Filthy Promises

Chapter 4 Episode 4

And she would let me. Oh, she would f*****g let me. Her thighs would part beneath my hands, white skin blooming pink where my fingers press. I’d position myself between them, the head of my c**k nudging against her entrance—not penetrating yet, just testing the barrier.

I’d shake my head. Five years of waiting, was it? I think you can manage thirty more seconds.

The anticipation would unravel her. Her breathing would stutter as I slid my tip through her wetness, coating myself in it. Torturing her.

When I finally pushed inside, the tightness would confirm what I already knew.

The resistance would give way with a small gasp that catches in her throat. I’d pause—not out of concern for her comfort, because we both know she doesn’t give a damn about that—but to savor the moment.

To lavish myself with the way her inner walls clench around me.

To revel at how her eyes go huge at the intrusion, pupils blown open with a cocktail of pain and pleasure.

Take a breath, little doe, I’d tell her. You’re going to need it.

Then I’d begin to move. Slow, deliberate thrusts that steadily increase in force. The desk would creak beneath us, my papers scattering to the floor. Her fingernails would rake down my back, leaving trails of fire.

Look at me, I’d command when her eyes flutter closed. I want you to remember who’s doing this to you.

Her lips would part in a silent scream as I hit something deep inside her. I’d capture that sound with my mouth, stealing it from her lungs, claiming all of it, all of her for myself.

You’re taking me so well. Such a brave, brave girl.

The tight heat of her would threaten to undo me, but I’d maintain control. Always in control. Always, always, always in f*****g control.

It ends there. Right when I want to f*****g erupt, the fantasy splutters and stalls like it ran out of videotape. As if my brain refuses to conjure up the finale.

Like it wants me to go get the real thing instead.

I make a decision at once. Rash? Yes. Regrettable? Most f*****g likely.

But can I do anything else?

I grab my phone and text my most trusted assistant. Arrange a meeting with an employee. Rowan St. Clair.

The response comes immediately: On it, boss.

I shut down my computer and grab my jacket. The quarterly reports can wait. For the first time in months, I’m genuinely interested. Not in some model or heiress my father wants me to date, but by a marketing associate with worried eyes and a stack of medical bills.

I glance at her headshot one more time. “I’m coming, Rowan St. Clair,” I murmur. “Get ready.”

I’m halfway through my second cup of Monday morning coffee when the email arrives.

The subject line alone makes me choke.

MEETING REQUEST FROM VINCENT AKOPOV

Coffee splatters across my keyboard. “No, no, no,” I whisper hoarsely, dabbing at the keys with my sleeve.

I consider fleeing the country. How hard could it be to get a fake passport, dye my hair, pick up an Aussie accent? I could probably open a surf shop, right? Work retail? Work a pole, if all else fails?

Any of that would be preferable to facing down the Akopov firing squad.

Because that’s what this has to be about, right? I’m about to get fired, canned, sacked. Maybe drawn and quartered, too, if the rumors about Mr. Akopov’s family’s secret activities are even remotely true.

It’s not just that I saw him having s*x with someone he probably shouldn’t have been having s*x with.

It’s that, for a moment, I punctured the veil. I witnessed something I shouldn’t have dared to see.

I saw the man half-naked, for God’s sake.

But what good would running do? Because if he is truly as “connected” as the rumor mill says, then wouldn’t he just find me?

And if he did… if I tried to flee and he hunted me down…

How much worse would the punishment be then?

It’s hard to be too breathless about it all—but that’s only because I spent all of last night imagining all the what-ifs that I swore I wouldn’t think about.

What if I stayed in that doorway?

What if I stepped inside?

What if I threw Vanessa out and locked the door and turned to him and said, I’ve been waiting for this?

Those what-ifs ended the exact same way that all my what-ifs have ended for the last five years: with me, alone in my crummy apartment, sweaty and shivering and shamelessly soaked all at once, bedsheets tangled around my bare legs.

But last night’s what-if was the most earth-shattering one yet. I’m still drooling just thinking about it. I practically blacked out and came to, foaming at the mouth like a rabid s*x monster.

