Mid-Thirties Slightly Hot Mess Female Seeking Billionaire: Chapter 22

Ethan

I am pissed that Sarah was flirting with the waiter, and now she’s flirting with Bob again at the table. I stare at her blatantly, and I can see she’s glaring at me. She hadn’t found my facesitting joke funny, but to be quite frank, I didn’t find her appearance to be funny either. She looked absolutely gorgeous. Far too sexy to be around these pervs.

As soon as she’d walked in, I’d been blown away. She looked gorgeous, but then, she always does. I love how sexy she is, but I can’t help but notice that everyone else is admiring her as well, and I sure don’t like that.

I knew I’d made a mistake calling her, telling her to meet me here. I had thought that she might think it was a date, and maybe a part of me wanted to see how she’d react to that. I hadn’t expected to see her flirting with every man around, though. Bob was acting way too friendly, and I was growing pissed.

‘Sarah, can I speak to you for one second?’ I say as I stand up from the table.

‘What now, Ethan?’ She says. There’s an edge to her voice, and I can tell that everyone has noticed.

I look at the other gentlemen as they stare at each other for a couple of seconds, and I frown slightly. ‘Over here,’ I say, grabbing her elbow and forcing her up. We move to the side of the room and stop.

“What now, Ethan? Ar you going to get on your knees and try and kiss my ass again?’ She’s glaring at me again.

‘No, that was just a joke. I…’

‘Yeah, right. Sure, that was a joke. That’s why you got onto your knees and you were…’ She blushes slightly. ‘Anyway, what’s the deal? Your business associates are going to wonder what’s going on.’

‘I just want you to know that this is a business meeting and not anything else. I really hope that you didn’t have your hopes up that this was a date.’ I say succinctly. Her face goes red, and her eyes widen. She presses her lips together and then she just starts laughing.

I’m surprised by that. I thought she was going to go off on me. I thought she was going to get angry. That’s what I was expecting, almost hoping for. I wanted her to tell me she had hoped it was a date. We hadn’t seen each other in a week and I’d missed her, but it seemed that she hadn’t missed me at all.

‘What’s so funny?’ I ask her, waiting for her to tell me why she’s laughing so much.

‘That you thought I would think this was a date.’ She says, rolling her eyes. ‘I haven’t even thought about you since the last time I saw you.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘So no, I didn’t think this was a date. I didn’t hope this was a date. And if I had thought you were asking me out, I would’ve said no because it’s inappropriate.’

‘So fucking you wasn’t inappropriate?’ I ask her, starting to feel pissed again.

‘No, that was totally inappropriate. And I’m sure if I reported you to HR, I’d get some sort of settlement.’ She pauses and gives me a sweet smile, ‘But I’m not that sort of girl.’

‘Oh, so you’re not a gold digger?’

‘No,’ she says, an edge to her voice, ‘I’m not a gold digger, no matter what you think.’

‘I didn’t think you were,” I say, trying to take control of the situation.

‘I just think that maybe the problem here is you’re only thinking with your small head.’ She says, looking at me for a couple of seconds. ‘And honestly, your small head isn’t really that smart or that good, so maybe you should think with your big head after all.’ She says, tapping the side of my head. I stare at her for a couple of seconds and grab her hand.

‘What are you saying?’ I ask her, leaning towards her ear and whispering. “Did you change the subject because you want my cock?”

‘What do you think I’m saying, Ethan?” She gasps and trembles slightly.

‘I think you’re saying you didn’t enjoy my small head.” I pretend to frown.

‘Ooh, maybe you are smart after all.’ She says, grabbing her hand away from me. ‘Now, let’s get back to work. I have other things to do later.’

I press my lips together. This is not how I’d expected this to go. For some reason, I’m angry and annoyed, and I just want to grab her, and take her into a room, and bang the living daylights out of her. I want to show her that my small head can work many miracles. Instead, I nod, and we walk back to the table.

‘Sorry about that. I was just checking to see if Sarah brought the files. Turns out she didn’t.’ I shake my head. ‘She’s new to the role though, so maybe she’ll get better later.’

‘Excuse me?’ Her jaw drops, and then she just takes a deep breath. ‘My apologies, gentlemen. I didn’t even realize that I was going to be coming to this business meeting until very recently. But I will do whatever I can to help out.’

‘Oh, I’d like that,” Bob says eagerly, and I stare at him for a couple of seconds. ‘How long have you been with Rosser International?’ He asks, looking her up and down, and I can see the glint in his eyes. I can see what he really wants. He doesn’t care at all how long she’s been with the company. He just wants to know if he can get into her pants.

‘Oh, a number of years.’ She says, ‘But this is my first time in a senior management role.’ She looks over at me. ‘Would you say I’m in senior management now, Ethan?’

‘No,’ I say dryly, shaking my head. ‘But let us have a seat.’ I said, ‘Maybe if you can impress our clients today, you’ll be in line for a promotion.’

‘Oh, is that all I have to do to get a promotion?’ She says sweetly, glancing at me as we all take a seat. ‘Just impress the clients today?’

‘That’s normally how it works,” I say, nodding at her.

