A Painfully Handsome Boss

I had been working in a multinational company for four years. My boss of one year was young, rich, painfully handsome, smart, and very much engaged. I can’t deny the fact that I found him extremely attractive (I can’t actually imagine that there would be any woman out there who wouldn’t). In the last couple of months, we had been working very closely together since he was very hands-on guy and meticulous. We would work until late in the evening, have dinner together and talk on the phone for hours. In short, we became very close friends.

A few weeks earlier, our group had a celebration and all of us had a too much to drink. After the party, my boss accompanied me to my car. He was very gentlemanly, guiding me by lightly putting his hand at my back or on my elbow. The only physical contacts we ever had before were handshakes. When we got to my car, we said our good-byes and, to my shock, he leaned over and kissed me on the lips. It came as a shock and so I wasn’t able to move. I didn’t respond to his kiss but neither did I push him away. I was just glad I was able to drive home safely. He sent me a text message soon after saying ‘drive safe. let me know when you get home. goodnight’. I didn’t respond to him that night as I felt really awkward. I decided to think that it was alcohol at work when he kissed me. But, for some reason, I wasn’t able to get over it.

When I went to the office the next working day, I pretended like nothing happened. When I went to his office to get some reports signed, he seemed okay and we said nothing of what had happened. When lunchtime, he called me up and asked if we could have a working lunch on the pretext that he wanted to discuss a new project. I, of course, could not say no and so I agreed to meet with him though I suspected it was anything but a new project. At lunch, our conversation was about business and mundane chatter up until the main course when he said ‘about last weekend..’ ‘Here it comes’, I said to myself. ‘Why didn’t you text me when you got home?’, he asked. I just said that I didn’t get his message until the morning but he wanted to talk about what happened. I told him: ‘Let’s forget about it. I’d like to pretend that nothing happened. You were just drunk. Think nothing of it. I’m fine.’ He insisted on saying that he couldn’t stop thinking about me saying he wanted it, that he wanted me that night and that he still did. When I pointed out that he was engaged, he just said he didn’t care. But I said: ‘I do. You’re engaged. You’re my boss. End of story.’ He kept saying that we should talk about it, indicating that he had feelings for me but I didn’t talk anymore. I couldn’t. I was so confused that I don’t actually know how the lunch ended.

The next day, I filed a week-long medical leave. Three days into my leave, I got a text message from him saying ‘I’m coming over. We need to talk’. He knew where I lived and that I lived alone because he had visited my home a few times before. When he came that night, I no longer put up a struggle and we did it right there and then.