Accidentally on Purpose Read online

  “I forgot about that.” He finally said and stood up. “You shouldn’t work too late, the weather is supposed to get worse. You don’t usually work so late on Fridays, do you?”

  “No,” I sighed, not wanting to say what I was going to say next. “I usually stay up late Thursday nights and get ahead, but I lost a night of work. So…”

  “Oh.”

  “You should go. I will see you Monday. Enjoy your weekend, Mr. Sterling.”

  “Thanks.” Before the elevator doors closed, he said “Don’t stay too late.”

  When I heard the doors slide shut, I breathed a sigh of relief. That was awkward. I think I liked it better when he was just being mean and bossy.

  An hour later when I was getting ready to leave, I noticed a piece of paper in the chair Kyle had sat in. I hoped it wasn’t one of his little notes regarding an appointment or something. I picked it up, turned it over, and my face flushed. I covered my smile as if there was anyone left to see it on my face. He hadn’t left it behind by mistake. It was a SpongeBob sticker.

  Chapter Three

  Born Esmeralda Grayne, to a southern belle and a damn Yankee retired marine, I am the youngest of five children. My two brothers and two sisters are married, with children, living storybook lives. I am the black sheep of the family, unmarried and completely unattached at thirty. My job pays fine for me, but my mother, a trust fund baby, believes I am destitute, and if not for the kindness and love of her and my dad, she insists that I would be living in a rat and roach infested efficiency apartment in the city. So every Friday while she and daddy are in the freakin' Bayou, she calls me to check on my "progress."

  The phone was ringing when I walked in the door. I ran to catch it before it went to voicemail.

  "Hi, mom."

  "Esmeralda," My mother's southern drawl was just as strong as it was when she first left Louisiana in her late teens. "I called you twice before already. Girl, where have you been?"

  "I was working, Mom." I kicked off my shoes, soaked from the snow. The bottoms of my pants were wet as well, so right there in the kitchen, I stripped off my pants.

  "I wish you would go back to school. It's not too late to be a doctor or lawyer. Better yet, marry yourself a doctor or lawyer and you can stay at home and have babies."

  "Mom, this isn't the 1800's, and my job is fine."

  "You never even have time to meet anyone because of that damn job!" She lowered her voice for what she said next. "How do you get your...needs met without a steady beau?"

  "Mother!" I was irritated that she went there - again, but I had a secret satisfaction knowing I had my "needs met" on her couch last night, by my boss no less.

  "I'm just asking, Esmeralda. You can't just go giving it up to random men."

  "I'm not giving it up to - you know what? I want to speak to a rational human being. Let me speak to my daddy."

  "She don't want to talk to me, her mother." I heard her say as she gave the phone to my dad.

  "Dad, why did you marry a crazy woman?" I asked after the usual pleasantries.

  "I didn't know she was crazy before I married her. By the time I found out, she was already knocked up and it was too late."

  I talked to my parents for another fifteen minutes before they had to go meet my sisters Charlotte and Lucille and their families for a late dinner around a bonfire.

  Even though I enjoyed the winters while my parents were gone, sometimes I felt very lonely in the big house. No one really came to visit, even most of my friends got married and moved away or were too busy with their families to pay attention to poor, single Emmy. My two brothers Fred Jr. and Emmet lived in Florida, not far over the Louisiana border. Sometimes I had the nagging feeling my parents only kept their main residence here out of concern over what would happen to me if they closed up shop and left.

  The phone calls from the south always leave me feeling a little low, even if my mom was on the other end of the line. I went into the formal living room and made myself two drinks at the bar. I turned the radio on in the kitchen and took out the chicken I left in the fridge to defrost. Cooking, drinking, dancing, and singing in my skivvies was perking me up a bit, but in the back of my mind, I knew it would be hard to get through the weekend with those alone. It's not that I was incapable of finding a man to spend a weekend with. My dark brown hair and greenish brown eyes and flattering figure were easy on the eyes and I was fairly intelligent, but even pretty and smart girls have a hard time finding a decent guy.

