by Iona Rose
“Perfectly,” she says.
The flirty smile is gone and she’s no longer purring her words at me. She blushes and starts reaching for the papers. I know I should stay and talk to her, try to make her feel a little less embarrassed, but my chief concern right now is Elena. I need her to understand that this wasn’t what it looked like. I mean it would be weird me staying to comfort Beatrice. It’s not like I’ve led her on or anything. Talking to her would likely only make her more embarrassed. I’m pretty sure I’ve made my point.
I walk out of my office and go to Elena’s. She’s back behind her desk, the report sitting on it in front of her. She has her jacket on and her handbag is over her shoulder. I knock on the door and she looks up and nods for me to come in.
“Here’s the report,” she says, standing up and handing me the report.
“Thanks,” I say, taking it from her. “And thanks for staying late to get it done. Elena what you saw back there ...”
“Is none of my business,” she interrupts.
“It wasn’t what it looked like. I didn’t even know Beatrice was here, and then she came in with some files. She dropped them and she got down on her knees to pick the papers up before I could react.”
“Ok,” Elena says.
Her tone tells me that she doesn’t believe me.
“I’m serious Elena,” I tell her, desperate for her to understand. “I would never ...”
“Like I said it’s none of my business. You really don’t have to explain yourself to me. And if you’re worried that I’ll tell anyone what I saw, I can assure you that I won’t,” Elena says.
She looks embarrassed. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s flustered, tripping over her words.
“There would be nothing to tell because nothing was happening,” I say again.
“Ok,” she repeats.
She still doesn’t sound convinced, but the more I bang on about this, the bigger it becomes. I know it looks like I’m protesting too much and that’s the last thing I want. I decide to let it go. Maybe after a drink or two, I’ll tell Elena how Beatrice tried to seduce me and we can laugh about it.
“So are you ready for that drink then?” I smile.
“Actually I need to take a rain check on that if you don’t mind,” Elena says. “I’m tired and I have a headache coming on. Have a good weekend Ashton.”
She moves towards her office door and as much as I want to beg her to stay, I know it’s pointless. After what she thinks she’s just seen, there’s no way she’s going to agree to come and have a drink with me, and if I press it, I’ll just look like a creep.
“You too,” I say. “And I hope your headache goes away quickly.”
Chances are it’ll go away instantly, you know, being that it’s not actually real. She flashes me a nervous smile and scurries out of the office.
I stand in place for a moment, anger surging through me. I slam my fist down on Elena’s desk. Fucking Beatrice. I can’t believe she’s ruined this for me.
Chapter Fourteen
Elena
I practically ran from Ashton on Friday night. I can’t believe how close I came to letting my guard down with him. I agreed to a drink with him, knowing fine well more than just a drink was on the cards. I was actually starting to believe that maybe he really had changed. And then I went to his office and found Beatrice on her knees giving him a blow job.
He denied it – of course he did – but his excuse for it was lame. If she’d dropped some files, wouldn’t she have waited until he moved away to actually pick them up? If she wasn’t giving him a blow job when I appeared, it’s only because I interrupted them before she got started.
No wonder she hates me. The mess with my diary software obviously wasn’t any sort of hazing. Beatrice was jealous of me. She must have seen the way Ashton looks at me and not liked it and so she decided to sabotage me and make Ashton question my suitability for the job.
Although Friday night was embarrassing, I’m glad I saw what I did. It told me why Beatrice is so standoffish with me, and it told me that Ashton hasn’t changed a bit. Maybe Lottie was right and he never really hated me. He doesn’t act like he hates me. But he’s still an asshole. He obviously thought he could have his way with Beatrice and then have her gone before I got to his office when he would have started trying to charm his way into my panties.
The worst part about all of this is that I’m actually jealous of Beatrice. How fucked up is that? I’m jealous that she’s got something going on with Ashton, someone who I should never even consider touching with a ten foot barge pole after what he did to me. And yet here I am. As naïve as ever, willing to believe Ashton could change and willing to maybe see where things could go with us.
That’s well and truly out of the window now. I have plenty of experience of craving Ashton from afar while hating myself for feeling that way. I guess I’ll just have to go back to that.
I tell myself this at least once an hour, but it’s hard. Ashton has been nothing but nice to me, and he’s the boss. He doesn’t have to go out of his way to make me feel welcome. This makes it damned hard to keep hold of the old resentment and hate him. But the more I let go of the old resentments, the more I notice Ashton’s eyes on me. The more I feel the chemistry between us. And the harder it gets to focus only on my job and not on him and how fucking good he manages to look all the damned time. Even when he’s stressed out he’s hot with it. He doesn’t get dark circles under his eyes, or stress lines around his mouth. No that would be too much to ask. Instead, he gets a brooding look about him, an intensity that only makes me more turned on when I look at him.
I just wish I could get past this whole mess one way or the other. I need to either stop finding Ashton so fucking attractive or find a way to let go completely and learn to trust him, at least to the extent that I can stop thinking him liking me is all just a game designed to humiliate me when I least expect it.
