by Moore, Jewel
“None of them ever asked you on a date because they were scared you would refuse and then it would be awkward to work together afterwards.”
“I hope you guys don’t have some kind of bet going!” The disquieting thought sudden reared its ugly head.
“What?” Stephano sat up and stared down at her, looking so offended, she instantly regretted the words.
“Sorry!” She tried to pull him down for a kiss, but he resisted, his eyes narrowed and his square jaw clenched tightly.
“Natalie, we’ve worked together for fifteen months. You should know me better than that by now.”
Natalie took a deep breath and tried to contain her surprise. He had been with the agency for four years, but she had started fifteen months ago. Did the date she’d started have some significance for him?
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, taking his hand and kissing his palm as she lay it against the side of her face. “I’ve been hurt in the past and it’s hard for me to trust easily.”
He turned his hand over and gripped hers tightly.
“I’m not going to hurt you, cara.”
It was a foolish promise. She knew he meant ‘deliberately hurt’, but it was strangely comforting to hear him say the words. There was something so dependable about him. It wasn’t just his physical strength—he gave the illusion he could move a mountain if it stood in his way.
“I must go,” he said abruptly.
“Of course you must.” Natalie was surprised at the bitterness in her voice. It was still early enough for him to claim that he’d been to a nightclub. Some of the more decadent ones didn’t end until noon.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Aren’t you going to shower first?” she taunted as he slipped his shirt on.
“I’ll grab one when I get home.”
Stephano spent more money than he cared to admit on a range of men’s toiletries that kept his skin in top condition. He didn’t doubt that Natalie had a similar or even better range—she had perfectly clear skin—but it was easier to go home, have a shower and change into fresh clothing.
“Aren’t you afraid that she will smell my scent on you?”
“I’m a grown man. My mother…” Natalie watched Stephano’s hands still in the act of fastening his belt. If that wasn’t an indication of guilt what was? “Which she are you talking about, exactly, cara?
“The woman you kissed outside the office the morning after your father had taken ill.”
“Woman?”
“I only got a glance of her, but she definitely looked like feminine to me.”
“Is that why you’ve been acting the way you have since then?”
“I played second fiddle to another woman once. I wasn’t ready to do that again.”
Stephano sat on the stool in front of her vanity mirror and calmly pulled on his socks and then his shoes without responding. His movements as he tightened the laces of his formal shoes were precise and deliberate.
Finally he stood up and walked over to the bed. He brushed the curl that had fallen over her forehead back and raised her chin until she was looking up into his eyes. “Trust is everything to me, cara. Without it we can have nothing.”
Natalie gasped as he turned and walked out of the room.
What the hell did he mean by that?
*****
Comes The Calm
“Good morning, Natalie.” Stephano’s response to her greeting on Monday morning was frosty.
Natalie battled with her temper. If she had been wrong about the other woman all he had to do was say so. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d made some random accusation—she had seen him kiss the woman.
With a day full of meetings, Natalie arrived back at the office at five thirty to find it empty. She could have gone home instead of coming to the office after her last meeting, but had returned in the hope of seeing Stephano and having it out with him.
Disappointed, she walked around her desk to take her computer off sleep mode and shut it down completely. Stephano rarely left the office before half past six, so he must be trying to avoid her.
“I thought you would have gone straight home.” Natalie jumped as Stephano entered the room with a steaming mug of black coffee.
“I had something I wanted to complete before tomorrow,” she explained.
“Would you like a coffee?”
“Sure.” She’d had a creamy mochachino from Belgique in Wanstead less than an hour ago, but the coffee seemed to be a peace offering; it would have been ill mannered of her not to accept.
Stephano returned with her coffee, pulled up a chair next to her desk and sat sipping his, staring at her as if he as trying to read her mind.
She took tiny, occasional sips of hers and stared back at him. She was too angry at him to feel any shyness.
“Trust is everything to me,” he said quietly, breaking the palpable silence between them.
“You said that already, but what exactly do you mean by it?”
“My last girlfriend Renata is a beautiful woman who could have been a model if she was four inches taller, and yet she’s very insecure. I abandoned the guys and went home to her the first three times she called me when I was out with them. She begged me to come home, saying that she needed me. It was exciting to get home and find her waiting for me…ready for us to—”
“Should you be telling me this?” Natalie interrupted, wanting to scratch the woman’s eyes out already.
“I’m trying to explain why I need trust in a relationship,” Stephano replied patiently.
“Okay, but can you do so without telling me how gorgeous your ex-girlfriend is!”
Stephano laughed at her vehemence and Natalie wanted to kick herself for coming across like a jealous shrew.
“Sorry. The next time she called I refused to go home. My friend Adam who works in South Africa was in London on business and several of us from university had met for drinks. We don’t see him often and we had a lot to catch up on. When I got home she was crying like someone had died. She accused me of having an affair and nothing I said convinced her. The next time I was out she turned up at the bar, pretending that she’d been in the area. Then one night I went out with the guys and when Harry returned from the bathroom he told me that he saw a blonde at the bar who looked just like Renata. He thought it was just a coincidence, but I knew immediately that it was her, spying on me. When I got to the bar it was her wearing a wig. She admitted that she had been following me for months.
