by Katie Dowe
Chapter 3
Matthias stared around the office, a frown etched on his brow as he took in the heavy wood of the furnishings. He was very fastidious when it came to his working space and the outgoing Michael Vern apparently though that success meant atrociously expensive and heavy furnishings! Everything in the office would have to go and immediately. His corporate offices in New York had been decorated by the best in the business and he was going to give Bruce a call as soon as he finished with his meetings.
He looked up at the discreet knock on the open door.
“I rather thought that you would have to redesign the entire thing.” Caitlin said wrinkling her small nose as she looked around. “Michael was not the best when it came to subtlety and thought the more expensive the piece meant that it would show just how important he was.”
Matthias eyed her chic powder blue suit contemplatively and the elegant chignon at the nape of her neck. “You think differently.”
She nodded as she approached the heavy mahogany desk. “This is not you.” She waved her hand around the room. “And I am sure you are going to get rid of everything shortly.”
His dark eyes studied her in that usual unnerving way of his. In the past four weeks, he had been in and out and she had met with him a few times, realizing that the attraction she had felt at the initial meeting had heightened and she had done her best to stay away from him, but it had not helped since he had gotten it into his head that they should be working closely together.
“You are right.” He indicated for her to take a seat. “I am calling my decorating team the minute I get a chance to come in and do what they do best.”
Caitlin sat gracefully and crossed silken legs, unconsciously bringing his eyes to them. “That’s a very good idea. How are you settling in?”
His thick dark brows lifted in amusement. “I am not the new employee, Caitlin.”
“No, you are the boss of all this, but you are still new. So how are you settling in?”
“I will let you know after the meetings today.” His eyes shifted to the device in her hands. “Is that the publishing list you have for me?”
She nodded and uncrossed her legs to get up and approach his desk, placing the device in front of him. “I already sent it to your email, but I wanted to discuss a few of them with you. Young Blood is mainly geared toward millennial readers and writers with a few seasoned writers thrown in the mix.” She scrolled up with one manicured finger and stopped at a list of authors and manuscripts that were hopefuls. She touched on one and widened it. “This is a story about love in high school written by a twenty-four-year-old woman who works at an accounting firm. I think it has potential to be picked up by a major network and eventually be turned into a series. I was thinking Netflix or another independent network.”
“High school love?” His look was skeptical.
“It has everything from the awkwardness of the first day of school to the shyness of a plain girl having her first crush. Picture The Vampire Diaries or one such high school romance. We have the teenage demographics and it does not necessarily have to be a chick flick, it could be something very meaningful.”
“I am afraid you lost me at The Vampire Diaries.”
She stared at him for a moment. “Of course.” She shook her head. “What kind of movies do you like?”
“Action movies with a lot of violence.”
“And I suppose you are also a Bruce Lee fan even though he has been dead for years?”
“His moves are like none other.” His eyebrows lifted. “You did not say that because I happen to be Asian, did you?”
“That would be prejudice and I don’t know the meaning of the word,” she told him with a smile.
“Good, because I will have you know that I have a black belt in karate and I am very proud of it.”
“I am sure you are.” For a moment, they stared at each other before the spell was broken by his intercom. “Matthias, you said to remind you about the meeting,” Eve’s disembodied voice came across and Caitlin stepped back.
“Thank you,” he said before releasing the button. “Could we take this up later?”
“Of course.” she told him before leaving his office.
Throughout the day, he was kept busy meeting with the heads of the various departments and going through the various meetings and getting up to speed with what was happening. Caitlin was holed up in her office in meetings of her own and barely surfaced to eat a sandwich that Eve had thoughtfully brought into her office. She had asked Michael for an assistant for some time now and he had told her some crap about budget cuts and she had not brought it up again, but this time with a new person in charge, she was definitely going to give it another shot! She was swamped as it was and needed someone to help.
She felt the pangs of hunger around six and realized that most of the staff had already left for the day except for the printing department and the new cover designer who had been hired just last week. She got up and stretched out the kinks from her numb limbs before walking around as she thumbed through the pages of a manuscript that had caught her interest. She was so involved in the reading that she did not notice the man standing just inside the doorway! “Another bestseller?” His deep voice had her whirling to face him.
