A wave of shame swept over her and she opened the door and walked up to the bathroom sink with her head lowered, checking her wristwatch as she washed her hands. Good, I’ve still got 14 minutes to get upstairs and relieve Mr. Carlisle’s assistant for lunch.
“I see the Grand Buffet has gotten to you too,” a voice beside her joked.
“Wha-!” Stephanie screamed as she lifted her head to see her friend Lizbeth, scheduler for the executive lunch relief pool leaned up against the wall rubbing her large swollen belly over the taut fabric of her dress. The way both of her hands caressed the round full sphere of her tummy – if she hadn’t known better – Stephanie would have guessed that Lizbeth was pregnant.
“I heard you groaning inside that bathroom stall. Sounds like you’re suffering as much as the rest of us.”
With a half-smile tugging at the corner of her lips, Stephanie let out a muted chuckle “It’s quite a buffet isn’t it?”
“It sure is. I’ve already gained 19 pounds with no signs of the weight gain stopping.” Lizbeth confessed grabbing at the plump flesh of her belly, hips and ass to demonstrate her point.
“Me too. I’m up 23 pounds. Pretty soon I’m going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe to accommodate my growing waistline.”
“Oh good! We can go shopping together after work. This is the last dress in my closet that semi fits, and I’ve been terrified all day that I might bust out of it and expose my assets to the entire company.”
“You read my mind, girlfriend. I’ll meet you at your car in the parking lot after work. These slacks I’m wearing are so tight I can barely breathe, plus they show every curve and ripple of my ass. The department head from accounting was ogling me the entire hour I was up there today. He kept asking me to bend down and get him files from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. Every time I bent over I was afraid the seat of my pants was going to rip open right in front of him!”
“Oh yes. I know what you mean. The booty beauty drives men crazy. My husband is loving my new curvy figure. He’s been keeping me up until the early hours of the morning every night for the past month.” Lizbeth took an exaggerated breath and allowed her head to fall to the side as she spoke. “Between the all-night sex and the overeating I’m so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“Sounds like you’ve got pretty plump girl problems. Wish I was you.”
“Oh, don’t worry you’re just like me. You just don’t know it yet.”
Stephanie allowed a soft giggle to escape her lips as she glanced down at her wrist watch and finished drying her hands. She only had eight minutes left to make her way up to CEO Skylen Carlisle’s penthouse office to relieve his secretary for her lunch break.
“Gotta go Lizbeth. Today marks my first time working for Mr. Carlisle in the penthouse office. His secretary is going to give me a one-hour orientation to the penthouse and then I’ll relieve her for her lunch break.”
Stephanie clasped her hands together, bit her bottom lip and gave her entire body a quick wiggle. “That’s an entire two hours up in the penthouse working for the CEO! I want to impress him, so I can’t be late. Wish me good luck and don’t forget about our shopping trip. I’ll meet you at your car at 5:01 pm exactly.”
“Good luck girl,” Lizbeth responded. “Remember don’t let him see you sweat. He’s a tough taskmaster, but you’re the best lunch relief secretary in the entire company. That’s why all of the department heads ask for you personally.”
Stephanie grinned inside as her friend gifted her a smile and a wink then turned to leave the bathroom, her black heels tapping on the tile floor as she pushed the bathroom door open and rushed out into the hallway.
Lizbeth called out after her as the door swung shut, “You can do it girl! Get up there and show him your stuff! Make him see why you’re the very best at what you do!”
Chapter 3
Skylen
Skylen straightened the sleeves of his black cashmere suit and readjusted his cobalt blue striped tie as he continued speaking on the phone with his best friend millionaire playboy Harvey Wood.
“Of course I exercise complete control over every person and process in this company, Harvey.”
“Makes sense buddy, that’s why it’s taken you more than a week to arrange a meeting with one of your own employees. Yep. You’re master and commander of your ship alright.”
“You know I like to keep up the appearance of due process and fairness. It’s important for company morale. You should try it sometime. It improves productivity.”
“Fuck morale and productivity. If this girl’s as curvy and insatiably hungry as you say she is, you should call her up to your office and tell her you’ve got a proposal for her she won’t be able to refuse.”
