All Chapters of My Boss, My Saviour, My Lover: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.“Is Caleb around?” Ed Dingle asked without preamble. I hadn’t paid much attention to him in DDs when I first saw him just over a week ago, but I recognised him straight away, and he wasn’t a pretty man. Simply put, he was short, fat, and bald. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his gaunt face covered in a light sheen of sweat, as if the walk from the elevator to here had been too strenuous. His beady eyes looked too small on his big head, and his suit was a dirty brown colour.“He’s in an all-day meeting, unfortunately,” I told him.Dingle kissed his teeth and put his hands on his hips. The action was so cartoonish that I had to fight hard to keep a straight face. “Bugger.”“If you’d like,” I offered, “I can pass on a message for you the next time I speak to him.”“How long will that be? I wanted to speak to him today.”“Just whenever he next asks for refreshments.”He sighed. “I really can’t just talk to him now?”“It’s an audit.”“It’ll

Where the bloody fuck was Rae?Caleb had been calling her for ten minutes to get more coffee and tea for the auditors, and she wasn’t answering her damn phone. It was embarrassing.“Maybe this is a good time to take a proper break,” the head auditor, a kind woman in her late sixties suggested. “I need to stretch my legs.”“Are you sure?”“Absolutely. We’ve been cooped up in here all day. Shall we say fifteen minutes?”The other auditor nodded. “Sounds good.”“Alright,” Caleb conceded. He stood and arched his back, then headed to the door to let them out.Rae wasn’t sitting at her desk when he followed them. The room was empty. Eerily quiet.He wandered down to the reception to see if Becky had seen her. They seemed to be getting on quite well, perhaps she knew more than he did.“Have you seen Miss Buxton?”Becky shook her head. “No, not since lunchtime. Why?”Caleb frowned. “She’s not at her desk.”“Bathroom, maybe?”“For fifteen minutes?”Becky flushed. “Maybe she’s having…you know?”

I spent the entire next day in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. So many times I’d wanted to get out and get in the shower again in the hopes of feeling cleaner, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The dirt wasn’t on my body, it was in my head.Emmy insisted on staying in my room last night because she didn’t want me to feel alone. I didn’t have the heart or the energy to tell her that I wanted nothing more than to be alone. It wasn’t like I’d be sleeping the night through anyway.Multiple times I woke up to the phantom feeling of hands around my throat, of things in places they shouldn’t be. I worried I’d sweat through my sheets but I was cold to the touch, like a permanent chill had arrested my body. Even Emmy’s body heat next to mine couldn’t ward it off.She made me breakfast and then left me to go to work. I struggled to eat it. I switched between lying on my back and on my side, torn between the blankness of the ceiling above me and the business of the world outside my wi

**18 months later**If this flight had taught me anything, it was that I was never sitting at the back of a plane again. I had just spent 7 hours having a curtain flung in my face, food and beverage carts rolled over my toes, toilets flushing every five minutes, and no less than three women’s breasts rubbed in my face while they tried to squeeze past me. I didn’t eat the food because I didn’t like any of it, and when I asked for a drink halfway through the flight because I’d missed the first one, I was looked upon like a pariah by the flight crew.Worst. Flight. Ever.Because I was at the very back, I had to wait for everyone else to get off first. I stood waiting, growing more irritable by the minute while people took their damn sweet time getting themselves together. My phone must have connected to the local network here in Ottawa, because I suddenly had a bombardment of messages from Caleb asking where the fuck I was. I chose to ignore them.Giving up on waiting, I battled my way

Innovation X’s headquarters was located in the Centretown area of the city, inside a building that looked more like a small apartment complex than your traditional skyscraper.The lobby was small but homey and well looked after—like a dental practice. A polite woman who was perhaps in her fifties sat behind the reception desk, talking to an attractive younger woman and a very tall older man. I knew from pictures that these two were Sasha and Warren—the company’s COO and CEO respectively.Warren noticed us first and turned to extend a hand towards me. “Good morning. Welcome to Innovation X. Miss Buxton, I assume?”He was taller than Caleb but of a slimmer build, with greying hair and soft grey eyes. His face was sharp at the cheekbones and chin, a silver stubble decorating him.I shook his hand and I swear he nearly pulled my arm from its socket. “You are correct. But you can call me Rae. It’s nice to meet you, finally.”“Likewise. Warren Tremblay.” He turned to offer that same strong