“You scared me,” she told him accusingly.
“I did not mean to.” He stepped into her light airy office and admired the light furnishings and the touch of personal items on her wide glass desk. There was a picture of her laughing into the face of a solemn older man who shared a bit of resemblance, enough to make him realize that it was probably her dad. “I wanted to see you in your own environment.”
“And?”
“It suits you.” His dark eyes met hers and held, causing tremors to tremble up and down her spine. “Mind if I sit?”
She gestured to one of the comfortable chairs against the wall and took one of the chairs. “There are these piles that we call ‘maybes’ and once a month I go over them to make sure that I am not missing out on the next bestseller.” She tapped the manuscript in her hand. “It’s quite interesting, not apparent at first, but as you get into it the true potential is revealed. I think we should consider publishing it.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s a story of two people lost at sea.”
His eyebrows lifted. “A shipboard romance?”
“Not just that, but it is filled with poignant reminders of what should be important. They almost died and got a second chance at life. They carved out a life for themselves on a piece of let’s just say island and spent the first few months feeling sorry for themselves before they did away with the self-pity and tried to make it work and fell in love with each other in the process.”
“Isn’t it because they were literally they only two people on that parcel of land? What is going to happen when they get rescued?”
“They do not get rescued.”
“That’s not likely.”
“It is,” she insisted. “They spent the time there with each other and made a home for themselves and even had children.”
“They have to get back to the real world sometime.”
“They did and did not like it one bit.”
“So they stayed.”
“They stayed.”
“And lived happily after,” he said sardonically.
“Are you usually this cynical?” she asked him curiously.
“Happily ever after does not exist and I am sure you do not believe that.”
“Maybe I do,” she told him challengingly.
His lifted brows queried that and she laughed, bringing his attention to her lips coated in soft plum. Caitlin felt the breath backing up inside her throat and got to her feet abruptly, turning to go to her desk so that she could get some control over her feelings. “Was there something that you needed?”
“Nothing in particular.” He got to his feet. “I am thinking of working late myself. If you are still going to be here in another hour o
r so, I suggest we order dinner.”
But she changed her mind in staying late, knowing that she would not be able to stay alone with him feeling the way she did. So she called up Valerie and Yvonne and told them that she wanted to drink tequila and talk trash and they had told her to get herself to the bar on Lexington Avenue.
She had removed her jacket and left it in her car and loosened the chignon before making her way into the crowded bar. She speared a sharply dressed man with a look as he deliberately brushed up against her and continued on to the bar where her friends were already seated. “What are you having?” Yvonne beckoned to the cute bartender who ran his light blue eyes over Caitlin as she climbed onto the bar stool.
“Bloody Mary,” she said promptly.
“We have not seen your skinny ass in three weeks,” Valerie complained. She was married to her childhood sweetheart and had been married for the past twenty years, but the marriage was strained because she was unable to get pregnant. She had put on weight as a result of the problems at home and spent most of her time at her office where she was a computer technician. Yvonne had been engaged a few years ago, but before they could tie the knot, her fiancé had died in a car crash.
“My skinny ass has been working.” She accepted the drink from the bartender and ignored the invitation in his eyes. She was not desperate enough to have sex with a guy who was barely legal!
“I read about the takeover in the paper. Matthias Zeng venturing into publishing, isn’t that a little bit outside of his expertise?” Valerie asked as she sipped her rum and Coke.
“He is into art so it is not a long stretch and he knows his thing.”
“I have seen his photos and he is one dreamy looking Asian,” Yvonne murmured as she looked around the room. It had taken her a long time to get over Adrian, but now she was ready to get back out there. She was an admin assistant at an accounting firm and was starting to feel the tentacles of loneliness closing in on her.
Valerie stared at Caitlin sharply. “Maybe this is what you have been waiting for!”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t he single?”
“He is also my boss,” she pointed out.
“So?”
“I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“Girl, you need to get a life!” Valerie said moodily as she too looked around the crowded bar. Lately, she had been thinking about having an affair, but she could not quite get the nerve to carry it out and besides she still loved Dean even if he had no idea that she was around. Her world was falling apart and she was not sure how much longer she could stand it!
