Over the Hedge: Part 2- The Finale (Lucky in Love)

by Minerva Vesta

  “If you knew what I felt, when I’m inside of you, you wouldn’t want me to put one on either.”

  I wanted to point out I knew what him being inside of me bare felt like, but I dropped the subject. Although, I was pissed about him waking me up, the sweet words he’d just spoken brought a smile to my face.

  “So? Who’s this Shawnie girl?” I asked with a smirk.

  Sean’s cheeks colored slightly with embarrassment. It was obvious he didn’t mean to let it slip out during sex.

  “Don’t even try it. You know it’s you. I sort of call you that in my head a lot…I guess. You know…it’s kind of like, I got a pet name for you in my head,” he answered, turning back into that guy that asked me out for the first time so many months ago.

  Sean had his moments when he could get very affectionate and mushy. I didn’t want to rub it in, so I let the subject drop.

  “You’re awfully jolly this morning,” I noted

  “That’s because I’m happy,” he said looking relieved I let him off the hook.

  “What makes you so happy?” I uncurled myself from a ball and stretched my body to its full length, with my hands high above my head and toes pointed to the foot of the bed. My full breasts stood proudly at attention for Sean’s hungry gaze.

  He leaned over me with one hand holding himself up. His face lowered until his chin sat firmly on my breastbone. I could feel the coolness of the skin on his cheeks and the steady beat of his heart against my leg.

  “Because you love me,” Sean answered.

  He smiled as my features softened at the sound of his words. Not able to resist, he reached up and captured one of my taut nipples in his mouth. Just that quick he was turned on and ready for round two. This man was my sweetest fantasy. He could make me laugh until my stomach ached. Our intelligent conversations kept me on my toes. All these thoughts raced through my mind as he hungrily lavished my nipple to full attention.

  I palmed Sean’s head, forcing him to break the tight seal his mouth had formed on my breast.

  “Aren’t you going to see your mother?” I inquired with bated breath.

  “Ma can wait…” Sean began, but quickly changed his enthusiastic tone after seeing the look on my face.

  There was no way I would allow him to leave his mother waiting while we went for another round of sexual satisfaction. I made myself a promise to finish what he’d started before the day was out, though. His semi-hard muscle would just have to go back to sleep.

  “Yes, I’m going,” he grumbled.

  “Good boy. Now, pass me the covers, so I can go back to sleep.”

  “Nope get up. If I don’t get what I want, then you don’t get what you want. You’ve got to go to your mother’s luncheon. I talked to her and told her you wouldn’t be able to come over to help set up, but you will be there later to see some of your dad’s old friends.”

  “But I don’t want to…” I griped, kicking my legs out in a full-blown tantrum.

  “Sweetheart, you’re not that tired.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Sean got up from the bed and went about getting dressed in his walk-in closet. “Fine, I’ll call her and tell her you’re not feeling well.”

  “You better not or she’ll come running over here,” I quickly protested.

  He came out of the closet wearing a pair of low riding khaki shorts and a polo shirt. He was such a Florida boy. No doubt the outfit would be paired with boat shoes and a baseball cap. I spread my legs to the side to tease him. Sean smirked as he picked up the wet towel off the floor and tossed it on the bed. He took off running not bothering to watch me sputter as it landed on my face.

  His actions were enough to make me jump off the bed. Heedless of my nakedness, I took off after him. He was so fast, he made it down the hallway and toward the stairs before I even made it out of our bedroom.

  “Don’t you dare run down these stairs!” he yelled at me from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Cheater!” I hollered back.

  “I love you too, sweetheart.” Sean grabbed the keys from the counter and stuffed them in his pockets. “I’m taking your car for an oil change. Drive the truck if you plan on going to your mother’s.”

  I beamed. “Okay. I love you more.”

  “And, I’m getting seconds when I come home later,” Sean said reminding me of the round two of our lovemaking I had put on hold. The front door closed soundly behind him; leaving me standing naked at the top of the stairs with a goofy smile on my face.

