He shrugged. “Well, I don’t see why not. I’m paying you to be here anyway, aren’t I?”
“Look, I don’t know if you’re teasing me—” She scrutinized him for a second then added, “And I sense you’re not. But just don’t blurt out things like that. You’re the CEO of a public company.”
“If you won’t have sex with me, can I have my magazine back?”
She flung it behind her with vigor worthy of the first pitch in the one or two ballgames he had actually watched. Guess not. Maybe he should get the Annual Report out of his briefcase and turn back to that.
“Talking like that is completely inappropriate. Why would you even think you could say something like that?”
He tried to remember why he had said it. It was the pearls maybe. “You don’t look like one of my normal employees. Except for the suit and everything. You look like a woman I’d want to have sex with.”
“You jerk!”
“How am I being a jerk by wanting to have sex with you?”
“You’re being a jerk by saying so.”
“Even if it’s true?”
“Yes!” She paced up and down the narrow aisle of the jet, hugging her arms to her slender frame.
“Even if I’m thinking it?” he persisted.
“Yes. For instance, I’m not saying right now that I think you’re the biggest asshole boss I’ve ever come across in a long, long line of asshole bosses.”
“I think you did just say it.”
She paused to confront him. “Is there something wrong with you?”
He settled back in his seat. “Like what? I’m horny right now, but otherwise I’m okay.”
“First I’m supposed to teach you social skills or good manners or some shit and now this? I’m a lawyer. Not some Martha Stewart sex-for-hire, I don’t know what.”
“That’s a horrible image. I actually had a meeting with her once so I know what she looks like.”
She went back to pacing and tossed over her shoulder, “Everybody knows what she looks like.”
“Really? Well, she looks nothing like you.”
“I’m here to give you legal advice. I thought we were getting somewhere.”
“It doesn’t look like it,” he said under his breath.
“Just because I’m a woman,” she muttered, “you think you can talk to me like this?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to have sex with a man. I’m not wired that way. Especially not that Shreeman punk.” He adjusted his chair to semi-reclining. “What a whiner.”
“Incredible.”
“You’re kind of whining now, though. But the thing is you’ve got an awesome chest—”
“Enough!” The carpet was taking a beating from her pointy shoes, but she took deep breaths, seeming to reach for some kind of higher power calm as she walked back and forth. Which was fine with him. He didn’t appreciate lawyers, or anybody really, freaking out on him. And he didn’t feel like yelling at her, as just the very sight of Shreeman for some reason had made him want to do. So far, she had been kind of sweet, in the limo with her role-playing and watching out for him at the meeting. She was easy to talk to, even for him.
It was…nice. He…liked her. He turned the unusual phrases over in his mind.
Coaching him through small talk seemed brave of her as well, even if Marcia had instructed her to do it. She struck him as a person who was very level-headed, sensible. Well, not at this particular minute. He was getting dizzy following her with his eyes. He watched her make short work of the length of the plane, again and again, up and then down in no time, arms crossed as if she was freezing.
And of course she was sexy as hell. Her ass, which he hadn’t had an opportunity to observe as she had, for the most part, been walking beside him or behind him or sitting across from him, was, he saw as she paced, high and rounded in her straight skirt. It looked as plush as her breasts.
He still felt like having sex with her, as a matter of fact, despite this odd conversation. But he supposed that was totally off the table.
“Are you trying to offend me?” she asked quietly.
“No.”
She stopped her incessant pacing, putting the brakes on at his seat. “Upset me?”
“No.”
She braced her arms on the overhead above him. “Push me around somehow?”
“No.”
“In some sicko-power trip kind of way or anything?”
Even with the elaboration, it was a no. He shook his head.
She backed off. “So there is something wrong with you?”
“I guess. Can I have my magazine back now?”
Mason Talbot was supposed to possess some kind of astronomical IQ. That must be what the problem was.
Camilla had never dated a genius. But even the densest guy knew he needed a filter. That he couldn’t let whatever sexist, horn-dog thoughts he was having make it directly up to his mouth. Even the dumbest guy knew that!
Not the smartest guy, though, apparently.
It was one thing for her to think her boss was cute and chat with the receptionist about flirting with him. That was just her being a girl for God’s sake. No harm done. Even for him to tell her she had nice eyes wasn’t a big deal.
But quid pro quo, straight out like that? To go to the nuclear option, boss-wise, right to her face! Not locker room talk behind her back, which she knew went on and didn’t offend her any more than she suspected her girlish gab would offend him.
But to just ask her like that, straight-faced, as if it was okay to put her in that position?
On her first fucking day!
She didn’t know in which capacity she was more horrified, as a twenty-first century product of decades of feminism and member of an extremely girl-powered family…or as his lawyer.
“I’m surprised you don’t have a string of sexual harassment suits against you a mile long,” she muttered, retrieving his magazine and flinging it back at him. He took it with a disinterested glance her way and set back to reading as she resumed her seat.
