MY ONE NIGHT STAND BOSS

Chapter 1 – The End of Three Years The moaning stopped me at the door. “When do you plan to tell her about us?”,I heard a soft voice say between moans. “Well…I'll find the right time”,I heard him reply calmly. I didn't want to believe what my brain was telling me. I put the key in the lock anyway. Some sick part of me needed to see it with my own eyes. The door opened onto rose petals scattered across the floor like a trail. Daniel had never once done that for me. Not on my birthday. Not on our anniversary. I followed the petals anyway, my heart slamming so hard I could hear it in my ears, until I reached the bedroom door standing open a crack. I shouldn't have looked… Daniel was tangled in the sheets with a woman I had never seen before, her fingers in his hair, his mouth on her neck. For one horrible second neither of them noticed me. Then she opened her eyes and screamed, and Daniel shot up so fast he nearly fell off the mattress. "Anna! It's not what it looks like.." "Don't." My voice came out flat. "Don't you dare." I turned and walked out before he could say anything else. I didn't slow down until I hit the street, cold air hitting my face, my chest heaving like I had been running for miles instead of standing still. I made it half a block before I heard the door bang open behind me. "Anna, wait!" Daniel, barefoot, chasing me down the sidewalk with his shirt half-buttoned. "Please. Just talk to me." I stopped walking. I don't know why. Maybe some part of me needed to say everything I had been swallowing for three years before I let myself walk away for good. "Talk to you?" I turned to face him, and everything I had been holding in came pouring out at once. "I gave up the Shenzhen job for you, Daniel,because you said long distance would break us.I picked up extra shifts to help cover your debt while you told me it was temporary. I learned to make your mother's dumplings from a video because I wanted her to like me. Three years, Daniel. Three years of shrinking myself smaller and smaller so there would be room for you. You promised me a wedding. And this is what you do…?” He didn't say anything. His mouth just opened and closed like a fish out of water. "So don't stand here and tell me it's not what it looks like." My voice cracked, but I kept going. "Just tell me one thing. How long? How long have you been lying to my face?" He opened his mouth again but this time a voice answered before he could. "Eight months." She stood in the doorway of his building wrapped in nothing but a bedsheet, arms crossed, looking at me like I was the one who had done something wrong. "Eight months, sweetheart. Maybe stop wasting both our time and go home." Daniel didn't even correct her. He just stood there between us, guilty and silent, and that silence told me more than any confession could have. She sauntered down the steps, looped one arm around his waist like she owned him, and pressed her mouth to his ear loud enough for me to hear anyway. "Come on, baby. Let's go finish what we started." Her hand slid down his chest, slow and deliberate, and she pulled him back toward the open door without giving him a chance to look back at me again. He let her. I stood on that sidewalk for one more second, waiting for him to at least glance over his shoulder. He didn't. The door shut behind them, and that was that. Three years, closed out with a click of a lock. The rain started somewhere around the next block, cold and sudden, and I didn't bother running from it. I let it soak through my blouse, my hair, my skin, because it felt like it could wipe out all the pain I felt at that moment. I don't remember walking after that. I just remember looking up and finding myself in front of a hotel I didn't recognize, gold light spilling out onto the wet pavement. I walked in. The bar was dim, half-empty, quiet except for a low hum of music I couldn't place. I climbed onto a stool near the window and ordered the strongest thing on the menu, then another, and another after that, until the room started tilting gently at the edges. By my fourth drink, I broke down completely. "Three years," I muttered into my glass, loud enough that the bartender glanced over. "Three years, and dumplings, and I skipped Wei Wei's wedding for him. I turned down Shenzhen. Shenzhen, Daniel! Do you know what that job would have paid?" I laughed, the kind of laugh that isn't really a laugh at all. "Eight months. Eight months and I made his mother's stupid dumplings." A man at the other table exhaled hard through his nose, clearly irritated, like my meltdown was interrupting whatever miserable thoughts he has been nursing in peace. He didn't say anything. He just downed the rest of his drink, tossed some bills on the table, and walked out toward the elevators without so much as a glance in my direction. Fine. Let him leave. Everyone left eventually. I don't know how long after that I decided I was ready to go home too. I stood up,trying to leave and the whole room tilted sideways the second my feet hit the floor. I laughed at myself because apparently four drinks on an empty, heartbroken stomach was not my finest decision of the night. I staggered into the elevator,and pressed at it sleepily. After sometimes,it opened to a long hallway that seemed to stretch forever, running my hand along the wall to keep myself upright, I walked until I reached a door. It wasn't locked. I pushed it open and stepped inside, the room spinning gently around me, and that's when I saw him. He was standing near the bathroom door, towel slung low around his hips, water still clinging to his skin from the bath, broad shoulders catching the low light like something out of a magazine I definitely should not have been staring at. It took him a second to notice me swaying in his doorway. "You're in the wrong room," he said, voice rough, clearly as many drinks deep as I was. "This is—" I wasn't listening. I was too busy staring at him the way you stare at the last piece of cake at a party you know you shouldn't touch. My brain, thoroughly drowned in alcohol and heartbreak, had apparently decided that this stranger, whoever he was,was the single most beautiful thing I had seen all night, and some reckless, wounded part of me didn't care one bit that I had absolutely no business being in his room. "Wrong room," he said again, weaker this time, like even he didn't fully believe it needed saying. I didn't answer. I just crossed the space between us before either of us could talk ourselves out of it. He didn't push me away. I can even closer and leaned on him. Close enough to get a clearer view of his face. Those almond shaped eyes,clear and cute.I trailed my finger from his eyes,down his thin pointed nose and eventually stopped at his lips. All I could think of at that moment was how to have a taste of those soft lips. For a moment,I lifted my eyes and met his,he had this look on his face that I couldn't resist. I raised my head a bit and my lips met his. And surprisingly,I felt his firm hands holding my waist to support me and deepen the kiss. We stayed in this position,salvoring each other's lips like that was all that mattered before making our way to the bed. He laid me down and pulled himself over me.With those deep eyes of his,he looked straight into my eyes. One hand was on my right breast pressing hard on my n****e while he supported himself with the other. At this point,I knew there was no going back. I was already at a point of no return. I wanted him to take it further so I glazed his chest down to his groin. At this point I could feel his hardness. “Do you want this?”he asked shakily next to my ears,I was already long gone so,off course,I wanted it so badly. With one nod,he thrusted in…