by Brandy Ayers
Charlotte’s heart thudded forcefully against her chest wall. Michelle was essentially taking the parts of the job Charlotte hated and giving them to Anna, and making the parts Charlotte loved the core of the position. She would still have to present in the meetings, though. Three meetings daily to be precise, as opposed to her current one at 3 a.m. when the morning producer came in to prep.
In a rush of sudden longing, Charlotte realized she wanted this. Desperately wanted to feel confident and strong enough to say yes. Take the offer. Hope sprang up, scaring her in its urgency, like a jack-in-the-box making her flinch at its sudden appearance. But she had to stuff it back in the box. Hope was a slippery slope to wanting things she couldn’t have.
She had no doubt the panic and fear shone bright as the sun on her face, so it came as no surprise when Michelle took on a soothing tone, as if approaching a skittish animal. “Listen Charlotte, I know you can do this. Not only do it, but be amazing at it. But I also know this probably terrifies you. So, I want you to take some time to think about it. Rich is going to slowly phase himself out over the next three months. So, we have some time. I want you to take the assignment desk and revolutionize it. All those ideas I know you hold back because you are afraid to get rejected. I want them.”
Michelle leaned forward, capturing and holding Charlotte’s gaze. “There is another reason I want you to take this position. I haven’t announced it yet, but I’m pregnant.” A wide smile pulled across her boss’s face, elation apparent in every wrinkle the huge grin caused. “It is still very early, so don’t tell anyone. I plan to take twelve weeks off for my maternity leave. I want to hand pick and mentor my dream team before I go on leave. You are the linchpin to that. I’ll give you a month. That is more than enough time to come to terms with the idea. But at that point, I’ll need an answer, so I have enough time to hire and train someone else before Rich is officially gone. Okay?”
Unable to speak, Charlotte simply nodded. The thought of someone from the outside being hired into the position made Charlotte’s stomach turn over. But so did the idea of her having to fake the level of confidence the job require day after day.
She stood, making her way out of the office. Before she passed through the doorway, she turned back and initiated the eye contact with Michelle for once. “Congratulations. I know you and Russ will be amazing parents. And, I’ll think about it. Thank you for the faith in my abilities.”
“Of course. That jagoff before me may have been a lazy, underhanded, criminal bastard, but he did one good thing in hiring you.” Michelle’s smile soothed Charlotte’s frayed nerves a slight bit. “I know a little something about letting your mind hold you back from something you truly want. Trust me, you can do this.”
Chapter Four
Michelle’s proposal weighed on Charlotte for the rest of the night. For the first time in her career at WQUZ, she had to remind herself to pay attention to the scanners. Usually, it came as second nature to have a portion of her brain listening to the activity over the radios, but tonight, she couldn’t seem to focus on anything. Her brain was too full of heavy decisions.
As a result, Trey ended up being the furthest thing from her mind as she dialed the numbers for her rounds calls. That is, until his smooth bass voice practically shook the receiver pressed to her ear. The vibrations traveled through her body, landing square on her now throbbing clit.
“Zone seven, how can I help you?”
Just like the first time, the instant she heard his voice, her heart pounded against her ribs and her panties immediately soaked through. Only this time, a healthy dose of shame followed her other emotions at the memory of pleasuring herself while thinking of him. The calendar photo popped into her mind’s eye once more, not helping the soaked panty issue at all.
“Um, yes, hello, this is Charlotte Orlov calli—”
“I know where you’re calling from Charlotte.” His velvet lined voice seemed to grow deeper, more sensual as he said her name. “I’ve been wondering if I’d hear from you tonight.”
Damn.
Trey’s words set her heart racing even more. He wondered about her. Charlotte. The shy introvert. No one wondered about her, other than to wonder what was wrong with her.
“Um, yes, well, I am the assignment editor on nights, and uh, so yes, you will be hearing from me. I mean you, um, are hearing from me, you know, right now. So yes. Hi.”
Oh god.
