Bedroom Bully by Harper West

16

Rebecca

Despite the peptalk at the beginning of the week, though, the stares of my nameless co-workers started getting beneath my skin. I thought that getting my parents out of the city and headed back home would take a great deal of stress off my shoulders, but instead it gave my mind more empty caverns to fill with that same stress. So, I did what any reasonable, grounded woman would do.

I started avoiding JoJo at all costs.

Every morning, I started answering his emails instead of leaving them unanswered. Every time he beckoned me up to his office, I came up with some excuse about having too much work and putting whatever it was in an email. It caused a couple of fights where he demanded my presence in his office, but I stood my ground and found ways to get him to communicate with me electronically.

Until he showed up at my door Thursday morning.

“Miss Loren,” he said as he rapped his knuckles against my door, “open up.”

I froze at the sound of his voice. “The door’s open.”

Everyone gathered outside and stared as he came into my office. He closed the door behind him, and I cringed when he flipped the lock. People gawked as he sat in front of my desk, and I couldn’t stop staring over his shoulder at the throng of people staring through the slim piece of glass that ran directly down the middle of my fucking office door.

And after he peered over his shoulder, it finally clicked.

“So, that’s why you won’t come up to my office,” he said.

I leaned back and settled my hands in my lap. “Could this have been an email?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure it could have, but I own this company. When I tell someone to get up to my office--.”

“You and I both know why you want me in your office.”

His eye twitched. “Well then, since you know so much about me, why don’t you tell me why you believe I want you in my office?”

I watched as Kelly and Brit worked to dispel the curious crowd of people that weren’t even trying to hide their curiosity at that point. I drew in silent, deep breaths through my nose, trying to gird myself for this conversation. It wasn’t business appropriate, and I realized that it was the argument I needed to make.

The issue was whether or not JoJo would accept the argument in and of itself.

“While I appreciate you coming down to visit me,” I said as politely as possible, “if this isn’t work related and it can be done in an email, I’d prefer that method.”

He smirked. “Really, now.”

I nodded. “I have a boss that breathes down my neck constantly. He’s piled work into my lap and my nights are getting longer. So, every second I’m pulled away from my desk cuts into my personal time.”

He crossed his leg over his knee. “And what do you do with this personal time?”

I shrugged. “It’s none of anyone’s business when I’m not clocked in at work.”

He sucked air through his teeth. “Whenever I ask you to come to my office--.”

“You and I both know that the office is starting to talk. Your secretary is apparently one of the vehicles carrying the gossip in the first place.”

When he didn’t answer, I knew I had him.

“So, if you don’t want people continuously poking around, you have to back off and keep the personal stuff out of the office,” I said.

He grinned. “Is that your way of saying you’d like to see more of me outside the office?”

I shook my head. “No. This is my way of saying to leave me alone unless you have business to discuss. And even then, if it can be discussed in an email, I’d prefer that method until the heat dies down.”

His face fell. “You’re not the one calling the shots.”

I shrugged. “I am now that my reputation is on the line. You’re the rich white man that owns the company. I’m a fat white woman who’s only been working here for a few months. If our shit gets out and around the office, who do you think they’re going to fire for it once it becomes a scandal the news gets ahold of, huh? You, or me?”

His temples pulsed with anger. “I see your point.”

I nodded curtly. “Good. Now, if that’s all, I really do have a lot of work I have to dig into.”

He stood and buttoned his suit coat as his eyes stayed locked with mine. I turned toward my computer and started typing away, trying to ignore him as best as possible. He intimidated me in all the best ways, but I wouldn’t let him screw me out of a job simply because he wanted what he wanted during inappropriate times. It was fun in the beginning, but now my livelihood was on the line.

Which meant I had to start making boundaries.

“Miss Loren?”

I didn’t bother looking up at him. “Yes?”

He cleared his throat. “Miss Loren.”

I didn’t give him the satisfaction. “Spit it out, Mr. Ryker. I have to respond to this email within the next few minutes.”

He slammed his fist against my desk. “Rebecca!”

I jumped before I leapt to my feet. “Call me by my first name while people are listening one more time and see what happens. You think you’ve seen scandal? I’ll take everything that’s happened not just to H.R., but the press.”

He glowered. “You wouldn’t dare.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Watch me. This little game of ours? Sure, it’s fun. But don’t think for one second that you actually own me. Don’t think that you can call me a ‘good girl’ and get me to do anything you want, because that isn’t how I work. I thought that playing your little game might get me close enough to you to fish out what my sister did that was so terrible to you, but now, I don’t even care. All I care about is saving face and saving my job because this is the first time in my entire life that I actually enjoy where I’m sitting. So, if you don’t mind, stop trying to ruin my life because you can’t get your hands on my sister.”

I’d never seen the kind of anger that swept over his face. I’d never seen someone turn the shade of red he did. I held my breath, waiting for him to crack me across the face, or fire me on the spot, or walk out into the hallway and blurt out everything just to further embarrass me.

But instead, he straightened his back and nodded. “Enjoy your day, Miss Loren.”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

He charged out of my office without another word spoken and the crowd of people that had gathered outside quickly dispersed. I watched in horror and in awe as he left without so much as peering over his shoulder, and that’s when Brit and Kelly came rushing in. They batted off people left and right before closing my door. I heard one of them flip the lock before Brit helped me back into my chair and it was Kelly that pulled a bottle of water out of her purse.

“Here, drink this,” she said.

I guzzled it down before I collapsed against the leather cushions. “Holy shit.”

