In the Eye of the Storm / Catering to the CEO

by Samantha Chase

  He kissed her mouth, her neck, her breasts, each caress eliciting different sounds and cries of pleasure from her. She was a feast that he could not get enough of, and if the way she was clawing at his back was any indication, Holly felt the same way. It was all-consuming, blinding, and frantic, and soon Stephen felt her tightening around him, her telltale quickening of breath that made him feel more masculine that anything else in the world. He held back long enough to watch her come hard before allowing himself to do the same.

  Breathing ragged, Holly draped over Stephen, her head on his shoulder, like a rag doll. “If we had breakfast together like this every day, we’d never get any work done,” she mused. Stephen chuckled lightly and agreed. He helped her down from the countertop and righted the robe that was hanging off her.

  “You okay?” he asked. Holly merely hummed a reply and went to lean against him again, her arms wrapping around his middle. He liked it. That one simple move made him feel ten feet tall. He was treading into dangerous territory here. With every little movement, every word, every gesture, Holly was beginning to take hold of a part of his life that was off-limits to everyone. He had to take some action to stop that from happening if for no other reason than to wait until he knew for sure what she was thinking.

  Carefully, he turned her so he could put an arm around her shoulders and walk her toward the living room. The sofa was the perfect spot to recover from their explosive encounter. He kept her close as they sat down. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV to check the forecast again. It seemed as if the storm was finally preparing to move out of the area, and the rain was expected to end within the next couple of hours. He felt Holly tense a little beside him and said, “It won’t matter if the rain ends today or not. It’s Sunday, and the trees are still down. The roads probably won’t be cleared until tomorrow.” In his own mind, he was saying the words to Holly, but he knew subconsciously that they were as much for his own benefit.

  Watching the remainder of the newscast in silence was oddly soothing. When the house phone rang near the end of the broadcast, both nearly jumped out of their skin. Stephen walked to the kitchen to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Ballinger? It’s Margret from personnel,” she began.

  “Hi, Margret, what can I do for you?” Stephen was a little perplexed as to why his employee was calling him at home and hoped that nothing was seriously wrong.

  “Yes, sir, I’ve been trying to reach Holly Abbot with no luck and figured it would be best to try to get to you myself.”

  “Is there a problem, Margret?”

  “Well, I got a call from the building manager, sir, and it seems like there has been extensive storm damage in the downtown area as well as some to the building.”

  “Are our offices okay?” He was immediately in “boss” mode, and his brain was scrambling with thoughts of what could possibly be ruined.

  “Oh, yes, sir, our offices are fine. The entire first floor and the basement were flooded, but our offices are fine up on the eighth floor. No, the problem is that they won’t let anyone into the building until at least Tuesday afternoon, and so I needed to get the phone tree going to notify all employees of this fact. Holly normally assists me with that when we have snow days and such. I guess her phone must be out because I can’t reach her.”

  “Um…yes, probably.” A part of Stephen wanted to hand the phone to Holly so that she could do what she normally did to help Margret, but doing that would be to let someone know that Holly was staying in his home, and he was not ready for something like that yet. “Are you able to make the calls, or do you want me to help you?”

  Margret was stunned silent for a moment. “Oh, no, Mr. Ballinger, I’ll be fine. I have the entire company list here, and we have a system. I need to get Holly’s branch of the phone tree going, and then everyone passes a call on to the next person on the list. I thought that you should know what was going on for yourself since I couldn’t reach Holly.”

  After thanking Margret and wishing her a good day, Stephen walked back into the living room where Holly was channel surfing in search of something to watch. “You have, like, a thousand channels. How do you ever find and decide on something to watch?” she asked, looking at the TV and not at him.

  “Honestly? I don’t even watch TV.” Holly stopped surfing and turned to look at him with disbelief. “It’s true,” he assured her. She shook her head and returned her focus to the TV until she found something that caught her attention. She was laughing when Stephen interrupted her. “That was Margret on the phone from personnel.” He went on to explain to Holly all that was going on.

  “So the earliest that we can go back to the office is Tuesday?”

  It was such a simple question, and yet it held many implications. Did that mean that Holly was coming back to work? Was she going to stay on with him? Stephen truly wished that it were true, but all he could make himself focus on at the moment was that this new development meant extra days that they would have here together in his home. In his bed.

  This was insanity. He had to force himself to focus and to get his mind out of the bedroom. “It seems that way,” he finally remembered to answer. “I’m glad we found out now rather than on Monday morning when we couldn’t have gotten near the place.” Holly nodded in agreement. “Do you need to call Margret or do anything?”

  She took a minute to answer because she was partially still paying attention to the comedy on the TV. “Um…I’m sure Margret has it all under control. Besides, won’t it seem suspicious if I call her after she couldn’t get through to me? And from your phone?”

  “What about your cell?”

  “Dead. I forgot my charger. I’m sure my mom is getting frantic by now, but I’ll talk to her when I get home and put her mind at ease.” She was being pretty casual about the whole thing even though her insides were jumping around. More time with Stephen. More opportunities to lock themselves away from the rest of the world and live the fantasy for a little bit longer. It was more than she would have dared ask for, but she was so thankful to receive it.

