What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 4) Read online

  “Lenny?” Heidi sounded genuinely surprised when she answered, and she was.

  “Hey, girl!” He laughed—he had such a warm laugh, and it made her instantly nostalgic for her other, easier, job. “You miss me yet?”

  “Hi, Lenny,” she said, smiling, sounding happy and realizing it was true, for the moment. She’d never been happier to hear his voice. “How are you?”

  “I’m fantastic, still keeping my head down and my mouth shut. You?”

  She swallowed, closing her eyes. “Me, too.”

  Well…mostly…

  The door behind her opened and the guy—Brian—got off. She didn’t turn around as the doors closed again and the elevator began to move.

  “So, I was calling to see if you wanted to do dinner and a video. Me and takeout and a chick flick. How could you resist?”

  Heidi laughed. “Lenny, are you sure you aren’t gay?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” Lenny feigned offense. “I’ve just been in this business so long, I’m very in touch with my inner feminine.”

  “I’d love to.” She smiled, surprised her face would oblige while the heavy leaden feeling still lingered in her belly.

  “Say seven?”

  “Seven,” she agreed, and she managed to exchange a few more casual-seeming pleasantries before hanging up. Anxiously, Heidi flipped through her missed calls—none of them Kaiser. He hadn’t called. And what if he didn’t? What if she didn’t have a job in the morning? He had every right to fire her—should fire her. He had no idea why she had done what she’d done, and she was sure Andrea was preemptively giving him all sorts of false information. Or maybe she was distracting him with a blowjob.

  Heidi swallowed hard at that, dropping her phone back in her purse and considering her options. She could go back, crawling on her knees—perhaps literally. She could wait for Kaiser to call—if he called. Or she could go back to work in the morning and see what happened. None of them was very appealing, but the alternative—never seeing Kaiser again—was unthinkable.

  The problem was, she didn’t know if Kaiser felt the same. Was she just his pliable, expendable secretary…or something more? She didn’t know, and she was truly afraid to find out.

  “I’m hungry.” Lenny stood up and stretched, grabbing the remote to pause Julie and Julia—Meryl Streep as Julia Childs filled the screen, mouth half-open, eyes half-closed, ridiculously frozen.

  “You’re just hungry because we’re watching a movie about food.” Heidi smiled. “Besides, we just ate an hour ago.”

  “An hour’s about right. We ate Chinese food, remember?” he reminded her. “What do you have in the fridge?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid…” she apologized as she followed him to the kitchen, leaning against the counter and watching him start to forage.

  “What the hell is this? Where’s the Cheez-Whiz?” Lenny frowned into the refrigerator, finding strawberries, organic milk, two cucumbers and some Laughing Cow cheese, which he tossed back onto a shelf in disgust. He slammed the fridge and scanned the top, where Heidi usually kept the real goodies. “Where’re the Cheetos? Don’t you have any more Ho-Ho’s? Someone needs to go shopping!”

  She shrugged. “I’ve kind of been…watching my weight.”

  “What the hell for?” His eyes brightened when he opened the reserve cupboard and found a half-full bag of pretzels. “You worked around models every day and didn’t diet…why would you…” His hand paused halfway to his mouth, his eyebrows going up. “Ohhhhhhh, I see! Is that how it is?”

  “Shut up.” Heidi looked at the linoleum. “Don’t say it.”

  Lenny crunched a handful of pretzels, swallowing before asking, “Kaiser’s got you in training, doesn’t he?”

  She met his gaze, too surprised not to speak. “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone knows what he does with his secretaries.” Lenny smirked, carrying the pretzels with him back to the living room. Heidi followed, settling herself on the couch next to him.

  “They do?” she inquired, watching him open another beer from the six-pack he’d brought and wondering if she could let him drive home.

  “He pull out his crop yet?” He looked at her pointedly over the bottle and her flush was clearly enough of a response for him. “His particular fetish is more obvious and well-known than he thinks it is.”

