Office Fling Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Table of Contents

  Office Fling

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Teachers’ Pet

  Club Desire

  Knocked Up by Brother’s Best Friend

  Pretend Daddy

  Copyright © 2018 Amy Brent – All Rights Reserved

  Office Fling

  A Single Dad Baby Romance

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  Chapter One

  ~Raphael~

  “So, as you can clearly see, we are not nearly at the profit margin we could be capable of. Because of these holes where we’re letting productivity and resources just bleed out of us, I’m sure you’ll agree that drastic changes need to be made.”

  I looked at the men and women around me, all of them dressed in crisp, professional attire and all of them with their heads up their own asses.

  A mild exaggeration. Given that I had hired some of them myself, I knew at least a handful were good eggs. But it was obvious that even our best and brightest were being held back by the worst of us and I wasn’t about to sit back and let that happen.

  But, just as I was about to go into the part of my speech were heads would roll and a fire would be lit under the behinds of the survivors, I saw one of my assistants dashing towards the door as quickly as her sensible heels would allow her.

  Obviously, that caught my attention. Stacy had worked for me for three years and she never raised her gait above a leisurely walk. Normally I would never tolerate such sloth, but she was good at what she did, and she could type at an impossible one hundred and seven words per minute.

  She was breathing hard by the time she reached me, but stood on tiptoe and whispered in my ear. I didn’t think we had ever had physical contact before -the woman usually preferred to stick to herself- so I knew it had to be urgent.

  It turned out I was right. She finished what she needed to say breathlessly, then looked up at me, waiting for my next order.

  “Follow protocol,” I answered matter of factly, causing her to scurry off.

  Once she was gone, I looked back to my workers, all of which who were staring at me with either mild curiosity or confusion. I milled over my words for a moment or too, letting them marinade in whatever they were feeling, before speaking.

  “Many of you have been with me for years,” I started, making sure my voice filled every corner of the room. “You’ve been a part of building this company from the ground up. You’ve been there for highs, and lows, and now we are in the most profitable quarter yet.” Another pause, taking time to read each person’s expression. Some were concerned, some confused, some looked politely interested, and a select few looked incredibly nervous. Interesting. My speech was only targeting one person, but it would be good to look into what could possibly be troubling the conscious of the others.

  “But that success isn’t enough for some of you. Apparently, a particular person felt the need to sell company secrets and future projects to our competitors, Nexicorp.” Now people were looking alive, and my gaze homed in at the end of the table. “So tell me, Westin,” I said, “Did what they pay you come nearly close enough to cover the lawsuit you’re going to be hit with for breaking your employee contract?”

  The man’s face went pale. He wasn’t one of my hires, but he had been under my division for at least four years. It just went to prove that money would always be peoples’ bottom line. Loyalty, integrity, none of that mattered. Only cold hard cash. I wasn’t surprised, I wasn’t even disappointed. I was just irritated that this had to take up my valuable time.

  “I-I-I don’t know what you mean.”

  I just affixed him with an authoritative glare. “My assistants have already comprised all of the evidence and security is on their way now. We’ve cleaned out your desk and you will find all of your things in a box by the door.”

  Here was the moment of truth, where you got to see what kind of cheat someone was. Would he hold his head high and stride out of here with what little dignity he had left? Or would be hang his head and skulk like the cockroach he was?

  He chose to run, actually. One moment he was in his chair, the next he was out the door and pelting towards the elevator. No matter, security would escort him out one way or another.

  I waited for him to disappear behind the counter before returning my attention back to the rest of the room.

  “Now, about those drastic measures,” I continued, as if nothing had happened. “I want all of you to brainstorms several ways to push us even further in productivity, so we can be at the level I know we’re capable of being at. I need a minimum of three with one flagship idea that you can give a five-minute presentation on by our next meeting. Any questions?”

  No one dared to speak, or even move. I waited a full minute before nodding, and pressing the power button on the remote control in my hand, shutting down our projector.

  “In that case, I’ll see all of you on Wednesday.”

  I strode out, knowing they would all file out once they recovered. I was sure there would be plenty of office gossip about Westin for the next few days, but I couldn’t care less. I did, however need to work with our security and HR team to further vet our employees. I knew that being
a large, successful corporation and leader in our field would make us a target, but I had thought that we were doing all that we could to eliminate that threat.

