Indecent Proposal

by Jean Maxwell

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2014 Jean Maxwell

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-687-4

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: Melissa Hosack

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  For working professionals everywhere:

  May you find that elusive work-life-love balance

  and take romance with you wherever you go.

  And for DRH,

  who taught me that life is short,

  and to always “take the good things.”

  INDECENT PROPOSAL

  Workplace Gone Wild, 1

  Jean Maxwell

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  “It's due when?” Carlin asked her boss, hoping she hadn't heard him correctly.

  “The proposal for Red Lake has to be submitted by Friday at four p.m. We'll need your help again, I'm afraid.”

  Carlin nodded, but would rather have thrown something at Raymond's bald head. She'd had enough late nights battling printer jams and patching together electronic documents that resembled a canine's breakfast just to crank out these crazy bids.

  “Understood,” she said, knowing better than to voice these frustrations. “When do we start?”

  Raymond leaned against the doorframe of her office and looked at his watch. “Now would be good.”

  Carlin rolled her eyes and tossed her pen onto the desktop in disgust. “Naturally,” she replied, sorry that she'd even asked the question. “I need a coffee.”

  “By all means,” Raymond said. “Take an early dinner break, come back in an hour. The files should be in your inbox by then.”

  Carlin stood. “I can hardly wait.”

  “You'll be working with our new Project Manager, Thatcher Banks. I expect he'll be the one emailing the files and any instructions to you.”

  What kind of name is Thatcher, Carlin mused, raising one eyebrow in detached curiosity. “Sounds like a total nerd.”

  “I've not met him,” Raymond said. “But he comes highly recommended. Has a lot of field experience, and a great reputation for getting things done.”

  She shrugged. “If you say so. What's it going to involve?”

  Raymond sauntered to his own office a few doors down. “Similar to the Vitamara proposal we did last month. I'm sure you'll find out when Mr. Banks gets here in the morning.”

  Carlin grabbed her coat on the way out. Damn crazy engineers. Couldn't they ever select these RFPs, Requests for Proposals, with a little more notice? By the time the documents filtered down to her, there might be less than twenty-four hours to respond to them. Hardly enough time to fill out the basic info, let alone put enough lipstick on them to present a winning bid.

  She sighed as she sank into the driver’s seat of her vintage '68 Mustang. The engine roared to life with a comforting rumble. She'd named her Martha, after Martha Stewart. She wished she could be as tough as the real Martha.

  After ordering her usual Vente Café Misto with low-fat milk, Carlin cruised out of the drive-thru and maneuvered back into traffic. Not in any real hurry, she sipped the hot, frothy liquid from the cup as she retraced her route back to the office.

  She loved her job at Paragon Engineering. More to the point, she loved the opportunity of working directly with the Vice President of Operations, Raymond Cox. Her duties as Public Relations Manager allowed her to experience first-hand the inner workings of the company, spin it to the masses via website and press releases, and make valuable career connections in the process.

  Personal connections, however, were another matter. Divorced for nearly a year, she hadn’t felt the need for another man in her life for a long time. And a hell of a thing, being single again at the age of thirty-eight. Despite working among professionals, she hadn’t met anyone who interested her in the slightest.

  Unfortunately, her hormones had other ideas.

  As the months passed, Carlin felt her body awakening in the most inconvenient ways. Nipples that went stiff without provocation; random pulsing of the tender tissues between her legs. Damned inconvenient! And every time she looked in the mirror? Another wrinkle, another dimple, another hair growing in a spot it had no right to.

  “Fuck it,” she shouted into the traffic noises blaring through her open window. “Who needs men? I’ve got far too much work to do.” Another sip of milky Misto made her feel much better and in control of her wayward body functions.

  Before long, she and Martha had parked at the office again. Dusk settled in around the concrete and steel building, leaving the upper floor windows gleaming gunmetal-grey in the fading light. Raymond’s car still lingered in the parking lot. At least she wouldn’t have to slog through overtime alone. Though not officially part of her job scope, the company’s expansion into industrial plant construction found her frequently assisting with bid proposals to garner new contracts.

  Carlin swiped her security cardkey at the entrance and returned to her office. She could hear Raymond tapping away at his keyboard. She settled in behind her desk and checked for the promised emails.

  Thatcher Banks.

  Thatcher Banks.

  Thatcher Banks.

  Good Lord, the man had flooded her inbox already. She clicked on the first one.

  “Thank you, Raymond, for your offer of assistance in preparing the Red Lake Upgrader RFP. I would be most grateful for the help of Miss Cates on this project with such tight timelines.” Thatcher Banks, PMP, Project Manager, Paragon Engineering, yada yada yada.

  Carlin noted this one had only been cc’d to her. She clicked on the next message that contained attachments.

  “Good evening, Miss Cates. I wish to thank you in advance for your help. Please find attached the client request letter and bid form specifications. Other materials to follow shortly.”

  Hmm. Seemed quite a polite bastard, if nothing else. She imagined the persona behind the neatly crafted messages.

  Thatcher Banks.

