Bewitching the Boss by Jessa Kane
Nine
Jane
The Halloween party is in full swing.
And I’m dressed like a princess.
Part of me can’t believe Byron actually convinced me, but then again, is there anything he can’t convince me of? I watch him from across the room now, pulse fluttering in my wrists and throat. Between my thighs. On his way back to me from the bar, he’s been waylaid by some employees who are giving him a good-natured ribbing about his Prince Charming costume. He’s laughing at their jokes, not self-conscious about his attire in the slightest. How could he be anything but confident after my reaction to seeing him dressed like a fictional prince for the first time? I can still taste his hot, frothy pleasure in my mouth. Hear his moans in my ears.
Am I really going to marry this man?
Do dreams come true to this degree?
I am going to be living, eating, sleeping and breathing my obsession very soon.
And I don’t think my conscience is strong enough to stop me anymore. Not when I’ve gotten to know the real man, gotten to know his heart and mind and habits. I’m not equipped with enough willpower to do the right thing anymore. God help me.
Byron gives me a lopsided smile, apologizing with his eyes for the delay in coming back to me. I also notice him scoping out the vicinity for men, assuring himself that none of them are approaching me. My fiancé is extremely jealous.
That thought alone is enough to make me breathless, flushed.
In an effort to appear normal in public, I tear my eyes off Byron and look around the party, thrilled to see that everyone is having a good time. The DJ is playing Muse, the orange and purple lighting playing off the tress makes the space appear to be an enchanted forest. Several of the employees are participating in the crime scene, making notes on their clipboards with predictably nerdy expressions. In the far corner of the hall, there is a fortune-teller doling out predictions. Authentic food stands advertise carnival food. People are dancing beneath the black light candelabra, glasses of rum punch in hand.
Byron blocks my view of the room, sliding a cold glass into my hand and dropping his mouth to mine. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you look standing over here?” he rasps. “I’m not going to be able to restrain myself much longer.”
I exhale roughly against his mouth. “You never have to restrain yourself with me.” He takes my wrist without hesitation and begins leading me toward the exit. I stop him with a giggle. “Unless every eye in the room is on you, including those of several influential journalists.” I bite my lip and rub my knuckle along the curve of his erection, where only I can see it happening. “You can be professional for one more hour, can’t you? We haven’t even visited the fortune-teller.”
“I’ll give you your fortune right now,” he says, grazing my ear with his open mouth. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life happy, loved. Well fucked and wanting for nothing. How does that sound?”
My ability to breathe goes out the window. I can’t seem to gather any oxygen into my lungs and my knees are beginning to wobble. There’s an immense warmth inside of me that feels like happiness. Contentment. I’m afraid to move or speak for fear that it will burst.
“Jane?”
“You still overwhelm me,” I say, grateful when he wraps an arm around the small of my back and pulls me tight to his body. “I’m not t-totally used to having you up close yet.”
“Shhh.” He kisses my cheek, my forehead. “Neither am I, but we’ll get there together.”
I nod and let him pull me into a slow dance, right there in the shadows, a twisted princess dancing with her Prince Charming. I’m not sure how long the dance goes on for, because I transcend to a dreamlike state that makes me feel like I’m floating. That’s how Byron makes me feel—like I’m levitating. And I could stay here all night in his arms, but I want him to enjoy the party, since every single detail was done with him in mind.
“Come on, let’s go see the fortune-teller,” I say, intwining our fingers and pulling my reluctant fiancé out of the shadows. “There are rumors she’s the real deal.”
“Good luck convincing someone who majored in computer science,” he returns dryly, but his smile is indulgent. “I don’t believe anything that can’t be explained in zeroes and ones.”
I flick him a flirtatious look over my shoulder. “Can you explain us that way?”
A groove appears between his brows. “No. I can’t.” He brings my hand to his mouth, kissing the backs of my fingers. “Maybe she’ll make a believer out of me after all.”
The crowd dissipates around the fortune-teller’s table and I push Byron into the seat, laughing when he pulls me down into his lap. The fortune-teller is a striking woman in her forties with rich umber skin and a simple black dress. When she arrived earlier, I expected her to be wearing a feather boa or some kind of sparkly regalia, so her clothes were a surprise. Now, she watches us with an inscrutable expression, her fingers tapping out something like Morse code on a stack of tarot cards. But when I expect her to shuffle those cards, she pushes them aside and becomes fixated on Byron.
