Page 211 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
Nausea ran rampant through me . . . the sweats were consuming the back of my neck, and I felt physically incapable of helping my girl.
The minute I took in the scene in front of me, I was pretty sure my eyes bulged out of their sockets.
Standing tall with her arms bent, hands right next to armpits, T-Rex style, balls dangling, was Rosie with two sharp wires poking out of the front of her dress, like she had a triceratops trying to ram its way through her cleavage.
“Is that . . . your underwire?” Danielle pointed at Rosie’s chest.
“Surprise,” Rosie shouted, raising her arms above her head and lightly shimmying her chest at the group. “Anyone want to hang their coat?” To demonstrate what she was talking about, she placed the string connecting the balls on the exposed wire of her bra and smiled brightly. “The term ‘rack’ is quite literal in this situation, right?” She elbowed Tasha next to her, who stepped away, disgusted.
“Rosie,” I said gently, wanting to shield her from all the judging eyes.
“Tough crowd,” she huffed. “Well, this has been fun, but I just remembered I have to finish stuffing the giant papier-mâché penis at home. Don’t worry, I’ve got a mega pack of Legacy condoms going inside. Go, Legacy,” she said, with less gusto than before.
Before I could grab her hand and walk her out the door, she sprinted through the party, balls flapping behind her, and straight into the elevator.
I handed my drink to Eric to go after her when he gripped my shoulder to stop me. “I need to speak with you, now.”
I didn’t like the tone of his voice at all.
Fuck me.
* * *
By the time I got home, the apartment was completely dark, Sir Licks-a-Lot was lying in one of Rosie’s bras, rubbing his face against the cup, and there was a human lump curled on one side of the bed.
Rosie.
I took off my jacket and placed it on the chair in our bedroom. I stared at her the entire time I took off my tie and my button-up shirt. I’d known Rosie for a long time, but not once had I ever experienced a night with her like the one we shared tonight.
She’d been nervous, but Insulting the brand, and then exposing our sex life to a very inappropriate level wasn’t good. Now the most important people in charge of my job believed I was a sex fiend . . . who, thankfully, hadn’t made his girlfriend’s pussy raw, thanks to Legacy.
Christ.
I imagined no one privy to her display of golden balls and escaped underwire would sleep easily tonight. I gave the girl credit. She did put on a good show, mortifying, but good.
The last thing I wanted to do was go into a conference room with Eric after she left.Iwanted to chase after Rosie and tell her everything would be okay, that I wasn’t mad at her, and that I needed to know she wasn’t hurt. I knew she was embarrassed from the way her cheeks flamed with an adorable blush.
But when Eric told me to meet him in the conference room, I knew I had one choice: I had to keep my job, especially since Rosie and I would be bringing a baby into the world.
When I walked into the room, I’d thoughtfuck the director position. I only needed a steady paycheck. I would figure out everything else after that.
When I arrived in the room and saw EricandDarlene as well, I knew it was over. There was only so much you could do in front of clients, and your girlfriend dropping her vagina balls on the floor while insulting the product wasn’t something clients got over very quickly.
The words still rang through my head as I brushed my teeth.
“Henry, you’re going to have to pack up your cube.”
My stomach dropped. I was going to hurl. Without even thinking, I stood up for Rosie, telling them she’d been having a hard time lately with working from home, feeling cooped up with a cat who wouldn’t stop licking his crotch. And I dropped the bomb on them—that she was expecting and she’d been a little hormonal—praying they’d take mercy on me. I begged them to reconsider, to think about my unborn child. Yup, I went there. I had no shame. I pulled a Rosie and had diarrhea of the mouth.
It didn’t change their minds; they still told me to pack my cube.
I nodded my head in defeat and started to walk away when Eric started laughing hysterically. His laugh would haunt me for days.
He then told me I had to pack my cube because I was moving into a new office. The job was mine.
Legacy wasn’t a company that based their decisions off the people they’d be working with; they based them off the product and who could sell it the best. Imagine that.
They chose my campaign before Rosie even began her insanity for the night. Afterward, I talked to the executives at Legacy, and they said if I could still produce a campaign like the one I offered while taking care of my rather crazy and pregnant girlfriend, they wanted me on their team.