  Fifty-ish, overweight, and balding. English? Yeah. An English accent would fit perfectly with his gentlemanly words. Carlin chuckled aloud and took another long sip of Misto. Damn it tasted good…enough to keep her going a few more hours. She began downloading the files Mr. Banks had sent and saved them to the network.

  A zipped folder rounded out the group, which generally meant a big batch of image files. Another email flashed in her inbox. Thatcher Banks again, cc’d to her.

  “That’s all for now. Thanks again, Raymond, for your assistance in pulling this project together. I hope to treat you and Miss Cates to lunch very soon to express my gratitude in a much more tangible way.”

  Regards, Thatcher Banks, PMP, etc. etc. etc.

  Carlin yawned and moused over the exit command of her email program when yet another message appeared.

  “Dear, Miss Cates. I do hope I have not kept you too late at the office on my account. I promise to make it up to you when we meet. Have a pleasant evening.” Thatcher.

  Thatcher? No formal signature this time, just ‘Thatcher’. This seemed a tad personal, and she pictured the fat, balding Englishman again. She deleted this last message and closed the program. Mr. Banks would have some explaining to do come morning.

  Carlin shut down her computer and prepared to leave.
In the ensuing quiet, she heard Raymond’s office chair give its familiar squeak.

  “Goodnight, Ray,” she called from the hallway.

  “Goodnight, Maniac,” he said in reply.

  Carlin winced. Her first name, and her tendency to drive Martha a little on the hot side, seemed to have her boss fixated on late comedian George Carlin’s well-known routine in which he quips: “Ever notice how anyone driving slower than you is an Idiot….and anyone driving faster than you is a Maniac?” ‘Maniac’ had become a name Raymond used to inflate her ego before issuing some impossible task. What in hell did this project entail that he wasn’t telling her?

  “Hey,” Ray added, “did you get a chance to post about our generous donation in the news blog?”

  Damn! She’d been about to do that when he dropped the Red Lake bomb on her. “Ah, first thing tomorrow, Ray.” While proposals weren’t really her job, postings on the company website certainly were. And a donation of $10,000 deserved major coverage…perfect fodder for the PR machine. They’d handed over the check this morning to FRIAR, First Response International Air Rescue, an organization that Paragon staunchly supported every year.

  It could wait until tomorrow, she decided. She jotted a reminder on a post-it note, stuck it to her desktop, and made a fast exit before her boss thought of anything else for her to do.

  Chapter Two

  The late September day dawned gray and chilly. Carlin dressed in very unimaginative attire this particular morning, a plain rib-knit sweater and dark slacks. Although exhausted, she remembered to take the additional prescription meds her doctor had recently ordered for her. Two kinds of antidepressants must surely be better than one, right? Bah. Her unpleasant split with her ex-husband, coupled with on-the-job stress had sent her to the counselor’s couch, and subsequently, to the pharmacy counter.

  “For you, Carlin,” her doctor had said, “it’s no different than a multivitamin. It’s addressing a chemical deficiency in your body, nothing more. You can take it indefinitely, with little or no side effects.”

  Yeah, right. Her sister had been on antidepressants before, and the side effect she described hardly seemed inconsequential. She’d said the meds left her unable to achieve orgasm. Jesus! If you weren’t depressed before, that would surely do it! Better to stay depressed and be able to get off once in a while, she thought. Oh well, with her ex gone, getting off hadn’t been a priority lately, despite her body’s unbidden cravings.

  She checked herself in the mirror. From her fringed bangs, her dark brown hair skimmed the sides of her face and pooled onto her shoulders in its usual fashion. Reddish undertones gleamed here and there from the light overhead. Her makeup understated, she wore a cream foundation and simple rose blush, her mascara edged with a smoky grey eyeliner. She thought she looked okay, if perhaps a little pale. She tied a multicolored chiffon scarf around her neck to add a bit of jazz to her otherwise dull outfit, and headed off to work.

  By the time she arrived at the office, muted beams of sunlight struggled to earth through the dissipating cloud cover. Her mood picked up a little, but a glance at the dashboard clock revealed she was five minutes late.

  She parked Martha at the end of the lot and took a comforting whiff of the car’s interior. Cocunut-lime fragrance flooded her nostrils, providing a last-minute hit of aromatherapy to help her through a long day.

  She slipped into her office unseen and snapped her laptop into its dock. Only then did she notice the stack of stationery supplies on one side of her desk. Divider tabs, card stock, 3-ring binders. It would seem that Ray or Mr. Banks had some pre-conceived ideas about how this RFP should be assembled.

  As the computer booted up, she paced over to Raymond’s office. Several voices issued from inside. “Good morning,” she announced as she entered the room.

  Raymond, Raymond’s boss and General Manager Don Hayworth, and a third man all sat chatting amiably. The unknown face could only belong to the famed Thatcher Banks. Fifty-ish, balding, overweight?

  Dear God. The man was none of these things. Without meaning to, Carlin stared at this…this…specimen. Of average stature, he sat casually, legs apart, leaning forward in his chair while resting his forearms on his knees. A broad smile radiated from his face.

