(Complete) Sage Petersen is in love with her boss. Their passionate relationship is all she wants, even when her friends think he's not right for her.
Aidan Reilly can't stop thinking about Sage. He knows she doesn't belong with her boss. None of...
Sage Petersen adjusted the cashmere scarf around her neck, as she walked briskly through Central Park. The air was brittle and the bare trees creaked in the wind. It was winter in New York City. Even as she trudged through the slushy sidewalk, she was living her dream. Her lunch break was almost over. Picking up her pace to a jog, she entered the museum through a staff entrance using her key card. Every time she stepped into the old ornate building, she felt a surge of excitement.
Her father's vast connections helped her get her position, but that couldn't take away her sense of accomplishment. Networking may have gotten her foot in the door, but hard work had given her more responsibility — hard work and long hours. Both were the reason her lunchtime walk in the park was so important. She typically hid in the basement of the museum from eight until eight.
At her age, she should be putting on her Jimmy Choo's and drinking martinis paid for by Wall Street suits every night. Instead, she saved the fun for the weekend. Designer dresses were impractical in the vaults of the building where she worked as a junior archivist. Working with old artifacts was utopia for a history nut, like Sage. She was researching her dissertation on pre-fifteenth century North American history. She was fascinated with the people who came upon these shores which children never learned about in school. Christopher Columbus was not the first and was significantly overrated.
Geoffrey Sutton, the Director of the Archive Department, was the reason she had wanted her job so desperately. Dr. Sutton was an expert and had published books on her field of study. Although he was her idol before she met him, her infatuation had grown exponentially, since she started working in his department. The fact he looked nothing like a stuffy, drab, stereotypical historian hadn't hurt.
Dr. Geoffrey Sutton was beautiful. He had brown eyes and dark brown hair, which was graying slightly at the temples. He was at least fifteen years older than her, which put him close to forty. His tall body didn't look like he spent ten hours a day in a basement. He had to workout before work, Sage decided as she spent far too much time imagining him sweaty. He arrived later than her eight o'clock, closer to ten, although he often attended meetings upstairs prior to the museum opening.
The department slowly cleared out after five pm. The other archivists left to go home or meet friends, but Sage continued working. At first she was too engrossed to leave, but also her dissertation needed additional research outside her job responsibilities. She questioned Dr. Sutton every chance she could and often spent her evenings listening to his deep voice discuss fascinating facts.
As the head of the department, Dr. Sutton should not make her pulse quicken, but he did. When they discussed her research after the others left, he would lean over her shoulder and couldn't breathe, let alone think.
When she finally left work, she walked in the cold night to her apartment, only a few blocks from the museum. Stepping through the opened door into the warm lobby, Jimmy, the night doorman greeted her.
She smiled. "Good evening to you too, Jimmy. How did little Cameron do on his spelling test?"
"One hundred!" He had a proud smile. The day before Jimmy had been quizzing his son over the phone when she arrived home.
He worked nights and his wife worked days. Last Christmas, she gave him a gift certificate for an expensive restaurant, because the couple deserved a date. She had to refrain from doing more for them. Growing up with money, she learned people didn't like to be treated as a charity case.
Her salary barely paid for her food, but her father covered all her expenses. Being the only child of a wealthy shipping magnate, she had every need met. Could her father's money arrange to satisfy her need for Geoffrey? She sighed just thinking of his name.
Sage lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, on the upper west side a few blocks from Central Park. She had a doorman — technically multiple doormen working shifts. Her neighbors were older and established. Girls her age didn't live in her kind of building. She would have liked to have roommates and thrift store furniture, but her father wanted her safe. She was spoiled and knew it.
She lived in the dorms for her first two years at Columbia. Her roommate, Marissa, was still Sage's best friend. Marissa lived with two other girls in a place Bill Petersen wouldn't allow.
She reached her apartment and headed right for the fridge for a half a carton of beef lo mein. Every day, she ate yogurt for lunch in the park, so she could walk for most of her hour break. Only rain and extreme temperatures kept her inside at lunch. She needed sunlight to counteract the artificial lights she worked under.
Her phone chimed. Marissa had sent her a time and place to meet the following night. On Fridays, she left work on time.
Before she could reply, her phone rang, and she answered her mother's call.
"Darling, how was your day?"
Wonderful Geoffrey brushed his arm against mine. Goosebumps spread over my skin.
"Productive. Did you get snow?"
"Two inches. Just enough to cover the ground. I prefer my garden a multitude of colors instead of white."
Bea Petersen had a beautiful labyrinth of gardens she spent a lot of time tending herself, but it wasn't a one-person job. She employed a full-time gardener to help. In the winter, Julio was also responsible for snow removal and odd jobs. He occasionally even acted as chauffeur.
Sage had learned to treat others with respect from her mother. Julio ate lunch in the breakfast room every day with his wife Rosa who was their housekeeper. Often Bea would join them. The young couple lived in an apartment over the garage.
Sage found it romantic, because they fell in love and married while working together for her family. She always wanted to find a husband, who looked at her the way Julio looked at Rosa. She dreamed of Geoffrey gazing into her eyes.
"Sage. Sage, honey!"
"What? Sorry, I'm tired." She lied to cover up her daydream.
"You should pick a weekend and come home. It's been too long."
"I'll see. You know Marisa keeps me booked."
"I don't want to have to wait until spring to see you. You have friends at home."
"Okay... okay."
She lied. She often went to the museum on Saturdays hoping to see Geoffrey. Her mother was right, her closest friends were at home. The other children she grew up with on their private street knew her better than any of her New York friends, even Marissa.
The Calhoun and Hayes children grew up with the same privilege as Sage. They attended the same private school and received invitations to the same events. As children, they ran between the grounds of each of their estates, especially in her mother's garden. She thought of each as her cousins. She missed them, but going to Boston for a weekend would be one less Saturday spent near Geoffrey.