  He called me Shawnie.

  Whatever sentiment I was feeling was completely lost on Fat Bastard. The cat passed by me, rotund body swaying with each step, and headed down to the kitchen. I was sure I saw him roll his eyes.

  Something felt off when I entered the familiar walls of Hines and Grant Research Institute. Sean had a meeting with a finance guy about something to do with his grandparents’ estate. I was half listening when he told me about it this morning. I was late coming in because I was left to my own devices. I had to change twice and ran over the garbage can again.

  I’m not saying it’s Sean’s fault, but he knows to pull the garbage can back around the side of the house on Sunday nights.

  For a Monday morning, there were a lot of people perusing the lobby. Usually, everyone was busy catching up on work they slacked off doing on Friday. But, this Monday the hallways of H&G were buzzing with nervous energy. I called out to a few women from the finance office as I walked to the elevator. By the time I reached my desk, I just knew something big was going to happen today. An hour into my day, I stopped checking emails to see if Dr. Barnes was in his office.

  Tapping on the door, I waited until I heard the distinct sound of his voice telling me to enter.

  “Good morning Dr. B—” My morning greeting cut short when I realized Dr. Barnes had a few people sitting in his office. Two of them were company executives I’d met previously. Dr. Grant Jr. was there as well. The other two were unfamiliar to me.

  “Price…how are you this morning?” Dr. Barnes asked, not waiting for a response. “This is my assistant Lashawnda Price. She will be a future psychiatrist to crazy old men like me.” The other men laughed at Dr. Barnes’s joke.

  “Trust me, Dr. Barnes; there is no one else like you,” I replied, nerves on edge trying to figure out what was happening. The men in the room chuckled at my honest words. “I see you all are very busy. Dr. Barnes, I’ll be at my desk if you should need me for anything,” I said my goodbyes and left the room.

  The moment I got back to my desk I began furiously texting Sean about what I saw in hopes he had an idea of what was going on. But, with him in a meeting, he didn’t respond. Thirty minutes later, I watched as the four men walked by my desk—each nodding as they passed.

  “Price, set up a conference call with the team ASAP,” Dr. Barnes said, popping his head in my cubicle before walking away.

  “Sure, do you want me to set it up for a specific time?” I stood up, trying to get him to stop moving for a second to tell me what was going on.

  “Just do it as soon as you can get everyone together.” With a quick nod, he walked away, effectively dismissing me.

  I immediately placed a call and was happy to hear from Dr. Vanderpool’s secretary that he was on his way back into the office after a canceled planning meeting with the University Steering Committee. My next call was to Sean’s assistant. I was already aware of his schedule and knew when he would be available. A favor was called into another administrative assistant to utilize the conference room that had the video conference capabilities. We could hold this meeting via teleconference, but I wanted to see Dr. Vanderpool’s smiling face.

  Two hours later everyone was seated in the room waiting on Dr. Barnes’s big announcement.

  “How was everyone’s weekend?” Dr. Vanderpool asked the room at large.

  “Ours was great.” Sean smiled, looking from Dr. Barnes to me.

  We all had an eventful weekend. From Daddy’s birthday pa
rty to Dr. Barnes’s arrest, and all the family in town, we hadn’t been able to relax. I was just thankful we lived through it all.

  “Some of us had more fun than others,” Sean said looking pointedly at Dr. Barnes. It was his subtle attempt at divulging information about the older man’s arrest.

  “We’re not here for that,” Dr. Barnes replied harshly. The added stern glare was enough to get Sean to keep his mouth closed.

  “So, why are we here? This must be important,” I asked, anxious to get to the bottom of what was happening.

  “Price, our culprit has been caught,” Dr. Barnes said leaning back in his chair with a self-satisfied grin.

  The five seconds of shock that radiated through the room was palpable.