  Holy fuck.

  Every lamp in the room could have burned out at that moment, and the place would still have been illuminated with the power of that smile. Carlin swore she’d never seen that many perfect white teeth in one mouth before, if you didn’t count the killer whales at Sea World.

  “Hello,” she said, almost as a question.

  He looked directly at her. Beautiful, honey-brown eyes took her in. Smartly groomed, reddish blond hair framed his chiseled cheekbones and strong chin. A touch of ginger coloured his fair complexion.

  “Hello,” he replied, his head tilting a bit. The motion revealed his perfect aquiline profile.

  “Good Morning,” Raymond said, rising to his feet. “Carlin Cates, this is Thatcher Banks.”

  Thatcher took his cue to stand also, reaching out his hand to Carlin. “Miss Cates,” he said with a nod.

  “Mr. Banks,” she replied, as businesslike as she could muster. She grasped his hand, holding it just a fraction longer than necessary, irrationally wanting to maintain contact for as long as possible.

  The man captivated her. There seemed no other word for it. She dropped his hand, aware that the room’s awkward meter had just shot up a notch. Someone coughed.

  “Good Morning, Carlin.”

  Carlin turned to the voice in embarrassment. “Good Morning, Don.” She felt her face redden. She’d pretty much forgotten their G.M. had even been in the room. “How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you. Good of you to help out our new recruit here,” Don said, gesturing toward Thatcher.

  Carlin turned back to Mr. Banks, not quite making eye contact. “My pleasure. I see you’ve already left me some materials. What would you like me to start with?”

  Thatcher fixed his gaze on her again. “I’m waiting on more documents,” he said in a soft voice. “But the drawings are complete. You could probably start with those.”

  Carlin remembered the zip folder. “Are there particular ones you need first?”

  The honey-brown eyes blinked. “All of them.”

  All of them? Christ, that would take an hour at least. “I’d best get to it then.”

  “Thank you. Nice to meet you, Carlin,” Thatcher said as she retreated from the room. Her face burned now. So much for the chubby, hairless Englishman! Carlin shook her head. Thatcher Banks might not be the handsomest thing on legs. But damned close!

  Carlin took a seat behind her desk and signed into the network. The scarlet flush in her cheeks spread seemed to spread southward to her throat and chest. Her small office seemed unbearably warm now.

  Thatcher Banks, corporate hottie. Who knew? An unlikely façade for such a celebrated performer. Suddenly the extra pressures of the job mattered not. She would do her very best to help this man. She extracted the zipped drawing files and sent them to the printer.

  Her morning sped by. She folded blueprints, checked for new emails with critical attachments, wrote descriptions and footnotes, and formatted everything to standard. Thatcher Banks appeared in her inbox every few minutes, with messages like “good to print” and “as attached.” Carlin worked quickly and efficiently, until she felt a sudden, unwelcome rush of blood to her head.

  “Aah,” she groaned, lowering herself into her padded desk chair. She could feel her temples pulsing and nausea building in her stomach. What the hell? She’d felt fine earlier, like any other workday. Now she felt almost dizzy, fuzzy stars forming in her field of vision and the skin on her arms tingling into gooseflesh. No, this couldn’t happen now, not when people were counting on her.

  Take a deep breath, she told herself. In with the good air, out with the bad. Inhale. Exhale. It didn’t help. Maybe that extra pill this morning hadn’t been such a good idea.

&
nbsp; Carlin focused her eyes on the tableau of open binders, stacks of printouts, and multicolored divider tabs before her. Her stomach heaved at the idea of trying to finish it all. The package had to be hand-delivered by end of day tomorrow. She hated letting people down…least of all the smiling, sexy Thatcher Banks.

  As if on cue, he appeared in her doorway.

  Something about the sudden onset of her illness allowed Carlin to see Thatcher’s frame in vivid detail. She scanned him from head to toe.

  He stood about six foot one, from his stylishly cropped hair, to his polished black dress shoes. In between, she saw muscled thighs straining gently against the denim that encased them.

  A leather belt with its distinctive J Lindberg buckle separated the jeans from the white pinstriped shirt that fell open a button or two, uncovering just enough chest to remain officeworthy. His rolled-up sleeves accentuated strong forearms where a summer’s tan still lingered.

  At last, she found herself focusing on his rugged but clean-shaven facial features where a gleaming white grin began to spread, causing delightful little crinkles to form around his eyes.

  “Why, Miss Cates, you look positively green. Is something wrong? Can I get you anything?”

  Carlin swallowed hard. His image began to swim a little before her eyes, the queasiness rising into her throat. “No, thank you, I…I’m not sure what’s wrong…this isn’t like me to get sick.” She had to look away from those magical brown eyes. “I feel awful.”

  “Some water? Pain relievers? I have some, if you’d like.” He stood there, waiting for her answer. “Have you eaten anything? It’s almost lunch. You really should eat something, I’m sure you’d feel better.”

  Carlin began to squirm under his intent gaze and his unwillingness to let the issue go. “I don’t think I could keep anything down, really. But thank you anyway.”