Free Maliciously Obedient (BBW Erotic Romance) by Julia Kent Page B

now.
    Role play for the cameras. He had to be Matt Jones; he had to be this asshole’s subordinate. This was the part he was playing. This hidden boss for the sake of the cameras, for the sake of the drama, for the sake of those profits . And even if Dave was wrong, Matt had to back down. Even if Mike wanted to roar up.
    Quickly, he calculated the best next step.
    Meanwhile, Dave answered, “That’s right. You can’t do that because you don’t have a direct line or even an indirect line to Michael Bournham. I do. I’m the Director of Communications.” He used his hand to gesture for importance, for emphasis, as if somehow that hand using an “okay” sign spun about, the palm being used to emphasize boundaries, as if it made a difference.
    As if it made him more important.
    Mike wanted to crush this guy like the bug that he was, yet Matt had to defer. That didn’t mean that Mike wouldn’t act later. It just meant that it was time for Matt to be the good guy in a different way.
    “This has been a great meeting,” Mike said, speaking with as much sincerity as he could muster. “And Lydia, I would love to watch the rest of the presentation. You’ve got some innovative ideas there but I,” he choked out, “have to defer to the boss – because he’s the boss, right?”
    Her eyes sparkled with panic. Mike knew what she was feeling. This was going down, down, down the drain and he flashed back to his own presentation upon which his entire career had hinged. Except that he had been eighteen, nervous, geeky, a code jockey, and telling his dad about the importance of data mining and using these new technology techniques in the mid 90’s to help raise the business profile, to help gain customers and market share and new clients. He hadn’t been taken seriously at first either.
    His father's reaction had been the opposite of Dave’s. He’d simply told him go for it. “Do whatever you wanna do kid, just have fun doing it.” Oh, how Mike had – helping his father quintuple the size of the company in a handful of years.
    Lydia didn’t have that luxury. He didn’t have the authority as Matt Jones of saying, “Go for it, Lydia. Here’s a budget – run with it and show me what you can do.”
    As Mike Bournham he could. Just not yet.
    She began stuffing papers and pulling thumb drives out of the company laptop, head down, clearly too upset to speak but remaining professional. She gave Dave a very tight, wide-eyed, overwrought, but restrained look and said, “Thank you for giving me an opportunity to show you what I’m capable of.”
    Mike jumped in and said, “Seriously, I’d like to see the rest of that,” gesturing to the thumb drive.
    She tossed it to him and he caught it with a practiced hand. “It’s all yours,” she said.
    Yeah it is, he thought. It is all mine. But she didn’t know that.
    Dave stood, looked at his watch again, pulled out his Blackberry and started thumbing a text. Without even looking at either of them he said, “See you guys later. And by the way, Lydia, I sent you an email and I need you to email that out for me to the Borden account.”
    Lydia bit her lip, clenched her fists behind her back, closed her eyes and said in a fake, cheery voice, “Will do Dave. Don’t worry about it. I got it covered.”
    “You always do,” he called back, then quietly closed the door.
    She was about to break down. The way that her fingers snapped quickly to grab at the papers, how her wrists flicked with the ever-efficient motions that her body used to control what he imagined to be a chaotic mind right now, furious, fuming and indignant. Most of all, hurt.
    He reached out and put a gentle hand on top of hers, staring at her face. She paused, then looked up. Oh, man, she was barely holding it together but he had to say something, had to do something – because right now it was either comfort her or kill Dave.
    “Lydia, he’s an ass,” he said quietly. Her eyes widened and she looked at him,