The Wrong Boss: Chapter 13

The car jerked, and my temple smacked against the window. I yelped as pain split across my head, then flailed to grab the seat in front of me as our vehicle fishtailed. Cole’s arm flew across my abdomen to catch me as my seatbelt jerked and held me in place.

The whole thing lasted no more than a couple of seconds. My ears were ringing by the time we came to a stop.

“You good?” he asked.

Glancing over, I noted his wide eyes, his heavy breathing. I nodded. “Yeah. What happened?” Turning, I looked out the back window to see an old beater of a sedan stopped halfway up the curb. Our trunk was crumpled on my side of the car, and a smattering of broken glass and the red plastic of what used to be our taillight lay scattered across the asphalt.

Cole made a noise, so I looked over at him in time to see a frown wrinkling the skin between his brows. “You’re bleeding.”

I touched my hairline, and the fingers came away red. “Oh.”

The partition whirred as it slid down. The driver said, “All good?”

“No, we’re not all fucking good, Paulie. What the hell was that?” Cole barked.

“He came out of nowhere!”

I didn’t want to point out that Paulie had pulled out into the intersection when the light had just turned from yellow to red. The other car had been going too fast, but we shouldn’t have been in the intersection to begin with.

My hands were shaking.

Cole threw his door open, and I dug through my purse to find some tissues. Pressing them to the side of my head, I jerked when the door on my side of the car was wrenched open. Cole’s thunderous expression filled my vision as he ducked inside the car, reaching across me to unclip my seatbelt.

His scent brought me back to the day we met. The salt of his skin. The smell of his cologne and shampoo. I inhaled deeply, shocked at the visceral nature of my reaction. My whole body clenched, my mouth went dry, and my heart began to thrum.

This time—unlike in his office—when his arms scooped me up, I was fully conscious and aware of how close our bodies were. I felt the grip of his palm around my thigh and the warmth of his arm beneath my knees. Shouting as he lifted me out of the car and into his arms, I wrapped my left arm around his neck while the other kept the tissue pressed to the side of my head. Because my right side was pressed against his chest, this twisted me and made it so our noses were practically touching.

“What are you doing?” I screeched.

“You need a doctor.” His jaw was set, his eyes furious. Maybe he’d noticed the traffic lights and the fact that his driver was at least partially at fault.

“Cole. Put me down!”

He whistled, and a taxi came to a stop in front of him. “I’m taking you to get medical attention.”

“Stop it.” I clicked my tongue as he marched toward the back seat of the cab. My wriggling didn’t seem to have any effect on his iron grip, so I did the only thing I could think that might slow him down: I tugged at the hair on the nape of his neck.

The look he gave me was dark and furious, and it made liquid heat spread along the insides of my thighs.

So—and don’t ask me why I did this, because I have no idea—I tugged again.

“Careful,” he warned, a rattle in his voice as he said the word.

The way he was acting was so similar to our first meeting that for a moment, I forgot where I was. I forgot who I’d become. Suddenly, I was seven years younger, fresh from a breakup, overwrought, and completely turned on by the handsome man who’d decided he wanted to play the hero.

Then the man in the sedan started yelling at us, and our driver shouted back, and I was jerked back to the present moment. Back to reality.

This wasn’t seven years ago. Cole Christianson was my boss—and worse, he was the father of my child. A child he didn’t know existed.

I couldn’t invite him up to a hotel room and let him have his way with me. I couldn’t throw out common sense and give in to my basest urges. I had real responsibilities, and the longer I spent in his presence—and his arms—the worse the consequences would be.

I couldn’t afford consequences. Couldn’t afford to lose this job, and I certainly couldn’t afford for him to get the upper hand in this relationship, because he might decide to use it to take my daughter from me.

“Put me down. Sir.” I spat out the last word, meaning for it to sound like an insult.

But Cole’s brow simply twitched a fraction of an inch, and he ignored my directive. “I am taking you to a hospital,” he said.

“You are putting me down right now, you overbearing, domineering asshole.”

That was harsh. I knew it as soon as it came out of my mouth. But how else was I supposed to make him understand that I would not be pushed around?

“You hit your head,” he said, voice calm, ignoring the cab driver who’d rolled down his window and called out to us as well as the argument sparking between the sedan owner and our driver. “You need medical attention.”

“I need you to put me down so I can stand on my own two feet.” And wasn’t that just the theme of my life at the moment?

“Just a few hours ago, you were standing on your own two feet and then you fainted. That’s two head knocks in a matter of hours, Ms. Woods.”

His voice was quiet and unyielding. It was exactly the voice he’d used the evening we’d spent together, when he’d wanted me to beg for his cock. A tone that had nearly made me orgasm all on its own.

That pesky heat mounting between my thighs reached a new level.

I was in so much trouble.

There was no way I could allow myself to be attracted to this man. What would happen if he wanted to fight me in family court? He was Goliath, and I’d unfortunately misplaced my trusty slingshot. I couldn’t go up against him in a fight. I was totally powerless—especially when I considered how good it felt to be in his arms.

We stood in the street, my elbow wrapped around his neck while I pressed a bloody tissue to my temple, his arms cradling my body to his. For a long moment, we stared into each other’s eyes.

Our lips were inches apart. I could feel the heat of his breath coasting over my lips, and I wondered what would have happened if I’d found him when I went looking for him all those years ago. Would we have had a chance? Was this energy between us just the product of some incidental sexual chemistry, or was it something more? Would he have wanted a child? Would he have wanted a child with me?

As my thoughts spun out, I tore my gaze away from his and looked over his shoulder. Beside us, the cab driver swore and drove off, evidently frustrated at the fact that we were just standing there and not getting in the back of his vehicle.

I gulped and tried to come back to myself.

What-ifs were irrelevant. It did me no good to think about what could have happened if I’d found him. I couldn’t craft some sort of fantasy about the life we might’ve had, because this was reality. He was engaged to another woman. I had to tell him about our child. He was wealthy, and I was not.

Our lives were a tangled web of barriers and complexities, and the fact that I was attracted to him shouldn’t even have registered as significant. It wasn’t significant.

The only thing that truly mattered was protecting Evie. In order to do that, I needed to keep my head on straight. I needed legal advice. I needed money.

“Cole,” I said. “Please put me down.”

I’m not sure what he heard in my voice, but after only a second’s pause, he leaned over and set my feet on the ground. His hands skimmed my hips, steadying me as I caught my balance, and then he took a step back.

His face was an unreadable mask.

“Thank you,” I said, straightening my skirt. When I looked up, he was frowning at the side of my head. My tissue was covered in blood, so I crumpled it up and tossed it in a nearby trash can before grabbing another from my purse. It came away with only a few spots of blood as I dabbed it to the side of my head. The wound wasn’t so bad.

“My place isn’t far from here,” Cole said, and I realized he’d shadowed me as I’d walked to the trash can. “At least let me take you there so you can get cleaned up. I’ll call my private physician to get you checked out. This happened while you were working for me, Carrie. It’s my responsibility to make sure you’re okay.”

Staring into his eyes was dangerous, but I did it anyway. And sure enough, my resolve weakened, and I found myself dipping my chin in agreement. “Fine,” I replied, defeated. “Let me grab the wedding invitations from the back seat. I might as well finish the job I was tasked with.”

He nodded his agreement, then went to talk to his driver while I gathered the invitations, labels, and envelopes from the back seat. By the time I’d collected everything, Cole was hailing another cab.

Not knowing what else to do—and not having the energy to fight him—I walked over on wobbling legs and entered the back of the cab as he held the door open for me.

So far, Day One of working for Cole Christianson had been an unmitigated disaster. And it wasn’t even over.