Poisonous Kiss: Chapter 9

My nerves are shot as I step into the elevator to head up to the office. I take a large swig of coffee, feeling the irregularity of my pulse and the slickness at the small of my back.

I’m marrying my boss.

I hate that I haven’t had a chance to talk about this with any of my friends, or people whose opinions I give a shit about—Elsa, Taylor, or Eloise, for example. But Gabriel didn’t leave my apartment yesterday until I’d signed an NDA of biblical proportions barring me from uttering a single syllable before he makes the announcement.

Which will be soon. Soon, everyone I work with will hear that I’ve been dating our boss. Who cares if it’s a lie. The net result is going to be the same.

Shock. Probably some snickered ridicule. Gold digger jokes behind my back.

My shoulders slump. It’s going to suck. But the silver lining is that the monetary transaction part of all of this is going to happen soon. Which means I can get it to Takato, and that entire dark chapter of my dad’s life can be over and done with.

Dad gave everything up for me. I can survive being married to Gabriel Black for a short while.

It’s not a forever marriage. That was in the massive stack of contracts and NDAs we went over last night—back in the kitchen, with me wearing more than a towel.

The plan is to marry before his announcement that he’s running. We’ll stay married throughout the election campaign, since that’s the entire point. The charade will continue for a minimum of three years, with an option at that point to renegotiate terms to “stay together” if it looks like he could win the next election and still needs me at his side.

After that, it’s basically rinse, repeat. In the third year of each four-year term, we’ll re-negotiate for us keep the ruse going through him campaigning for another term, since New York State has no term limits for Governor.

And of course, Gabriel’s already thought of everything, including the payment structures and maximum contract renewal amounts, which I had to agree to last night.

Apparently, I’m able to make my demand of five million instead of four only once. But it’s not like I’ll be crying poverty staying married to the man. Each “term” that I stay with him nets me a million dollars a year. And the only drawback is that I’ll be married to a control freak with supremely deviant sexual tastes.

I mean…there are worse ways of making a fortune.

There’s more contractual stuff, of course. The details of my involvement in his life and in his campaign have to be ironed out. But the preliminary agreements have been signed.

I’m really doing this.

With a frown, I suddenly realize I’m just standing in an empty elevator with the doors to the lobby still open. Shaking my head in hopes of getting it screwed on straight, I reach over to punch the button for the Crown and Black offices on the topmost floors. The doors begin to shut, when suddenly, a hand jerks between them.

The doors open again, and Gabriel walks in.

My pulse skips as he stands looming right over me. His eyes bore into me, stealing my breath as he reaches behind him and pushes the door close button.

“Um…hi.”

The elevator begins to rise.

“There was a leak to the media.”

Instantly, I go on the defensive, glaring at him.

“So obviously it’s me, right? Is that to what I owe the pleasure of this dramatic elevator meeting?”

Gabriel’s eyebrow quirks up. “You have trust issues, don’t you?”

“I have issues with being accused of things I had nothing⁠—”

“It wasn’t an accusation. It was…” He growls deep in his chest, scowling as he turns and punches the stop button. My pulse lurches as the elevator brakes sharply.

“It was a statement of fact,” he mutters. “Our ‘relationship’ and anticipated engagement has been leaked to a major tabloid. I just got off the phone with their dipshit in-house counsel. I threatened the fucker enough to hold it for now, but they’ll be posting it online in the next fifteen minutes, if they haven’t already.”

My lip sucks between my teeth, my stomach dropping.

“Soon” just got upgraded to “imminently” in terms of everyone at work knowing.

“So, what does that mean?”

“It means, Fumi,” he says quietly, “that we need to hit this head on and get in front of it. The entire office will be talking about it in the next few minutes, so we might as well rip the band-aid off ourselves.”

My face pales.

I know what I signed up for. But the reality of having to look Taylor in the eye after she hears that I’ll be marrying her business partner, friend, and my boss feels like a knife to the gut. I mean this is a woman I look up to and respect more than anyone. Someone I aspire to be like.

And here I am, “screwing the boss” to get ahead. Talk about cliché.

It also makes all of this so much more real. Not just the marrying Gabriel part. Not even just looking my friends and coworkers in the eye and smiling when that comes out.

It’s the part when Gabriel actually campaigns for Governor, and I’ll have to face a part of my past I’ve spent years burying.

It means I’ll have to face him. Literally. I’ll have stand in a room with that fuckwad. I’ll have to pose for pictures, smiling, with him in the same photo.

It makes me want to throw up right here and now.

I’m shaken from my dark thoughts when Gabriel turns and starts the elevator again. The car begins to rise once more, my pulse thudding like I’m taking my last footsteps up the stairs to the guillotine.

“Like…now?”

Gabriel’s face is stony as he reaches into the pocket of his immaculately tailored suit and pulls out his phone. His brows furrow as he thumbs the screen open, and his jaw clenches tightly.

“Right now,” he grunts, jamming his phone back into his pocket. He turns, his gaze stabbing into mine. “The story went live one minute ago.”