  Apparently, it wasn’t enough.

  I made a beeline towards the one elevator that lead to the upper management floors. I had a spacious office along with my VP, CFO and COO. The rest of the board and leadership roles had their own spaces on the floors below us, allowing us enough privacy to concentrate and not feel crowded, but not separating us so much that we lost touch to the day to day workings of our field.

  If there was one thing I was insistent on, it was that all of my board stayed in touch with reality. We had to understand what every position in our building had to do in order to manage them properly. Not to mention lead our company in new and profitable directions.

  The doors of the elevator closed in front of me, and I finally let my anger boil up into my face.

  I kept a tight leash on my emotions in public. If there was one thing I had learned, it was that people would use anything they could to manipulate you, so I didn’t give them anything but a carefully compose slate to read. But man, the thought of someone trying to profit by betraying all of my hard work instead of just working hard themselves completely pissed me off.

  Finally, the elevator opened on my floor and I walked to my office, closing the door behind me. It seemed that no matter what I did, or how cautious I was, I was always going to be surrounded by sharks in the water.

  At least I was smart enough to stay on top of them. Never trust anyways and always assume the worst was my mantra, and it had served me well.

  I just wish it wasn’t so damn exhausting.

  Chapter Two

  ~McKenna~

  I bit into my sandwich, lukewarm, cheap deli meat being far from tasty, but it was all that I could afford. At least the over-processed, bright orange cheese masked some of the terribleness, allowing me to choke it down with my tea.

  “You okay there?” Alicia asked, nibbling at her tofu wrap. “You look like you’re stressed.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I insisted, ducking my head down. The last thing I needed to do was draw attention to myself, even if it was just Davie, Alicia and I present.

  “Are you sure you don’t have a fever, chica? Tis the season for flu and all of that, with it getting warmer and all.”

  I smiled briefly at the head of our team and the eldest member of the janitorial crew. “True, but it’s not like I ever hang out with anybody since the building is always empty. Not to mention that half of my job is sterilizing anything in sight.”

  “Ay. But too much of that is bad, you know. Kills your immune system and all that. You need germs to train your body, or something like that.”

  Perhaps it was rude of me to be surprised to hear a fifty-something year old janitor with a thick accent talk about pathogen-based resistance, but I couldn’t help it. “That’s very true. But considering the kind of people who work here, I don’t think I want to submit my immune system to half of the vile stuff that comes out of their bodies.”

  Alicia and Davie both laughed at that. While I was sure that plenty of nice people worked in the office building that we cleaned, most of us assumed that they were stereotypical, office jerks. It probably didn’t help that we cleaned up all of their messes. I couldn’t count how many times I found small baggies in the trash with a white, powdery substance left over in the corners, or pill casings that were definitely not prescription. Or even abandoned flasks in the corner of desks that had been forgotten for so long that they’d developed mold.

  “So, Max, I’ve been meaning to ask you, when’s your birthday?”

  I stopped chewing at that, and just stared at Alicia for a few moments while I figured out how to answer. “Why?” Was what I managed finally. If I was going to use a fake name at work, I was going to need to start recognizing it without an awkward delay.

  “I’m the one who handles the birthday card list and I realized I don’t have anything down for you.”

  My mind spun, and I quickly thought of something that might work. “Aw, I’m sorry. Don’t celebrate my birthday.”

  “Aw, why’s that?” Davie asked, brushing crumbs out of his mustache.

  “Religious reasons. You know how it is.”

  “What kind of religion doesn’t let you celebrate your birthday?” Alicia asked, tugging at one of her brains -a nervous tick I had noticed she did when she was suspicious.

  “Um…” Crap, crap, crap. What sect was it that didn’t believe in gifts? “LDS.”

  “Ahh.” Alicia nodded her head. “Well that’s okay then. I’ll just put an NA down and leave it at that.”

  I withheld a sigh of relief, but it was certainly difficult. I couldn’t believe I had gotten away with that. One thing was for certain, if I was going to be Max and not McKenna, I needed to have a more solid backstory.

  “Dios Mio, break is already over. I feel like we just got here.” Thank goodness, the conversation had moved off of me and I could rest for a moment again. “So, who wants to do what for the second half of our shifts?”

