My Arrogant Boss Called Me A Sister — Until He Saw Me With A Rival
Part 1
Rain lashed mercilessly against the leaded library windows, drowning out everything except the sharp scratch of my dip pen.
The heavy ledger balanced on my knees detailed crop yields for the eastern tenant farms.
A dramatic groan echoed from the leather armchair across the room.
Aristocratic exhaustion radiated from Dan as he tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
Endless complaints about the social season tumbled from his lips, lamenting how every mother in the city eyed him like a prime cut of beef.
My gaze remained firmly fixed on the columns of numbers.
My spine throbbed with a dull pain from sitting entirely too still for entirely too long.
I reminded him that he was exactly that.
He laughed and opened one eye to look at me.
The firelight caught the amber of his irises.
It was a deceptive warmth.
He thanked God for me.
The pen stopped scratching against the thick parchment.
A droplet of black ink gathered at the nib and dropped.
It ruined a perfectly good zero.
I asked him what he meant.
Dan took a slow sip of his scotch.
He entirely missed the sudden tension locking my shoulders.
He smiled that lazy, affectionate smile.
It felt like a physical blow to my ribs.
He said I was the only woman in his life he didn’t have to perform for.
He called me a sister.
A safe, sexless fixture in his grand, messy life.
There was no sudden explosion.
There was no dramatic betrayal.
It was just a quiet, heavy door swinging shut in my chest.
I looked at the ruined zero on the ledger.
An absurd urge to laugh bubbled in my throat.
For six years, I had managed his estates and untangled his social messes.
I had sat in this damp room harboring a tight, foolish knot of hope.
I had convinced myself that his reliance on me was the foundation of something deeper.
I was wrong.
He didn’t see a woman sitting across from him.
He saw a piece of furniture.
A very useful, very loyal hound.
I repeated the word ‘sister’ out loud.
My voice didn’t shake.
Dan agreed and stretched his arms over his head.
He said he could just breathe around me.
The irony tasted like copper on my tongue.
I closed the ledger with a soft, definitive thud.
The sound made Dan pause.
His arms dropped to his sides.
A flicker of mild confusion crossed his features.
I stood up and brushed an invisible speck of dust from my gray wool skirt.
It was a drab, sisterly color.
I told him I was incredibly tired and had neglected an invitation for the social season.
Dan frowned and complained that the city smelled like open sewers and cheap gin.
I replied that I had developed a sudden taste for gin.
My sensible leather shoes made no sound on the thick rug as I walked toward the heavy oak door.
Dan’s voice took on a distinct whine.
He demanded to know who was going to help him with the tenant disputes.
I paused with my hand resting on the cool brass knob.
The metal bit into my palm.
I didn’t turn around.
I knew if I looked at him, I might scream or throw the inkwell at his perfectly tousled head.
I suggested he hire a steward.
I slipped out into the dimly lit corridor and left the door cracked behind me.
I didn’t run to my room or weep into a pillow.
I simply pulled out a battered leather trunk and began folding my clothes.
As I folded a heavy, sensible nightgown, my hands finally began to shake.
It wasn’t from heartbreak.
It was from profound, suffocating humiliation.
I had wasted six years waiting for a blind man to describe the sun.
Tomorrow I would leave.
I wasn’t looking for a husband or trying to make Dan jealous.
I simply needed to breathe.
Three weeks later, I stood near the edge of a suffocatingly crowded ballroom.
A glass of warm, overly sweet champagne was clutched in my hand.
Sweat prickled at the base of my spine.
It soaked into the unfamiliar heavy midnight blue silk of my gown.
Across the room, through a sea of bobbing feathers, I saw Dan.
He was leaning against a marble pillar looking intensely bored.
He caught sight of me and raised his glass a fraction of an inch in a lazy salute.
He was waiting for me to cross the room and anchor him.
A cold, cynical calm washed over me.
I deliberately turned my back to him and faced the open terrace doors.
A low, slightly raspy voice to my left asked if I was hiding or plotting a murder.
I turned to see a man standing next to me.
His nose had clearly been broken at least once.
His pale, icy gray eyes were piercingly sharp.
He looked at me as if I were an equation he was trying to solve.
Not a piece of furniture to lean on.
I replied that the two were not mutually exclusive.
The man let out a short, rough laugh.
He smelled of rain-soaked cobblestones and clean linen.
He introduced himself as Craig.
He already knew I was Megan Hastings.
He called me the Duke’s shadow.
My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass until my knuckles turned white.
I bristled and informed him I was no one’s shadow.
Craig watched my hands and noticed the tension in my jaw.
He didn’t apologize.
His eyes gleamed with undisguised interest.
He observed that I didn’t look like a shadow tonight.
He said I looked like a woman about five seconds away from setting the curtains on fire.
A surprised, ugly snort of laughter escaped my mouth.
I slapped a hand over my lips.
My cheeks burned.
Craig’s crooked smile only widened.
He murmured that he had been wondering if I actually breathed.
I called him incredibly rude.
Craig countered that he was simply observant.
He reached out and his slightly calloused fingers brushed against the rim of my glass.
He told me I was drinking swill and offered to show me the actual whiskey.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dan pushing off the marble pillar with a jagged spike of adrenaline in his eyes.
For six years I had been a piece of furniture in his grand life, but as Craig’s hand settled firmly against the small of my back, I watched Dan’s face twist with a terrifying, violent realization as he marched straight toward us.