“If she’s everything I hope she is I may indeed have a proposal for her…just not the type you’re thinking of.”
Buzzz. Buzzz. “Mr. Carlisle, you asked me to notify you when Ms. Rain arrived. She’s here sir.”
“Thank you Edith,” Beep.
“Goodbye, Harvey. I’m giving you fair warning that I’m going to hang up the phone now. My secretary just— ”
“I heard. Sexy Stephanie’s waiting for you in your penthouse lounge.”
“Goodbye, Harvey.”
“Wait! Wait! While she’s up there take a pic of her with your phone and send it to me. I want to see the voluptuous raven-haired hottie that you can’t stop talking about. Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome for the pep talk Skylen.”
“Yes. Great pep talk. Goodbye, Harvey.” Click.
It had been a week of tough negotiations for Skylen Carlisle.
Arranging for Stephanie Rain to come up to his penthouse office today had proved to be more difficult than he had initially anticipated it would be. So difficult, in fact, that he had actually considered bypassing the entire process and simply walking up to her during her lunch break and outright asking her out on a date.
But considering his new company’s history of legal woes he thought better of it, choosing not to add a sexual harassment lawsuit to the list of ongoing legal action against his newest and most profitable acquisition.
Besides, Stephanie was the type of woman he could see himself building a future with and he didn’t want her to view him as an entitled billionaire seeking to acquire her; demanding and taking whatever he wanted from her according to his desires. He wanted their first meeting to be organic; to occur in the natural way first meetings occurred in modern society – while working.
Stephanie was a woman in high demand at Mountain Peak Enterprises. All of the company department heads wanted her to sub for their secretaries while they were on their lunch breaks. Skylen essentially had to cut in line and take her away from the customer service department today in order to officially meet her and steal some alone time with her.
I’m confident I’ve made the right decision. Finally getting to meet Stephanie in person is worth ruffling a few feathers in the customer service department. Meeting her marks the culmination of everything I’ve worked towards with my acquisition of Mountain Peak Enterprises and the development of the Grand Buffet. I just know that Stephanie’s my soul’s match. I feel it every time I watch her part her delicious lips and eat.
Skylen rubbed his fingers over the prickly whiskers of his five o’clock shadow and lifted his large muscular arm up to his hair one last time, carefully smoothing back his brown wavy locks ensuring he appeared presentable.
**Stephanie**
Oh, my god, the two-way mirror is real. A wide-eyed Stephanie scrutinized every detail of the huge employee cafeteria and buffet from her sky-high vantage point in Skylen Carlisle’s penthouse lounge. From her new elevated viewpoint the buffet appeared as beautiful and alive as she had ever seen it; its colorful moving carousels of food encouraging its happy partakers to laugh and gesture as they ate. She almost wished she was down there enjoying the delicious bounty with the other revelers.
The penthouse lounge was the spacious ro
om where Mr. Carlisle’s secretary Edith worked and entertained clients while they waited to enter the CEO’s private office. The lounge walls were painted a cheerful shade of sky blue and sunlight and puffy clouds shone in from the above the glass atrium ceiling.
“Happy to meet you, Stephanie,” Mr. Carlisle’s secretary Edith extended her hand toward Stephanie welcoming her to the penthouse. “I’ve heard good things about you…and so has Mr. Carlisle. We’re excited to finally have the opportunity to work with you here on the penthouse floor.”
Stephanie felt a moist blanket of sweat form at the base of her neck. “Thank you for having me. I’m eager to get to work.” She steadied her fingers, grasped Edith’s hand and shook it.
“Good, let’s get started. I don’t have much time to teach you everything you’ll need to know.”
Edith made quick work of Stephanie’s orientation. It was the fastest and most thorough orientation Stephanie had received during her short tenure as a lunch relief secretary. “You’re a quick study. You and Mr. Carlisle will get along just fine.” Edith complimented her as they reviewed the preferred way to greet a marketing executive. Just as Stephanie questioned if her brain could take in any more knowledge, Edith’s personal cell phone vibrated on her hip and she answered it. “Oh no! I’ll be home in ten minutes.”