“And you can’t fire me as a result of this,” she added fast. “You know at least that much, don’t you?”
“I never fire anyone,” he said without looking up. “Sometimes I tell Marcia to make sure I don’t see somebody again, but I think she just transfers them. Or doesn’t. I haven’t wanted to see Shreeman for quite some time, but he kept showing up.”
“Well, let me be clear, Mr. Talbot, that you can’t fire a woman for turning down sex with you.”
“Why would I?”
He was still not looking up, talking in that same disinterested tone.
She scoffed. “Because your ego’s bruised, that’s why.”
He raised his head finally and gave her a bewildered look. “What does my ego have to do with it?” Then he continued reading.
“Do you have a string of sexual harassment suits against you?” She didn’t see anything mentioned when she did the Google search on him, but she supposed with his money he could hush it up. Hard to believe Shreeman would’ve passed up the opportunity to throw that into his diatribe, but maybe he took his non-disparagement agreement more seriously than she thought. “I need to be prepared from a litigation perspective at the very least. Is this quid pro quo part of your regular working atmosphere? Because if so, it’s going to stop right now and we’re going to settle—generously, I might add—with any woman who has a claim against you.”
“Mr. Talbot,” she prompted when he didn’t respond.
“Hmmm? Oh, a claim for what?”
“Sexual harassment,” she said as calmly as she could. She felt as if she had wandered into a John Grisham novel and the reputable place she’d come to practice law was suddenly revealed to be a den of iniquity.
He put down his magazine finally. “Are we still talking about this?”
“We are.”
“So tell me again. What is it? It’s sexual harassment to ask a woman to have sex with you? Because I think I have done that before
. Usually at some excruciatingly boring function I have to go to. Although what if it’s them asking?”
It was hard to tell if he was being purposefully obtuse. She had known smart people who couldn’t change a light bulb. Maybe he was challenged like that.
“No,” she explained patiently. “It’s sexual harassment to ask an employee to have sex with you.”
“For money, right?”
“No. At all.”
“Where does the money figure in?”
“Forget about the money. How many times have you asked an employee to have sex with you? How many potential claimants are we talking about?”
“Once. One.”
“What?”
“You. Right now. Remember when I—”
“I remember!” she said. “But are you trying to tell me I’m the first employee you ever asked to have sex with you?”
“I’m not trying to tell you that. I am telling you that because you asked me.”
Well, that was good. From a litigation perspective. If he was telling the truth. But bad, too.
Like she needed this. She had student loans to pay off. “If you don’t mind me probing a little further here, why did you suddenly ask me?”
“Didn’t we go through this before? I find you attractive. Whatever. It was only a thought.”
“Well, you’ve made it very awkward for me.”
“Why?” he said in an exasperated tone and dropped the magazine on his lap.
“Because now I know you’re thinking about having sex with me.”
“Not anymore.”
“This is some kind of weird mind-game shit, isn’t it?”
“No, but you’re acting very oddly.”
“I’m acting oddly?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
She did a quick mental inventory of her outstanding loans, the sheer size of the remaining principal helping her regain her equilibrium.
She could put up with a lot. And he wasn’t attacking her or anything. In fact, he seemed to have lost interest in the whole subject. Maybe this was just the female equivalent of screaming at Shreeman, which wasn’t fair, but hey, that was life. Kind of like having an idiot savant for a boss.
He watched her, as if waiting for her to continue the discussion, or conclude it. Now might be the best time to set down some ground rules.
“Fine, Mr. Talbot, I’m willing to disregard your irregular, well actually illegal, suggestion.”
“It’s still hard for me to believe that’s illegal,” he pointed out.
“Well, it is.”
He shrugged. “I guess you’d know.”
“But it will continue to make things awkward for me if you refer to it again.”
“You’re the one who keeps talking about it.”
“Because I want to make sure you understand,” she snapped.
“Fine. I got it. Just so I know, though, if you weren’t my employee, would you have sex with me?”
“No,” she said automatically, not sure it was true, but really, really sure she shouldn’t encourage that line of thought.
“Because you’re not biologically attracted to me?”
If she didn’t know better, she would swear there wasn’t an ounce of ego, or rancor for that matter, in his question.
Who was this guy?
There hadn’t been any personal details in the bios she’d read—other than the interesting fact that his father had been an anonymous sperm donor—but she was suddenly unbearably, and unwisely, curious.
He seemed remarkably clueless.
And, what with that Byronic thing going on, just a little bit adorable as a result. Which was just so wrong.
In retrospect, Mason was sorry he’d brought the whole thing up. But he had, and Camilla seemed to be having quite an adverse reaction to the whole subject. And they had been getting along so nicely. He wished he’d thought to mention this possibility to Marcia. She would have warned him off the whole idea.