“Honey, you okay?” Caitlin had caught the bleak expression on her friend’s face.
“Married ten years and instead of rejoicing that we have been together so long, I feel as if I want to tie a rope around my neck and jump off the rafters in the basement,” Valerie said bitterly. “I am sitting in this bar and wondering if I should ask one of these dubious gentlemen to take me back to their place and screw my brains out, but I would still have to go home and face my problems.” She finished her drink and gestured at the bartender for a refill. “I have no idea what to do.”
“You can stop thinking about having an affair,” Yvonne said quietly. “After you are done, you will be left with the guilt and shame.”
“And you are still in love with Dean,” Caitlin added.
“When we were in high school, it was so easy to make plans! We were so in love with each other that we naively thought that we would have this perfect life when we grew up and we would live happily ever after. Maybe we would have too if only I was able to have a child.”
“Have you been to therapy?” Caitlin asked her in concern.
“A couple of times before Dean said he was not going back. I think maybe he is thinking about having kids with someone else,” she said bitterly.
“Honey, I don’t think he would do that to you.”
Valerie stared at Yvonne as if she had taken leave of her senses. “I have no idea who he is anymore.”
*****
Caitlin plopped down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes before lying back against the cushions. Two hours of listening to Valerie itemize the problems in her marriage had given her a headache which had only gotten worse with the liquor she had imbibed. She closed her eyes and told herself that very soon she would have to get up and make herself a pot of tea to recover. She had an early morning meeting tomorrow and needed a clear head for it. Viola was making noise again and she was going to have to deal with the annoying woman.
Her phone pinged inside her pocketbook and she reached for it, praying that it was not Valerie calling her to reinforce what she had said while they were in the bar, but it was her dad.
“You are up late.” Caitlin struggled up onto the pillows, instantly alert. “Grading papers?”
“And finishing my paper as well. I have not seen you in two weeks.”
“I promise to come by on Sunday. I have been tied up, Dad, with the change of management and all that.”
“How is it?”
“Very good actually. At first I thought he was a rich prick with too much money and who just wanted another toy, but he is determined to make a difference.”
“Did I send you all the way to college to talk like that?” he asked her mildly.
“Dad, sometimes I forget that I am talking to you, the wizard of the English language,” she teased.
“I gathered that,” he told her dryly. “You are home?”
“I decided to leave early and have a drink with the girls. Valerie is spiraling into depression again.”
“She needs therapy.”
“That did not help the last time.”
“It only works when you follow up. Invite them both for dinner on Sunday.”
“I will. Are you going to be up much longer?”
“I am planning on going to bed in another half hour.”
“Okay, Dad, see you on Sunday.”
*****
He found her stretched out on one of the sofas in her office with a manuscript on her chest and fast asleep. He had been at the publishing house for three weeks now and he realized that he had become fascinated by the workings of it. He made several trips to his corporate office to follow up on his various interests, but he was really quite taken with the publishing house. He had redecorated the office and it was now his haven, one that now had furnishings that were more his taste. He had also been watching Caitlin and admired her fire and spirit as she went about her duties. She was clearly in love with her work and had a passion for it. He watched in amusement the way she dealt with the members of staff and her forthrightness when they were in meetings. She also spent a lot of time in her office and did not leave when the others did. He crouched down next to the sofa and examined her flawless complexion and the long lashes making shadows against her cheeks. Her hair, which had been in its usual elegant chignon, was loose and spread out against the cushions at her head. She had kicked off her shoes and was only in her stockings. He hunkered there and wondered if he should wake her. It was almost nine and he was heading out to go to the club for the weekend. There was also something he needed to talk to her about too and he was trying to find a way to do so. After searching for a long time, he had finally found the person he wanted to carry his children! He just had to find a way to put it to her. He got up and her eyes flew open and stared at him.
“Matthias?” Her voice was husky with sleep and he felt the stirrings of an arousal which had him stepping back immediately!
“Do you make a habit of crashing in your office?” he asked her mildly as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark brown dress pants.