Charlotte wanted nothing more than to crawl under her desk, pull the sweater she always kept in the drawer over her head, and just stay there until she inevitably died of embarrassment. Why could she not talk to Trey like a normal human being? She had found ways to fake not being terrified of people in every other situation in her life. But it seemed his voice and the memory of what exactly he looked like had turned her into the bumbling idiot she truly was.
“I’m glad. I’ve been wondering if I made up that sweet voice in my head. But nope. Still the prettiest thing I’ve ever heard.” His low voice saying those words did fascinating things to her body.
She didn’t know what to say in response. Flirting simply didn’t exist in her world. But for the first time, she desperately wanted to be able to talk to a man without second guessing everything that made her up. Maybe just this once, she could let the woman she buried deep inside come out, just a little. That woman felt things, wanted to step outside her safe little world.
Closing her eyes, Charlotte shoved the uncertainty and awkwardness down as much as she could. “I thought the same thing about your voice. Not that it’s sweet. That I made it up. Because it’s so deep. I’ve never heard anything like it outside a Barry White song. Not that you sound like a dead soul singer. Better. I’m going to stop now.”
So much for channeling her inner seductress. Charlotte couldn’t figure out what it was about talking to Trey that made her go from barely speaking more than a few words at a time to a man unless she absolutely had to, to this nonsensical verbal diarrhea.
Her cheeks flamed with embarrassed heat as he chuckled on the other side of the line.
“Don’t stop. Hearing you talk is literally the highlight of my day. Maybe week.” His laughing slowly faded as the silence between them stretched.
Charlotte had no clue what to say. Conversation never came easy to her, she relied on others to carry her in that department, and simply responded to their cues. Avoided situations where she might be expected to talk. And then faked it when all else failed. That’s why she didn’t date.
“You still there, sugar? I didn’t frighten you off, did I?” A slight tone of worry crept into his voice, and that little sign of vulnerability somehow helped her to relax.
“I’m still here. Just don’t know what to say. No one has ever talked to me like this before.” The honesty fell from her lips before she could stop it. Tonight, the words coming from her mouth seemed to be unstoppable. She glanced around the newsroom, making sure she remained the last person there for the night. That no photographers had snuck up on her while her blood whooshed through her ears.
“Strange men don’t normally hit on you while you’re trying to do your job? I guess I should be ashamed of myself, but can’t seem to get there since you’re still on the phone.”
Charlotte couldn’t contain her quiet laughter. “No, men don’t usually hit on me at all. Ever. Is that what you’re doing? Hitting on me?”
“Absolutely. Is it working?”
Some little lilt in his voice gave away that somewhere on the other side of Pittsburgh, Trey grinned. Which made Charlotte grin like an idiot as well.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been hit on before. How do I know if it’s working?” Charlotte wrapped the phone cord around and around her finger until the tip started to turn purple, then unwrapped it until the color came back. Focusing on the repetition of the act took her mind off the fact that she might currently be flirting with a 911 dispatcher-slash-firefighter.
“Well, first of all, I find it hard to believe you’ve n
ever been hit on before, though this is the second time you’ve mentioned that. Are you sure you just don’t realize men are hitting on you?”
“I think I’d know if they were.” Taking a deep breathe, Charlotte decided to be honest with this guy that she found herself inexplicably drawn. “To be honest, I don’t give them much of a chance. I don’t go out much.”
“Oh, I see, keeping all that cuteness to yourself.”
“How do you know I’m cute? I could be an eighty-year-old woman with cataracts and no hair. You’d have no idea.”
“True, except I looked you up on Facebook when we got off the phone yesterday.” Trey didn't sound the least bit embarrassed that he had cyber stalked her. His words so matter of fact, they could have been talking about the unseasonably cool weather they had been dealing with as of late. “You are a sneaky one though. Your account is locked down like Fort Knox, and no pictures of yourself to be found. Thankfully, someone else at the station had you tagged in a photo.”
