Show and Tell

by Jasmine Haynes

  It occurred to him it was pretty pathetic. It sounded like marriage, or at the very least, a relationship. He was out for a relationship with a woman whose real name he didn’t know, one he couldn’t even call. She was just an e-mail address.

  She wanted him for sex, a little kinky play. She hadn’t talked about her divorce, but he was sure her marriage played into the reasons she held back.

  The rain soaking him, he jogged for his car, beeped the remote, and climbed in, water dripping down the back of his neck. Pulling out of the spot, he headed for the freeway, and the drive home. It would have been better cocooned in the vehicle with her beside him, the deluge pounding on the roof. He could almost smell her rain-soaked hair. Raising his hand to his nose, he scented her like a lion scents his mate’s heat. She was all over him, sweet, tangy. He sucked her taste from his fingers.

  With that orgasm, he’d thought he had her. She’d have to beg him for more. He might have been better off not letting her come at all, teasing the hell out of her instead. The problem was he didn’t have any idea how to bind her to him.

  That could be the whole issue. He’d laid his needs bare, told her how fucking obsessed with her he was. Madly in lust. She could lead him around by his cock. She knew he’d be back.

  A car skidded in front of him on the freeway, then righted itself, thank God.

  The image seared into his mind, and he saw things clearly for the first time in three weeks. He had skidded off course; now he needed to right himself. He needed to take control.

  It was a risk, especially after his total defeat in battle tonight. But the woman was too damn sure of him. He needed to shake up her course a little, make her doubt that he was a sure thing. He spent the drive over the hill to Santa Cruz composing his next e-mail to her.

  13

  TRINITY stared at Scott’s e-mail and started to shake. She’d thrashed about all last night thinking of him, hot and bothered, nervous and needy, alternately fantasizing, then taking care of the heat her fantasies created. Wouldn’t he love that? He’d also crow knowing she’d fallen asleep before dawn, woken up terribly late, and dashed off to work forgetting her underwear.

  How did a person forget to put on underwear? She was pretty sure Britney Spears didn’t “forget” a pair of panties. Though she was seated at her desk, her knees primly together, Trinity pulled the short suede skirt down a little further.

  To think she’d gone commando intentionally yesterday. She’d even removed her blouse and bra underneath the jacket. But that was before Scott e-mail ditched her.

  “I need yesterday’s bank deposits now, Trinity.”

  She startled at the sound of Mr. Ackerman’s voice, then frantically tried shutting down her account. When she succeeded only in opening a very risqué e-mail in which she’d told Scott explicitly what she’d like to do to him, she jumped to her feet, using her body to block the screen.

  “Yes, Mr. Ackerman, I’ll get that right away.” She had the notes on how to complete the task. The system linked directly with the bank, and she could download company bank account activity twice a day. Inga had been doing it, but Mr. Ackerman decided it was a supervisory function. Of course, Trinity didn’t do the bank reconciliations or the cash forecast, so between Boyd, who handled the general ledger, Christina, Mr. Ackerman, and herself, there were plenty of checks and balances.

  “Thank you so much, Trinity.” Pulling at his ear, Mr. Ackerman lowered his voice. “I do usually need the information by eight thirty. Just so you know for the future.”

  Had he told her that?

  Whatever. She shouldn’t have been checking personal e-mails. And gee, didn’t she wish she hadn’t read Scott’s message.

  I’ve got a hellaciously busy week. Maybe I can talk to you on Friday.

  Maybe he could talk to her on Friday? It sounded like he was blowing her off.

  She wouldn’t think about that. It sounded like a slur. She finally controlled her jittery fingers and closed her e-mail.

  Pulling out her notes, she flipped through until she found the bank’s download instructions. Entering the system, she followed the codes, typed in the user name, password, and approval, and her screen filled up with options. Which one, which one? Ah, there it was, download.

  So Scott was tired already. She could do without. Oh Lord. After last night, could she do without the way he made her feel?

  Her office phone rang, twice in quick succession, which meant an outside call. Her heart kicked, and she leaped on it before she remembered that Scott didn’t have her work number. Or her cell number. Not even her home phone.

  “Hello, Accounts Receivable, Trinity Green speaking.” How very professional she sounded.

  “Your lawyer called me.”

  Harper. Her lungs went into spasms. She did not want to talk to Harper now, not after she’d been fantasizing about another man. She actually felt guilty. What on earth was wrong with her? “Yes, he told me he was going to.” Daddy’s lawyer was working through the settlement agreement in which Harper would have to settle for nothing.

  “My lawyer thinks we should meet.”

  “Your lawyer?” She hadn’t thought of him getting a lawyer. After all, she was the wronged party.