  She reached for the remote, wanting to restart the movie and end this conversation, but Lenny got to it first, holding it out of her reach. “Does he hurt you?”

  “No.” She denied it, and it was true. Sort of true. How could she possibly explain? It was bad enough knowing he knew…that others must know. Oh god, had Carvel known? Did Andrea know? The thought made her want to curl into the fetal position. “Not much,” she explained, her voice soft and far away, along with her thoughts. “Not in a bad way. Not… on the outside.”

  “Uh oh.” Lenny groaned, tossing the pretzels on the coffee table and taking another swig of beer. “Look, sex games are one thing, but man…Heidi, don’t get your heart involved, okay? He’s going to break it, guaranteed.”

  “I think he already has.” She felt tears stinging her eyes and turned her face away, back to Julia Childs interrupted, not wanting him to see.

  “You got it bad.” He sighed, moving toward her on the sofa and sliding an arm around her shoulder.

  “You have no idea.” Turning her face toward him now, she pressed her cheek against his chest and let him pull her close.

  “So that’s what’s got you so quiet?” he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

  Had she been quiet? Probably. Her thoughts were full of Kaiser and Andrea and the dread of future possibility. It was like waiting for the shock of some twisted reverse-Christmas-morning. “Sort of.”

  “Tell.”

  She sighed, shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  “I’ve got all night.” He gave her a gentle, reassuring squeeze and she found herself feeling too safe and secure in the circle of his arms, her guard dissolving. She’d been dying to tell someone…

  “There’s this woman…” she began, and before she knew it, she’d spilled it all, from Kaiser’s training her to Andrea’s stealing her designs, and when she was done, Lenny’s shirt was wet with tears.

  “Oh my god, Heidi…” he murmured, rocking her, and she let him, craving the comfort. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “Tell him?” Heidi snorted a laugh, wiping at her face with the back of her hand and finding it streaked with mascara. She’d changed into jeans and a t-shirt when she got home, but had forgotten how made up she was. What a mess…“I can’t tell him. I can’t prove anything.”

  “You think he won’t believe you?” Lenny pulled the end of his shirt out from his belt and wiped at her tears, mascara and all, leaving black streaks on the khaki material.

  Heidi shrugged, looking and feeling miserable. “Why should he believe me? It’s my word against hers. And this is Andrea Paxton we’re talking about.”

  “You’ve changed on the outside, but you’re the same old Heidi.” Lenny shook his head slowly as he pulled her close again. He smelled like pretzels and beer and aftershave, which wasn’t an unpleasant combination, but was so far from the smells of the man she was longing for she suddenly found it more pain than comfort to be in his arms.

  “I know.” Heidi bent her head, closing her eyes. “I’m pathetic.”

  “No, you’re not.” Lenny lifted her chin, cupping her tear-stained face in his hands. “You’re bright and beautiful and sweet…”

  She met his gaze, surprised into silence by his words, but even more so by the look in his eyes. She knew that look. She hadn’t seen it often in her life, but enough to recognize it.

  “Why do you think I called you?” Lenny asked, his gaze moving down to her mouth, pausing there, and she found it suddenly hard to breathe.

  “I don’t know…” she lied. She did know, now, even if she hadn’t before.

  “Don’t do this thing w
ith Kaiser,” he pleaded, his thumbs stroking her cheeks.

  “What thing?”

  “This thing.” His mouth captured hers in one easy motion, so quickly she didn’t have time to protest, although somehow she had felt it coming. He didn’t just smell like pretzels and beer, he tasted like it, too. The kiss was soft but not tentative, his mouth beginning to explore hers. The sensation was enjoyable, but…

  “Lenny…” She broke free, gasping for breath, but his hands were moving in her hair, down her back, tugging her shirt up and seeking the skin at her waist. His mouth moved over her jaw, her neck, her ear, back to her mouth, and she let him kiss her again. It had been a long time since a man had kissed her, and she found herself gauging her own response like some curious scientist.

