Not So Saint Nick

Tell Me How You Feel-I

Nick Santos watched his unflappable administrative assistant and quirked an eyebrow. This was not the way he would have expected any woman to behave upon coming home to such a scene.

“Different insight now?” he queried poking his tongue in his cheek to keep from laughing.

“Yes. I hope they all get revenge on their cheating asses.”

“Is it what you want to do? Revenge?” He studied her as she tugged the bed, careful not to touch where she obviously felt her friend was getting f****d and then balled the blanket onto the floor.

“I don’t know. This isn’t my first rodeo with cheating boyfriends, but I didn’t expect it to be with her. I do everything for her. I considered her a second sister.” She stared down at the bed and then gave a loud sigh, “it can’t be fixed, can it?”

“Will you be alright?”

“Yeah. She didn’t drink my wine, so I’ll finish the bottle and then sleep in my guest room. Tomorrow I’ll go buy a new mattress and bedding but damn I really liked this one. It’s my Christmas themed one.” She kicked it with her toe before moving to take off the pillow shams as well and tossed them on the pile. “I bought it in this cute little shop back home.”

“Back home?”

“Coldreach, Colorado.”

“Is it where you’re going for your holidays over Christmas? You leave Tuesday, correct?” He was still annoyed she was taking the full time off. In his family vacation time, especially this time of year, was never on the agenda. Yet for the last five years she always left a week before Christmas and came back the first working day after New Years Day. This year she was taking sixteen full days because HR told her she needed to use the rest of her days up despite the fact it was him who’d cancelled two of her vacations earlier in the year.

“Yes.” She gave a not-so-ladylike snort, “and to think my mother was begging me to bring Arlo with me. First guy I’ve dated seriously in forever and she was so excited to meet him even though I told her a million times it wasn’t time yet. Took me six months to relax enough around him to sleep with him and then I come home to this five days later. I should have trusted my gut. I hope his d**k really is broken. Is it wrong to wish a lifetime of p***s pain to a man?” She sat on the edge of her bed and looked at the wine glass she’d set on the nightstand. “Maybe I’ll wait until I get home and see if any of the ladies from mom’s quilting guild have a Christmas cover, they’ve made and haven’t sold yet. I really liked this duvet cover!”

“You seem more perturbed over the loss of the duvet than the boyfriend.” He did truly find her reaction to this whole thing confusing. Shouldn’t she be wailing and crying and throwing things? He knew for a fact if it was one of his sisters going through this, there would be things flying off the shelves and people would be harmed far more than a broken d**k.

“Hazel says my heart was broken so badly by my high school boyfriend that it’s irreparable and every man I date I hold at arm’s length because I’m scared to be hurt. She calls me Ice Queen Elsa as a joke. She’s probably right but I have a tough time trusting people and now I know why! I dated him for six months. We’ve been on maybe ten or eleven dates in this time, and I told her Saturday I thought maybe my frozen heart was starting to thaw a bit. We booked a date Saturday night, and she helped me get ready and told me to stop holding back and to give in. She sat right here,” she waved to her bed, “on Sunday afternoon and made me dish to her about how it all went.” Suddenly the emotion of her friend’s betrayal hit her, “to find out she already knew what he was like in bed because she was banging him before me,” she wiped a single tear off her cheek. “Her betrayal hurts way more than his. How could she do this to me?”

“Jealousy? She wants me and you work for me. It’s what she said.” It ran along his skin like an army of cockroaches.

“She might be slightly obsessed with you.” Grier grimaced. “It doesn’t matter how much truth I tell her about you, she reads a lot of those romance novels with the gruff CEO and the naïve receptionist. Except she’s not naïve.”

“What was her s**t about you stealing her job?” He wanted to change the subject. It was making him itchy.

“She’d applied for the job as your admin assistant the day it was posted. She works at the front desk of the lobby of the building she has a degree in office management. I was working as Mr. Pink’s admin assistant in the finance department and was content so didn’t apply. Your outgoing admin assistant was coming through the door with far too many things for one woman to carry,” she shot him an annoyed look and he was in no doubt he’d done it to her as well many times in the last several years, “and I helped her. We got to talking and she insisted I add my name to the pool. I didn’t. She found out I hadn’t, and she added it. She felt I would be a better fit than any other candidates because she and I were similar in personality.”

“I would have hired you on the spot but because of HR we were forced to go through the remaining ten interviews. It was torture. I knew what I wanted but because of HR policy everyone needed to have their fair shot just in case there was someone better. There wasn’t.” He paused, “so Hazel works at the front desk?” He truly didn’t recall ever seeing her there, not as if he usually studied his receptionists.

“Yes.”

“She truly wants to f**k me?” He was completed insulted by the notion. Who did the girl think she was?

“Does it bother you?”

“You do see how much lip filler she has, right? As her friend, did you not tell her the bee sting look shouldn’t mean her lips look ready to explode. I wouldn’t let her near my d**k in case her lips exploded and then I’d have a lawsuit on my hands. Also, her hair. Did you see her hair? I bet when you take a fistful it crunches. Why is her hair so blonde when I bet her roots are the color of my shoes.”

“Geez, tell me how you really feel.”

“I also,” he moved to stand in front of her, “have no use for any woman who would betray her own friend like this. I don’t care what her excuse is, if you take her back as your friend, I’ll fire you so fast your head will spin, and I’ll gladly pay for the wrongful dismissal.” He meant it. He wouldn’t tolerate having a doormat as his assistant. She needed to be strong and letting leaches suck you dry was not a good look.