Edith turned toward Stephanie. “I have a family emergency and I have to leave immediately. Call Lizbeth the scheduler for the secretary pool and tell her that you’ll need to remain here for the rest of the day today and all day on Thursday and Friday. She’ll need to find someone else to cover your previous commitments. Mr. Carlisle comes first.”
“I’m so sorry. I hope your family is okay. Thank you for the thorough orientation. I’ll call Lizbeth as you instructed and inform her that I’ll be working with Mr. Carlisle for the rest of the week.”
Edith picked up her purse and flung it over her shoulder; her strong finger pressing down on the intercom button that allowed communication between her lounge and Mr. Carlisle’s office. The corners of her eyes wet with moisture, she addressed her boss. Buzz. Buzz. “Mr. Carlisle, I have a family emergency that I must attend to immediately. Ms. Stephanie Rain from the secretarial pool is here and will be taking care of you for the rest of the day today, plus all day on Thursday and Friday. I should be back to work by Monday.”
“Go home and take care of your family. I wish them the best. Thank you, Edith.” Skylen Carlisle’s words came out in low rough tones that seemed to contradict the concern in his statement. The inconsistency caused the hairs on Stephanie’s neck to rise up.
Edith’s eyes, full with tears, began to redden and blink as she turned her head from side to side surveying the lounge. Stephanie handed her the tissue box from her desk. “Don’t worry; I’ll take good care of your office and Mr. Carlisle while you’re away taking care of your family emergency.”
“Thank you,” Edith cried as she clutched the tissue box to her chest and pushed the door open exiting the lounge.
Alone, Stephanie sat down behind Edith’s desk and phoned Lizbeth.
“Sorry Lizbeth, but I’ve got to deliver some news that’s going to make your job a little tougher today.”
“Please, you know I can handle anything girl. What’s the news Stephanie?”
“Mr. Carlisle’s secretary Edith just went home with a family emergency. She said she won’t be back until Monday and wants me to cover for her in Mr. Carlisle’s office for the rest of the week, starting immediately.”
“Ewww. This is going to make a lot of the executives you were already booked with categorically unhappy. But hey, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. They’ll just have to deal with it. Mr. Carlisle always comes first.”
Stephanie blinked at hearing the unusual saying again. “What? That’s the second time I’ve heard the phrase “Mr. Carlisle comes first,” today. I know he’s the CEO and that makes him a priority, but I get the feeling that there’s something else to the phrase. I’m going to be up here for the next two days all alone with him. Is there something about him I need to know? Something that will help me do a better job while I’m subbing for him?”
Lizbeth cleared her throat. “Yeah, there are probably a few things I should tell you. Just stay strong for the next two and a half hours while you’re up there alone with him. We can talk about his particular peculiarities while we’re clothes shopping after work. Every man has peculiarities you know. It’s normal.”
Chapter 4
Stephanie
“Just stay strong!” Stephanie repeated Lizbeth’s words aloud hoping they would magically give her the strength to make it through two and a half hours working alone with the notoriously demanding billionaire CEO Skylen Carlisle as his temporary secretary.
It had been an hour since Mr. Carlisle’s secretary Edith left to handle her family emergency. Stephanie was still completely alone in the penthouse lounge and thus it was perfectly reasonable for her to speak her words aloud, or so she told herself. She shifted her weight in her chair as she continued to sit behind the enormous desk made of crystal and wood that belonged to Edith. Stephanie was only a few steps outside of Skylen Carlisle’s private office, but she might as well have been the world away for how alone she felt.
Ta-tap-tap. Stephanie mindlessly tapped her fountain pen against the wooden desktop as she waited for the phone to ring or the intercom to buzz with instructions from Mr. Carlisle. But nothing happened. No ringing phone, no buzzing intercom, just complete silence. What a weird scene, she thought as she stood up and walked over to the two-way mirror between the penthouse lounge and the company cafeteria.
Stephanie leaned forward and pressed her nose onto the two-way glass, looking down on hundreds of company employees as they ate in the cafeteria. Hmm…so no one can see me, huh? she thought as a mischievous grin took control of her lips and half mad loneliness impelled her to make funny faces into the window and deform her facial features against the glass as she sniggered to herself.