“Sir, forgive me, I am getting a very strong feeling where you are concerned, but I don’t want to ruin your evening. This is a party and not a time for serious discussion.” Her throat works with a swallow. “Perhaps we can meet at a later date.”
Byron hasn’t completely lost the skeptical tilt of his lips. “Whatever you want to say is fine with me. I’m sure I can handle it.”
The fortune-teller wrings her hands. Then in a rushing whisper, she says, “You lost someone close to you recently. Your fabric was woven together very tightly with this person. A sister.”
My skin turns cold.
I watch as the color drains out of Byron’s face.
“Yes,” he says hoarsely, beginning to frown. “That’s right.”
The woman begins to rock in her chair. “You lost her on a road. A dark road. An accident.” There is a jarring impact in my bones when the fortune-teller pins me with a hard stare, a muscle jumping in her cheek. “She was there. You. You were there.”
My skin turns ice cold, nausea roiling in my middle.
Oh God. Oh God.
It’s happening. Byron knows the terrible truth. Did I think I’d be able to run from it forever? This is going to hurt him so badly. The betrayal. The deception. The fact that I’m not who he thought I was. I’m just a former bad girl wannabe who didn’t do the right thing.
Byron huffs a laugh and turns to me, shaking his head. “No, she wasn’t.”
I’m so tempted to brush this off and pretend the fortune-teller is spouting nonsense. So tempted to continue like this, living a perfect dream life with the man I love. But I can’t lie to him anymore. I’ve done enough damage already.
“Yes, I was,” I push through stiff lips.
His demeanor turns rigid, any remaining warmth seeping from his features. “You…what?”
“I was in the other car. Th-the one that hit Nancy. I wasn’t driving, but I was asleep in the back seat.” Trembling head to toe, I bury my face in my hands, terrified of the hatred that is surely going to transform him at any moment. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. We’d been out dancing and we drank too much. I begged my friend to call a cab, but she wouldn’t. I was afraid to stay out alone by myself so I went along without arguing. We were only going a m-mile. And when I woke up…when I woke up there was glass everywhere. I was trapped in the footwell. And…”
Now that the truth is coming out, it pours, like a dam has burst.
“I read on the internet that the girl we’d struck and k-killed had a brother. I was just going to check on you, to make sure you were all right. I didn’t expect to fall in love with you the day of her burial. To be so drawn to you. And I couldn’t stay away, Byron. I couldn’t help getting closer and closer. I’m sorry.”
I force myself to drop my hands and look him in the eye. All I see there is denial. Disbelief. No hatred yet, but it’s coming. Of course it is.
“I deserve the shame. I deserve every name you’ve ever called me. I was a stupid girl. If I wasn’t so stupid, I could have stopped it from happening—”
“Jane,” he chokes out.
Here it comes. He’s going to tell me he never wants to see me again. He’s going to tell me he hopes I burn in hell. It’s nothing less than I deserve. And I should sit here and take it. I should force myself to be chastised and have my heart ripped out. But I find I can’t do it. I can’t witness his loathing toward me.
Before I know my own intentions, I’ve started running.
I’m holding the silk skirts of my princess costume in my hands and I’m streaking through the drunken crowd toward the back exit, pushing myself through. I’m going to run until my lungs give out and my legs turn to mush. I need to get as far away as possible, not only from Byron’s hatred of me, but my hatred of myself. It has faded over the last week with him, but it comes roaring back now and it’s a manacle around my throat.
“Jane!”
Byron’s shout behind me only makes me run harder, blindly throwing myself into the street, almost hoping a car will hit me and take me out of my misery. It would be fitting.
That is my last thought as the headlights bear down on me.
* * *
Byron
It can’t be happening.
No. No, it’s not happening.
I’ve never been more helpless or terrified in my life as Jane runs into the street, the skirt of her dress flying out behind her on the breeze. Why did it take me so long to get up and chase after her? I know why, but there’s no adequate excuse for letting her run. Letting her get away.
Still…
All this time, I’ve been shaming her for the death of my sister?
Jesus Christ.
In all my speculation over why Jane needs to be punished and insulted during sex, I never could have expected this—and it has ripped the heart straight out of my chest. That I participated. That I allowed it to go on. The amount of remorse she must feel for being even indirectly involved in the death of my sister must be astronomical if she is seeking retribution from me in such a way. A way that demeans the best thing in my life.
