In Love With My Boss

Thirteen

About a month passed from that incident in Dimitri's office and none of us brought it up, thank God. I thought that Tasha would come around and try to pick up on me and ask for some explanations on why I was in her boyfriend's office so late at night with my ''girlfriend'' (it's so funny that she thought I switched sides; but how can you do that when men like my boss exist, really?), so I was totally ready to fight back, but she didn't show up for the past month, nor even once, which is a miracle. It's weird because before, she would visit him at least three times a week. But maybe she is embarrassed about that thing too and tries to avoid me as much as possible for a while, or they decided it would be less weird for us not to be into the same building at the same time. And it's not like I am complaining. I like it better when she's not around because seeing her would only remind me of that image of her attached to Dimitri and as much as I would deny it, I get jealous on her every time I get reminded of that thing, even though I know I shouldn't.

As I am heading for the elevator, Sydney calls my name. What does she want now? She is kind of annoying sometimes, filling your head with interesting facts about everything you could think of (this woman is like an encyclopedia, I swear; I sometimes get annoyed by how smart she is.) but she is such a kind person in essence. And hell, she knows all the good gossips around here.

'Hey! What happened?'

'Don't forget to wish your boss happy birthday today.'

'Really, is it his birthday today?'

'Yup.'

'Oh, thanks for the heads up.'

In the elevator, as I wait to get upstairs, an idea pops into my head. He got me something on my birthday, and I could do something for him now. I decide to make this for him as things between us haven't been that bad lately either. His nice behavior is continuing, but we are still playing little games on the other when the occasion occurs. And I try to ignore the thing that happened one month ago because I have no reason to get mad on him for f*****g his girlfriend, no? I mean, it would be irrational for me to act jealous over someone who doesn't belong to me. And if he keeps on this good behavior of his, maybe in a month or two, we would get to be friends for real, who knows? But nothing more. I so don't want to get involved with him in anything because I don't feel like being girlfriend number who knows how much. But it would be nice not to push each other's buttons so often.

I get back down and ask the other girls if they have a candle, and to my luck, they do. I then get to the little kitchen to set up things and when I enter Dimitri's office, along with his usual coffee, I have one of the cupcakes Lissa made yesterday with a lit up candle on it, sitting on a little plate. This thing just fell into place perfectly.

I place both of them on his desk and he looks at me.

'Um, happy birthday, Mister Belikov.' I say turning my mouth into a nice smile.

He takes a look at the cupcake, smiles and thanks me. Wow. He really smiled. Like, a genuine smile. It's the second time I see this, and God, that smile made my knees go weak once more.

I am still there and he shakes his head questioningly.

'Well, aren't you going to blow your candle?'

He smiles again and leans over to put out the little wiggling flame of the candle. As he does that, a strand escapes from the grip of the hair tie and hangs over, spoiling the perfect symmetry of his features. I take a step forward and lift my hand with the intention of tucking it behind his ear. At my movement, he looks me into the eyes and then I stop. I smile weirdly and get out fast before I do what I was planning to do. I so need to stop wanting to do things like these.

I spend the rest of the day delivering folders around the building. At six, my feet are practically yelling at me to take my high heels off. All I want is to get home and dip my feet into hot water. And a glass of wine would be nice too. It has been an annoying week and it's just Wednesday.

At seven, the superstar makes her entrance. Yay! Just when I was beginning to think that I got rid of her. She is wearing a very short tight dress, made from some translucent dark green material. The dress looks okay on her. If she would actually have something to fill it with, it would have looked a lot better on her. I think about that dress on me and I would surely look ten times better than her in it. But I don't really think I would ever afford it in the first place.

As usual, she is wearing like half a kilogram of makeup on her face. I wonder how she looks when she takes it off. Probably like a zombie.

As always, I do my job and greet her. And as usual, she doesn't bother with my existence as she is making her way towards Dimitri's office door. So be it. I don't really feel like quarreling with her. But before entering, she stops in front of my desk and places her hands on the edges, leaning over. I raise my head and look her in the eyes. She really has beautiful eyes. Blue, just like the sky. Too bad that the only thing she does with them is to give people harsh glares.

'May I help you somehow Ma'am?' I so love to call her like this. It only makes her hate me more, I can tell. But she started this s**t when she began calling me a little girl.

