smile.

“You’ve already lost me,” I admitted, hating how sad my voice sounded.

With the same calm I had when I got into his car, I opened the door and got out, ignoring his calls. Before closing the door, I leaned in one last time and looked into his pretty brown eyes for the last time. “Congratulations, you’re expecting a child.”

With that, I closed the door and walked away, heading in the opposite direction. I wasn’t surprised he didn’t even come after me, at least to try a bit harder. After all, he already had another family to comfort him, he no longer needed me by his side.

I felt awful, so I let the tears flow freely. People stared as I passed, but I simply couldn’t hold them back anymore. Not when I felt my heart breaking. I had wasted years of my life, dedicated to a man I thought was different, and he had let me down.

When I got home, my sister-in-law was scolding my niece for something, but as soon as she saw me crying uncontrollably, she rushed over, worried. She knew I had gone to see Dustin, but surely she never imagined the date would end so soon. Neither did I—who could have known that my boyfriend had another family? He must be heading to her now, to celebrate the news of their child.

“What happened, darling?” she asked, alarmed. “Is your mom okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak while still crying. Nicole came closer, her face pale and worried. She didn’t speak but stayed close.

“Dustin has another girlfriend, and he’s going to get married,” I said, collapsing onto the couch. Delia sat next to me, looking sorry but not at all surprised by what I was telling her. She had warned me several times that Dustin was cheating on me, but I never wanted to see it—I trusted him too much.

“I knew that son of a b***h was cheating on you!” she exclaimed, and then stopped to look at her daughter, sending her to her room. She didn’t need to hear us.

“He’s going to be a father,” I said, spilling it all. This time, she did seem surprised.

“Damn,” she muttered. “The bastard moved fast. But look on the bright side—at least you’re not the one who’s pregnant.”

I smiled, but immediately started crying again. I had really loved Dustin, and it was the first time anyone had betrayed me. I had always seen it happen to other girls, but I never thought it would happen to me, because I had the perfect boyfriend—boring, calm, laid-back. I didn’t think he was capable. I underestimated him, and now I was dealing with this shock.

“He never wanted to marry me,” I said, hiccupping. She hugged me, though Delia had never really known how to comfort someone.

“Better for you—you don’t deserve that boring loser. You can’t see it now, but he’s nothing compared to you, darling.” Delia had never liked Dustin, and now I could see why. “You know what? Let’s get that bottle of tequila and finish this off the way it should be done.”

Half an hour later, my niece was being taken care of by Dereck while we were in my bedroom, lying on the bed, half the bottle between us. It had been so long since I drank that I became a lightweight quickly. But between my job, my lack of friends apart from my sister-in-law, and an idiotic boyfriend, I hadn’t had time to go out. And at the events I had to attend because of my boss, getting drunk wasn’t allowed.

I missed it—I missed the feeling of relaxation that alcohol brings, as if everything was less important, less painful. While we talked, we each took a shot right after stating why our lives were miserable.

“The love of my life died,” she said, just before taking a shot.

I shook my head—of course, my brother’s death had been the worst tragedy for my family.

“Your turn!” she exclaimed when she saw I was lost in thought.

I poured myself a shot and grabbed a bit of the lime we had cut.

“My boyfriend of many years was cheating on me for a year,” I said before downing it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how Dustin had been the biggest i***t in the world, but there wasn’t much I could do. Maybe if I had been more present, if I had supported him more, if I hadn’t been so cold. But the “if only” doesn’t exist. I can’t turn back time, and honestly, that bastard doesn’t deserve it.

Delia laughed, as if something hilarious had just occurred to her. She was a little drunk too, but that only made it more fun.

“Now that you’re not with him, I need you to tell me... is he good in bed?”

I burst out laughing. God, if only she knew.

“Do you know how long he lasted?” I asked, and she shook her head vigorously. “Three minutes. He always said he was too tired.”

“Yeah, from screwing someone else.”

I frowned at her comment and took the bottle to pour myself another shot. We had reached a point where the tequila didn’t burn as much anymore, it went down smoothly. There wasn’t even a need for the lime. That should have stopped us, but with our love life failures, we didn’t.

“Oh my God! Why are you so mad? He’s a loser who’s bad in bed,” she said, and we both laughed, even though we didn’t really know why.

"Now tell me… how is Dereck?" I asked, not caring that our friend was in the living room helping Nicole with a puzzle.

Delia blushed. For her, it must not have been easy to talk about another man in front of her ex-husband's sister, but we were friends before being sisters-in-law. Out of everyone, I was the one who supported her the most in rebuilding her life, whether or not it was with Sam’s best friend.

"He’s amazing," she said, smiling at me with a little embarrassment. "Though I feel guilty, like your brother is watching me from heaven."