“I admit I found it flattering at first. A gorgeous woman…sorry…behaving as though she couldn’t get enough of me. But the constant phone calls to check up on me and her neediness soon became tiring. She called me sometimes ten times or more when I was on a night out with the guys. I got tired of having to go outside just to hear what she was saying. When I switched off the phone she was accused me of being with another woman so I couldn’t take her call. We were arguing almost all the time and one day I decided that I couldn’t live like that anymore.”
“You lived together?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “She was renting a studio in Shoreditch when I met her and I took over paying the bills when I moved it. I thought I’d met the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I was ready to settle down and have children, but we would have been very unhappy with her questioning my every move and doubting my integrity.”
“How long has it been over?”
“About seven months.”
“And you’re not seeing anyone else now?”
“No. I been on a couple of casual dates, but I haven’t been in a relationship since.”
“So, who was that woman?”
“That was Eva.” Stephano unlocked his iPhone and flicked through his photographs until he found what he was looking for. “If I dated her it would be like dating my sister.”
“She’s quite petite.” Natalie looked at the slender woman smiling back at the camera. She couldn’t be more than 5’2”, but she was beautif
ul with long, relaxed hair loose around her shoulders and not pulled back in a chignon as it had been the day Natalie had caught a quick glimpse of her before she’d driven away. She was petite, but had curves in the right place and especially where it mattered to Stephano—the hips.
“She’s small but deadly She used to beat up anyone who messed with me!” Stephano chuckled. “She’s a secondary school teacher now and I’m sure her students are all terrified of her.”
Natalie wondered if Stephano was pulling her leg. The smiling woman looked harmless.
“She was my best friend growing up and we’re still close today. I think our parents thought that something might develop between us when we got older, but we don’t feel that way about each other.” Stephano’s voice was filled with a warmth that Natalie hoped would one day be there when he spoke about her. “She used to beat me up and take away my sweets when we were younger. Truthfully I’m still scared of her now, though she’s five feet nothing.”
Natalie smiled at the image of Stephano cowering in front of a woman over a foot shorter than he was.
“When you meet her you will see that there’s nothing there for you to be jealous about.”
She loved the fact that he’d said “when”, not “if”.
***
Later that night, Natalie lay awake in bed trying to process the day’s events. She’d persuaded Stephano not to accompany her home. He had make another trip to Cadbury’s Head Office. The competition was stiffer than had been anticipated. A much larger, very reputable rival had thrown its considerable resources together to put up a fierce battle. Getting the account would be a real coup, so Paul was flying up from Ireland to accompany Stephano for the last round of talks. Natalie knew how important it was for Stephano to be rested and at his best when he gave his final presentation to the prospective clients.
She’d also needed some time to think. Although she had told her mother about him, she’d had no intention of having Stephano meet the family if she had taken on the role of ‘other woman’. Convinced that he was seeing someone one else, she hadn’t considered what it would mean to be Stephano’s woman exclusively.
Her father would be her biggest hurdle. He had always kept to ‘his own kind’, as he phrased it, but he hadn’t objected to her mother or Nathan having friends of all races or bringing them home. He’d never said it explicitly, but Natalie knew that he’d expected his children to marry within their race. And like her mother, her father would have assumed if one of his children did date a white person, it would have been Nathan.
But as her mother had said, it was her life and she had to live it to suit herself.
Stephano was everything she’d ever wished for in a man—their connection went deeper than skin color. The first day, she’d joined the agency she’d felt it when their eyes met. She had put it down to his good looks and charm, but she’d always been acutely aware of him.
The dynamics at the office would change if she and Stephano started dating. If she agreed with Stephano on an issue it would be assumed she did so because they were sleeping together; if she disagreed, their colleagues would wonder if they were having problems in their personal life. But she and Stephano had a healthy respect for each other professionally and that wouldn’t change. As a matter of a fact, with so much in common, their lives could blend together beautifully.
The hardest part would be telling Stephano about her past. She couldn’t brush it under the carpet and simply start afresh—there were hang-ups she still had as a result of her relationship with Michael.
Working for the agency had helped build her confidence. Paul was like a kindly grandfather and an expert life coach. He had analyzed a few of her presentations, taking them apart step by step, and had been as generous with praise as he was with criticism. The thing he loved the most about her he’d told her was her voice with its merest hint of a West Indian accent. He’d called it “seductive” and “persuasive”, saying that she could “sell oil to the Arabs”.
Paul had told her that she would benefit from a few sessions of therapy to build her confidence and had discretely arranged a meeting with one of the best on Harley Street. The therapist had later recommended a session with a colleague of hers, a reputable hypnotist and Natalie had made remarkable progress over the next weeks.