The phone on my desk rings startling me out of my thoughts. I pick up the receiver, glad of the momentary interruption to my thoughts.
“Elena Woods, personal assistant to Ashton Miller. How can I help you?” I say.
“Elena it’s me,” Ashton’s voice comes down the line.
It’s so close I imagine I can feel the warmth of his breath tickling my ear lobe. I shudder with pleasure as I imagine it. So much for an interruption to my thoughts about Ashton. I catch myself and quickly recover my senses.
“Where are you?” I ask, checking my watch. “The shareholders are already in the conference room.”
Panic grips me. Have I dropped the ball and double booked Ashton?
“I’m on my way back to the office now,” he replies. “The traffic is heavy. There’s been an accident and they’ve had to set up a diversion.”
I relax. There’s no way I can get the blame for that.
“Anyway,” Ashton goes on. “The reports I asked you for are sitting on my desk. Can you take them along to the shareholders meeting and just explain I’m on my way, but if they want to familiarise themselves with the figures, now’s the time?”
“Consider it done,” I say.
“Thanks Elena,” Ashton says and then he hangs up.
I listen to the dial tone in my ear for a second, and then I leap into action. I rush through to Ashton’s office and grab the reports. They’re the only files on Ashton’s desk so I don’t waste time thumbing through them.
I head to the main conference room. I feel a little nervous, but facing the room of shareholders can’t be as bad as my interview, and it can’t be anywhere near as bad as coming face to face with Ashton for the first time since school. I take a deep breath when I reach the door and step in.
“Good afternoon everyone,” I say with a smile. “I’m Elena Woods, Mr. Miller’s personal assistant.”
I don’t know why I revert to Mr. Miller instead of Ashton. It just feels right and so I roll with it. All of their eyes are on me now, but it’s not a hostile look. In fact, most of the
m are smiling at me.
“Mr. Miller is caught in traffic. There’s been an accident and as you can all imagine the diversions are causing some problems. He’s on his way and he’s assured me he won’t be long. In the meantime, he’s asked me to give you these reports to start going over.”
I hold the files up and then place them on the table next to the shareholder on the end. He picks the file up and begins leafing through it.
“Does anyone need any refreshments or anything while I’m here?”
“No thank you,” one of the shareholders, a woman wearing a purple dress that I really like replies. “Beatrice has been taking good care of us.”
I bet she has, I think to myself. I dismiss the thought and flash them all another smile.
“Fantastic. Please don’t hesitate to let me or Beatrice know if you need anything.”
I leave the room and head back to my office. My phone is ringing as I approach it, and by the time I’ve dealt with the call, the shareholder’s meeting is the furthest thing from my mind.
I go about my day, filing, calling clients, writing reports and responding to emails from clients and developers. I also get a good few spam emails which I quite enjoy being able to delete without opening.
A couple of hours later, my phone rings again. Again it’s Ashton, and this time, he asks me to come to his office. I agree and get up and head for his office. I raise my hand to knock but he beckons me in before I can. He looks kind of pissed off. His eyes have that dark intensity about them; the one I can’t look away from.
I can’t understand why he seems to be pissed off though. He seemed confident the shareholders would be happy with this month’s performance, and why wouldn’t they be? I printed off the financial reports for him and they show good figures. It must be about something else. I guess I’m about to find out what it is.
I open the door and step inside. Ashton waves me closer, pointing to the chair in front of his desk.
“Is everything ok?” I ask as I sit down.
“Not really,” Ashton says. “Elena, which reports did you print off?”
Oh God he’s pissed off with me not the shareholders. I didn’t see that one coming. What have I done that could have upset him? I try my best to think of something I’ve overlooked but I can’t think of anything. I must have missed one of the reports I was meant to print out for the meeting or something.
“The monthly one and the quarterly one like you asked me to,” I say. “I definitely printed both of them. I trebled checked.”
“Right,” Ashton nods. “From what year?”
“This year,” I say. I feel my heart sink. “Did I get it wrong? Was it meant to be last year’s so you could all compare them?”
“No. It was meant to be this year’s reports,” Ashton says.
Now I’m confused. It sounds like I’ve printed off the correct reports, but if that’s the case, then why does he look so stressed out. He points to the file in front of him.
“This is the file you gave to the shareholders right?”
I nod and he nods back.
“Elena these reports are from two years ago. I walked into chaos in that meeting. The shareholders thought we were losing money. I finally convinced them it was the wrong report and no real harm was done, but you’ve got to be more careful.”
“I was careful,” I say instantly. “I know I printed off the correct reports.”
“Then you picked up the wrong file,” Ashton says. “Didn’t you think to check it before you took it to the shareholders?”
I feel myself blushing.
“No,” I admit. “The meeting was running late and I didn’t want to waste precious moments looking back over something I had done myself and knew to be right. That file was literally the only one on your desk.”
“So you’re saying I got the wrong file out?” Ashton says with a raised eyebrow.
