by Alexis Gold
His brow furrowed then. “You… you left this morning.” He sounded disappointed. “You didn’t… say goodbye.”
She took a few steps toward him and reached for his hand, taking it in hers. “Actually, I did say goodbye. I kissed you goodbye, and it was such a good kiss, but you were asleep. I’m sorry you missed it. I think you’d have really enjoyed it.” She giggled softly and he couldn’t stop the smile that spread over his face.
“Yeah?” He asked quietly. “Maybe you could show me how good it was.”
She bit at her lower lip for a moment and then leaned forward and pressed her lips softly to his, brushing them over the tender skin there, back and forth as she parted them and teased him with the tip of her tongue. He groaned and reached his arms around her, closing his mouth against hers and kissing her slowly in return for a long moment.
When they finally parted, their hearts pounding, their breath short, he gave her a half smile. “I’m sorry that I missed that this morning. If I’d been awake for that, I wouldn’t have let you leave. Thank you for sharing it with me now.” His eyes were smoldering with desire.
She nodded, feeling just the same way that he was looking at her. Clearing her throat, she glanced around and then looked back at him, trying to remember that they were out in public. “So, what brings you here?” She asked curiously.
He blinked as if he was coming back to the present unexpectedly. “Uh… you. You do.”
Callie laughed at him. “I guessed that…” She teased him with a kind smile. “Why are you back? You didn’t come back just for a kiss, did you?”
Alexander let out a long sigh. “To be honest, I would go anywhere for a kiss like that from you, but you’re right, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I want to offer you a job.”
It was her turn to blink at him in surprise. “You… what?” she asked, tilting her head slightly as she stared back at him.
His tone took on a serious note. “Well, you’re going to school for computer programming, right? Callie, you wrote that workaround adaptation in an hour last night. I watched you go through and fill every single hole and crack that we missed. I had an entire team of twenty five people, some of the best and brightest minds in the whole of the tech industry working on the fixes for that app for a solid month and you saw what they came up with last night. It wasn’t even half of what you did, and you found several more problems with what they designed and you fixed those as well as the flaws in the original app! All that in an hour! Callie..” he reached his hands out and held her shoulders.
“That is genius level work. Genius. I’m not being kind, I’m being honest. I need you on my team at Summitech Corp. I need you working with me and with that same team of my people. With you there, we would leave the cutting edge so far behind us. There’s no one like you out there, Callie. I want you on the team.
I’m offering you half a million dollars a year to start, and I’m going to pay for all of your schooling; as much education as you want. Any class you want to take, any degree you want to go after, I’m paying for it, and when you graduate, I’ll triple your salary. Since you’re in school, we can work around your schedule so that you have time to go to class and study and all of that, but at least you’ll be there. You’ll be on the team. Please… please say yes.”
Callie stared at him. “I can’t believe this.”
“What?” He asked worriedly, looking as though he was ready for a no.
“It’s my dream job. It is literally my dream job. I don’t even have to think about this. Yes. My answer is definitely yes!” She squealed and jumped, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly as emotion rose in her throat and tears streamed from her eyes. “Thank you, thank you so much, Alexander. You have changed my life so much in no time at all. I feel like I should ask you to pinch me because I have to be dreaming. There’s no way I’m not dreaming.” She wept softly as she held him; her face buried in his neck.
He held her tightly and then placed his hands on either side of her face, looking at her in the eyes. “You are not dreaming, but it sure feels that good to me. Thank you, you’re already making such an incredible difference in my life too.” He smiled and a soft laugh sounded from him. “So unlikely, aren’t we? The two of us?” He stroked his thumb over her cheek and then leaned forward and kissed her again, slowly, deeply, and hard, as he held her tightly against him.
Fires began to stir in them both as she kissed him in return, just as passionately as he had. His hands moved from her face to her back, and then just to the top of her hips. She moaned softly and at the sound of it, he let her go and looked at her with uncertainty.
Breathless, he spoke in a quiet voice. “Now that… now that you’re going to be on the team with me, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I’ve never had someone working for me who I’ve…” he hesitated, “who I’ve been intimate with.” He looked crestfallen as he reached for her hand. He lifted it to his mouth and kissed the back of it tenderly as he closed his eyes. When he looked at her again, he saw that she looked as disappointed as he felt.
“I think you’re right. We’d need to either have a business relationship or something personal, but it probably wouldn’t work to try to do both, don’t you think?”
He shook his head. “Probably not.”
Her voice was quiet. “So we had one amazing, unbelievable night, and we kiss goodbye to the sheets and say hello to the desks. Right?”
“I guess so.” He murmured. “So this is our kiss goodbye, and you can come in to work on Monday and we start from scratch.”