Charlotte was well and truly gob smacked, a word that she’d never really understood the need for before, but one hundred percent did now. Shock just didn’t cover it. Gob smacked did. No words would form, all that registered in her mind was one fact: Trey had cyberstalked her. Expertly cyberstalked her. In truth, Charlotte paid little attention to her Facebook page. It was simply a portal to do research on the subjects of their stories. And she knew exactly what picture he meant. Michelle often posted the employee of the month photos on her Facebook page. Charlotte had been given the honor four months ago. She’d simply ignored the notification, not really thinking anything about the awful picture.
“Trust me, there is definite cuteness going on,” Trey continued. “I’d go so far as to say there is definite hotness going on. But I’d have to get a closer look to know.”
“Ummm... what?” She’d hoped his alluring voice had been exaggerated in her mind thanks to her obsessing over the past twenty-four hours. But no. It was every bit as smooth and sensual as she’d originally thought. That combined with the words coming from his mouth had her head spinning. “You must be amazing at cyberstalking.”
Trey had a booming laugh that she imagined would make heads turn had they been in public. That laugh pulled a tiny involuntary smile from her lips as she blushed and glanced at the floor under her feet. It reassured her to know that she still stood, or rather sat, on solid ground, and this unbalanced sensation the man on the other side of the phone line gave her wasn’t real.
His laugh tapered off until he seemed to have control of his faculties once more. “I prefer to think of it as artful investigating. I just couldn’t get your voice out of my head last night. Even after my aunt insisted I go home early because I worked a double yesterday. I didn’t want to go. I needed to hear your voice again. But she forced me. Truth be told, I’ve been on the day shift for weeks, and I’m not even working right now, but told her I wasn’t leaving tonight until I got to speak with you again.”
Charlotte had no clue what to say. Not being able to speak wasn’t unusual for her, but at the moment, it was because of pure shock, not fear. A first for her.
“Am I freaking you out with all this? Sorry. I tend to find something I want and go full steam ahead, never thinking about other people not necessarily being on board.” Trey pulled in a deep breath, and the hair on Charlotte’s arms stood at attention, imagining what it would be like to have him close enough to feel the rush of air when he released the breath. “It isn’t every day I hear a voice that makes my entire body go to attention, Charlotte Orlov. When it happened last night, I knew I couldn’t just let it, you, go. So, I am very sorry if I am freaking you out, but I truly want to meet you. In person. Get to know you. Can you be on board with that?”
Thoughts rioted in her brain. Half of Charlotte desperately wanted to shout yes. Meet this man and see what happened. But the louder, more fearful, side wanted to close out the riot of emotions and sensations his words inspired. She opened her mouth once, twice, three times trying to figure out what she truly wanted. She tried to remind herself that no matter what she told him it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t know him, would most likely never meet him. His opinion of her shouldn’t matter. But it did. Oh, lord did it ever weigh on her mind.
Gathering every iota of strength to be found in her being, Charlotte settled on telling him the truth. Or part of it. “Trey, I’m not very good at this. Dating, and talking to people. I like my safe world of working nights, going home to my cat, and reading books. I promise you, if you got to know me, I would bore you. You really shouldn’t waste your time.”
Sadness overwhelmed her. She had made peace with being alone for the rest of her life after the incident with Greg and the attempt at losing her virginity. But suddenly, this stranger on the phone made her want to be different, and the fact that she couldn’t made a deep depression well in her stomach. Something that scared her almost as much as the hope the promotion offer had brought earlier in the night.
“Charlotte, just talking to you these two nights, I know you are anything but boring. I don’t know what you have experienced in your life to give you that impression, but I would like the chance to prove you wrong. Please. Just give me your phone number. Or let me give you mine. You can call me anytime. We’ll just talk. This is my last night here. I don’t want to accept that this is the last time I’ll ever hear your voice. Please.”
