I was laughing so hard I could barely keep the grip on the pen to write my name.
I grabbed an envelope and popped the letter in and sealed it. Then I wrote his name on the front, put some of my red lipstick on and placed a big kiss next to his name.
“What did you write? You didn’t show me.” Bernice frowned.
“Never mind.” I set the envelope down and downed the wine in my glass.
Once I sipped the last drop my brain felt foggy and I couldn’t remember what I was doing.
Bernice took the envelope, carefully undid it, and took the letter out. She squealed when she read it.
“You can’t send him this!”
“I know, but it felt good to write.” I wasn’t really going to send him the note. I actually can’t remember what I was going to do, but I wasn’t stupid.
“Bernice what is…” my voice trailed off as the room started spinning.
The last thing I remembered before resting my head on the desk was Bernice laughing and saying something about sheep.
Chapter 2
Paige
It was like being in a time slip.
Or being drugged and waking up to find you’d been kidnapped and taken to some faraway country where they were going to harvest your organs.
I’d watched too many films but that was how I felt. When I lifted my head, I knew it was the next day, and I was still in the mailroom, but as to what time of day it was I had no idea.
I slept here. How embarrassing. I can’t believe I fell asleep at work. What the hell was wrong with me?
Depending on when it was the mail room staff would have come in and seen me. Maybe it was still quite early, because it was quiet.
Where was Bernice?
Couldn’t she have called me a taxi? Or, at least seen to it I got home.
It was bright outside. So bright in fact, it hurt my eyes to look at the radiant sunlight spilling through the window. It felt like torture to even try to force myself to look.
I made a move to stand but then I scanned over the desk before me and realized something.
It’d been cleaned.
The glasses that were there last night were gone and…
No wait.
The emails I printed off were on the desk last night…
Oh wait.. and the note. I bit down hard on my lips as I remembered the note.
Where was everything?
I grabbed my bag and started looking through it. The papers weren’t there.
I found my phone and saw that it was nearly nine, which was bad, but a small relief. Most people started turning up from around nine-thirty onwards.
I found Bernice’s number and called her, but the phone went straight to her voicemail.
I hated feeling so disorientated. What I needed was a shower, or a bath. This craziness required a bath. A long, hot bath where I could soak for hours.
Not exactly what I should be doing now since I was here, in the same clothes as yesterday, and I knew my hair looked a mess. But, I knew a bath would do the trick.
I could go home quickly, sort myself out, and then get back here before lunch. I didn’t live far from San Francisco Bay, but the traffic could be a nightmare during the pre-lunch hours. There was an ease just after lunch when it wasn’t as busy, but I didn’t think it would go down very well being away all day. The new guy was already on my ass about my work, I didn’t need him breathing down my neck about my time keeping too.
Elizabeth wouldn’t have minded. She would have told me to take the day off. I didn’t even want to meet this new guy anyway, let alone ask for any favors.
I was just about to search the desk drawers for the emails when Frank walked in.
He smiled when he saw me, then started laughing, which suggested he was probably the first one in this morning and saw me in my disheveled mess.
“Frank. Hey.” I tried to smile against the headache I now felt brewing.
My hangovers came in the form of delayed headaches which grew progressively worse the more awake I became.
“Paige.” He said tilting his head to the side, so his skater boy locks drifted over his shoulders. His brown eyes sparkled as he looked at me. “You were totally fast asleep in here when I came in this morning.”
“I was drinking with Bernice and… oh God you know what we’re like.” I chuckled, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind my ear.
“You guys are terrible.” He smirked, knowing exactly what I meant, and unfortunately having first hand experience.
Frank had started working here nearly three years ago now, so was well versed in our mailroom antics. It wasn’t just us though.
Other things happened here. Bernice and I were mild in comparison to the other staff. The mailroom’s thick walls and private rooms allowed other secret, saucier, activities to take place. Perfect for those who wanted to take advantage of the no restriction on workplace relationships policy.
“I cleaned up and delivered the letter to Jason. Did you want coffee?”
I was about to answer, because coffee would give me the energy I needed to get home, but my words dissolved in my brain as I registered what he’d just said.
Did he say he delivered the letter to Jason?
Letter…
As in my letter? My handwritten response to his emails that I had no intention of sending to him!
No… it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
Not even I was that unlucky right?
“What, um… letter?” I stuttered trying to breathe. Trying not to wither away from the no way in shit could that happen to me moment, and die.
I needed confirmation before I panicked. Frank could be talking about another letter. Right?
One that wasn’t mine… maybe.
“The one with the big old kiss on it.” He grinned and gave me a saucy wink.
“Oh shit!” I cried and dropped my bag. “Fuuucccck!”
“What?” Worry washed over his face.
“He wasn’t supposed to get that.”
