The entire commute, she bounced back and forth between wondering if she should go to Greece and wondering if she should confront Marcus. On the one hand, she didn’t want anything to do with her cheating father’s legacy and, regardless of their relationship, Anna felt hurt by what she saw at Marcus’s the night before. On the other hand, surely her dad owed her at least this, and Marcus hadn’t really done anything wrong since they weren’t technically exclusive. The two issues swirled around in her head as she emerged in SoHo and walked up the steps to the MarMac gallery.
As she walked in, she was almost immediately greeted by one of the other assistants, who threw a thumb drive at her that she barely caught.
“These are the early entries for the Emerging Talent contest. Marcus wants us to screen them as they come in so there aren’t hundreds of entries for him to go through all at once. And make them anonymous; he wants to be able to tell his sister that the reason her kid didn’t win is because he’s a shit photographer, not because he’s trying to mess with her.”
Anna nodded and turned the thumb drive over in her hand as she walked up the stairs to the office. A couple of years ago, she would have jumped at the chance to enter something like this. Even though there were dozens of contests young photographers could enter, Marcus’s was special in that it usually resulted in the winner actually gaining momentum in the art world. She even had a collection she had shot just before starting at the gallery that she knew Marcus would like; a series of photos of forgotten Manhattan landmarks. But she was a gallery assistant now, not a photographer. And she worked for Marcus. She couldn’t enter.
She sat down at an open desk and looked out over the gallery below. A buyer was there already, someone she recognized from previous events. Rumor had it that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds were her clients. As the gallery manager shook her hand and put a sold sticker next to the painting, Anna wished, not for the first time, that her photos could be seen by so many influential people. Almost everyone who showed at MarMac went on to do well. But instead she was sat behind the desk trying to anonymize Marcus’s nephew’s contest entry.
Anna took out her laptop, connecting to the server and opening up her email like she did every morning. An email came in from Marcus almost immediately.
U ok?
She looked up toward his office, where she could see him peeking through the window.
Not really, she typed out, but she couldn’t press Send. It didn’t feel right to confront him.
Instead, she stood up to go to the bathroom, avoiding looking toward Marcus’s office on her way. As she passed through the door that separated the gallery from the office, she turned her un-made-up face away from the couple of people coming through the front door, walking as quickly as she could across the marble floor.
Once she made it to the Ladies’ room, Anna leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on her face. What would she say to Marcus? She was notoriously bad at lying; Lizzy used to clean her out of her Halloween candy when they played poker as kids. Her blushing usually gave her away. Could she manage to get through a work day with Marcus without bringing up what she had seen the night before?
But she didn’t have time to figure that out, because the door to the bathroom creaked open, and Marcus poked his head through, stepping in once he saw that Anna was alone.
Standing in front of him, it was easy for Anna to understand how she had fallen under Marcus’s spell. He had a universal appeal, looking rugged yet refined at the same time. On the rare occasions he had taken Anna somewhere public, women and men alike would stare at him and shoot daggers at her.
But now, Anna was the one shooting daggers, hard as she tried not to give too much away.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Marcus said, the slight southern draw that Anna was pretty sure was an affectation coming out strong.
“What are you talking about?”
Marcus smiled and looked at his feet. “I’m talking about you coming into work nearly two hours late looking like you got hit by a bus. I know you’re sleeping with the boss, but you wouldn’t want to appear to be taking advantage.”
Anna felt her stomach churn. Normally, she would have laughed it off, but she had too much on her mind to make the effort. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I’ve never asked you for a thing, especially not since our little arrangement began. Excuse me for having a bad day.”
Marcus’s smile dropped, and he stepped toward Anna, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “Hey, hey, what’s going on? I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m fine,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more, but she felt the truth of last night bubbling inside her, so she shut it tight.
“You know you can tell me anything, right, Anna?” he asked, condescension dripping from his words, as if she were a little girl trying to hide that she had eaten the last cookie.
“Is that what you said to the girl you fucked last night?” She felt the words tumble out of her mouth, trying and failing to catch them and shove them back in. So much for not confronting him. Marcus gave very little away, but she could tell from the twitch in his eye that she had surprised him.
“You were at the theater?”
“No, I was at your apartment. Or, I was on my way there when I saw you through the window.” Though nice to know you were flaunting her around at the theatre, too.
Marcus was quiet for a moment, then his eyes widened as he realized what she must have seen. Then, just as quickly, he was back on his game. “Anna, I’m sorry that you saw that, but surely you didn’t think you were the only person I was dating?” He was digging in his heels; asserting his dominance. He must have thought so little of her.
She realized in that moment just how disposable she was to him. And as long as she was disposable, she was never going to get anywhere working for him. If she had felt discarded last night, she felt absolutely disintegrated now. She needed to figure something else out.
“Marcus, I need to take some time off,” she said.
“Great,” he said. “Submit your vacation request to HR for approval.”
“No,” she said, “I have to go now. I have nearly three weeks of paid vacation accrued. I’ll be taking it now. When there are two weeks left, I’ll send in my notice.”
He frowned at her. “So much for not taking advantage of the situation.”
She glared at him. “I’m not taking advantage. My dad died a few months ago, and he left me a property in Greece. I have to go there to claim it. I only have a small window before it goes to someone else, so I have to go now.”
“You have to go on vacation urgently enough that you’re willing to quit this job?” He laughed. “Are you kidding?”
“Nope. Not kidding,” she said, shaking her head. “And it’s not a vacation. I’ve just explained the situation.”
He nodded slowly. “I hope you know that you’ve just ruined your future,” he said, but Anna saw a flicker of hurt cross his face, and she felt a tiny spark of pride that she had taken back control – she’d hurt him before he could hurt her again.
Without saying another word, he slipped through the door and was gone, leaving Anna standing there alone, her hands still dripping with water.
She kept staring at the door for a good minute after he left. How had her frustration with Marcus turned into a decision to go to Greece? But she had said it, and she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t grovel for her job back. She wasn’t about to let Marcus think she was taking advantage of their arrangement. Not after this.
She