'No. But I think I might help you.'

'With what?'

'Um, with some makeup lessons, obviously. I see that you brought up to date your wardrobe some time ago, but your face still looks bad.'

Man, what have I ever done to this b***h? Besides brutally killing her in my imagination every time I see her, of course.

'Um, thank you, but I think I'll pass. I don't want to learn how to look like you.' I am not going to take her s**t for long. I so waited for a chance to bite back.

Her eyes widen and it takes her a second to respond. 'What did you just say?'

'Exactly what you heard.' I respond smiling.

She leans even closer to me, hatred filling her face, and she speaks into a low voice, probably for her boyfriend not to hear the rancor in her voice. 'Listen to me, little girl. You have no idea who you are messing with here. I can end you in a second. And I won't hesitate. I know what you are after and I can tell you that your little plan won't work. I won't let him go that easily.' Is she talking about Dimitri? God, isn't she paranoid right now? I don't know why she keeps on insisting with me having a plan. Does she think that I want to steal him from her? Well, I don't!

'First, stop calling me like that. I don't care if you have the age to be my aunt or something, I won't allow you to call me like that. For your knowledge, I have a name and I expect you to use it. And second, there is nothing you can do to me. I am completely clean. You have nothing on me. There is nothing that I do or did that someone can complain of.' Except for existing in your case you crazy woman. 'So you can't touch me.'

She presses her lips together and I am way too eager to talk back to everything that she would tell me.

'You know, with some help, you could at least look pretty. Considering your attitude, it would really help you. Without that, trust me, you don't have any chance with him.' she says lastly, before entering Dimitri's office. I don't get to say anything to her because she moves fast, probably being afraid that I might snap her neck. And at this moment I really would have done that. I wonder how much I can put up her words. I swear that one day I am going to slap her so hard that her whole make up will fly off her face like a mask.

After that, her b***h voice turns into her sweet talking, the one voice she uses only when she is with Dimitri. Seriously now, how could this woman be so fake? Is there something genuine about her? Maybe only her malice.

'Happy birthday! Are you ready to go?'

Pause. Probably Dimitri is speaking. I never seem to hear him.

'What do you mean where? At your birthday party, of course.'

Another pause.

'Oh, come on! What do you mean you don't feel like it? You stood me up on my birthday. You are not getting away today. Consider….making it up for that. Do you know…organize this party only for you?' she says something I can't hear. '…..be friends? Consider this party as my gift for you. So stop fooling around and let's go!'

Five minutes later, after she finally convinced him to go, they exit his office, Tasha practically dragging Dimitri after her. I almost laugh when I see his expression. You can see the evident excitement on his face. Well, what can you do? This woman is hard to get rid of.

As always, before leaving, he tells me goodnight and I respond back. Tasha doesn't bother, again.

Before heading for the elevator and then home, I call Lissa to let her know that today I got out way earlier than I expected.

'Hey, Liss!'

'Oh, Rose, hi! Did something happen?'

'No. I just called to ask you if you are ready for a movie night. This girl is free as a bird tonight. Tasha just took Belikov to his birthday party.'

'Um, well...I, um.' is there something wrong?

'Lissa? Just tell me what's going on.'

'I, I kind of invited Christian over. You know, I thought that since you were going to come home late, we could spend some time together. But it's okay. The more the merrier.' yeah, sure.

They are going to kiss all night long and I am going to have to watch them. So I guess I'll pass that. After seeing Dimitri leave with Tasha, I am not in the right place to watch people being in love right now. I can deal with one couple a day.

'Oh, it's no problem then, Liss. I anyway got invited to a drink by the girls here. So I'll just go with them instead.' I lie, not wanting to interrupt their

special night. They don't get to be alone as much as they should lately.

'You sure?'

'Yeah, of course. You go show some love to your man.' I say laughing. 'If I get home around two or three are you two lovebirds going to be done?'

'Rose!'

'Hey! I am just making sure that when I get home I won't be seeing something destined to adult audiences if you know what I mean.'

'You are incredible, Rose.'

'Yeah, that's why you love me. See ya!'

'Bye.'

Well, what am I going to do now? Where should I go? I don't want to go somewhere on my own and I have no one to ask to go with me.

Oh, I know! I'll just stay here. There won't be anyone to disturb me.