  Several times I found myself looking at the SpongeBob sticker. While on the phone to my parents, I had used a magnet to secure it to the fridge. I was wearing SpongeBob panties again, but in a different color. What did he mean by leaving the sticker? Was he trying to be funny? Was he flirting or was he making fun of me?

  I was drunk before dinner could finish in the oven. I carried the tequila bottle with me. It was snowing like mad outside, but the heat was on in the house and the alcohol kept me pretty toasty, too. I was about to take the chicken out of the oven when the doorbell rang.

  Who the hell?

  I crept to the foyer and carefully peeked out the side window. Forgetting how I was dressed (I had put on a tee shirt, but I was still missing pants), I threw open the door. Snow blew in, onto my bare legs and arms. Kyle stared at me a moment, looked at the bottle in my hand, and smiled hesitantly.

  Chapter Four

  "I can't find my wallet anywhere," Kyle said after I let him in. "I checked the bar and it wasn't there. I'm hoping it's here somewhere."

  "You can go check. Maybe it got kicked under the couch. I have to go take something out of the oven."

  I put the bottle down long enough to take my chicken parmesan out of the oven. The music was still playing so I didn't hear Kyle enter the room. I turned around and jumped when I saw him standing in the doorway, watching me.

  "Found it." He held up his wallet. "It was under the coffee table."

  "That's good. I bet Miss Venner wasn't too happy to have to pay for dinner." I said, taking another swig of tequila.

  "Once I realized my wallet was lost, I canceled the date. Aren't you cold?"

  I looked down, closed my eyes for a moment. "I forgot..." I felt my face flush. "Excuse me." I put the bottle on the counter and with my head hanging low, I slipped past Kyle to go change.

  I was so embarrassed, that it sobered me up some. Who forgets they're half naked when they open the door? This was the second time in twenty-four hours that I willingly appeared in my SpongeBob booty pants in front of my boss. He probably thinks I'm all loosey goosey.

  I went downstairs, in pants, and immediately said "I'm sorry. I am usually here alone. My parents spend the winters in the south. No one really comes over, so I never have to really worry about answering the door, drunk, and undressed. This isn't typical behavior, to find myself undressed in front of men."

  "I have seen you in less," he said quietly.

  "Are you hungry, Mr. S?" I asked, ignoring his comment because it made my neck hot and my palms sweaty.

  "Call me Kyle, and sure, I could eat."

  "Calling you Kyle is a little strange for me."

  "You called me Kyle last night. In fact, you screamed it at least...how many times?"

  I threw an oven mitt at him. "You're being a dick, Kyle."

  He smiled. "I'm sorry."

  I smiled, too, hesitantly. "You never smile," I said quietly as I set the table. "You're always scowling and growling. It's almost as if you hate your job, you hate being there."

  "That's not far from the truth." He looked at me seriously, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed.

  "Then you should find another career, because you're not being fair to your employees and you're certainly not being fair to yourself."

  "I'm doing what is expected of me."

  "If I were doing what's expected of me, I would be married, popping out a kid every couple of years."

  "You don't want a family?"

  "Of course, bu
t look at me. I'm the poster child for Alcoholics Annonymous. I don't think I'm quite ready to raise any children." I took another swig of tequila to prove my point. "My mom thinks I'm throwing my life away, that my best years are behind me."

  "It's like they have no confidence that you can be anything else other than what they've set you up to be." He was speaking from experience. Kyle's dad was always nice to me, but he had extremely high expectations for his children.

  We sat down for dinner, but I traded the tequila for iced tea. We sat at the table for a long time after eating, talking and laughing. I was amazed at how easy he was to talk to; my embarrassment from earlier in the night was forgotten. Kyle was also attentive, when I spoke. He listened and asked real questions to show he was listening. I was surprised at this, too. He never seemed to give a crap about any of his employees before. Very confusing.