  The thought that all our hard work wouldn’t be for naught was the best news we could have possibly received. The months of working on a project with no possibility of claiming ownership hadn’t done very much for team morale. Dr. Barnes had decided for the lab to keep collecting data samples even with the inquiry. There was no guarantee everything would work out in our favor. But the time lost in data collection would have been too great of a risk to take.

  “Finally,” I sighed in relief. “Who was it?”

  “It was…” Dr. Barnes paused for dramatic effect. “Your old friend Miss Reed.

  “What!” I exclaimed at his revelation. “Are you sure? How is that possible?”

  “Apparently, she needed extra money to support her lifestyle,” Dr. Barnes said with disgust. “The police questioned her and found out she had a pretty sordid past.”

  I was still in shock. Dr. Vanderpool was talking, but the ringing in my ears prevented me from hearing anything that came out of his mouth. Sean walked around the table. Taking the seat next to me, he held my hand.

  “Hey, don’t be too upset,” he soothed, pulling me into a side hug.

  I looked around the room at the three men. Being the only woman in the room, it didn’t look good that I had gotten so emotional over something that should have been good news for us.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that she was my friend. I can’t imagine why she would do something like this,” I replied gripping Sean’s hand underneath the table. He was the only one who would understand why this bothered me so much.

  Dr. Vanderpool sighed heavily. “I know how it feels finding out a close friend would steal from you.”

  “I am well aware of the feeling,” Dr. Barnes added. He had been through this before with Dr. Moore.

  “Sometimes, it’s the ones closest to us that hurt us the most,” Dr. Vanderpool said.

  “I know. She is the last person I would think of pinning this on.” I shook my head at the thought. “We weren’t that close lately. I don’t think I’ve had much contact with her in the last few months. The last time we spoke, she told me she was going through some things in her personal life. I should have dug a little deeper.”

  “Did she divulge her reasons for doing this?” Sean asked.

  “No, she was pretty mum. She did a lot of crying though. She claimed that Dr. Moore made her do it,” Dr. Barnes explained.

  “Wait a minute. How did Dr. Moore get involved with one of your employees?” Dr. Vanderpool asked.

  Dr. Barnes told us the back story of him and Dr. Moore’s history. He even revealed the details leading up to how he figured everything out.

  “From that point, it was easy sorting out the details. Knowing Miss Reed was the mole made tracking the culprit’s movements in the security system easy. I called in on Sunday morning and told the head of IT what I’d found out. The next step was to look at all the footage from the day we started this project until now. While perusing that footage, we came across something else altogether. It seems Miss Reed had an accomplice. Some young intern gave her access to your login information. We initially thought the perpetrator was stealing the information directly from our PCs. Come to find out, all they had to do was download a virus on your computer, and they didn’t have to physically be there.”

  “Who was the kid?” Sean asked.

  “I don’t recall his name, but he started having a sexual relationship with Miss Reed in exchange for his assistance. I should have known something was up after I caught her messing around your computer.” Dr. Barnes shook his head.

  “When was that? You’ve never mentioned that before,” I asked, wracking my brain to remember any conversation at all about Jenny I would have had with Dr. Barnes.

  Dr. Barnes rubbed his hands together in frustration. “At the time I didn’t think anything of it. Sal caught her accomplice trying to erase security footage on Sunday night. Turns out he also caught them making the beast with two backs.”

  Sean laughed outrageously. I pinched his leg underneath the table. It was the last thing either one of us ever expected Dr. Barnes to say, but it was not the time to be making jokes.

  “So where do we stand?” Dr. Vanderpool asked.

  “I’ve spoken to the leadership team at Tulane. Dr. Moore will get his just deserves for his involvement. I’m sure he’ll never be able to publish again after he’s been outed, and it’s highly probable he’ll lose his position at the University for such a violation. Plagiarism is extremely frowned upon in the academic community. He’ll be lucky if he’s able to find another position anywhere.”

  “I’m still not sure if I understand all of this. How did Jenny get to be a spy for Dr. Moore?” I asked.