Paul’s interference should have felt intrusive, but she’d understood that all he wanted was her to be the best she could be. He wanted that for all his employees.
When Craig’s halitosis became increasingly worse, everyone felt too embarrassed to tell him and no one wanted to team up with him. After a monthly staff meeting Paul had invited him for a drink. They had all feared that Craig would be given the boot, instead he had returned to work the next day, bad breath and all. But over the following weeks there had been a noticeable freshening of his breath. Natalie suspected that Paul had arranged a consultation with a specialist on Harley Street as he had done for her. Now few of them remembered that Craig had had a problem, although when he’d tried to kiss her under the mistletoe at the last company Christmas party, Natalie had instinctively given him her cheek.
Morgan didn’t command the same attention as Stephano, but his good looks were arresting and Paul had encouraged him to use both the masculine and feminine sides of his personality to charm an audience when giving a presentation.
Natalie’s suits were made by the same bespoke tailors who specialized in the finest Italian suits and handmade shirts. Nothing boosted her confidence more than wearing clothing that was specially made for her. She didn’t wear trousers suits often. Though it went against all her feminist instincts, she’d recognized that many clients, both male and female, reacted differently to a woman in trousers. But there were times she needed to be one of the boys and help deliver a tough message. At these times she wore trousers suits and flat shoes and acted as tough as needed. Other times called for something softer and though she never overtly flaunted her sexuality, she used her feminine wiles when the occasion warranted.
Her epiphany had come from a surprising source, though. She had heard it mentioned that Beyoncé was shy and had believed it to be media hype, unconvinced that a shy woman would voluntarily perform in front of hundreds of thousands of screaming fans. But late one night Natalie had been watching a documentary of the singer which had been recorded early in her career and had seen the evidence of that shyness for her shyness. It had helped Natalie understand how she could feel confident giving a presentation to a room full of strangers and yet feel nervous having a drink with them afterwards. The weeks leading up to giving a presentation of her final project to her entire class at university had been nerve wracking. And yet on the day it had gone so smoothly she had amazed herself. She had never been shy giving a presentation to any client. It was the intimate, close eye-to-eye contact that embarrassed her. It was a bit like acting she’d realized—learning one’s lines by heart and delivering them flawlessly.
Watching that documentary on Beyoncé had made her realize that her shyness didn’t need to get in the way of being successful or stop her from doing anything she wanted to.
Standing in front of Stephano on Saturday evening wearing just a thong hadn’t been excruciating as she would have imagined it being, but it hadn’t been easy. Her body wasn’t perfect, but she’d seen enough naked female bodies in the changing room of the fitness club after exercise classes to know that hers was in pretty decent shape. Her hips and thighs could be smaller perhaps, but most women would probably say the same thing.
She had embraced her height and found it an advantage in many ways. She took time to pamper her skin and it glowed as a result. Every time she went for a facial massage, the beauty therapist always said that she wished her skin was as gorgeous as Natalie’s. The woman’s skin was flawless, but she’d confessed that it took a lot of maintenance to achieve the look.
When Michael had gripped her hair to force her to go down on him, he’d torn out clumps of it out and left several bald patches. The baldn
ess hadn’t been permanent, but she’d had to crop the back really short. To her surprise the style really suited the shape of her face and her thick, healthy hair and it had become her signature hairstyle. Cut expertly it looked chic and whenever she wanted a softer, more feminine look, as she’d wanted for the dinner date, she curled it into loose carefree waves.
***
Natalie made a sound of annoyance when her doorbell rang much sooner than she’d anticipated. She’d rushed home after work hoping that she’d finish cooking and have a quick shower before Stephano arrived back from Uxbridge. She hadn’t tried to compete with his mother by cooking pasta or other Italian dish. Instead she’d cooked Curry Chicken with rice, instead of roti. She slipped the apron off and hurried to the front door.
Even after a long day of negotiations and the additional travel time King’s Cross St. Pancras to Uxbridge, Stephano looked gorgeous. The jacket of his suit folded neatly over one arm, holding the extendable handle of his small, wheeled travel case. He was the epitome of the young profession traveling for business.
“Hi,” she felt suddenly shy and a little nervous.
“Hi.” His response was like the purr of a lion as he placed the jacket over the handle of the case and wrapped his arms around her.
“Did you miss me, cara mia?”
Like crazy.
“You were only gone for two days!” she protested weakly as he found the vulnerable pulse point of her neck and sucked it into the heat of his mouth.
“I missed you,” he admitted, staring into her eyes.
It should have been the easiest thing to say that she’d missed him too, but the word stuck in her throat.
Stephano lowered his lips to hers as he lifted her bodily. She wrapped her legs around his hips and reveled in his strength and the feel of his arms around her. She was a tall, not-exactly skinny woman, yet he made her feel slender and utterly feminine in comparison to his larger frame. It was silly, but she loved it.