I make myself a big cup of coffee and begin to scroll on the internet, trying to waste time.

You know what? I just realized that this man is my boss for pretty long, and I know nothing about him. I didn't even know that today was his birthday. Yeah, I know how he is drinking his coffee and that he is some kind of a womanizer, but nothing more besides that.

I put his name into the search engine and all I find are some articles about his business, but nothing about him. It seems that he is quite a private person. But I don't give up that easily. I get even deeper with my searches. You know how girls do that FBI thing when they only know like the first name of some boy they saw on bus one day a week ago and they want to show him to their best friends, and like after two hours of searching on the internet, they know his entire history? Well, I couldn't pull the same trick on my boss. I couldn't find a single thing about him. All the articles linked to him were about his utter success and I already knew that.

But before giving up, I stumble over an article in Russian. I click on the link and hit the translate button. It is an interview from his early years. I read it and I understand some things, but not really much. Like, really Google translate, you should step up your game because I need information.

I found out that he was born in a town named Baia, in Russia, into a modest family. He has three sisters and no father figure since he was thirteen. I found a picture of his family attached to that article. They are all strikingly resembling each other. They all have the same beautiful features Dimitri has. I read that he followed the courses of some prestigious Russian University and graduated first of his class. No doubt there. He is good at everything he does, I am sure of it. Then, at the age of 21, he started his business from scratch and the usual story of his success continues.

Meanwhile, at the club

DPOV begins

I am surprised that Tasha knows me so damn well. She has organized the ''perfect'' birthday party for me. Now, I kind of regret accepting to come here with her, but I couldn't find it in me to refuse her. After that stupid night at my office I talked with her and explained some things to her, trying to leave Rose out if the reasons I wanted us to break up, because that whole thing would have only ended up into a big scene and I don't want Rose to be dragged into this mess I have created. She doesn't even know all the things that happened. So I told Tasha that we should end things completely and for real this time and well, when she asked me, I agreed for us to try to remain friends, because I think that I owe her this much. Plus, this woman has an extraordinary ability to make you feel guilty for a lot of things.

I have been into this odious club for four hours now and I feel miserable. I hate this place and all the people she invited. Half of them, if not even more of them, barely know me. They know my name, but this doesn't mean anything. And the others, the ones I know, are just a bunch of freeloaders. This is such a nice group of people that Tasha got together. Just her type of people.

I don't feel like doing anything so I just sit and drown myself into the abundant alcohol. At least she bought the good stuff. I have lost count of how much I drank and the music blasting into my head is horrible and everybody around is dancing or completely ignoring me, thank God. I don't think I can have a conversation with any of them. I don't find a single thing I like here.

I spend most of the time looking around the club and at one point I see a woman dancing, resembling Rose. No, this can't be her; I surely drank too much. My mind is just messing with me. Speaking of her, I remember the cupcake she brought to me this morning. It was the only thing today that made me feel good. Seeing her smile as I was blowing out my candle was the perfect gift for me. I wonder how it would have been if I just got out with her to celebrate my birthday. Just as friends, nothing more, because she still doesn't seem to be interested. And hell, that is better than nothing, no? I like being around her. She is such a jolly person. I would choose her company any day in exchange for all these people around me now.

Some time later, a drunken woman comes my way and gets very close to me, almost laying herself wholly on top of me and proposes to me to do it into the bathroom. I turn her down categorically and she leaves into the search of a wishing man. This is it. This was the last drop tonight. I am done with this. I am going home.

After I rise, I think about announcing Tasha that I am leaving, but she is on the dancing floor dancing around with some man, being probably drunk. It's good to see her moving on. And I don't bother to go to her. She won't even notice that I am missing, that absorbed by her dance she is. And in fact, this is not really my party, it's hers. So I'll let her enjoy herself then.

I take a look at the table in front of me, which is full of bottles with alcohol. I take one bottle of vodka for later and get out of the loud club. As I open the door, I stumble over Rose. Well, it's not really her, but it's the same woman I saw dancing earlier. And I speak something with her as I get to my car, but I am not as coherent as I would like to be.

As I get out my car keys, I can't seem to find the keys to my apartment. I must have forgotten them at the office when Tasha came to drag me to this horrible place. Just perfect. Now I have to go there.