“It had his name on it. I just thought it was his,” Frank sighed. “I placed it in his in tray so maybe –”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. My legs took over and I ran at lightning speed through the door.
God in Heaven of all the things that could happen, why that?
Please, please let there be a chance he hadn’t gotten the letter yet.
Please.
This guy already thought I lacked heart and warmth. What the hell would he think after reading my letter that told him he needed to get laid or have a sex marathon.
I remembered everything I wrote with absolute clarity.
No amnesia there, oh no.
I took the stairs two at a time to get to his office on the third floor. The elevator would have been too agonizing to wait on, but probably a better choice since I was completely out of breath by the time I got to the top of the stairs.
Panic, however, boosted me forward.
Good, the floor was quite empty. There were just two janitors from the cleaning company doing the floors, and they were heading down the corridor. The opposite direction to me.
Vanessa, his secretary, also wasn’t at her desk. Thank God.
Maybe I could get inside his office, hopefully unnoticed.
I rushed up to the door, looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching, then proceeded inside.
The office had no resemblance to the one Elizabeth had. He’d changed it.
Now it looked like the standard office you’d find in one of those high-powered firms. Elizabeth had more of a hippie style, so had a sofa covered in fur and patterned cushions. This guy had leather. The sofa I shared many jokes with Elizabeth on was gone, replaced by two leather chairs with padded backs.
A similar chair was behind a large mahogany table, and the room smelled of newness and wealth.
I looked around for the ‘In’ tray. Elizabeth’s was just on the wall by the file cabinets, but that’d been moved.
Damn it, I should h
ave asked Frank for more info before running off the way I had.
Where was the damn tray?
That panic was starting to make me sweat, and I was fully aware I was in his office and he could come in at any time and catch me.
Maybe I should go back downstairs and talk to Frank.
I turned to do just that but then I saw it. It was in the little room Elizabeth kept her coats in.
The room now looked more like a storage room because there were two large gray filing cabinets and the in tray was just above the one closest to the door.
I would have taken the time to admire the cool way it looked, but that would have to wait for another day.
I went up to the door, turned the handle to go in and shrieked when I found it locked.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
Why was it locked? Damn it. Damn…fucking damn.
I pulled a deep breath and look around again, eyes darting around my surroundings.
Outside the glass windows I could see that I was still alone.
Maybe Vanessa had a spare key for the room. But where?
I could look for it, but what if she caught me snooping around?
Perhaps I could make something up. My mind couldn’t work well enough to come up with a good story at this precise moment, but hopefully something would come to me if the need called for it. I could say it was an emergency then maybe she’d just give me the key.
What was I even thinking?
Vanessa wouldn’t give me the key.
That damn woman was lovely, but took her job seriously. She was very professional and what I’d always classed as the perfect secretary. No way would she just hand over the keys though.
So, what now? God what now?
Wish I’d gone to church more, so I could at least pray for a miracle.
I looked up at the little window at the top of the door. It was one of those that was put there for decoration as opposed to serving a purpose because it was too high to be opened on a daily basis.
The question however on my mind after seeing it was – could I fit through it?
It was high up, but I could try to get up there and go through. The file cabinet was there so I would just lower myself on to that.
Before the thought even processed properly I was on the move. The biggest thing on my mind was the image of my new boss reading over my letter.
The horror of that would make me do anything. I just hoped that the letter was still in the in tray and he hadn’t read it.
No time to think. I grabbed one of those leather chairs, stood on it, and reached for the window. It was just big enough for me to get a grip and pull myself up.
I knew this was bordering on crazy, I knew it. And I might possibly go crazy when my senses returned to me, but I had to do this.
I took a deep breath as I hoisted myself up and managed to secure my body in between the window. All I needed to do now was turn somehow and lower to the cabinet.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Ask Paige,” a smooth rich voice startled me.
A jolt of shock rushed through my body and I lost my grip.
Before I knew it, I was falling.
I screamed and thought of the damage I would suffer when I hit the ground.
But, I never reached.
Instead of landing on the hard concrete floor, I was caught by two very strong, sturdy arms.
I yelped in shock and attempted to speak, but my voice faded away as I found myself staring into striking blue eyes that pierced through me and captured my gaze.
The color was like the Caribbean Sea. I remembered how mesmerized I was by the color of the sea when I went to the Dominican Republic with Paul.
That was the kind of mesmerization I felt now. Except I was mesmerized by this man who looked like he just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d felt so consumed by the look of anyone that I was at a loss for words. And, he captivated me even more the longer I stared.
The sharp angles of his face were so perfectly aligned he looked sculptured, his high exotic cheekbones enhanced by his sideburns. His spiky, black hair had also been cut into a Faux Hawk, with the top longish to carry off the spikes and the sides short, faded almost.
A neatly cut chin strip was in the center of the cleft in his chin.
