Fair Game 2

Fair Game 2

Jade did her best to forget the Boardroom Incident. For a week, she agonized over every detail, picking apart every nuance of tone and stance, searching for a way to turn the brutal event into something she could use against the board.

In the end, there wasn’t anything she could come up with. The man had fucked her then disappeared. The few meetings she had with board members brought no mention of the video. If they were treating her differently, she couldn’t tell. Bringing the incident up on her own initiative struck her as career suicide, and so she simply put it behind her.

She had plenty to keep herself busy. Jade had a fledgling software studio to run, endless planning meetings to orchestrate, and dozens of new employees to hire.

One of the reasons she had pushed to found her own studio was the desire to sculpt the culture from the ground up. Safe Space Studios was meant to be exactly that: a place where creative people could get together and make magic happen without the bullying and harassment that was so commonly associated with the industry.

Jade had a trusted HR manager do preliminary hiring interviews, but she made a policy that she would be the only one who had final say on any new hire. It was an ambitious goal, but Jade was nothing if not motivated.

Day after day, she was the first to arrive at S3, and burned the midnight oil until the early hours of the morning. Every time she felt the exhaustion building, she remembered the arrogant sneer of the man, and his accusations that all she was good for was a cheap fuck. Every time, the memory pushed her to work harder. She would prove to him that she was worthy of her position, damn it. No, fuck him. She would prove it to herself.

Gradually, the studio filled with new staff and they got to work brainstorming ideas and putting together prototype software. Jade kept herself in the thick of it. She was no distant C-suite exec, divorced from the daily running of her empire. She had made it this far by being grounded and engaged, and there was no way she’d be changing that now.

As the positions in the studio filled, the number of hiring interviews Jade had to perform reduced until she was down to just one or two a day. All the required positions were filled, and now she was searching for any hire that was truly special, someone who could make a definite impact on the company.

It was late in the afternoon on a Tuesday when Janet, the HR manager, stuck her head in the door and rapped on the frame with her knuckles. “Hey boss, it’s just about closing time. I finished an interview a few minutes ago, and I think we might have a winner.”

Jade looked up from her computer where she was poring over tomorrow’s meeting schedule. “Oh? What role?”

“Special Liaison,” Janet grinned.

Special Liaison was a role Jade had invented. A jack-of-all-trades who could be everywhere at once, adding their expertise to any and all projects currently ongoing. It was a role only the best of the best could fill, someone who would work closely with Jade herself. Jade never expected the role to actually fill, and Janet’s enthusiasm perked her interest.

“Oh really? Is she still here?”

“He’s in the conference room. I asked him to wait and see if you wanted to do the interview now or tomorrow.”

Jade brushed at her suit jacket and suppressed the frown before it had a chance to form. She could work with men, hell, the industry was dominated by men, but she had been hoping to find another woman to hold the Special Liaison role. She glanced at the clock and sighed. “Might as well. No sense in him coming back tomorrow.”

“I really do think he’s a good fit,” Janet said.

Jade paused to eye the HR manager. Janet seemed different. Wait, was Janet blushing? She rolled her eyes, already determined to turn the new hire down. The last thing she needed was to have some overly handsome man running around the office turning her serious workplace into a ditzy mess.

“Thank you, Janet.”

Janet heard the dismissal in her voice and ducked out. Jade made a face to herself, then took a deep breath. Might as well get this over with. She grabbed her tablet, pulled up the interview notes Janet had shared with her, and started scanning through them as she left her office behind.

The studio was mostly empty, even though it was only a few minutes after five. S3 made a point of emphasizing healthy work-life balance, which meant the employees were encouraged to clock out promptly and go enjoy the rest of their day.

Jade crossed the office to the conference room and let herself in, still engrossed in the tablet. If these notes were accurate, Janet might actually be right about this guy being a good fit. She nudged the door shut behind her with her hip, and looked up.

Her heart skipped a beat, and a cold fist clenched in her gut. It had been dark in the boardroom, and she had never got a good look at the man’s face during the incident, but how many men had that same towering form, broad shoulders and dark hair.

“Hello, Jade.”

The man’s voice was like a punch to the solar plexus. There was no doubt. It was him. “You!”

“Me,” he grinned.

Jade stared at him like a deer in headlights. He had blue eyes, she noticed, and was damnably handsome. “What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t Janet tell you? I’m applying for a job.”

“But—what? No. You can’t! The, I mean, you’re not even qualified!”

He shrugged. “You might be surprised. But really, it doesn’t make a difference. This is the board’s decision. They figured the best way to keep an eye on you was to have me stick close at hand.”

“No. Fuck that. They promised me that I would have full control over my staff hiring! And there’s no fucking way I’m going to work with someone like you!” Jade glanced down at her tablet. “Is Jack even your real name?”

“You can call me Master if you like, but only in private.”

Jade’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe the sheer gall of the man! “Get the fuck out of my building,” she hissed at him.

Jack shrugged. “If you like. But if I do, the board is going to get another anonymous email in the morning.”

She froze, her mouth suddenly dry. “You wouldn’t.”

“And why not? You’re not exactly being nice to me.”

“Nice? Nice?! You motherfucker! You raped me!”

“Keep your voice down,” Jack said pleasantly. “And no, I distinctly remember you asking me to fuck you. Begged me to, more like.”

A hot flush rushed up Jade’s neck and set her cheeks ablaze. She remembered the moment, the teetering-on-the-brink juncture. His cock poised to enter her, about to either send her to the hospital or give her the fucking of a lifetime.

“Damn you,” Jade said, and hated the way her voice crumbled halfway through.

“I have the recording, if you’d like to refresh your memory.”

Jade closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively. “No. That won’t be necessary.”

She heard his footsteps coming closer, and jerked her head up. He had already crossed the room and put himself between her and the door. She was trapped. She should have run screaming the moment she recognized him. Should have called the cops after the incident. Should have…

“What’s it going to be, Jade?” he asked.

Jade looked up at him, her eyes wide, her lips involuntarily parted. Was he going to fuck her here, on the conference room table? Make her swallow his enormous cock again? “I… I don’t…”

Jack’s mouth quirked. “The hiring,” he clarified gently. “Are you going to hire me? Or do I send an email?”

Cold sweat prickled across Jade’s back. She didn’t have a choice. “When can you start?” she asked woodenly.

“Tomorrow is plenty soon enough. I’ll see you in the morning, Jade. We have a lot of work to do!” Jack turned around, opened the door, and ducked through.

Jade slumped back against the conference table, her heart thundering in her chest.