  “I’ll do the CEO floors!” I said, almost too quickly, leaving Davie blinking at me in surprise.

  “Are you sure? I know you’re new, but that’s the hardest floor on our list. You’ve cleaned it every night for the past week. And you’ve only been working here two weeks.”

  I shrugged. I had been made aware from day one that the floor that all of the janitorial dreaded was the uppermost in the building. Between its marble-like floors that required a specific type of cleaner to not leave streaks, to the specifics in each office, they had the longest to-do list. But I didn’t mind, for reasons that were purely my own.

  “Alright then. Alicia, how about you take the floor below and I’ll take the bottom ones?”

  Alicia shrugged as well. As long as she got home in time to feed her approximately billion and one animals, she was more than happy. Not that she actually had that many animals. But since she ran an informal sort of rescue, she had an ever-changing roster of children that I couldn’t quite keep up with.

  “Very good. Goodnight, my friends, I will see you at wrap up.” Davie stood, his short legs bringing him to just about my height when I was sitting. He gave an adorable bow and shuffled off to find his old cart.

  I liked Davie. He rarely asked questions that I had to dodge answering and generally just rolled with the flow. As long as I continued to work as best I could, he liked me plenty and that was all I really needed.

  We all broke our separate ways, and I grabbed my cleaning cart. After two weeks on the team, I had managed to build up enough callouses on my hands that the mop handle no longer hurt me, and I could hold onto the floor-polisher without feeling like I was going to die. Who would have thought, with how vain I was about moisturize my skin, that I would ever allow such a phenomenon?

  I certainly never would of, but that was often how my life went. Too many surprises going every which way to ever feel comfortable. But that didn’t matter, because the elevator doors were opening, and I was stepping into my one way to wind down.

  I had never expected to find a way to relieve the intense anxiety within me at work, but that’s exactly how it had worked out. Pushing my cart to the middle of the room, I pulled my MP3 player from my pocket and placed my headphones on my crop of fiery-red hair. Turning my music all the way up, I got ready to jam.

  As the base started, I swung my hips around, careful not to knock over anything as I grooved. If there was one thing I learned from having wide hips and thick thighs, it was that I could do a whole lot of damage if my movement went unchecked.

  Grabbing the polish/cleaner from my cart, I danced all around the office, sprinkling the powder across the floor in the specific pattern I had perfected in my week of tackling the top floor. It was amazing how fun it made the job, and it also was a good work out too. Especially considering that I couldn’t afford my own gym membership.

  It took two songs before I finish
ed powdering everything, and then it was on to the mop, so it could all be wetted down and spread across the floor.

  Heart pounding, breath rasping, body writhing, I poured all of the twisted emotions in me out of my limbs. I was grateful that I had remembered to wear two sports bras instead of one, as all the bouncing made my ample chest ache more often than not.

  It was in these moments, where I danced wildly across the floor while cleaning, flaunting my curves without fear of repercussions, that I was finally free. For a moment, I was out of the cage that had been created when I was too young to recognize the bars being set in place, and everything was alright with the world.

  If only it could stay this way forever.

  Chapter Three

  ~Raphael~

  I let out another string of curses as I stored in the front doors of work, but somehow it never seemed like enough. I was so steamed that I couldn’t hold it in, so I compensated by taking the executive elevator and forcing myself to breathe deeply and slowly.

  My son, Dominic, had a hard time waking up that morning. He was still recovering from a bit of a cold and I wanted nothing more than to let him sleep in, but it was his mother’s turn to have custody of him. And if I cancelled on her, the courts would immediately hear about it and then her and my lawyers would have to have another face off about who he spent time with which was really just a thinly veiled grab at more money.

  So, against my better judgement, I had gotten him up, fed and ready just in time for his pick-up window.

  Except his mother didn’t come. I waited a full half-hour for her before calling, and of course she sent me straight to voicemail. I was so irritated that I let Dominic go take a nap, but what I didn’t expect was for his mother to take four hours to actually get her ass to my place and pick him up. She breezed into the lobby without so much as a sorry, dressed in designer from head to toe and shoes I recognized from a fashion show I had gone to with a prospective client. She didn’t even remove her sunglasses, just offered her hand to Dominic and walked right out.