I just stared at this guy, in his arms, and I had no idea who he was.
“Who are you?” I finally found my voice. I probably should have said, “Thanks for catching me,” but my eagerness to see who this man was got the better of me.
“Oh, that’s right. We haven’t formally met because you keep avoiding me.”
I opened my mouth to protest his statement, because I didn’t do things like that. Then I remembered there was one person here who I did do that to.
My cheeks burned as heat rushed to them, and I knew I was blushing.
This couldn’t be my new boss. My Colonel Sanders wearing a robe could not look like this.
“Jason Dempsey at your service, and by the way I got your letter.”
Shit! No way.
The smug, arrogant smile he gave me only accelerated my deep, deep embarrassment.
The blood drain from me, and I wished a black hole would open up and swallow me whole.
But it didn’t.
I was still here, there, frozen in shock in Jason Dempsey’s arms.
Chapter 3
Jason
Okay.
This was definitely not the way I imagined meeting the elusive Paige St. James.
Ask Paige.
I had to admit I got the impression she was gutsy, and her attempts to completely avoid me over the last nearly three weeks gave me a good indication of what this relationship of ours was going to be like.
Seeing her gorgeous ass practically on display for me as she hoisted herself up to the window above the door made all the thoughts I had for today’s agenda disappear.
However, I supposed my mind was hardly there this morning after reading her letter to me.
I laughed as she squirmed out of my arms and tried to straighten her clothes.
“You weren’t supposed to get that letter.” She tried not to stutter. Her beautiful face now completely red.
“But it had my name on it.” I smiled at her.
I liked the previous look she gave me. I got looks like that a lot, and I couldn’t help but take pride in it. Especially when the woman looking at me was sexy as hell.
Women were my weakness, and I was a goner when my interest peaked and attraction sparked.
Like now.
“I…” her voice faded away, and I wondered what she thought she could say to me.
“You think I need to get laid, or possibly have a sex marathon.” I stared at her pointedly waiting for an answer.
Her large green eyes dilated and the long, thick lashes that surrounded them cast a shadow on her red face.
“No. I mean. Oh God, this is so embarrassing.” Her hands flew to her cheeks.
“I’ll bet. You haven’t even met me properly yet and you already want to jump my bones.” I knew that would embarrass her further and I was right.
Her face actually looked like it was on fire, and I had to really try hard not to laugh.
“What?” her eyes grew wider. “No, I just said that. It wasn’t meant to get to you. It was a joke.”
“But yet I’ve seen stuff like this in your column.” I had seen it.
I understood her modern edge, and I was probably hypocritical when I suggested she bring more warmth to the table. But that was how I felt. Only for that. As in the advice column.
If she insisted on being the kind of woman who could rock my world in the bedroom, I wouldn’t argue against that.
No way.
However, for this magazine I noticed in my research there was a whole class of readers she wasn’t attracting.
The shy women. The women who didn’t believe in shacking up with the next guy if they just got dumped by someone they�
��d loved their whole lives.
The look of annoyance that crossed her face was exactly what I had expected from our first meeting.
“So, I’m guessing that your attempt to break in my office and get this letter of yours was a blessing in disguise, right?” I chuckled when she actually looked furious.
“I wasn’t breaking in,” she protested.
“Oh, so I suppose you were just showing off that sweet ass of yours then. That was a blessing too.”
She gasped. “You are so out of line.”
“No Sweet Thing, just stating the obvious. Anyhow, we do need to talk about your column. How about today at three?”
“No,” She shook her head. “I’m busy.”
“Four then.” I offered knowing I wouldn’t win.
“No. We don’t need to talk about my column. It’s fine.” She folded her arms under her breasts which I couldn’t help but notice, the force she was putting across her ribs was forcing her cleavage out.
I was already imagining what sort of wild fun we could have before my brain could process it, but I brought my attraction down a notch, so I could set up this business date.
“Feedback is a tool that can be helpful. You won’t accept feedback?”
“You think I have no heart. That is not feedback. That is a criticism of me. You don’t know me.”
“You like how I look, that’s my ticket in,” I replied smugly.
The look on her face did make me laugh this time.
Appalled, wasn’t a strong enough word to describe her expression.
My grandma used to say flabbergasted. That was how I’d describe Ask Paige’s expression as she glowered at me.
I’d have to call grandma at some point and let her know I understood what the word meant now.
Paige shook her head and walked around me, ready to leave me to my laughter.
“See you at four, Sweet Thing.” I called out before she reached the door, to which she turned and scowled at me.
Sweet Thing, was grandma too. Grandma Dempsey called everyone that, but it probably sounded more endearing from her. Just then I’d attempted to replicate her strong Louisiana accent, in true Southern belle style.
I got the feeling I was going to be in for a very interesting time here at Portrait Magazine.
Mailroom Delight Page 2