How could I?
Why didn’t I try harder to get at the truth?
And now…now she’s going to be taken from me. I can see it happening in slow motion. The SUV skidding and fishtailing on the busy road, Jane stopping in the middle of the street and closing her eyes, not even bothering to brace for impact. As if she wants it, believes she deserves the pain. Oh Jesus, no. Please no. No.
“Jane!” I roar, stumbling and falling to my knees. Watching the vehicle screech toward her fragile body. Toward my princess. And then it stops.
The SUV stops.
A mere inch from her.
Thank God. Oh thank God.
I gulp air into my lungs and they inflate again, allowing me to lunge back to my feet, running as hard as I can in her direction.
She’s alive. She wasn’t hit and she’s alive.
I’m never going to recover and my stomach is still in a puddle on the floor, but my eyes have to be telling the truth, right? She isn’t harmed?
The flustered driver of the car is out of the SUV when I reach Jane, but I wave him off. “I’ve got her.” Jane flinches when I touch her, but I’m not having that reaction. “You’re going to let me hold you as long as I want, goddammit,” I growl through my teeth. “I almost just lost the love of my life.”
She appears to be too stunned to respond and I use that opportunity to scoop her up, cradling her trembling form to my chest and walking us off the road into a grassy area. There, I immediately sit down again with her in my lap, crushing her to me, smelling her, absorbing her, assuring myself she is alive.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I rasp in between kisses of her hairline, her face, her parted mouth. “Please don’t ever do that again. Please. If you’d been killed by that car, I would have thrown myself in front of the next one. Never again, Jane. Say it.”
“I’ll…” Her swallow is audible. “I’ll never do it again.” Tears begin trickling down her cheeks. “But shouldn’t you want me dead? Don’t you hate me? Why don’t you hate me?”
It takes me a moment to respond, the emotion socking me in the chest is so intense. “I could never hate you. Not for a single second. I love you. I love you so much I can’t imagine how I made it through the years before we met. To think you could have died that night, too….” I tilt her face up, looking into her beautiful eyes. “Of course I fell in love with a girl who would change her whole life to honor another’s. Of course I fell in love with a girl who couldn’t help but track a man down, bring light and color back into his life because her heart is so huge and perfect. So full of empathy and compassion. Jane, I love you so much.” My voice shakes. “There is nothing that will ever change that. I’m sorry for what we went through to find each other, but the end result is permanent. You’re mine. You’re always going to be mine.”
Her body is wracked by a sob. “And you’re always going to be mine?”
“Forever and always,” I assure her fervently, tunneling my fingers into her hair and kissing her mouth hard. “Until the day I die.”
I stand up with her in my arms and she buries her face in my neck, wrapping her legs around my waist while we wait for oncoming traffic to pass.
“I’m taking my princess home now.” I drop my mouth to her ear. “Not my whore. Not my slut. The perfect princess I’m going to make my wife.”
The moon lights her face as she leans back, looks up at me. “There’s no rule that says I can’t be all of those things,” she whispers, her attention falling to my mouth. “Right?”
A sharp stab of arousal in my belly is following by the stiffening of my cock. Damn me to hell. “Jane,” I say thickly. “No more of that. Of what we’ve been doing.”
“Not even once in a while?” she whines, rolling her hips, delivering a stroke of friction to my erection. “Now that I know you’ll love me no matter what, it’s only for fun, Byron. It’s not bad for me. Right?” She touches her tongue to my earlobe, then bites down, nearly making me stumble in the middle of the road on our way back to the party. “There’s an alley behind the building,” she whispers, her thighs flexing around my hips, turning my muscles to stone. “The kind of place a man might get it cheap and fast.”
I’m shaking with the need to fuck now, no choice but to let my footsteps carry us behind the venue to the dark alley. “Tell me you know I love you,” I demand.
She breathes hard into my neck. “You love me. I love you. Forever.”
“Forever,” I agree, dropping Jane to her feet, spinning her toward the brick wall and yanking her panties down to her ankles. Silk skirt in hand, I spank those supple buns and watch them jiggle, her hips restless. “Now show me what you do best. Take this cock.”
“Yes.”
I thrust home and her girlish little whimper echoes down the alley.