  Kaiser had never kissed her. She had wanted it, longed for it, dreamed about it, but his mouth had never touched hers. She found herself thinking about Kaiser’s mouth, his perpetual frown. How many times had she imagined their first kiss?

  “Oh, Heidi…” Lenny moaned against her lips, and she realized she’d been fervently responding, lost in her fantasy. He had her half pulled into his lap, and she could feel him, hard, against her hip. “God, you feel so good.”

  “Lenny, wait…” She pushed herself away, still trembling, retreating to the opposite end of the sofa. He sat, looking stunned, pained, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I can’t…we can’t do this.”

  “Is it me?” he asked.

  She shook her head, insisting, “No!”

  “I see.” He gave a little nod and offered her a sad smile. “So you’re going to give me the, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech?”

  “No…” She smiled in spite of herself. “It’s not me either.”

  “Kaiser.” He spat the word out as if it tasted bad. “The bastard.”

  “He isn’t,” she replied. “You don’t know him.”

  “And you do?”

  She did. She didn’t know how it was possible to be so connected to someone so quickly, but she did. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Wanna try?”

  “I can’t.” She shrugged helplessly.

  “All right, come here.” He held his arms out again and she hesitated before he said, “Just friends, I promise.”

  She settled against him again, but it was different. Something had changed. Things had shifted, a door had been opened that couldn’t be closed again. It was more than painful to her now, it was awkward.

  “You still feel good,” he said with a shaky sigh, his mouth too close to her ear.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He groaned. “Quit apologizing.”

  “I’m—” She went to say it again, reflexively, and yelped in surprise when his hand came down on her denim-clad behind.

  “Will you listen to that, then?” Lenny chuckled and she flushed, ashamed at how her body responded to the slap. Her bottom stung, but for the first time since they’d started, she felt a sudden throbbing between her thighs.

  “I mean it!” He went on, insistent. “Stand up for yourself. Say something. Do something. Go in there tomorrow, guns blazing, and tell him the truth.”

  She thought about it, imagined it for a moment, what she might say. It was an impossible reality. If she was someone else, if Kaiser was someone else…

  “The truth doesn’t matter,” she whispered, feeling tears stinging her eyes again.

  Lenny sighed. “Why not?”

  “Because…” Heidi shook her head, wondering at herself. She should be self-righteously insisting on some sort of justice, appealing to Kaiser’s sense of fairness and integrity. Why wasn’t she? Why had she continued to kneel before him silently, head bent, humbled and surrendered to his will, sacrificing not only herself, but everything she treasured? “Because I want him to love me more than I want to be right.”

  She had found her truth and it felt as if it might split her in two as she turned to her friend and sobbed in his arms, not knowing if the cost would ever be worth it…and on some deep level, not really caring. She wanted Kaiser with a fierce and complete abandon that left her trembling and bowed before a desire far greater than she was.

  “I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive,” Lenny murmured as he rocked her, but she wasn’t listening, couldn’t hear anything but the keening of her heart for a man whose love she felt sure she would never be worthy of.

  Chapter Six

  “Heidi, come into my office and close the door.”

  She’d been waiting for hours. It was part of her punishment—at least, she fervently hoped it was—sitting there alone at her desk. Kaiser had walked by at seven-thirty—she had been there since five—without a word, not even his usual request for coffee. When he shut his office door, her heart sank, and she nervously smoothed her cream-colored silk skirt, a Versace with a impossibly soft sheen, the ensemble carefully chosen for both fashion and function, the blouse a white button-down with a smart little vest.

  She wanted to call after him, follow him, sink to her knees before him and plead for forgiveness. Instead, she waited, hoping for the phone to ring, the mail to arrive, something that might give her an excuse to knock on that formidably sealed door. Nothing happened. It was nearly ten o’clock before she even heard a sound from his office, and then it was just a brief phone call, his voice smooth but brusque, his words clipped.