“No, not at all,” I reply quickly. “I’m saying I don’t understand how this happened. I know I printed off the correct document. You can come and see my print history to prove that. And this file was the only one on your desk. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ashton sighs and rubs his hands over his face. He looks at me after a couple of seconds, his eyes unreadable.
“I hate to say this Elena,” he says. My heart sinks further. He doesn’t believe me. He’s going to fire me. “But I think someone is purposely sabotaging you.”
That takes a moment to sink in. Who would want to do that? Funnily enough, it’s something Ashton would have pulled back in school. But he’s not going to risk sabotaging his own company to make me look bad. If this was him, the mistake would have been flagged up before the reports got taken into that meeting. But who else could it be?
My mind goes to one place. I don’t say it out loud. I don’t want to falsely accuse anyone, but there’s only one person who has been less than nice to me, and I’ve already caught her tampering with my computer. Beatrice.
“Do you really think someone would do that?” I ask, choosing my words carefully.
“Honestly Elena, I would have said it was ludicrous before today. But it certainly seems that way. I left the file on my desk this morning, and for it to be wrong by the time of the meeting suggests someone switched it. For now, I’m going to assume the best of my staff and think it was a genuine accident, but I will definitely be looking into this.”
“Thank you,” I say.
I open my mouth to say something else, but I close it, thinking better of it.
“What is it?” Ashton says noticing my reluctance to speak up.
I shake my head.
“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“If you have your suspicions, I’d like to know. They will remain confidential,” he says.
“Oh no, it’s not that,” I say. It’s only half a lie. I do have my suspicions – Beatrice – but that’s not what I wanted to say. I’m certainly not going to point any fingers without solid proof. I’m going to have to say what I really wanted to say now though, or Ashton will never believe I wasn’t about to accuse someone. “I just ... I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because I am happy you believe me. But why? Why are you taking my word for something when everyone else has worked here longer?”
“I’ve seen your work experience. I figure you don’t get a career like that if you’re prone to screwing up and lying about it. Plus, you always did have integrity,” he smiles.
I risk returning his smile and for a second, the atmosphere in the room changes. It becomes charged and I imagine myself getting up out of the chair and going to him. I see myself straddling him, kissing him, my hands in his hair. I can feel myself blushing again, but I don’t look away from him. His gaze holds mine as surely as if we were magnets, drawn to each other. I swallow hard, unsure where this is going, but wanting to find out.
I don’t get to find out. Someone is knocking on Ashton’s door and the moment is broken. He looks up to see who is knocking and waves them in. I look down at the ground, my cheeks burning with embarrassment and frustration. I look up as footsteps approach.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were busy,” a voice says.
Of course it’s Beatrice. It just had to be.
“Really? Can you not see through glass Beatrice?” Ashton says coolly and its Beatrice’s turn to blush.
“I just meant that this is important and I thought you would want to know right away,” she stammers out.
“Fine,” Ashton says. He looks at me. “Thanks Elena.”
I realize I’m being dismissed and I stand up quickly and leave the office, nodding to Ashton as I go. I hurry back to my own office. Once more, I wish I had a wall rather than glass. It takes everything I have to sit down and force myself to look composed. I am anything but composed inside. I am a raw and aching mess and I have a feeling that only Ashton can make that mess feel any better.
Chapter Fifteen
Elena
The office is deadly silent as
I walk across the lobby. It’s after eight and everyone has gone home for the night. Everyone except Ashton and I that is. He asked me to work late tonight as an important client was coming in for a meeting and he wanted me to take the minutes for it. He didn’t come out and say it, but I know he was worried about the meeting. I got the impression he thought the client was going to cancel some of our services. He couldn’t have been more wrong. The client was full of praise for Wave and in fact, he had come in to discuss an expansion of his company and talk about the solutions we could offer for his new venue. His main concern was data security in the new venue and although a lot of the conversation went over my head, Ashton was able to propose a package he loved and he signed up for it on the spot. It’s catapulted our monthly sales and we’re now way ahead of our sales target.
I’ve just been to walk the client to the lift and now I’m heading back to my office to type up the minutes of the meeting. As I make my way down the hallway, I can’t help but notice how strange it is to pass the secretaries area and see it empty. The building is so quiet, but rather than feeling eerie, it feels calming. Maybe it’s because Beatrice’s negative energy isn’t here. She’s not going to be happy when she learns Ashton and I were alone in the building for a few minutes. The thought makes me smile and I catch myself. It’s not a competition. It’s not like I even care about Ashton and who his attention is focused on. Except I do. I really, really do.
I reach the end of the hallway and movement in Ashton’s office catches my eye. He’s standing up – him getting out of his chair must have been what caught my attention - he meets my eye and smiles and beckons me into his office. I go inside. He grins at me. He’s taken his tie off and opened out his shirt collar. He looks so hot it takes everything I have to not throw myself at him.
“That was a better result than I ever could have hoped for,” Ashton says. “I’d like to offer you a glass of champagne to celebrate but I only have scotch. Would you care for some?”