He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he had sex until he finally looked at the suit or rather beyond the suit, as she insisted on making conversation and was so helpful at the meeting. And then those pearls. Something about the sheen against her pale skin made him want to shove himself inside her, deep, deep inside, and feel the silk of her thighs against his palms, bury his face in her neck, both of them shiny with sweat as they moved against each other.
His breath came faster.
Most people he saw through a sort of film, and he didn’t care to peel it back. But from the beginning he saw Camilla. And then once on the plane and sitting across from her, completely alone except for the out of sight pilots, the thought just came to him. He could take her shiny blond hair down from the knot she had it in and run his fingers through the mass. He could—
He stopped. Apparently, he couldn’t.
He had a great respect for biology, once it kicked in, and he knew what he was feeling was a powerful attraction. However, she didn’t appear to be feeling the same. A damn shame. With her smiles and the easy flow of the conversation, he had thought she might. Just to be sure, though, he had asked her outright.
“You’re asking if I’m attracted to you?” she responded.
“Yes.” Since she had gone to Harvard, he wouldn’t have thought she was slow, but she did seem to be repeating his questions back to him quite a bit.
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but this awkwardness in your social skills, does it extend to sexual matters?”
“Quite possibly. I don’t consult Marcia on the specifics of that.”
“Thank the Lord for small favors,” she muttered. “Okay, then I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’re not continuing this conversation and asking me whether I’m attracted to you because you’re getting some kind of perverted thrill out of keeping the sex talk going.”
“I don’t feel the slightest bit thrilled by the fact you won’t have sex with me.”
“And I’m going to take it at face value that you honestly don’t know that asking me whether I’m attracted to you is inappropriate, like asking me to have sex was.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“But the blue eyes thing, in the limo, that was okay? You didn’t freak out at that.”
“Not okay exactly, but more like harmless.”
There seemed to be an awful lot of rules around this whole thing. “I guess you really are going to have to teach me about small talk.”
“Small talk, not sex talk. Dial 1-900-whatever for that.”
No clue as to what she meant by the numerical reference, he said, “Well, is there anything I can ask you?”
“You can ask me about my credentials. Or about the job. And we can work on getting you to feel more relaxed in social settings and at big meetings.”
“I meant about having sex together.”
“No.” She hesitated then said, “Does this approach usually work for you? Just putting it out there like that. Got sex? You know.”
“Why do you get to ask that? Isn’t that asking me about sex?”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have.”
“That’s fine. I was simply pointing out the internal inconsistencies in your line of questioning. I don’t mind answering you at all. The fact is I believe in being straightforward about most things. Which reminds me, I know you’re a lawyer, like Shreeman was, but what do I need a lawyer on this trip for? Specifically, I mean. Not the social skills or whatever, although you have been very helpful on that score.”
“You’re negotiating a potential acquisition in London.”
“I know. But that’ll be just me and the other principal. Not a big side show like back in New York.”
“I’m along to hear the discussion so I can begin to draft the contract if it gets to that stage.” She added in an undertone, “I didn’t know letting you spend six hours between my legs on the way over was part of the deal.”
He arched an
eyebrow.
“What, did I shock you?”
“You did if you thought I could last six hours.”
She shook her head. “I guess you are straightforward.”
Mason usually didn’t like talking to women. Well, to anyone most of the time, really. But for some reason he didn’t mind conversing with Camilla, in the limo, before the meeting, here in the plane. Maybe he thought it would end up with him getting between her legs. Or maybe he was just disappointed with the in-flight reading choices.
Or maybe… He, uh, he liked her.
The new boss didn’t seem to have asked if she was attracted to him in a sleazy way, just because he wanted to know. Despite moving on, his question hung there between them, and she couldn’t ignore it.
“As for your earlier question, biological attraction doesn’t have anything to do with it, Mr. Talbot.”
He did a double take. “That’s not accurate. Biological attraction is the basis for sexual relations.”
She went over to a metal cabinet near the cockpit door that had a bunch of drawers in it. After opening one, she saw packages of peanuts and chips and rows of candy bars. Passing on those, she tried another and found what she was looking for. A baby bottle of scotch was clearly called for. It wasn’t five o’clock where they’d come from, but it was where they were going. The sun was coming in a little dimmer now, too.
And as to Carly’s warnings? Her sister would certainly understand why Camilla was being driven to drink here. Anybody would. Carly was never going to believe this story. Actually, maybe she wouldn’t tell any of her sisters. It depended on whether she decided to keep the job.
But, hell, she had to keep the job! At least until she got another one. There was no grace period on her loans for bosses who were clueless about the basic fundamentals of the modern workplace. A compliment was awkward but fine. A raw invitation to fuck the big boss…for money…on her first day…was so not.
Even if she was a little tempted. Not the money part of course, but the—
Hold on, girl! She could almost hear Carly or any one of her other sisters, all of whom would be shocked down to their highlighted roots at the concept of sleeping with the boss. And don’t even start on her mother.
Tempting the New Boss Page 4