by Amelia Hart
“I haven’t had the opportunity to solve the problem yet. Soon, hopefully.
I’m out of town at the moment, so I can’t do lunch, sorry.
Have a great day.’
His response took exactly six minutes to arrive. She knew because she sat and watched the clock at the corner of her screen tick over, hoping and dreading his next letter. Praying it would come, and praying it wouldn’t.
It did.
‘Sorry to hear you haven’t resolved your difficulty. That’s a real drag, with it hanging over you. I could see how upsetting it was for you. I’m still here to be a sounding board if you need.
Sorry too that you’re out of town. I thought I could ply you with omelet or some variation thereof, and then ravish you as previously agreed.’
She blushed fierily. Talk about discovering another side to her workaholic boss! Taking off in the middle of the day to hook up. Decadent.
‘Flexible workday then? Surely someone would miss you if you were gone a couple of hours?
I presume you were expecting to take a couple of hours. I can’t imagine it would be worth my while if it took less time. Allowing for cooking lunch, of course . . .’
Three minutes for his next response. The line-up of letters sat burning a hole on her computer screen.
‘Of course. And everything else. You better believe I would take my time to heat you up. Warm. Tender. Moist and juicy. Mmm mmmm.’
Her heart was beating faster as she read and re-read his words.
Then she highlighted all the letters and deleted them. Next she reconfigured the upstream mail servers to filter her incoming mail and redirect Mike’s correspondence to her own server in the cloud before it reached Techdos. That way he could send to the same address but no one in the company could read it and there would be no trace it had ever existed. She didn’t think Dad would go through her email but he might if he was double-checking she’d been keeping up with Techdos responsibilities as well as everything else on her plate. Heaven forbid he read something spicy from her boss at DigiCom.
She squirmed hopelessly in her chair, the tingle of her arousal subsiding slowly, reluctantly, not even the thought of Dad enough to drive it away completely.
She skipped lunch altogether.
And Mike was in a good mood again, whistling his way around the building.
She was going to go crazy.
Chapter Fourteen
It took six days. Six days of steamy emails. Six days of watching him in the office and longing to touch him. Six days of remembering that single night and dwelling on it in every bold detail. It lived on in her mind in glorious technicolour, the sights, sounds and scents of his passion and hers, shared and magnified. Anything set off her memory, and whole minutes could pass in a daze as her body heated, her cheeks flushed as the blood rose up under them, making her whole body tingle. Perhaps as much as an hour might go by without thinking of him, and then the sensation of her inner thigh rubbing against the fabric of her jeans could get her started again.
She had never been so sex-crazed, so completely gaga over a man. She hadn’t thought it possible, given her pride and dignity. But he had her stunned and reeling.
Six days before she decided to hell with it, she was going to be Kate again for him. With him. Going to set aside her better judgment and just . . . marinate in being with him.
Her infatuation was growing into something deeper. She could feel it rooted in her, impossible to chop out and throw away as she’d ruthlessly discarded human connections before when they didn’t suit her. She didn’t just want his hands on her body. She wanted to talk to him about big things and little ones. She found herself imagining conversations between them, what his face would look like as she said this, or said that.
She dropped little morsels of the things she wanted to share with him into her letters to him, and he expanded on her themes, examining them, asking her opinion, giving his own. At times they had several threads running, so one might be a lascivious sexual fantasy each of them built in turn, and another a dialogue about modern management practices and whether they had done enough to embrace the sweeping changes of the past five years in human and technological evolution.
She wasn’t certain which she enjoyed reading more.
She didn’t delete his messages now. She kept them and reread them, learning him. He was open and unstudied, honest with a courage that surprised her. The guardedness, the privacy and defensiveness that were second nature to her were nowhere to be seen in him.
At work she tried to keep her head down, knowing for certain she wasn’t a good enough actor for this role anymore. She was sure only her tendency to keep fiercely private and to herself had saved her from being the butt of office gossip. If she had made any friends they would have noticed her fixation on Mike. And if someone had drawn his attention to it . . . well. It was lucky she was a loner.
Sometimes she was euphoric. To know him, to be near him . . . to have found someone who could inspire this sort of passion. This man was extraordinary, and she was lucky beyond words to have his attention.
But those were only the times she could manage to forget the truth: whatever he felt about her right now would last only as long as it took for him to discover what had really happened between them. And that would be the end of it all.
It was a rollercoaster. And it grew worse every day; more intense; more desperate; until finally she cracked and gave way. Never mind the consequences for the future. Never mind how much it would hurt when he knew everything and broke all contact. Impulsive, brash, headstrong was how she had always been described by others. Why change now? Why strive to be something she was not? She would make the most of him while she had him. This weekend she would do it. This weekend she would reemerge as Kate, and to hell with the consequences.
So she wrote to Mike to tell him she would be back from her trip then. That she’d meet up with him. The excitement and anticipation built over the intervening days until it seemed impossible that no one around her perceived the truth. It felt as if it must be oozing out of every pore.