‘Oh, okay. I wasn’t sure if I would have to kiss someone’s ass, hypothetically speaking.’ She laughs, and Bob stares at her with a bemused expression. I can tell his thoughts, and I want to punch him.

‘That’s normally how it goes in these Fortune 500 companies.’ He says, nodding. ‘I’ve seen it time and time again. It’s the person that kisses the most ass that seems to rise to the top.’

‘I guess I won’t be rising anywhere.’ She says, laughing self-consciously and touching her hair. ‘I’m not really one to kiss ass.’

‘Oh, really?’ I ask her, ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’

‘Oh?’ She says innocently, ‘You heard that I kiss ass? I mean, I’ve never kissed yours, right?’

I pause for a couple of seconds and withhold the thoughts in my mind. I want to say to her, ‘Yeah, you’ve never kissed my ass, but you had my cock in your mouth very recently.’ But even I know that would be very unprofessional.

She stares back at me, and I can tell she’s waiting for me to cross the line. She’s waiting for me to be the unprofessional one. Instead, I turn to Joey on the right and ask him a question. We start talking about different faucets, and I’m trying to concentrate on the conversation, but the sound of Sarah giggling is needling me.

I turn to the right and look at her. Bob has got his lips close to her ear, and he’s whispering something, and she’s laughing like he’s fucking Chris Rock.

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.’ She says, touching him on the shoulder, and I wonder what she’s responding to. What can’t she do? What has he asked her? I know I can’t actually ask because everyone would want to know why I was eavesdropping, but I’m starting to feel annoyed.I have to hide my emotions, though.

This has been a mistake. Everything about the last couple of weeks has been a mistake. I never should have invited her over. I never should have shown her my painting. I never should have gone to that bar that night and seen her dancing on the tabletop. I never should have slept with her, never should have ordered Chinese food and slept with her again. I never should have let her get into my head. I never should have let Jackson get into my head.

I never should have played this game of inviting her to this meeting, knowing full well that she would think it was a date and knowing full well that it wasn’t. Maybe I’d been playing checkers and she had been playing chess all along. Maybe she knew she was needling me. Maybe this was her way to get into my head.

I wasn’t going to let it happen. I wasn’t going to let her get to me. Just because the sound of her laugh made my heart jump for joy. Just because the sight of her face made me appreciate beauty. I wanted to paint her. I wanted to paint her in the nude and hang it up in my bedroom so I could stare at it every night.

I hold back a smile as I think about what that process would look like, her sitting nude on my couch. I groan to myself at the thought, I need to get my mind out of the gutter.

‘Sorry, what was that, Ethan?’ Joey asks, and I blink at him.

‘What?’ I say, having no idea what the conversation we’d been having was.

‘I said I can get you some black and some stainless steel faucets for a really good deal, but you said something about painting?’

I realize I must have mumbled something out loud, and I feel even angrier. The fact that I’m not in control of the words coming out of my mouth is not a good sign. I need to end this meeting as soon as possible.

‘Yeah. Well, we’ll have to work out the details later.’ I say. ‘Sarah here is working on some jingles for our new lighting line by some royal family members, and I thought perhaps she could do something for the faucets.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Joey sounds interested.

‘So Sarah, do you think you can come up with as a jingle to sell faucets?” I ask her.

‘I don’t know,’ she says, shaking her head, ‘I didn’t even know I was going to be coming up with a jingle making faucets.’

She looks at me and I stare at her. Neither one of us is smiling. Bob touches her hand.

‘I have an idea for a jingle.’ He says.

‘Yeah?’ She looks over at him. ‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe something about, I can make you wet, wet, wet.’ He licks his lips deliberately, and I shudder at how he’s trying to be sexy and flirty, and he’s just coming off like a creep. She stares at him for a couple of seconds, and I can see her lips twitching as she pulls away slightly.

I smile to myself at the fact. So she’s not impressed by this douche bag, that’s good.

‘I guess. Do we want faucets to make stuff wet, wet, wet though?’ She says.

‘Maybe not.’ He says, licking his lips again. “Maybe I was just thinking about something else being wet.’ He runs his finger through his hair and stares at her. ‘Maybe I was just thinking about you.’

‘Me?’ She says blinking, and I can see her face going red. She pulls back slightly and I wonder if she’s going to tell him off.

‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘I mean, I guess we don’t need a faucet to make you wet.’

‘Excuse me?’ She is loud now, and I wonder if I’m going to have to come to her defense.

‘I mean, we have shower heads as well.’ Bob realizes he’s crossed the line and that we are all listening. ‘I mean, shower heads are good too, right?’ He blinks, and Sarah nods slowly.

She looks at me and shakes her head, and I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking that she’s sitting with a bunch of perverted creeps. And I know that she’s right. I can’t believe that Bob commented to her, but he feels like he can because she’s wearing such a revealing dress to a business meeting.

I feel guilty then. I should have told her exactly where she was going. I should have told her that this wasn’t a date, even though I kind of knew that she’d assumed that it was. I’d fucked up. I’d gone and played games, and now it was making me feel like shit. But I knew then that I just needed to let Sarah go. I knew then that I couldn’t be professional and mess around with her. I was just going to work with her in a business capacity, and leave it at that. That was for the best.