Callie nodded and lifted her mouth to meet his, kissing him with all the desire and passion that she had found with him the night before, knowing that it was going to be the last time, and he kissed her in just the same way.
When they finally let each other go, both of them were aching for the other, and she took a step back from him. “It might never happen again, but it was so worth it. I am never going to regret the night we shared.”
“I feel exactly the same.” He nodded, and then he turned and made himself walk away from her. “I’ll see you Monday morning in my office. Do you know where it is?” he called back to her as he turned to face her from several feet away.
She nodded. “I do, actually.”
He laughed softly. “I thought you might. I’ll leave your name at the desk so they’re expecting you, and I’ll see you then.” He waved, not quite able to make himself say goodbye to her, and she did the same.
Callie went home and surprised both her mother and Jenny when she walked through the door. Neither one of them was expecting to see her until Sunday afternoon when she woke up.
“You’re home!” Jenny cried out, rushing to her and hugging her tightly. She looked up at her with wide eyes. “Did you quit your waitressing job? Are you home for good?”
Callie grinned at her. “Yeah, I did quit my job, but then something else really neat happened!”
Noel looked up from her comfortable spot in her chair as Callie came to sit on the sofa near her with Jenny at her side. “I can’t even tell you how happy I am that you quit that job! That’s wonderful baby!” She leaned over on one elbow, toward the sofa. “So what’s this neat news you have?”
“Well, I got another job!” Callie laughed, her happiness shining brightly from her face.
Her mother’s eyebrows shot up. “You did what, now?”
“I quit my old job, and I got a new job. I’ll be working at that company that I wrote that program for last night. They are going to pay me half a million dollars a year to start. They are paying for all of my school, they are giving me full benefits, and they are working with my schedule so I can go to school and have time here. Can you believe that!” She felt like crying and dancing in the living room all at the same time.
Noel clapped her hands and cried out, and Jenny shouted and cheered for her, giving Callie a big hug. “That’s amazing! I’m so excited for you, Auntie Callie!”
“I�
�m so excited too!” Callie exclaimed.
Her mother gave her a heartfelt smile. “You have worked so hard for so long, and now it’s all going to pay off. Who would have ever thought it would happen like this! I think this is going to change all of our lives for the better!”
***
On Monday morning, with her heart beating clear out of her chest, Callie dressed in a pant suit and silk blouse and walked into Summitech Corp to start her first day on the job. As soon as she mentioned her name at the reception desk in the main lobby, she was taken directly to Alexander’s office.
The first person that she met there was Alexander Kingston’s secretary, Rosa Parker. Rosa reminded her right away of her mother. She was older and dark skinned, with medium length curls around her head and ears. She wore bright tropical colors and big chunky jewelry. Her smile was welcoming, and her tone was strong but kind.
“Hi! I’m Callie Forrester.” She began, her heart skipping every other beat as she held her hand out to the woman behind the large desk.
Rosa looked up at her and a smile spread across her face. “So you’re the wonder woman who fixed the app!” She stood up from her seat and walked around her desk to face Callie. “It is such an honor to meet you. I’m glad that you’re here! I know our team could really use a smart girl like you. Welcome!”
Callie suddenly felt so much better about her first morning there. “Thank you! That means a lot. It’s not always easy being the new kid, but I’m going to do my best!”
Rosa nodded and held her hand out in front of her. “Well, Alexander’s office is right there behind my desk, and your office is just there, right across the hallway. Come on, I’ll take you in and get you started. Now, everyone knows that you’re coming, and we’re all excited about it. No one could believe that someone wrote such a brilliant code!
Everyone is really looking forward to meeting you. Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re on a good team here, and I’m not the head of the team, Alexander is, but I’m the closest thing you’re going to find here as an assistant coach, so if you ever have any troubles, you come to me and I’ll take care of it for you. I’m here to take care of the place.” She gave Callie a wink and a smile, and Callie felt almost as if she had found an Auntie.
Her office was huge, and when she stepped inside of it, she had to stop for a moment to look around and take it all in. She could scarcely believable it. There was a large desk with a window beside it that stretched the length of the wall and offered her a gorgeous view of Seattle and the Puget Sound.
“I put that flowering plant in the window for you. I thought it might brighten the place up and give you something pretty to look at while you’re crunching ones and zeroes.” She laughed lightly and Callie walked over to the bloom and touched it lightly.
“Thank you so much! I love orchids!” She turned to look at Rosa. “I can’t tell you how much I really appreciate all that you’ve done to make me feel so welcome here!”
“You bet.” She answered, just as Alexander came through the door.