Hungry for social contact, she scanned the room below and saw her friend Lizbeth, the scheduler for the secretarial pool walking up to a table full of executives. Instinctively Stephanie waved to her, but her friend gave no indication that she even knew she was up in Mr. Carlisle’s office. If her friend had bothered to look up, all she would have seen was a wall of shimmering crystal anyway. Skylen Carlisle designed the two-way mirror between his office lounge and the cafeteria for complete stealth.
Hailey Savidge the stick-thin head of the customer service department and Skylen Carlisle’s ex-girlfriend was now standing in front of Lizbeth with one hand on her hip and the other gesturing beside her with quick sharp movements. One of her movements just chopped the head of accounting right in the collarbone as he twisted his head to steal a glance at her side-boob. Serves you right perv. Stephanie stuck out her tongue against the glass and blew a juicy raspberry at the man who’d ogled her ass for an entire hour while she worked in his department this morning.
As Stephanie pulled her lips away from the glass wall her eyes crossed in front of her and fixed on the big smudge her act of raspberry defiance had left on Mr. Carlisle’s pristine window. Her mouth gaped open in horror at the sight of tiny bits of cupcake crumbs stuck to the glass.
Crap! My face must look a hot mess. She lifted one finger up to the glass and slid it down through the sticky cupcake crumbled mess. And I’ve smudged up Mr. Carlise’s immaculate window. Stephanie turned away from the glass wall and rushed over to the cleaning cabinet, pulled out a spray bottle of window cleaner and a microfiber towel and hurriedly cleaned away the sticky cupcake remains from the window leaving it spotless and clear.
As soon as she’d cleaned up her mess she ran over to Edith’s desk, frantically opening each drawer looking for a mirror so she could assess the damage from the cupcake binge she’d succumbed to on her way up to the penthouse lounge.
At last. She pulled a small gilded hand mirror out of the bottom desk drawer and brought it up to her fac
e. Sure enough, her face was a hot sticky mess. But had she been a mess from the moment she stepped into the penthouse lounge or was her messy state brand new? She would never know.
Tears collected in her eyes and just sat there. In moments they were passed the point of blinking back, so she gave into them, allowing the waterfall to cascade down her face as she carefully placed the ornate hand mirror on the wooden surface of Edith’s desk.
Stephanie sat down in Edith’s chair, grateful there still were no incoming phone calls on the office phone. Her pride couldn’t take the hit of having to answer the phone through tears. She took a wet wipe out of her purse and mopped it across her sticky face like she was cleaning the filthy face of a toddler, not an adult woman of 19 years.
“Messy Stephanie, Messy Stephanie,” her ears burned with the sound of her schoolmates chanting and her eyes stung with fresh tears as she recalled the tips of bony little fingers pointing at her and mocking her food covered face. For as long as she could remember she loved to indulge in her sweets...messily and with abandon. Only as a child her big weakness was for hot buttered and frosted cinnamon buns earning her a chubby frame and the nickname “Butterball” from her mom, a former beauty queen, and pageant consultant.
To this day, whenever her mom called her on the phone she opened the conversation with “Hello, Butterball” immediately wrapping Stephanie in a hot blanket of shame. This was still true, even though up until three months ago – when Skylen Carlisle bought Mountain Peak Enterprises and opened the Grand Buffet – Stephanie had shed her chubby exterior and shrunk to realize the model-thin figure her mother had always pushed her to attain.
A mere three months ago she’d weighed only 138 pounds dripping wet and at the time, with her 5’7” frame, whenever she looked in the mirror she saw a malnourished girl with a lackluster and boyish figure. Now with the opening of Mr. Carlisle’s buffet and her subsequent 23-pound weight gain filling her out at a curvy 161 pounds, Stephanie felt a mix of confidence and shame whenever she looked into the mirror. Now she had a womanly shape that she could be proud of; one with junk in all the right places and plenty of sexy curves. But, it was something bigger… something more than society or her mother said she deserved.
Taboo Desires: Dirty Forbidden Secrets Bundle (The Complete Miranda Cougar Collection) Page 43