  God, she sounded like a total bitch even to herself, and she did not want Harper to turn her into a bitch. Not even a harpy.

  “I needed advice. What I really want . . .” He paused. She could hear him breathe. “What I need is to talk with you.”

  Her cursor blinked at her. She’d forgotten to enter the date. Clicking keys, she hit Enter, then watched as the data flowed down the screen. God, she’d done something right.

  “We talked the other night when you came to my house.” She tried to sound reasonable, really she did, but that snarky emphasis on my sneaked in.

  “We didn’t talk, sweetheart. I begged, then you slammed the door in my face.”

  Please don’t call me sweetheart. “I don’t want to talk. Which is why our lawyers should talk.”

  He drew in a breath, then exhaled. “I know I hurt you”—it was on the tip of her tongue to deny it, but she let him go on—“but I want a chance to tell you how I feel.”

  “No.” She tried keeping an eye on the download at the same time, but it kept going and going like that battery bunny. Of course, it wasn’t just deposits, it was all the cleared checks, too. And she couldn’t bear hearing how Harper felt. She wasn’t responsible for his feelings.

  “A weekend up in Napa. Please, Trin.”

  A weekend in Napa? Get a grip. “Don’t call me Trin.” Only her closest family and friends called her Trin. “Harper, I don’t want to sound cruel or vindictive, but I cannot do a weekend with you. I can’t even do dinner with you.”

  She realized in that moment what generated her guilt. She was done with Harper. No second chances. No talks in the wine country. She felt worse over Scott’s rejection than she did about finding Harper in the shower.

  Good God, she was a shallow, fickle person. But Scott’s e-mail did hurt worse.

  “Please be reasonable—”

  And she was unreasonable to boot. “I made a mistake, Harper, let’s leave it at that.”

  “But can’t you even let me explain?”

  Hunching over the phone, she lowered her voice. “Doing some woman in our shower doesn’t require a verbal explanation. Quite frankly, it says it all.”

  She felt so calm. It was horrible. It hadn’t been three weeks, and she no longer cared about Harper or his harpy. She’d already had sex with another man—in a hotel room, his car, a theater, his office, on the phone. God, she’d had more sex in the last two and a half weeks than she’d had with Harper during the marriage. Okay, big exaggeration, but that’s how it felt.

  The system beeped. It was done. So was she. “I have to go, Harper, my deposits need tabulating.” She gathered a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t call me, call my lawyer.” And she hung up.

  She stared at the phone for h
alf a minute. Was she done? Will the real Trinity Green please state her true feelings?

  She couldn’t remember what Harper looked like, though she did recall his lover’s expression in the shower. Lord. That seemed so . . . superficial and shallow.

  Punching a few more buttons on her keyboard, she saved the download and printed out yesterday’s deposits.

  She thought about sending Scott a reply e-mail, but a fist closed around her heart, squeezing. Yet her heart was perfectly fine with Harper. Which meant she had a totally fickle heart.

  Or she’d never been in love with Harper in the first place.

  Her stomach lurched. She had to stop thinking about it all. At least for now. Deposits she’d downloaded in hand, she hurried down the hall to Mr. Ackerman’s office.

  Plopping the paper on his desk, she tapped the third line item with her nail. “And there’s the large receipt from Winterburn Electronics we were waiting for.” Last week, she’d gotten the company to agree to pay half their past-due bill.

  “Good work, Trinity.”

  She preened under his praise. Despite her marriage and her love life falling apart, at least she was doing a good job.

  The whispering started at nine thirty. A man’s higher-than-normal pitch—Boyd?—then someone husky, sultry. Trinity made a face to herself. Definitely Inga. What were those two up to?

  Then Boyd passed her cubicle, shoulders hunched, eyes on the carpet, feet shuffling. He reminded her of a frightened animal slinking with its belly low to the ground for self-preservation.

  Mr. Ackerman’s door latched with a quiet snick.

  A few moments later Inga’s phone rang, and she answered with her usual Valkyrie hauteur. Then more whispering. Inga wasn’t capable of slinking; Trinity heard her coming all the way. Mr. Ackerman’s door opened, then closed with a firm snap.

  Trinity strained, but with phones ringing and keyboards clacking, she couldn’t hear a thing through the closed door.

  Then it opened again, disgorging footsteps. Wham, wham, followed by slink, slink. Looking in her cubicle as he passed, his eyes wide, Boyd almost hit the opposite doorframe before righting himself. Trinity stood as Mr. Ackerman’s bald spot traversed the cubicle perimeter to the CFO’s office, and moments later, raised voices escaped from beneath the door.