  Still, the sound of it thrilled her. God, I really am pathetic, she thought, lowering her head and feeling the tears welling up. She had fought them since her breakdown with Lenny the night before and struggled with her shame, tossing and turning to find cool spots on the sheets, her body feverish with hope and yearning. When Kaiser hadn’t called by midnight, she knew he wasn’t going to, and she cried herself to sleep, half-wishing she had let Lenny stay and comfort her completely, giving him her body and her bed.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her loyalties now lay with one man, and no matter what her head said, her heart couldn’t be swayed. Maybe Lenny’s right—I’m under Kaiser’s spell. Clearly the man weaved a web of enchantment about women…at least, some women. She had a long time, sitting there, to wonder just how many “secretaries” he’d been through. Why should she be any different? She wanted to be, hoped she was—but she didn’t really believe it.

  And still, the moment he opened the door and called her name, she was out of her seat and standing obediently beside his desk before she could even take another breath. Kaiser took his time, his jaw set as he drew the thousand-dollar Valentino drapes. They were both light-blocking and thermal, and when they were closed the room sat in near-darkness. Heidi blinked, her eyes adjusting, as Kaiser crossed the room toward her.

  “Turn around and face my desk.”

  Heidi did as she was told, her eyes closing in relief. Thank god. He was going to punish her. Surely that meant he wouldn’t fire her, wouldn’t send her away. It was the worst thing she could imagine. She didn’t care if she couldn’t walk for a week—she could take any reprimand, pay any price but that one.

  “Pull up your skirt.”

  She did so gratefully, resting her cheek against the blotter, her eyes at his waist-level as he began unbuckling his belt. The air was cool over her bottom and her panty-less pussy already ached with longing.

  “I told you this would never be about violence or anger.” Kaiser stood beside her and spoke as he slowly pulled his belt from the loops. She watched and listened with a growing apprehension mixed with an undeniable thrill that shivered its way up her spine. “I meant that. But you really pushed me yesterday.”

  She couldn’t explain her outburst. There was no excuse for what she’d done, except for the truth, and she couldn’t possibly tell him that.

  Kaiser sighed, shaking his head. “Andrea Paxton is our debut designer. You know how important she is to our show.”

  Yeah, she knew. That was the problem, really. But again, Heidi kept her mouth shut.

  “I don’t know what you were thinking or
what your little temper tantrum was about.” Kaiser snapped his belt between his hands and she winced at the sound, but his words made her sink against the desk in relief. “And I don’t want to know. I need to be able to rely on you.” Kaiser’s hand moved over the skin of her behind, smoothing, caressing. “I need you to do what I say, to follow my direction.” His fingers were long and he fit his palm over her ass cheek, squeezing gently. “I need you to tell me you can do that, Heidi.”

  She nodded, whimpering as one of his fingers trembled against her asshole, pressing gently. “Tell me.”

  “I will, sir,” she gasped as Kaiser stroked, rubbed, just one finger, right there, making her want to squirm. She fought the urge.

  “Are you ever going to pull a jealous little stunt like you did yesterday?”

  Jealous stunt. So that’s how he’d rationalized her irrational behavior. That, too, was a relief, and she agreed with him, “No, sir.”

  “Promise me.” Kaiser’s finger traced circles, oh so distracting.

  “Yes, yes!” Heidi bit her lip, closing her eyes. “I promise.” The belt came down swiftly and she jumped, quickly realizing her error and adding, “Sir! Yes, sir, I promise!”

  “Count it out.” Kaiser moved fully behind her, his hand gone from her bottom, and she braced herself, sensing his presence behind her. He was readying himself.

  “One!” she gasped as his belt met her flesh.

  “Two!” The second one bit into her thigh.

  “Three!” He wasn’t holding back and she felt tears stinging now.

  “Four! Five! Six!” She would be begging for him to stop before he was finished, she was sure of it, and she fought the urge to cover her behind with her hands. Her ass was on fire!

  “Seven! Eight! Oh! No! Nine!” His belt met the sensitive flesh of her pussy as she wiggled and tried to arch away and she yelped when he grabbed her hips, holding her still.