“What the hell was that?” Brit asked.

My hands started trembling. “A hard conversation that needed to happen.”

Kelly rubbed my back. “You want to talk about it?”

There were so many things rushing through my head. JoJo and I were teetering on a fine line and our facades were failing us. I didn’t want him to get in trouble. I didn’t want to lose my job. I didn’t want either one of us to get in trouble for this weird, purposeless dance we were doing around one another. But he had to be talked to. I had to get him to back down for the sake of my fucking future.

However, the pain that rushed behind his eyes at the mention of my sister made me sick.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” I murmured.

Brit bent down to get the trash can under my desk. “Here, you can use--.”

I grabbed it from her and bent over, stuffing my face into it. I heaved up my breakfast and the better part of my lunch, along with the water I had just chugged. The pain in his eyes, I had caused that. I had struck him where it hurt the most and not once did I ever second-guess myself. My stomach turned itself inside out. I had hurt JoJo.

I had hurt the man I wanted to help heal.

“There you go,” Kelly said softly as she kept rubbing my back, “get it all up.”

“You’ve been through a hell of a lot since starting here,” Brit said as she pulled my hair back, “so, you do what you need to do.”

I leaned up after everything had been ejected and placed the trash can off to the side. Brit picked it up and started cleaning it off while Kelly went in search of some more water. I laid my head on top of my desk, allowing the cool nature of the wood to stifle the sweating of my forehead and the back of my neck.

And after Kelly came back with some more water, she offered me a piece of gum.

“Here, this will help,” she said softly.

I took the offering from her. “Thanks.”

Brit came back with a fresh wastebasket. “Here, I just tossed the other one. No use in saving it when we’ve got a closet full of these little things.”

I took it from her and put it underneath my desk. “Thanks. I’m really sorry about that.”

Brit scoffed. “No need to be sorry. Mr. Ryker’s an intimidating man, and you’re essentially his right-hand woman right now. It stands to reason that you’re under a lot of pressure so you don’t lose your job.”

“Ugh, you have no idea.”

Kelly ran her fingers through my hair. “Will you talk to us one day about all of this? You know, once it passes?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can talk a little bit about it right now, if you’d like.”

They both settled in for story time as I gathered all the strength I could muster. Then, I started in on my high school history with JoJo.

“So, I don’t know if you know, Kelly, but Mr. Ryker and I know each other from high school.”

She nodded slowly. “So, that rumor’s true.”

“It is, yes. We actually grew up in adjoining neighborhoods. My sister and him dated at one point, and things went south.”

Brit scoffed. “Understatement of the year.”

“What happened?” Kelly asked.

I leaned forward and rested my forearms on my desk. “See, that’s the thing: I don’t know what happened. Maggie, my sister, never talked about it. And neither will JoJo.”

Kelly quirked an eyebrow. “JoJo?”

I pointed at her. “It’s just a high school nickname, don’t go around calling him that.”

She held up her hands. “Trust me, I know better than that.”

I sighed. “Anyway, it was bad. There was this massive blow-up fight in the middle of the school day. Maggie shoved JoJo into a locker and he almost hit her had it not been for the principal intervening.”

Brit balked. “He almost hit a girl? Are you kidding!?”

I shook my head. “You need to know my sister. If you did, you’d want to hit her, too. To this day, I have no idea how he tolerated her.”

Kelly grinned. “Must’ve been a good lay.”

I snorted. “No one knows what happened between the two of them, and when I interviewed for this job I had no idea that JoJo owned the company. I didn’t do much research before the interview itself, so I was insanely caught off-guard. But the tension between me and him wasn’t—and isn’t--some weird-ass sexual thing.”

Then, it clicked behind Kelly’s eyes. “You remind him of your sister.”

I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. “Bingo. All of this shit? Having me work late and always beckoning me at the worst times? I think he’s working out whatever rage I remind him of, and I’m hoping that if I let him do it long enough, he’ll finally tell me what the hell happened between him and my sister so that we can get past it. I love this job, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it, but I know we won’t have a positive working relationship until I can pull out of him what happened all those years ago.”

Kelly leaned against the wall. “It sounds like this is more than just a break-up gone wrong.”

I scoffed. “You’re telling me.”

Brit shook her head. “Do you have any ideas at all as to what happened?”

I shrugged. “All I know is that after the break-up, Maggie wasn’t the same. She still lives with my parents, she goes to therapy twice a week. She’s been doing all of that since high school, and for the life of me not even my own parents will tell me what happened.”

Kelly whistled lowly. “Sounds like some serious bullshit.”

Brit nodded. “Sounds like Mr. Ryker needs a bit of therapy, too, to get past things.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “All I know is that part of me wants to help him for the sake of whatever friendship we had back then, and part of me wants to help him because I love this job. I love where I work. I love this city. It’s come to be my home. And I don’t want to have to leave because some overgrown man-child can’t get his shit together because he wants to act like the tough guy.”

“Anything we can do to help?” Kelly asked.

I cleared my throat. “Just tell people to fuck off if they continue gossiping about us, because the more they talk the more JoJo closes himself off to me, which puts my job at risk.”

Kelly smiled. “Consider it done.”

Brit stood. “Me, too.”

I giggled softly. “Thanks, you guys. Now, if you don’t mind, I really need to try and get some work done.”

And after they exited my office, the crowd scattered, leaving me alone while I continued to answer emails.

Because it was going to be hell on earth for the next few days, I felt it in my bones.