Page 15 of His to Cherish (Club Wyld #5)

LILLY

I t’s next to impossible to concentrate at work. I enjoy my job, and the people I work with, but spreadsheets just don’t hold a candle to memories of my time with Oliver.

It’s crazy to think that the last time I was in this building, I’d been equally distracted. But that time it was because I was making plans to dress up and try to seduce my best friend. So much has happened since I put that plan into motion, it makes my head spin.

I get a few texts from Ollie throughout the morning.

He asks me pointed questions designed to make me blush in the office— is your pussy still sore?

How are the handprints I left on your ass?

—and he succeeds. Alternatively, his more-benign texts affect me nearly as much.

There’s something heart-melting about his causal check-in texts.

Did you eat breakfast? Did you get the lunch I had delivered?

How’s your day going? I could never doubt for a moment the way this man cares for me.

Shortly before lunch, he lets me know that he’s going into another meeting and won’t be able to text for a while.

That’s when the day really starts to drag.

Apparently, I can’t go more than a few minutes without hearing from him.

I’m so completely head-over-heels, and I can’t even bring myself to care.

“Hey, girlie.” I look up to see Trisha, a friend from my department, walking over to me, purse over her shoulder. “Jenni and I are going to grab wraps at that deli you like. Wanna join us?”

“Ooh, yes please,” I say. Jenni and Trisha are probably my closest friends at work and we grab lunch together several times a week.

Jenni is currently in the middle of some serious relationship drama, so getting sucked into her problems will be a nice distraction from my ceaseless Oliver thoughts.

Plus, the wraps at the deli down the block are to die for.

Fifteen minutes later the three of us are gathered in a booth with our ice teas. As expected, Jenni immediately goes into a long monologue about Dave, the guy she’s been dating for the past six months.

“So, I finally told him how I’ve been feeling.”

Trisha, one of the most pragmatic, no-bullshit people I know, raises an eyebrow. She’s been on Jenni to grow up and communicate with her boyfriend for ages. “And how did that go?”

Jenni sighs, absentmindedly stirring the straw in her ice tea. “I guess it could have gone worse. He said he was open to us getting more serious.”

“Hey, that’s great,” I tell her, even though I’m not totally sold. I’ve only met Dave a few times but he kind of seems like an asshole to me, the kind of guy who always has one excuse or another to keep him from committing.

“Yeah,” she says, face brightening a little. “It’s what I wanted. It’s just…”

“What?” Trisha presses.

“He said it would be easier to see a future with me if I was more willing to participate in his interests.”

I cast a glance at Trisha, knowing exactly what she’s thinking.

“So he wants you to spend more time at the bowling alley,” she says drily.

Jenni shrugs. “I mean, it’s nice that he wants me there, don’t you think?”

He wants you there to fetch him beer and ooh and ahh over how many strikes he gets, I think to myself.

“Yeah, but sweetie,” Trisha says, and I can hear how hard she’s trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice, “you don’t like bowling. You told us you hate going home smelling like stale beer and rented shoes.”

I smother my laugh in my glass of ice tea. I don’t want to be a downer, because I know Jenni is totally into Dave, but I’m with Trisha. I just don’t see it.

“But isn’t that what a relationship is?” Jenni asks. “Making sacrifices for another person?”

“You shouldn’t have to change your whole personality to be in a relationship,” Trisha says, and all of a sudden, the ice tea tastes bitter in my mouth.

“I’m sorry, girl, but I think it’s totally ridiculous that this guy is putting these conditions on being with you.

What does it say about his feelings for you if he requires you to change like that? ”

It’s not the same, I tell myself, trying to counter the sick feeling in my stomach. That’s not what Oliver asked of me.

“It’s not really changing myself,” Jenni argues, but she sounds pretty weak.

Trisha raises an eyebrow. “Really? So what if you tell him you hate bowling and you don’t want to go anymore? Is he going to stop wanting to be with you?”

Well, shit. Is that what would happen with Oliver if I told him I wasn’t into the club and all the kinky shit he enjoys?

He told me he’s had feelings for me for ages, but he didn’t want to say anything because he didn’t think I would like all that stuff.

If I hadn’t forced his hand by following him on Friday, he probably never would have let on.

He wanted me to take time this weekend to really think about what I wanted. If I told him it was too much for me, would that have been it? Would he have told me he wanted to go back to strictly being friends? Would he have gone right out to find another girl to take to Club Wyld with him?

He left me at home on Friday and went straight there, I remind myself. He made it perfectly clear that I got him hot and bothered at the restaurant and he planned to go take care of that itch with someone else.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Trisha asks suddenly, nudging my arm. “You just went white as a sheet.”

“Oh, I…just thinking about work,” I say quickly, making up some excuse about a report I didn’t turn in.

Trisha doesn’t seem like she believes me, but she drops it, going back to Jenni and her problems. I can’t bring myself to focus on the rest of their conversation. Our food is brought over a few minutes later and I concentrate on that while they talk, my mind spinning with doubts about Oliver.

It doesn’t matter what would have happened if you weren’t into the Club Wyld stuff, I try to tell myself. Because I am into it.