"I’m sure Sam is happy that you’re living your life," I said, taking her hand when I saw she was about to cry. "It’s time for you to move on."

"Yeah, but it couldn’t be with Dereck of all people! He was there when we first met!"

I rolled my eyes. Sam was already dead, he wasn’t going to feel jealous.

"As long as you didn’t have anything while you were with Sam, I don’t see the problem," I replied, shrugging. "You love him, don’t you?"

She looked up to the sky, as if asking my brother’s permission to answer. "Yes, I’m in love with that idiot."

"And he’s good in bed, you hit the jackpot."

She smiled at me before pouring herself another drink.

"Now you should definitely sleep with your boss," she suggested, taking another sip. "He’s hot, and it would be the best revenge on Dustin —to sleep with someone who actually knows how to do it."

Images of my boss, spreading my legs on his desk, then pushing himself inside and f*****g me hard until I screamed, not caring if Serena or anyone else heard us, flooded my mind. That man… that damn man attracted me so much. He was so cold, sarcastic, and intelligent, he could drive any woman crazy. And, in fact, there was no conquest who complained about him in bed; they could criticize whatever they wanted, from his aversion to commitment to his excessive demands on clothing, but never about s*x.

I wanted to know what it felt like. I wanted him to f**k me like those girls, or maybe not. Because if he did and I became infatuated, how would I handle that? If I was sad and heartbroken over a man who didn’t even know how to f**k well, I couldn’t imagine what I might feel for one who did. Moreover, despite his flirtations, Evans Garret was used to another type of woman, not a simple low-income executive assistant.

"Mr. Garret doesn’t f**k poor assistants," I admitted, sighing. "Plus, he’s a pig. God, if only he were ugly, everything would be so much easier."

She laughed.

"Like my boss!" she exclaimed, jumping. We were about to lose control, but wasn’t that the fun part? Besides, we were in our own house, what could go wrong?

"Sometimes he calls me by my last name, and I feel like I’m going to have an o****m," I admitted, my embarrassment driving me to drink more tequila. "Seriously, he has this deep, sexy voice that makes me want to jump on him immediately."

"We can solve that!" she exclaimed, getting up. She went to get my laptop, the one I used to work when I was in the office. "Write him an email, tell him everything you feel."

I shook my head.

"No, are you crazy? I don’t want to be cheated on and then get fired."

"You don’t have to send it, just write what you’d like to say to him or what you think about him and save it. It’s something I do when I feel overwhelmed."

It was a good idea, after all, what harm was there in writing an email to someone and never sending it? I could simply write what I thought about him or what I wanted him to do to me, get everything off my chest, and by tomorrow, Evans Garret wouldn’t attract me like before.

"Okay, but pass me another drink. I need some inspiration," I asked my sister-in-law, and she, more drunk than I was, gladly poured it for me.

We tried for a while, but I kept ending up writing things that were either too aggressive or too desperate. God, I wasn’t going to send it, but I also didn’t want to read that tomorrow and realize how madly in love I was with my boss. I didn’t think: Mr. Garret, please f**k me and end my suffering was sexy.

Or: Dear Mr. Garret, I’ve just been cheated on; would you like to serve as revenge? That had been my sister-in-law’s suggestion; she was crazier than I was.

After much thought, downing at least three more drinks, and a lot of drunken laughter, I found my inspiration. I opened the drafts folder and wrote an email from the depths of my being, while my sister-in-law watched me intently, silently letting me concentrate.

(DRAFT)

From: Angelina Rivera

Subject: AN i***t I WANT TO f**k.

Dear Mr. Garret,

Have you seen those short, chubby bosses with bad breath?

It’s a pity you don’t look like that, because that way, hating you would be much easier. I’ve had to endure your nonsensical orders, your bad mood, and your constant derogatory comments. You can never say “good morning,” “please,” or even “thank you.” But no, you have to be a Greek god, with that delicious and perfect body (I know because I caught a glimpse of you once when I brought you that energy drink to the gym). You’re such a sexy and fuckable man that you make a woman like me, reserved and recently engaged, wet her panties.

You’re also an arrogant, cold, womanizing, and unfriendly boss.

But how much I would love to f**k you!

I’d want you to press my body against the huge window of your office and f**k me from behind while we look at all of New York at our feet.

Bah! I’m saying nonsense; I don’t want to be just another one on your endless list.

Or do I?

P.S.: I’m only saying this because I’m drunk, and I know this email will never be sent.

And then, when I finished, we both burst out laughing. There was no way I would send that, but it made us laugh a lot because, after all, it was entirely true. Dereck knocked on the door at that moment, but we told him to go away and kept drinking, increasingly seeing the email as more logical and less like madness.

And then, after so many drinks, I made the worst mistake possible.

I hit send.