My Secret Lover Is Actually My Boss novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Glass Wall
Della kisses her Thursday lover against the studio glass, then watches her ex present her line as his, quits in front of the company, and sees the new owner walk in: it's Win, here to sell it.
Win had me pinned against the glass wall of the studio, thirty-one floors above Wacker Drive.
The whole city was lit up behind my back.
"Somebody's going to see us," I said into his mouth.
"It's eleven at night, Della."
His hand found the bare skin of my shoulder where my blouse had slipped.
He kissed the place it had slipped from.
I grabbed his tie and pulled him back up to my mouth.
For four months I had met this man every Thursday at the bar of the Merchant Hotel.
My rules. First names only. No jobs. No phones on the table.
I didn't know his last name.
I didn't know what he did all week in his black suits.
I knew he kissed like he had nowhere else to be.
Tonight I'd broken my own rule and brought him to work.
I had a pitch at nine in the morning and card twelve still wasn't right.
"Five minutes," I'd told him in the elevator. "I fix one letter and we go."
That was forty minutes ago.
His thumb slid under the hem of my skirt at the back of my thigh.
The glass was cold through my blouse and he was hot everywhere else.
"Win."
"Mm."
"If you keep doing that, I'm not fixing anything."
He laughed against my neck.
Then he looked past me, and he stopped.
He was staring at the door of the studio.
The old man's logo was painted on it in gold. A little kettle, and under it, WINSHIP CARDS, SINCE 1958.
Win's hand went still on my leg.
"This is where you work," he said.
"You weren't supposed to look at the sign."
He didn't smile.
He walked to my desk and looked down at the open folder there.
THURSDAY, in my handwriting, across the tab.
Sixteen cards were laid out in rows. The drafts of every card I'd ever given him.
He picked up card nine. "I'm not okay and you don't have to fix it."
I'd given him that one in January, the night he'd said he'd had a bad week and wouldn't say why.
"You made all of these here," he said.
"I make them everywhere. Here's just where they pay me."
"Who's presenting them tomorrow?"
That was a strange question from a man who'd never asked me one thing about my job.
"My creative director. It's the new owner's first day. Every department shows him something."
"And your name's on it?"
"Of course my name's on it."
Win put card nine down very carefully, square with the others.
"Go home, Della. Get some sleep."
"You're leaving?"
"You have a pitch at nine."
He kissed my forehead at the elevator and didn't look at me when the doors shut.
I stood in the dark studio with my lipstick gone and my blouse half off my shoulder.
I fixed the letter on card twelve.
At nine the next morning the big room was packed. All sixty-two of us.
The new owner was late.
Lyle Truax stood at the front in his navy blazer with a remote in his hand.
Lyle was our creative director.
He was also the man I'd dated for two years.
Fourteen months ago he had presented my Tuesday Morning line to the old man as his own.
I'd broken up with him that week.
I'd stayed at Winship because the old man had asked me to.
The old man died in November.
His daughter Norma had called the studio "the crayon room" at his funeral.
Lyle clicked the remote.
My card nine filled the screen. My lettering, my watercolor, my words.
Across the top of the slide it said PLAIN WORDS, A NEW LINE BY LYLE TRUAX.
Pip grabbed my wrist under the table.
"Del," she whispered. "Del, that's your folder."
Lyle clicked again. Card twelve. The letter I'd fixed at midnight.
"I wanted to write the cards nobody else has the guts to write," he told the room.
People nodded.
Somebody in sales actually said "wow."
I stood up.
My chair scraped so loud everyone turned.
"That's mine," I said.
Lyle smiled at me the way he used to across a restaurant table.
"Della helped with the lettering. It's a team, guys. That's how teams work."
"You said that last time too."
The room went very quiet.
"Not again, Lyle."
"Sit down, Della. You're embarrassing yourself."
I unclipped my badge from my skirt.
I walked to the front of the room and set it on the table in front of him, face up.
Eight years of my face on that badge.
"I quit."
Pip said "oh my God" out loud.
Lyle shrugged at the room.
"Security can walk her out after the meeting," he said.
The door at the back opened.
The HR director came in first, nervous, and held it.
"Everyone, sorry for the delay. Our new owner."
A man came in behind her in a black suit and a black shirt.
He had dark curls and grey eyes, and a tie I had pulled on twelve hours ago.
Win.
He looked at my badge on the table.
Then he looked at me.
"Good morning," he said to the room. "I'm Leon Winship. My grandfather started this company. I'm here to sell it."
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