  "You're Mr. Hyde is really good," I said sometime later. He was helping me clean up the kitchen after dinner. He washed and I dried.

  "What?" He asked. The confused expression on his face was comical.

  "At work, you're Dr. Jekyll. Now you're Mr. Hyde."

  He thought about this a moment.

  "I'm sorry," he said softly.

  "It's kind of scary, because I don't know which one is the real you. Are you more like Kyle the dick or Kyle the good guy?"

  "I'm not going to lie..." He started slowly. "I am a well-meaning person, but I can be a jerk sometimes. I was raised that way, to have a hard exterior."

  When I remained silent, he turned off the sink and looked at me.

  "I haven't been nice to you and I'm sorry. You're brilliant, always five steps ahead of me, and you work really hard. I would fall flat on my face without you. I have to be tough, though. Everyone there, including you, knows that I only have this job because my family owns the business. No one respects me because of that. So, to keep order...I have to be a dick."

  "That's stupid."

  He blinked at me. "What?"

  "That's stupid. You're right, everyone pretty much believes you're a spoiled brat who never had to work for anything in your life."

  "Thanks. You're making me feel so much better."

  "Kyle, you could have just chosen to be a good guy. You alone made the decision to be mean and nasty. Because you are the boss's son, there would have been order. But that's all you have is order. No one is happy working for you. If only you knew how detrimental that is to your job."

  I turned the faucet back on. We finished the dishes in silence.

  "Do you want coffee?" I asked when we finished.

  He was staring at nothing, deep in thought. I was beginning to feel like a dick myself. He was being something like a normal human being and I was beating him down. It must have been hard for him to open up to me like he did.

  "My mom tells me all of the time that I talk too much, say all of the wrong things." I said softly, not adding that I get that from her.

  He finally looked at me. "You're a little harsh, but..." He ran a hand through his dark hair. "You're not wrong."

  "I didn't have to be so blunt."

  "I like that you're blunt, but it's such a drastic change from how you are at the office."

  "If I start talking to you however I want, everyone else will think they can, too. Then it would be a mess."

  He nodded. "I understand."

  We were standing very close. The way he was looking at me made me feel a little funny, a fuzziness in my belly. As a distraction, I went to the back door and pushed the curtain aside to check out the weather.

  "Holy snow!"

  Kyle came over and looked out. "Damn."

  The snow was falling fast and heavy. Visibility was very low and there were several inches on the ground. We looked at each other and without a word rushed to the foyer and opened the door. If Kyle left then, he would have to dig himself out first, and dig a path out to the street, which had yet to be touched by a plow.

  The temperature had dropped significantly. I shivered in the open door. Kyle pulled me back a few steps and closed the door. He rubbed my arms until I stopped shivering.

  "How much snow are we supposed to get?" Kyle asked.

  "I don't know. I haven't watched the news."

  He looked out of the window. "It's going to be a crazy ride home,"

  "Are you crazy? You can't drive home in that! Thank goodness it's a weekend and you don't have to work. You have a few appointments, but they're lunch dates and such. Personal things." I went on about his schedule, telling him who to call, who to email. He was looking at me funny, so I stopped talking. We just stood there staring at one another.

  "Hey," I said to break the freaky silent staring contest. "Let's go watch a movie. How about Transformers? I love Transformers. You know the third one will be out this summer."

  "I've never seen Transformers."

  I was walking to the family room, but when he said that, I stopped so suddenly he ran into me. I whirled around to face him.

  "I'm sorry. Did you say - what did you say?"

  "I've never seen Transformers."

  "Do you live under a rock!"

  "Jess isn't really into those kinds of movies," he said, but immediately looked away from me.

  Jessyca Venner was Kyle's girlfriend. Hearing her name in that context threw me off a little bit, but I shook it off before he could look at me again.

  "Well, Jess isn't here. So allow me to introduce you to one of the best movies in the entire universe."