  Inga’s phone rang again. “Yes, sir, I’ll be right in.”

  Trinity noticed the key clicking stopped and the phones around the bullpen went silent as Inga stomped her way to the CFO’s office. This time, the door slammed, reverberating through one office cube after another like an 8.0 earthquake.

  Trinity’s phone rang. Her heart jumped, and the phone cord shimmied like a snake as she picked up the receiver.

  “Miss Green, could you please step into my office a moment?” It wasn’t a question even if it was phrased as such.

  The CFO. Mr. Wanamaker. Her legs quaking as she circled the cubes, she wished she’d worn her red power suit today instead of yesterday. Especially since it hadn’t worked on Scott.

  “You are a worthwhile person, you are in control,” she muttered to herself, realizing even as she did it that she’d never needed these pep talks when she was just a debutante and Daddy’s little girl.

  She knocked boldly, then threw open the office door. “Yes, sir, you rang?”

  Her chair at an angle, Inga sat in the cushy seat opposite Mr. Wanamaker, her legs crossed, her foot swinging, and a persnickety cat-that-ate-the-cream smile on her face. By the window, Mr. Ackerman plucked at the hair tuft on his head.

  Tapping a mechanical pencil on his doodle-covered blotter, Mr. Wanamaker pointed to the chair next to Inga’s. “Please, do have a seat.” The tone suggested that at any moment, he’d bite the heads off poor unsuspecting kittens.

  Trinity was a kitten.

  She sat. “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “A small one.” With a full head of wiry gray hair and lines that bisected his forehead and cut cleanly from his nose to the corners of his mouth, Mr. Wanamaker was still of an indeterminate age. At the Christmas parties, Trinity knew him as Paul, but she learned he ran a tight ship, and underlings did the Mister thing.

  At company functions, he’d never made her quake in her shoes. “I’ll help if I can.” She slid a glance to Inga. The woman hadn’t just lapped the cream, she’d gorged on it, and Trinity knew things were bad.

  “It seems the checking account has gone negative.”

  “Don’t you have overdraft protection?”

  Three sets of eyes bored into her, whether it was the use of you instead of we or because she hadn’t shown an appropriate reaction, whatever that might be.

  “Miss Green, that isn’t the point here.” His steel gray eyebrows cinched together.

  With the look on Inga’s face, Trinity knew a slam-down was coming. She wondered idly how many slams she could take and still get back up.

  Mr. Wanamaker opened his mouth. There was a flurry outside the door, then it burst open. Boyd stumbled in. “Sir. AR is negative, too.” He threw out a deep exhale as if he’d been holding it the whole time he ran from his cube to Mr. W.’s office.

  “That’s not possible.” Mr. W. flopped in his chair, shot himself backwards toward the credenza, whirled around, and started typing furiously on his keyboard. “Why, receipts are posted twice.” He pointed as if no one actually believed him. More key tapping. “And checks are posted twice.”

  Inga licked the kitty cream off her lips. “It sounds like the bank download was duplicated.”

  “I did it once,” Trinity said. She knew she’d only done it once. Didn’t she? She had been talking to Harper.

  “I did it this morning because you were late.” Inga smiled like a viper. “You know it has to be done before eight thirty.”

  Trinity opened her mouth.

  Inga cut her off. “I left you a note, Miss Green.”

  “I didn’t see it.” There was no note. “Perhaps it got buried in my in-box.” Like the wire transfer request from her father.

  Inga actually smirked. “I put it right on your keyboard so you’d be sure to see it.”

  Trinity wanted to scream, but that was pointless. She’d been bested again. “Well, it does seem like an error has been made. What do we do now to fix it?”

  Waves of malicious pleasure rolled off Inga. “We’ll have to restore the system back to last night’s backup.” She waved a hand, smiling first at Mr. Ackerman, then Mr. W. “Unless we have Christina and the girls go back in and manually delete the duplicate checks and AR receipts?”

  “We’ll do the restore,” Mr. Wanamaker commanded. “Ackerman, what does that involve?”

  Musing, Mr. Ackerman gave one last tug on his hair tuft. “We’ll lose whatever’s been entered this morning, then there’ll be the work stoppage while the system is down, but that shouldn’t be more than half an hour. Boyd”—he pointed a finger—“tell everyone to stop entering data in both the AP and AR modules.” And he waved Boyd off to do his bidding.

  “Isn’t there some sort of safeguard against downloading the bank data twice?” The system hadn’t even asked her the question.

  "She’s got a point, Ackerman.” Though Mr. W. seemed slightly awed that Trinity could actually have a point.

  “This is the first time we’ve had three people with the access codes. Previously it was myself and Inga.”