Right?

But what if I’m blinded by my feelings for Ollie?

I cast a glance at Jenni. She’s trying to convince herself that she’s totally willing to spend half her nights at a stinky bowling alley for a guy.

Am I really any different? I’ve never explored any of the dominant stuff—and certainly not the Daddy thing—with any other guy.

Does that mean it’s not a natural inclination?

What if I only like it because it’s Ollie and, just like Jenni, I’d be willing to change myself for the guy I’m crazy about?

The real scary thought, though, is the fact that I’m pretty sure Oliver would not stay with me if I wasn’t willing to lay over his lap.

I’m not sure what, exactly, that says about us. But I know I leave that restaurant feeling far worse than I did when I entered.

The sick feeling in my stomach only gets worse when we get back to the office.

The three of us go to stash our leftovers in the break room and find it full.

Not at all unusual for the middle of the day.

What is unusual is the fact that everyone is gathered around someone’s laptop, and they’re all wearing expressions of delighted shock.

“You would never know it by looking at him,” creepy Jeff says, smirking.

“He seems so clean cut,” agrees a guy from accounting who I don’t know well.

“Yeah, right,” Kelly, the receptionist, says, rolling her eyes. “The man is a billionaire. Everyone knows rich people are totally perverted, right? You don’t get money like that without being a little freaky.”

Everyone laughs. “All I’m saying is the man is fine,” a girl named Justine says. “Fine and rich. I’ll call him Daddy if he wants.”

A buzzing fills my ears, blocking out the laughs and crude comments. Trisha and Jenni move around the table to see what they’re all looking at on the laptop screen, but I remain frozen by the door.

The man is fine. Rich. Call him Daddy.

I think I’m going to throw up.

“Oh my God, Lilly!” Jenni’s squeal breaks through the buzz in my ears. She flaps her hands at me, eyes wide. “It’s Oliver! Come and look at this!”

“Holy shit,” Justine gasps, staring at me. “I totally forgot that you know him.”

“You know him?” Kelly asks. “You know Oliver York?”

I feel sick to my stomach as I move around the table to join Trish and Jenni behind the group. Everyone is talking about me now and I can only pick out snippets through the turmoil in my head.

“No, I heard they’re like, best friends. He used to work here!”

“Hang out all the time.”

“…the one who’s always sending her lunch.”

“Did you know your buddy was a secret sex fiend?”

“…wonder if he’s ever brought her to his dungeon.”

And there he is on the screen. Some celebrity gossip site has a huge picture of Oliver, dressed all in black, with the headline, “Tech Billionaire’s Secret BDSM Life.” My knees go weak as I take in the subheading. “New girlfriend details all in shocking exclusive.”

I nearly lose my lunch all over my co-workers. They’re all looking at me with undisguised glee—especially Jeff, whose leer is taking creepy to the next level. He’s obviously feeling vindicated after Ollie threatened him.

This is prime gossip. As a young, attractive tech billionaire, Oliver gets a fair amount of national press attention, and even more around here.

And there’s nothing the masses enjoy more than a good celebrity sex scandal.

Never mind that Oliver is an actual person, with feelings and friends and a life.

All they see is someone with unbelievable privilege being knocked off his pedestal.

A rich guy getting what’s coming to him.

“I wonder who this new girlfriend is,” Justine says, scrolling down further in the article. “She isn’t named.”

“Bet she totally cashed in on this,” Kelly adds. “A national publication like this probably pays huge for this kind of detail.” She lets out a shrill laugh. “I mean, he makes her call him Daddy . That is so messed up.”

“Oh, come on,” Jeff says, leering at her. “I bet you wouldn’t mind calling me Daddy.”

There’s a tumult of groans but I barely hear it. His new girlfriend. Totally cashed in.

Oh my God. What if Oliver thinks it’s me? He wouldn’t, right? He knows me. But…

I threw myself at him out of nowhere on Friday. Followed him to that club. Basically spied on him. And now, only two days after he opened up to me, someone sells all his inner most secrets to a gossip site.

Why wouldn’t he think it was me?

I pull my phone out but there’s nothing, no messages. Surely, he wouldn’t still be in that meeting. He must know about this by now. I type out a quick text. Call me, please.

It goes unread, and the dread grows in my stomach. Oliver never leaves my messages unread. He’s meticulous in his responsibility to me. He’s probably holed up with his company’s lawyers and PR people as we speak.

What if they’re asking about me? What if they’re warning him not to trust me?

I really think I might be sick.

“You should go,” Trisha says, eyeing me with concern.

She’s the only person in this room who hasn’t been laughing or joking about the story.

Instead, she’s looking at me with concern.

All of a sudden, I wonder if maybe I haven’t been so good at hiding my crush from my perceptive work friend.

Because mixed in with the concern on her face is a heck of a lot of sympathy.

“Go check on him,” she says gently, squeezing my arm. “I’ll tell the boss you aren’t feeling well.”

“Thank you,” I manage to croak out, then turn and sprint from the room, ignoring the calls and jeers of my co-workers.