  I still couldn’t believe Jenny of all people had been the one stealing our work. She didn’t work in research, so the accolades couldn’t be her motivation.

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it spying, more like thievery. According to her, they met at a recruitment seminar almost two years ago. Dr. Moore invited her out for drinks. One thing led to another, and they began an intimate relationship. I don’t know at which point he planned on having her cipher information from our labs, but it started with her giving him a heads up on all the new grant applications. In exchange for her information, he provided her with a cushy lifestyle.”

  “Well that explains the expensive luxury car and the condo downtown,” I said voicing my thoughts aloud. “But that makes no sense. Something is missing. We didn’t start having problems until after Sean started working here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sean asked.

  “Not that it’s you,” I said, waving off his question. “This doesn’t sound like the Jenny I know.”

  My mind was busy processing everything, and I couldn’t believe this story that Jenny was using as her defense. The domineering old man made me do it? There’s just no way. Jenny was one of the most strong-minded women I knew. I’ve seen her manipulate men into doing her bidding.

  A knock sounded on the door and Mallory stuck her head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but the police have finished questioning the intern, Sal, and Jenny. They’d like for you to come down to the station and file an official complaint.”

  “As soon as I finish here, I’ll head downtown,” Dr. Barnes said.

  Mallory nodded and closed the door behind her. Dr. Barnes turned back to the team. “As I was saying, Miss Reed recruited an old member of the lab team to help her gain access to information that was not public record. We fired that person almost a year ago. Too bad we didn’t look deeper into the situation, or else we would have realized there was more than one person involved.”

  “Well, I’m glad that this is all over,” I replied. As much as everyone in the room seemed to be at ease, I wasn’t.

  “As am I,” Dr. Vanderpool added.

  “Yes, we can all sleep easier at night knowing that our work is safe once again. I’m sure this will be a lesson learned by everyone here at the company to increase our efforts in protecting what we hold most dear to our hearts,” Dr. Barnes proclaimed passionately.

  I shook my head with amusement at Dr. Barnes’s words. We all knew very well he held his work closer to his heart than even his wife and kids.

  The meeting ended, and we al
l went down to the lobby. Dr. Barnes was on a crusade and ready to fill out the complaint, but I knew better than to allow him to go alone to a police station. More than likely I’d be bailing him out again for disorderly conduct.

  Sean was busy talking to Dr. Barnes and one of the staff members from the IT department. He must have felt my eyes on him because he turned, then winked, and smiled at me. I returned his affection by slightly pursing my lips and giving him an air kiss.

  Tracy walked over to me and grabbed my arm as if she needed support standing up.

  “This is the messiest thing that’s ever happened in this company,” she stated, shaking her head in disgust.

  “I know. I’m just glad we came out on top,” I agreed.

  “I mean seriously; sleeping with everyone from an old professor to a lab intern? What is wrong with that girl?” Mallory asked.

  “Probably way more than you and I know about,” I added. Since finding out about Jenny, my mind hadn’t stopped over-analyzing every interaction we shared while being coworkers.

  “Do you think she needs mental help or something?” Tracy asked.

  “Normal functioning people don’t do things like this on a daily basis.”

  Tracy and I were deep in conversation when the elevator door dinged, revealing Jenny walking out with two police escorts. I thought it was a bit extreme for such a crime, but refrained from voicing my thoughts. Jenny deserved the embarrassment for her heartless behavior.

  “Ding-dong the bitch is gone,” Tracy whispered as we stood in the lobby watching Jenny get escorted off the premises. The irrefutable glare of hatred that crossed her face was not missed as her eyes landed on me.

  CHAPTER 34

  SEAN

  I knew a thing or two about being emotionally numb. I spent the first few years of adulthood just existing. But that was before I fell in love with the most amazing woman in the world. I didn’t know much about emotional attachment or how powerful they could be. Ask me about commitment, and I would have given you a blank stare. Now, almost ten months later, I’m the happiest I’ve been since being a kid.