She could barely bear to be in the same room as Mike and not say something. No, she was not made for keeping secrets. Far from it. The idea of engaging in industrial espionage seemed like the most towering stupidity now.
When the end of her Friday workday arrived she hurried home the instant she could, and set to work with her cache of beauty supplies. The transformation was more familiar now, and swifter. At 8.30pm she called Mike and asked where he’d like to meet. Her heart was beating fast in a mingling of fear and excitement.
He suggested a restaurant at the Viaduct Harbour she knew vaguely by reputation – good but expensive – and she wondered fleetingly if he expected her to split the bill. She was accustomed to years of tracking her spending carefully, budgeting and saving up for the extravagance of nice clothes and shoes given her meager income from Techdos, plus her tuition fees and the time taken off work to study.
Then she dismissed her pang of concern. He was worth the extravagance, and her current, excellent salary could afford a little splurge. It wasn’t like she was still scraping by on her minimum pay from the family business.
“Shall I pick you up?” he asked, and she felt a flash of panic before remembering she had given a false address on her resume. “Sure thing. Just call me on my mobile and I’ll run down,” she said, to save him finding a park outside her city apartment so he could get out and call up on the intercom by the front door. She gave him the address and rang off, then finished putting herself together in time to leave as soon as he called.
As she scooped up her handbag and keys from the table by the door and gave herself a final check in the mirror, she saw the heightened color in her cheeks from her racing pulse, her eyes sparkling with frenetic excitement. “Calm down,” she hissed at herself. “Don’t screw this up. Be normal.” She tried to take deep breaths, tried to slow her breathing, but when her phone shrilled from inside her bag she almost jumped o
ut of her skin.
Seeing the call was from him she left the apartment even as she answered it, pressing the button to summon the lift. He told her where to look for his car and she said she’d be with him in a moment, in a voice that was almost level.
He had found a space right outside, confounding expectations, and as she crossed the pavement towards the ferocious, gleaming beast of a car, the hem of her fashionable dress swirling against her thighs with each step, she felt the glamour of the moment. To slide her feminine, lithe body into the padded seat and turn to Mike, suave in his suit, and know she had a piece of him for tonight . . . it was a fine thing indeed.
He leaned over, a casual wrist still propped on the steering wheel, and kissed her hello. She thought the kiss carried all the greater knowledge he now had of her from two weeks of letters, many letters, short and long. A knowing and an intimacy. A greeting that really saw and knew her.
It was poignant to her, and bittersweet.
Then as he backed and forwarded, backed and forwarded to ease the car carefully out of its space, she thought she knew him much better than she had, too. As a real person. One who cared intensely about his work, his life, and the people in it; and one who couldn’t quite drive his car, but persevered cautiously.
He wasn’t a cipher to her. Not an object or an obstacle, as she was used to thinking of people. He was her Mike. Hers. Just for now. Just for as long as it took for him to . . . well. Just for now, and she wouldn’t think about the rest. She would focus totally on him, and everything else could wait.
“It feels strange,” he said, “seeing you after so long. I’ve been writing to you for two weeks and thinking about you more than a little, and now here you really are. It’s like you’re not quite real.”
She smiled at him, wanting to say something casual like: ‘One hundred percent real,’ but not wanting to lie. He was right. She wasn’t quite real. So instead she said: “I’m really here. And really hungry. I’m looking forward to dinner.”
“Me too. I’ve heard good things about Soul.”
“You haven’t tried it before?”
“No, not yet. Can’t say I really get out much. Too much work to do.”
“How is work going?”
“The usual. Busy. Challenging.”
“Tell me about it. What sort of things are you working on right now?” She made small talk, drew him out about his projects, enjoying the odd sensation of hearing about the things she was working on from the outside, like a stranger. His global perspective of the company made her see Cathy as a small cog in a much greater machine – her contributions only a minor part of his vision about where the business was going, what he was trying to achieve with it.
With the daylight-lit streets sliding by on either side of the car, she leaned her head back against the headrest, a rich leather smell in her nostrils, the fainter scent of him there too, and an electric thrill running over her skin, a subtle shiver, to be sharing the air with him, his occasional glance her way lighting her up like a beacon. Ah, to be with him and have him look at her like that was balm after the weeks of briskly friendly treatment as just another employee.
When he mentioned her in passing: “. . . young woman – just a kid, really – but quite something, a real wunderkind . . . ” it gave her a jolt, shaking her out of her happy daze.
She took a breath, cautioned herself not to give anything away, then couldn’t resist prying a little further, hungry to hear about herself as seen through his eyes. “Do you like her? This kid?”
“The programmer?” He seemed surprised by the question, glancing at her to see her nod of confirmation. She tried to think of some reason she could give to explain why she asked about this one employee in particular, but he didn’t wait for an explanation, carrying on distractedly as he spotted a parking space and lined up to start a careful parallel parking process.
“Cathy’s her name. And ‘like’ is not really the word for someone like Cathy. I admire her skills. And she speaks her mind, which can be a blessing in an employee, if you don’t mind having your ego bruised a time or two. Which I don’t. I think it’s important when you’re in leadership, to have the odd person around who will tell you if you’re stuffing things up. Most people just do as they’re told.”