His words tugged at her heart, spoke to her soul. Before she could think to much about it, her phone number poured from her mouth. “I get off work at eight in the morning most nights, but I’m working a double today because my coworkers have the flu, so I won’t be done until about noon.” Charlotte panted as though she had just finished a marathon. Every nerve in her body firing. “Did you get all that?”
“Not only did I get it, I memorized it. I’m going to win you over, Charlotte. I hope you are prepared to be wooed, cause I am going to woo the fuck out of you.” That wide smile she had stared at in his pictures on her own cyberstalking episode last night was obvious from the sound of his voice. “I’ll talk to you around noon.”
Charlotte pulled the phone from her ear, unable to come up with anything else to say. Just before she placed the phone back in the cradle, she remembered she hadn’t gotten an update on what was happening in zone seven and pulled it back to her ear so fast it knocked roughly against her skull. “Wait, Trey, I forgot to ask—”
“Right, right you actually have a job to do.” Trey bellowed that deep laugh again. “Nothing to report of interest in zone seven. Just a happy man and a couple ambulance calls.”
Charlotte grinned like an idiot into the phone. “Okay. Good. Um. Bye.” Before she could say anything else, she hung up the receiver and sat staring at it for what felt like hours. The whole time her body hummed with heady anticipation and arousal, mixed with a healthy dose of fear.
She knew this whole situation with Trey was too good to be true. No one as handsome and charismatic as he seemed to be could be interested in a woman as mousy and shy as Charlotte. But even knowing that, it didn’t stop her body from yearning to be touched by a man. By that man.
The incessant throb of her clit drove her to distraction as she gathered story ideas and prepared for the morning meeting. She found herself shifting in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her legs in an attempt to relieve the need building there. If she didn’t do something about this, she would never be able to get through the rest of the night, let alone the next morning and her double shift.
Charlotte’s heart hammered in her chest as she contemplated the idea of slipping into the bathroom and relieving the ache Trey had set off in her. The station was almost entirely empty. Only the night time photographer still lingered, and he was holed up in an edit bay. It wasn’t unusual for her to ask him to come listen to the scanners for her while she went to the bathroom so they wouldn’t miss anything.
Making up her mind, she slipped off the platform where her desk sat and padded over to the edit bays i
n the hallway connecting the newsroom to the studio.
“Hey Cory, how’s the archiving coming?” Charlotte glanced at the edit bay screen rather than meet Cory’s eye. Afraid he would be able to read the dirty thoughts in her mind like the news crawl on CNN.
“Eh, long, but good. Found a couple old stories on these tapes that might be good to follow up on. Anniversary type pieces, you know?” The obviously exhausted photographer sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. Every since the station went digital years before, all the old tapes they’d used back in the day had been sitting in storage collecting dust. Cory had been tasked with copying them all into their off-location servers, roughly thirty years of analog tapes that he had to work through. Charlotte did not envy him. “Anyway, you need me to go somewhere?”
Charlotte shifted her focus to the floor. “No, actually, could you, um, watch the scanners for me while I go to the restroom and grab some coffee?”
“Yeah, no problem. I could use a break anyhow.” Cory unfolded himself from the rolling chair and ambled out to the newsroom while Charlotte raced to the restroom.
The pumping of her blood had become intense enough that she swore she felt the rushing of each drop as it pooled into every cell in her core. Deep arousal pushed at the floor of her pelvis, begging to be released. Even before she shoved her way through the door into the bathroom, her breath came out in pants.
The bathroom reserved for employees was actually a bathroom/locker room hybrid. On the left a long, low counter stretched along the wall with a large mirror attached to the wall above. Lights framed the mirror, the same color temperature as the lights in the studio so on-air talent could do their makeup and get ready for their closeups. Across from the makeup station was a long leather couch with throw pillows. Karen, the evening anchor, had insisted on it since many times producers or reporters had to come meet with her while she ‘put her face on.’
A second door was opposite the one Charlotte stumbled through, beyond which you would find found bathroom stalls, a bank of sinks, and half a dozen lockers where they kept extra clothes, makeup, and hair products.