  Sensing everything was all right at the moment, Stephen returned to his spot beside Holly on the couch and allowed himself the luxury of relaxing on a Sunday afternoon with a beautiful woman by his side. It was a new sensation—yet another one—and he found it to be very comfortable.

  Chapter 7

  By the time Holly drove away from Stephen’s home on Monday afternoon, they had carefully agreed that she would return to work at Ballinger’s the next day. As awkward as it might be, Holly was too dedicated to the company, and to Stephen, to leave him high and dry without an assistant.

  That had been an easy decision. How to handle what had happened over the weekend had been a little trickier. Holly had been the first to address it.

  “You realize that I’m more than willing to stay on at Ballinger’s, Stephen, on a temporary basis, right?” He had nodded and let her continue. “I know I’m going to be a little more paranoid than normal because I’m going to be looking for someone to say something off-color or to look at me weird. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to handle it.”

  “You may be worrying for nothing, Holly. I mean, Derek making a comment doesn’t mean anything. Derek thinks everyone is having sex. He sleeps with most of his assistants. He can’t imagine why I haven’t.”

  “But you have,” she said quietly.

  He studied her. They were having this discussion lying in his bed, and she was on her side facing him. One breast was exposed as the sheet had draped over her, and he had to fight the urge to trace its roundness with his fingers. But now was not the time. This was a serious discussion that had to be finished before she left his house.

  “I know I have, Holly. I’m not sure where we’re supposed to go from here.” His voice was raw with honesty, and he was leaving the choice to Holly where they went from here.

  The urge to throw caut
ion to the wind was almost more than she could bear. But Holly was a sensible woman who knew she had more of a future as Stephen’s assistant than she did as his lover. The revolving door of women she’d seen over the years had proven that. With a lump the size of a grapefruit in her throat, she voiced her decision hesitantly. “I think…it would be best if we left this weekend as that—the weekend. This has been wonderful, Stephen, but I think it would be best if we went back to our previous relationship and let this…go.”

  While he knew he should be relieved, even thankful, that she was making this easy for him, Stephen wasn’t so sure they could go back to the way things were before. How was he supposed to work with her every day knowing what she looked like in the throes of passion? How could he sit at his desk and watch her take dictation and not imagine what she was wearing under her clothes?

  Could he possibly go back to asking her to handle making dinner arrangements for him and another woman without feeling guilty? On the flip side, how would he feel watching Holly date another man now that he was promising her that they’d cut back on their work schedule so she could have a social life? Maybe a clean break would be best for them both all the way around.

  Glancing over at her as she stretched beside him made the decision for him; he’d rather see her every day and torture himself than not see her at all.

  As Holly made her way home, she was shocked by the damage left behind by the storm. Trees were down; parking lots were flooded. Fortunately the route she took home did not require too many detours, and when she pulled into the driveway of her condo, she was relieved to be there. The weekend was over, and it was time to get back to real life.

  The weekend had been a fantasy, a lovely escape. She could never regret it, but she had to put it behind her and regain her focus so she could continue to work at Ballinger’s. Maybe Stephen was right and that opinion was merely Derek’s. After all, in three years, if people in the office had truly suspected anything, wouldn’t someone have said something by now? Holly was friendly and knew almost everyone who worked at Ballinger’s; surely if people thought she was sleeping with Stephen, it would have come up in conversation by now.

  Feeling confident about what lay ahead of her tomorrow, Holly climbed out of her car, and with a grateful look around to see that her building had no structural damage, she went inside to make calls, do laundry, and return to the role of Holly Abbot, single woman, personal assistant.

  Her home seemed tiny after her time at Stephen’s, and the walls started to push in on her, but she reminded herself that this had been her home for years and one weekend away should not have her feeling any differently toward her place. When her laundry was going, she placed her much-needed phone call to her parents to let them know she was all right.

  “Where have you been?” her mother cried at the sound of Holly’s voice. “Dad and I have been worried sick! We couldn’t get through to you, and the news reports were showing the devastation around you, and all we could think was that something had happened to you!”

  Her mother had always had a flair for the dramatic. “Relax, Mom. The lines were down all over the place, and I was without power so my cell phone couldn’t be charged. I’m sorry you worried, but as you can hear, I’m fine.” She decided it would be best to leave out any details of being stranded at Stephen’s place for the weekend. That was so not a discussion she was ready to have. Besides, her parents already had issues with Stephen because he worked her so hard that she hardly had time to visit home.

  With a promise to call over the weekend and to think about coming home for a brief Thanksgiving visit, Holly hung up the phone an hour later. Once her mother got her on the phone, sometimes Holly had a hard time getting off. Holly felt thoroughly up-to-date on every friend, neighbor, and family member now and was sure that if she never went home again, she wouldn’t be missing anything!

