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Authors: Logan Belle
Tags: Fiction/Erotica
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Love and Demotion
by Logan Belle
If it were any other night, I would be thrilled to be at the book party with him. It’s what all of the assistants at the publishing house wanted – even the ones who didn’t work for Declan Guinness. We all loved cocktail parties – free food (if you considered cheese cubes and crackers food) and wine, and on our salaries we needed that more than we wanted to admit. But we especially loved going to parties with Declan. For one thing, we could put our Metrocards away: my boss never took the bus or subway, or even a cab, for that matter — he had a car and driver. Rumor was that he was part of the Irish Brewery family. But money aside (and really, the city was full of rich guys) Declan was beyond gorgeous. And even thought I spent all day answering his phone and packing up press kits for his books, when I accompanied him out at night, he was so charming and such a gentleman, it was easy to pretend that I was his date. I know, I know – it was a dangerous fantasy. Declan was my boss, and smart girls just didn’t “go there.” And I was nothing if not a smart girl.
So when he casually stopped by my desk and said “it would be great” if I could go to the book party on Park Avenue, I replied, “Sure!” without even thinking about the fact that I had to be in the East Village by ten to do a show. When I tried to get out of going to the party, saying sorry I forgot I had something I had to do, he arched an eyebrow and said mischievously, “Hot date?” Okay, that was inappropriate. But we worked at a book publisher, not a law firm. We were all arty types, and a little humor and banter made everyone’s day go faster.
I blushed and babbled, “No, uh, I have to just…be somewhere.” To which he replied, “Hmm. Moonlighting?” And that shut me up fast.
“Actually – don’t worry about it. I can go,” I said. The last thing I wanted was people at work to wonder where I disappeared to three or four nights a week.
“Are you sure? Seriously, Cat — I’m just teasing.”
He’d only recently started calling me by my nickname. Before then, it was strictly “Catherine.” Also, recently, he’d taken off the platinum wedding band he’d worn for the past five years. I’d only known him for a year of that, but even I’d met the former Mrs. Guinness. She was, not surprisingly, a tall, stunning blonde, her hair a shade so pale and unbrassy that I could only imagine the time and money it required to maintain. Word on the street was that she traded in Declan for an even richer husband who didn’t have a pesky job to take up all his shopping and travel time.
Once the ring came off, I started obsessing about his personal life. Was he dating? What type of woman did he go for? Sometimes I would see his photo in the New York Magazine “Intelligencer” pages, and I would scan the party pictures for any hint of who he might be with. And I fantasized about running into him somewhere outside of work, somewhere we he would finally see me as someone other than just his assistant.
So there I was, sitting in the middle of a sumptuous living room on the Upper East Side, surrounded by expensive art and skinny women wearing colorful summer tunic dresses and looking like Tory Burch clones. I was sweating despite the air-conditioning because I was wearing a long-sleeved dress to hide my tattoos. I was paranoid about people at work seeing my ink, as if it would somehow reveal my dual life. It was ridiculous, I knew – everyone had tattoos these days. But my Varga girl in a red corset hit a little too close to home.
I pulled my cotton dress open at the neckline, and fanned myself with a cocktail napkin. One small table held a pile of the hot-off-the presses cooking memoir (yes, another one) by a New York Times editor. She held court in the middle of the room, laughing and drinking in a small crowd that clustered around her. Declan was on the periphery of the group. He looked so beautiful,
by Logan Belle
If it were any other night, I would be thrilled to be at the book party with him. It’s what all of the assistants at the publishing house wanted – even the ones who didn’t work for Declan Guinness. We all loved cocktail parties – free food (if you considered cheese cubes and crackers food) and wine, and on our salaries we needed that more than we wanted to admit. But we especially loved going to parties with Declan. For one thing, we could put our Metrocards away: my boss never took the bus or subway, or even a cab, for that matter — he had a car and driver. Rumor was that he was part of the Irish Brewery family. But money aside (and really, the city was full of rich guys) Declan was beyond gorgeous. And even thought I spent all day answering his phone and packing up press kits for his books, when I accompanied him out at night, he was so charming and such a gentleman, it was easy to pretend that I was his date. I know, I know – it was a dangerous fantasy. Declan was my boss, and smart girls just didn’t “go there.” And I was nothing if not a smart girl.
So when he casually stopped by my desk and said “it would be great” if I could go to the book party on Park Avenue, I replied, “Sure!” without even thinking about the fact that I had to be in the East Village by ten to do a show. When I tried to get out of going to the party, saying sorry I forgot I had something I had to do, he arched an eyebrow and said mischievously, “Hot date?” Okay, that was inappropriate. But we worked at a book publisher, not a law firm. We were all arty types, and a little humor and banter made everyone’s day go faster.
I blushed and babbled, “No, uh, I have to just…be somewhere.” To which he replied, “Hmm. Moonlighting?” And that shut me up fast.
“Actually – don’t worry about it. I can go,” I said. The last thing I wanted was people at work to wonder where I disappeared to three or four nights a week.
“Are you sure? Seriously, Cat — I’m just teasing.”
He’d only recently started calling me by my nickname. Before then, it was strictly “Catherine.” Also, recently, he’d taken off the platinum wedding band he’d worn for the past five years. I’d only known him for a year of that, but even I’d met the former Mrs. Guinness. She was, not surprisingly, a tall, stunning blonde, her hair a shade so pale and unbrassy that I could only imagine the time and money it required to maintain. Word on the street was that she traded in Declan for an even richer husband who didn’t have a pesky job to take up all his shopping and travel time.
Once the ring came off, I started obsessing about his personal life. Was he dating? What type of woman did he go for? Sometimes I would see his photo in the New York Magazine “Intelligencer” pages, and I would scan the party pictures for any hint of who he might be with. And I fantasized about running into him somewhere outside of work, somewhere we he would finally see me as someone other than just his assistant.
So there I was, sitting in the middle of a sumptuous living room on the Upper East Side, surrounded by expensive art and skinny women wearing colorful summer tunic dresses and looking like Tory Burch clones. I was sweating despite the air-conditioning because I was wearing a long-sleeved dress to hide my tattoos. I was paranoid about people at work seeing my ink, as if it would somehow reveal my dual life. It was ridiculous, I knew – everyone had tattoos these days. But my Varga girl in a red corset hit a little too close to home.
I pulled my cotton dress open at the neckline, and fanned myself with a cocktail napkin. One small table held a pile of the hot-off-the presses cooking memoir (yes, another one) by a New York Times editor. She held court in the middle of the room, laughing and drinking in a small crowd that clustered around her. Declan was on the periphery of the group. He looked so beautiful,
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