Fuck. Me.

Before I can agonize about my new reality, or fret about what I’m going to say to Taylor and my other friends, the elevator stops again as he jams the button once more.

“Oh, and I almost forgot.”

The glimmer of diamond has my eyes widening as Gabriel pulls a ring out of his pocket.

“I…”

But no words come out of my mouth as it opens wide. Instead, I just stare, my pulse thudding as Gabriel deftly takes my hand and slides the engagement ring onto my finger.

It’s perfect. I almost wish it was a design I hated, or that it was too gaudy, or too small. Too anything. Because that would make this whole thing easier to roll my eyes at.

But it’s not. The goddamn thing is exactly the freaking ring I’d pick for myself out of a thousand options.

I swallow as my gaze holds on my finger with an unblinking stare. Without another word, Gabriel turns and pushes the button again, lurching the elevator into motion again.

“Game faces,” Gabriel growls.

He turns to me again, and though his brow is still creased and his jaw still set, I catch a brief flash of—fuck, is that humanity that I see in his eyes?

“Ready?” he says quietly.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Nope.”

My pulse spikes when his hand suddenly grabs mine, just as the doors open wide. Megan, the receptionist, looks up from the phone in her hand. Her mouth drops open, her expression scandalized as her gaze locks onto Gabriel and my clasped hands.

“Uh…Mr. Black!” she blurts, standing quickly. “Ms. Yamaguchi⁠—”

“Why don’t you follow us to the pit, Megan,” Gabriel grunts, barely slowing as he pulls me through the reception area of the firm. “I’m going to address everyone all at once so that we can all get on with our days.”

My pulse is racing as we march into the main cubicle area.

The story is very obviously out. Every single employee is talking with their immediate neighbor, or staring in shock at their phones, or texting excitedly.

“Everyone, stop what you’re doing.”

It’s as if he just walked into the pit and fired a shotgun in the air. The whole place jumps in terror, every face snapping around and every eye flaring wide when they see him.

When they see us.

Wordlessly, Gabriel pulls me by the hand through the maze of cubicles to the center of the open plan space. He marches halfway up the stairs with me in tow before turning to survey the whole firm. Above us, I’m acutely aware of Taylor, Alistair, and a few other employees stepping out of conference rooms to gaze down at the scene from the upper level.

I glance up, paling when I lock eyes with Taylor. She just nods her chin, a reassuring if twisted smile on her face. I glance back toward the pit. This time, it’s Elsa’s gaze I catch as she stares at me with her mouth in an “O”.

“As I’m sure you’ve all heard,” Gabriel says, his voice filled with a mix of sternness, authority, and power, “Ms. Yamaguchi and I have an important announcement to make. We’ve been keeping this quiet, not out of shame or fear of scandal, but because our private lives are precisely that. Private. HR has been aware of this for months⁠—”

Well, that’s obviously a lie. My gaze snaps to Rebecca, Crown and Black’s HR director, half-expecting her to say something. She’s just smiling neutrally.

That’s when my eyes catch the diamond bauble on her wrist, the brand-new bag which looks a hell of a lot like an Hermès Birkin, and the shiny new Louboutins on her feet.

Mother. Fucker.

She’s been bought.

Whatever ethical concerns I have slip away as Gabriel’s muscled arm slips around my waist. One hand grips my hip possessively as his other one takes mine and raises it and my new ring, as if showing everyone I’m his.

“Fumi and I have been seeing each other for a few months now, so we’ve decided to make it official.” He beams a charming, wide, smile. “We’re getting married.”

The whole place explodes in murmurs and gasps. Employees whirl to each other with mouths agape as the whispers turn to a roar.

Elsa is standing next to Eloise and Cassidy, and I can feel the blush spreading across my face as the three of them just stare at me in confusion and shock. Gabriel’s hand grips my hip tightly, yanking me back into the present.

“Thank you, thank you,” he smiles as a smattering of claps begin to turn into a small applause from the staff. “This changes nothing around here. Ms. Yamaguchi will keep her same position, and everything stays the same with Crown and Black staffing and management. I do not want anyone to treat her or myself any differently.” He clears his throat with a brief nod. “That’s it.”

Except it’s not. Because then, right in front of everyone, Gabriel suddenly spins me, pulls me tight against his body, cups my face, and leans down to kiss me.

It’s not until his mouth crashes to mine that I realize despite all of the pure sin he unleashed on my body the other night, this is actually our first kiss. It’s such an amusing thought—given that a few nights ago he was fucking my mouth, spanking me, torturing my nipples, and coming on my face and down my throat—that I start to laugh.

It doesn’t throw him. He doesn’t back away. If anything, Gabriel starts kissing me harder, fiercer. His hands tighten on my jaw and my hip. Even if this is just supposed to be a kiss “for the cameras”, his tongue demands entrance.

Which I give.

And suddenly, I’m not just “kissing” Gabriel in front of the whole office. I’m kissing him in front of the whole office.

The train has left the station. The spaceship has launched. There’s no going back now.

Fuck, I’d better learn to hold on tight.