Now, it’s time to reap what I’ve sown.

Was it my fault? No.

But do I have to deal with it? Just like all the messes in my life that are not of my own making…

So I click the email with trembling fingers.

Mr. Akopov requests your presence in his office tomorrow at 9:00 AM sharp to discuss an urgent matter.

Please confirm receipt of this message. Punctuality is highly advised.

Executive Assistant to Vincent Akopov

My stomach drops to somewhere south of my ankles.

This is it. I’m getting fired. Suddenly, it’s not sexy or darkly funny anymore. It’s just terrifying.

Because if I get fired…

What will happen to Mom?

“Mr. Peterson?” I call out to my supervisor, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m feeling a bit sick. Mind if I work from home today?”

My supervisor, Kevin, barely glances up from his monitor. “Whatever. Just get the Harrison drafts to me by three.”

I grab my laptop and practically run for the elevator.

Twenty minutes later, I’m pacing my tiny apartment, phone pressed to my ear. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I chant. “Please, for the love of⁠—”

“Nat, it’s me.” I’m whispering, even though I’m alone in my apartment. “I’m so screwed.”

“Row? Why are you whispering? And why aren’t you at your desk?”

I collapse onto my couch. “He summoned me.”

“Who do you think? Is there anyone else in our company who summons people?”

There’s a pause. “Wait, like… Do you mean…?”

“Yes, dammit!” I wail. “Vincent! I have to meet with him tomorrow at nine.”

“Holy s**t,” Natalie breathes. “What for?”

I’m suddenly incredibly shy. “The details aren’t important.”

“Counterpoint: The details are extremelyfuckingimportant. The details are the whole thing! The details are all that matter! Rowan, if you don’t tell me what happened—because something definitely happened; I can hear it in your voice and I’ve got a sixth sense for hot, juicy goss, which this definitely qualifies as—then I swear on God and Jesus and Joseph and Mary and Timothée f*****g Chalamet that I will start to scream in three, two⁠—”

“Okay! Okay! Please just stop.” I press my face into a pillow. “I may have walked in on Mr. Akopov, you know… doing things.”

“s*x things, Nat! With his secretary! On his desk!”

The silence on the other end of the line lasts so long I think we’ve been disconnected. I hold the phone away from my ear to check, but nope, the call is still active.

A strangled sound comes through the phone, followed by the most uproarious, full-blown cackling I’ve ever heard. It’s like a hyena on laughing gas. Straight-up depraved.

“It’s not funny!” I protest. “He saw me! And he... he...”

“He what?” Natalie is wheezing like a pug walking up the Empire State Building now. “He farted mid-thrust? He asked you to peg him at the same time?”

The pause that comes after is not nearly as funny as the ones that preceded it. “Holy s**t, Rowan. When did this happen?”

“Friday night. When you made me deliver those reports.”

“Oh my God,” Natalie says. “And he’s just now calling you in?! What happened to Saturday and Sunday? Was he, like, planning your termination all weekend? Twisting his evil billionaire mustache and wondering how to make it as painful as possible? And what were you doing all weekend? Why’d you wait so long to loop me in? Do you hate me?!”

The truth is that Mom wasn’t doing so good when I got home after that disastrous encounter. One of her “little hiccups,” as she calls them, which means she fainted and fell while trying to get out of bed and sprained her wrist. We spent the weekend in the hospital.

It was almost nice, in a sick kind of way.

Because, for just a little while, I could focus on her and her alone.

Now, though… Now, everything is about me again.

And none of it is good.

“Thanks for that mental image, Nat,” I mutter. “Super reassuring.”

“Sorry, sorry. But Row, this is serious. Did you report it to HR?”

I sit bolt upright. “Report what? Me barging into his private office without knocking?”

“No, him sexually harassing you with his bare ass!”

I twist a strand of hair around my finger. “I don’t think it counts as harassment.”

“He literally winked at you while he was having s*x with someone else!”

“Maybe I misunderstood.” My face burns at the memory. “Maybe he meant, like, Be with you in a second!”

“That’s not even one percent better.”