They both turned and looked at him, seeing the huge grin spread across his face. His cheeks turned a little pink and he glanced at Rosa. “Thank you for showing her in! I’ll pick it up from here.”
Rosa eyed him curiously and then looked over at Callie as a smile began to play at the corners of her lips. “Well I’ll leave you two to it, then.” She gave them both a nod and walked out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Alexander went to Callie and stopped just in front of her. He looked for a moment as if he wanted to embrace her, but then he held himself back. “You look incredible, and I know that everyone here is going to be so happy to have you on the team. Thank you for taking this job.”
“Thank you for giving me the job!” She laughed in reply, almost wishing that she could give him a hug and a kiss. It was strange to be platonic with him.
“I wanted you to know right away that no one knows about your dancing. All they know is that you are in college and that you fixed the app.” He spoke in a quiet voice, and she gave him a tender smile.
“Thanks, I appreciate that. Sometimes people judge others by what they do without really knowing anything about them. It’s been a tough lesson for me, to tell you the truth.” She shrugged slightly and he reached a hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“Not here.” Alexander smiled and lowered his hand. “Shall we take the tour? I’ll show you around and you can get your paperwork done. We’ll take care of getting your name on the door and your phone line and computer set up. This afternoon I’ll give you my laptop to work on. I’d like you to check the finished programming for the update on the app, just to give it a finishing look, and then we’ll hit the green light and send it out. How does that sound?”
She nodded and beamed at him. “It sounds great!”
It did sound great to her. It sounded like a living dream and she couldn’t believe that it was really happening, and before her graduation, no less. She thought that she was going to have to work much harder to get into the tech world than she had, and it was a huge relief to her that it had come when it did in the way that it did.
Her only regret was that Alexander was her ex-lover. He was the most passionate man she had ever been with, and it had easily been the greatest night of her life. It wasn’t going to be repeated, and she looked at it with the perspective that she had shared at least one amazing night with him, and that was better than never having been in his arms at all. It seemed a little awkward with him at the office as they tried to redefine their roles, but she knew that it would come naturally in time to them both, and he would be a great boss and they would become very good friends.
They took the tour and every now and then, Alexander would reach for her hand and then remember to let go of it, or he would touch her back or her arm when he was near her, and she would want to turn and touch him in return, but he would turn away from her, or she would step aside from him.
They were alone in the elevator when she looked up at him and saw him watching her. He suddenly looked away and drew in a deep breath, and she thought to herself that it was the same for her; difficult to let go of something so passionate in exchange for the chance to work together.
The two of them were alone in her office that afternoon waiting for the phone to be installed and both of them were ignoring the gravitational pull between them. He stood by the window, looking out at the stunning expansive view, and she was sitting in the chair behind the desk. He turned to look at her and walked over toward the desk.
“It’s none of my business, but I was wondering if you’d tell me how it is that you started dancing. That’s not really a profession that most ladies seek out, I’d guess. How did you come to work in that industry? Do you mind if I ask?” He gazed at her with an earnest expression on his face and she knew that he wasn’t going to judge her.
The memories came flooding back into her mind and she sighed quietly. “I got an unexpected responsibility, and I had to take care of it. I desperately needed the money, like most girls who get into that. They need the money.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
Callie tilted her head a little to the side and gazed at him. “You don’t really go to strip clubs often, do you?” A smile spread over her face as she recalled how he acted in the club.
“No, actually,” He laughed at the irony, “I never go. Tony took me there to try to talk me into a partnership. We have a couple of other companies looking at doing that with us right now. We’re a commodity, and he’s keen on being the one who gets to link up with us. I guess he thought it would impress me to take me there, but he doesn’t know me very well. If he really wanted to impress me, he’d have taken me to a fine arts exhibit of one kind or another. Museums, opera, ballet, live theatre. That’s a lot closer to my speed.”
He remembered then whom he was talking to and his eyes grew wide. “Not that you weren’t great! All the dancers there were great!” He said conciliatori
ly.
She laughed at him. “You can’t say that. You didn’t watch me dance.”
Alexander laughed and nodded his head. “You’re right, I didn’t. To be honest, I didn’t see any of the dancers that night. I was too wrapped up in the app and what was supposed to be a meeting.”
“Tony doesn’t have the best reputation with women, from what I’ve heard. Or from what I’ve seen personally,” she added.
He gave her a nod of agreement and a thoughtful look. “You know, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“So which companies are you most serious about partnering with?” she asked curiously. She knew most of them well just from her studies and research.
Alexander drew in a big breath. “Well, we’re down to two. Morian Inc, which as you know is Tony’s company, and Belltech, which essentially belongs to Janine McCartney.”
Callie couldn’t repress her curiosity. “So which one are you leaning more toward?”