  In the family room, I ordered him to sit down on "our" couch while I got the movie started on our enormous flat screen. I sat down on the opposite side of the couch. I didn't want to give the impression that I wanted to cuddle and be all cute.

  At first Kyle seemed unfazed by the awesomeness of the movie, but by the time it ended he was grinning and leaning forward.

  "Do you have the second one?" He asked as the credits begin to roll. His face was lit up like a light bulb.

  "It's like one in the morning," I yawned.

  "You don't have to work tomorrow, and even if you did, you're snowed in." He stood up and stretched.

  "I do so have to work," I scoffed. "My boss gives me too much work to be completed in the office."

  "Your boss is a dick."

  "Tell me about it." I yawned again.

  "Really. You don't have any work to do."

  "Really. I do." I stood up to stretch, too.

  "I don't believe you."

  "Do you not realize the amount of effort it takes to run your office?"

  "Well, I know it takes some." He shrugged.

  "Some?" I stared at him. "Oh, no." I shook my head and walked down the hall. Kyle hesitated and then followed me.

  I went into my dad's office where I set up my own work station. On the large Mahogany desk were stacks of files, my laptop, a thick appointment book, post it notes stuck in various places with various notes scribbled on them, and a photo album. There was also the usual office stuff - pens, staplers, and paper clips, etc.

  "What's all of this?" Kyle asked, his eyes big.

  "This is mainly where I do your schedule, research, and a few other things." I picked up the photo album and opened it. "This has all of the guests for the gala. With everyone's picture there is a brief profile - or biography. Even the guests who are of little use or importance are in here. Some guests, of course, require a little more information, like this one. This guy has a whole page to himself."

  Kyle looked through the album in awe.

  "Last year you didn't like not knowing who people were. This year, I am going with you to aid you, through text message, little notes, or a discreet whisper. I won't hang around you, but I will be watching you, there if needed."

  He looked at me, mouth hanging open.

  "How do you get this information? How will you remember all of these people? There must be two hundred people in here."

  I smiled. "Two-hundred and six. I don't mean to sound conceited, but I'm good at what I do. You o
nly see the surface of what I do in the office - if you really see it." My smile faded, because we both knew he didn't care to pay attention before. I put my hand on a stack of files. "These are various upcoming events, meetings, dates, and other things you have to be present for or acknowledge. Most of it you don't know about yet."

  He put the album down and looked at the desk in amazement.

  "You're amazing." He looked at me. "I had no idea you worked so hard...I feel like such a douche bag."

  "You're worse than a douche bag. You're a douche puddle, the excrement of a douching."

  "Fine. I'm a douche puddle, you're right. No wonder you think I'm a dick."

  "Yeah." I nodded.

  "As your boss, I'm giving you the weekend off."

  "I don't know...it still needs to be done."

  "I will hire someone else to help you,"

  "Yeah, right," I rolled my eyes. Convincing him to hire Eliza the receptionist was like pulling teeth.

  "I mean it. You can't spend your life planning mine."

  "That's why I get paid the big bucks." I shrugged.

  "Emmy, seriously. I'm really sorry. I really want you to leave the work. Just for a day."

  "I don't know. I don't want you to fall behind..."

  "I won't. I will be fine." He put his hand on my waist and pulled me away from the desk, toward the door. I looked back at the desk, actually feeling a nervous pang about leaving it.

  We stood outside the office, looking in. Kyle closed the door because I wouldn't walk away.

  I looked up at him and opened my mouth to speak, but before I could speak, he leaned over and kissed me, hard. I started to back away, but he pulled me into him and held me so tight, I thought he was going to break a rib. I gave in, not only letting him kiss me, but I kissed him back.

  He pressed me up against the wall, moved his hand down to my thighs, my ass, and then slowly back up my body. He stopped just under my breasts, just enough to tease me. When he finally took his lips off of mine, I couldn't even catch my breath before he simultaneously started to kiss my neck and flicked his thumb across a nipple. I gasped and my knees just gave up.