“And Cathy doesn’t?”
“No, no not at all. Doesn’t ask permission, just goes ahead and fixes up the bugs and flaws I hadn’t even seen. Pure genius.”
“I hope you’re paying her enough,” she said, her tongue in her cheek, enormously daring.
“Enough for now. I doubt she’s going anywhere in a hurry.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I know that sort of person. Single-minded. Absolutely determined. You just point them in the right direction and they put their shoulder into the harness and keep going. Driving straight on and never deviating or looking around. If I can win her loyalty I’ll have her forever.”
“And you think you can?” she asked, horrified and intrigued by this vision of herself as a workhorse, manipulated and put to use. Was that how he saw her?
No, she reminded herself. How he saw Cathy, his employee. Of course he could, would, should manipulate his employees to get the best out of them. That was his role, his job.
And besides, Cathy was just a made up person anyway. Her personhood was hardly a matter for protection.
But actually those characteristics to which he referred . . . they were Kate. They were the part of her that she hadn’t tried to mask or conceal. In those aspects she had been totally herself. And maybe without her distracting ‘pretty woman’ persona that she used like a tool or a weapon, maybe her true nature was easier to see, to anyone examining her. Or maybe everyone saw her like that and she’d never realized.
She wondered if that was what her father thought of her: a workhorse, loyalty already bought and paid for by her family connection, so no need to care for her or her feelings. Just shove her into place and apply the whip occasionally.
That wasn’t a pleasant thought. In fact it made her stomach churn with the beginnings of anger.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I’ll admit I’ve been a little distracted lately. I haven’t been quite as focused on my employees or the business as usual.”
“Oh really? Why is that?” she murmured, almost on autopilot, occupied by her less-than-pleasant thoughts.
“Well,” he switched off the engine and turned towards her, making her refocus on him with a sudden intensity, letting go of her hostility in favor of enjoying the moment, “I’ve got this really . . . distracting . . . correspondent.” He put his hand on her neck and then slid it upwards, tunneling his fingers through her hair, urging her gently closer. “I’m finding it difficult to think constructively about . . . all sorts of things.”
If his first kiss had said ‘Hello’, his second said ‘I want to be inside you’. Hot and wet and hungry. She could smell the clean, spicy scent of him and she wanted to wrap herself up in him, lie against his skin and squirm, all other thoughts dissolving into mist. When he pulled away reluctantly she sighed, drunk with lust and inclined to haul him into the back seat of the car to finish what he had started.
There was a glint in his eye that muted then became rueful as he read her expression and shook his head. “I shouldn’t play with fire. You make me burn. Come on sunshine, let’s go feed ourselves and try to have a proper conversation before we fall back into bed.”
She felt like pouting and flouncing, piqued to be roused so easily then set aside. But she reined in her temper. He was being reasonable. She wouldn’t look like an idiot in front of him by snarling about it. So she was silent instead. They walked the block to the restaurant, where they were shown to their seats.
She was a little stiff as he made small talk, but she soon thawed out. It was difficult not to respond to his natural warmth. Within minutes they were laughing as he told a funny story about diving for shellfish, inspired by the menu. They settled on sharing a seafood platter,
ordered that and wine, and as he moved into describing a recent holiday on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia she relaxed back into her seat, charmed by his enthusiasm and the vigorous hand gestures that added to his descriptions.
“I thought you never got away from work,” she said when he came to the end of his tale.
“It was hard to go. I wasn’t away long, and I was in touch more than I should have been,” he said with a faintly guilty look. “I know chapter and verse about living a balanced life and avoiding stress. And I do try. But it’s hard to believe I’m not crucial.”
“Did your staff manage okay while you were gone?”
“Almost better than I’d like,” he said, and laughed. “Very unflattering. I suppose you don’t have the same problems, with your father in charge of the business.”
She smiled and raised her eyebrows in a deliberately ambiguous response. The family business was the last thing she wanted to talk about.
“Do you find it easier or harder to work for family?” he asked.
“I don’t really know. I haven’t worked anywhere else. Or . . . well . . . I did once for a short period of time. Which left me wondering if perhaps I should move on.” She stopped, as she felt a wave of guilt to imply anything unpleasant about her family.
He tilted his head and raised his brows in a wordless inquiry.
“Oh,” she waved her hands helplessly, “It was just . . . you know. The other company I worked for was a happy place. I suppose you’d say there was much more of a drive for employee satisfaction.”
“The family firm suffered by contrast?” he asked, nothing but sympathy in his face, though she half-expected disapproval at her disloyalty. She would have got short shrift within the family if she had ever ventured a criticism of the way things were done in Techdos, and she’d never really talked about the company with anyone else.
“Not the firm itself. I like the work. I like computers and software. But the . . .” mentally she tried out ‘conflict,’ ‘politics,’ and ‘stress’ for size, before settling on the more neutral “. . . dynamics of the relationships make it a struggle sometimes.”