  Next on her to-do list was to go food shopping. She looked at her tiny kitchen and once again had to stop herself from comparing it to Stephen’s. The good news was that she could look forward to doing some cooking again now that she would be getting home earlier; the bad news was that she was still going to be doing that cooking for only one person.

  Later that night as she lay in bed, the enormity of it all hit her. What was that phrase—“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”? Well, screw that! The first tear fell, and she was helpless to stop the rest. Her bed was too small, her kitchen was too small, her home was too small, and it was all Stephen Ballinger’s fault! If she hadn’t answered his call Friday night, none of this would have been an issue.

  How did she expect to go back to the way things were with all this emotion inside her? Holly was not like Stephen; she felt things. Relationships meant something to her, and no matter how she looked at it, she and Stephen had a relationship. They seemed to have a multilevel one, and forgetting about the physical side was going to be a battle. She cried for all she had in that short weekend and for all that would never be. She cried in confusion about what she wanted for her own life and how she was going to make things work.

  Kicking the blankets off, Holly walked to the bathroom for a tissue and took a long look at her reddened face in the mirror. “You are a fool,” she said to herself. “You had to sleep with him, didn’t you? You couldn’t stay in bed that night, could you? You had to have a piece of chocolate…” Disgust covered her face. Chocolate. All of this happened because she had a sweet tooth. She was pretty certain they would have controlled themselves if they had not seen each other in that moment Saturday night.

  Turning on the faucet, she splashed cold water on her face, dried it, and gave herself one last look of deprecation before turning out the light and heading back to bed. Lying in the dark, she waited a long time before her mind shut down enough to let her sleep.

  * * *

  The parking garage was filling quickly at noon on Tuesday. There were still many puddles, and the day was cold and damp, but for the most part it seemed as if the worst was over. Holly climbed out of her car and met up with some of the girls from the accounting department, and they headed across the street to Ballinger’s, each telling her harried tale of the weekend storm and how it had taken them all by surprise.

  Oh, if only they knew!

  Once up on the eighth floor, Holly found Stephen already in his office and on the phone. She went about her normal routine, brewing the coffee while her computer warmed up and then listening to the voicemails that had piled up over the long weekend. Weeding out the important messages, she organized them all and headed back to the small kitchenette where the coffee was now steaming and ready. Fixing Stephen’s mug, she came back through to her desk, scooped up the messages, and went into his office.

  If she had been expecting awkwardness, she needn’t have bothered. Stephen was fully immersed in work mode; he barely acknowledged her presence at first as he talked on the phone to a client in Texas who was having problems with a security system due to a storm that had blown through the area. She placed Stephen’s coffee on his desk, laid out his phone messages, and went back to her own desk, relieved that their first encounter held no drama.

  Two hours later, Stephen was finally off the phone and called Holly into his office to tell her how to handle each of the messages she had left on his desk, plus what needed to be done to fix the problem with the client in Texas. His tone was impersonal, as if he were addressing a practical stranger. He never once even looked at her. Holly wrote everything down, and as she was making her final notation, Stephen stepped around the desk to inform her that he was heading out to a meeting with Frank Gideon and that he probably would be out for the rest of the day. He reminded her to call it quits at five o’clock, and before she could comment, he was gone.

  Okay, fine; this was a lot less personal than what she had been expecting, but at least she knew that for today they were fine and more than capable of working with one another
.

  That pattern of business and behavior continued through the end of the week. By Friday afternoon, Holly had come to the conclusion that their weekend together had clearly meant more to her than it had to Stephen because there had not even been a hint of anything personal between them. If anything, the man treated her as if she had the plague. There were no times that they were alone when the door wasn’t open or someone wasn’t on speakerphone with him; they had barely made eye contact. Well, if that’s the way it was, then so be it. Holly could move on just as easily.

  At five o’clock on Friday afternoon, Holly walked into Stephen’s office, handed him the contracts she had spent the day working on, and wished him a good weekend as she quickly turned back toward the door. As usual, he was on the phone and merely waved a hand without looking at her.

  If she slammed her desk drawer with a little more force than usual, nobody seemed to notice. If she scowled a bit on the elevator ride down to the lobby, people chose to say nothing. She was muttering under her breath as she made her way out the main door onto the sidewalk about how rude and inconsiderate a man she worked for and what a completely self-absorbed bastard he was when she walked directly into someone. At the moment of impact, two strong hands gently grasped her upper arms to steady her. She looked up and saw that it was Will.

  Great.

  “Hey,” he said, chuckling, “are you okay?” He had a great smile and brown eyes that twinkled and lit up his whole face. Holly had always liked Will, and she hated that her first reaction to seeing him was to feel her stomach pitch and roll with unease.

  “Oh, hey, Will,” she said with forced cheeriness. “I’m fine. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Sorry for slamming into you.”

  Will left his hands on her arms for longer than was really necessary and examined her face. She looked about as happy as Stephen had sounded on the phone earlier. He hadn’t heard back from Stephen after their phone conversation on Saturday night, but since Holly was still working for him, he could only imagine how the rest of the weekend had gone.