by Holly Hart
Instead of good-looking – and young – colleagues, the men who walk through the conference room door are fat and bald –
“Peter, Peter Donaldson –”
Or spotty, pale and a decade older than me –
“Boris –”
“Michael, good to meet you –”
“Serge.”
“Sit down, girl,” the older man – Peter – says. “What was your name again?”
I bristle, but don’t say anything. The more I learn about Landwolfe and Co., the less I like it – already. The thing is, my contract lasts at least another year, and I’ve uprooted my whole life to be here. I’m stuck.
So I’m going to make the most of it.
“Kimberly Sawyers,” I say. “You can call me Kim.”
“Good of you to say,” Peter says in a dry British accent. For a second, his eyes hold mine in a mocking stare, but it doesn’t take long before they drop down to my chest.
Boris and his pals share a smirk. They might be in their thirties and forties, but they are no more mature than teenage kids. In fact, that’s probably too generous.
I sit on my hands, smoldering. There’s so much office politics already, and it’s only my first day. I attempt to get the conversation back on track.
“The recruiter said I was being hired to handle and debug a new IT algorithm?”
Peter claps his hands together, signaling his complete lack of interest in anything I have to say. “I’m sure, I’m sure. That’s not really my department.”
“I thought you –”
Peter cuts me off, pushing his chair out from the conference table and standing up. “Well, I think my work here is done. I’ll leave you in Boris’s capable hands.”
He holds out his hand, and I reach up to shake it. I swear that his eyes don’t once glance at my face. I’m burning to remind him that my eyes are: “up here…”
But, like I said, it’s my first day. No sense in burning bridges. Not yet, anyway.
The second Peter departs, Boris’s face twists into a malicious grimace. “Fat fool,” he grunts. He jabs a stubby finger in my direction. “Listen up: in here,my word is law, you understand?”
I nod. It feels like that is what he expects from me. I can’t honestly believe he’s saying what I’m hearing. Can’t he hear himself?
“I just want to get to –”
“I’m talking, girl,” he glowers.
Jesus Christ, I think, these guys sound like they’re straight out of a sexual harassment training video.
I wonder if I should stand up and curtsy, or salute because Boris’s views of a woman’s role in the workplace sound like they’re straight out of the 1950s: but I do neither.
“Better,” he grunts. “You do what I tell you, when I tell you, and we won’t have a problem – okay?”
I shrug. “Okay, whatever,” I say.
My voice comes out in a squeak, and I hate myself for showing weakness. I wish I didn’t find Boris so intimidating, but I do.
Still, I’m not going to let him bully me. “I just want to get to work. So far –”
“‘So far’ … what?” Boris hisses. His voice was low and threatening.
So far you’ve spent so much time waving your cock around to show me who is boss, you’ve forgotten the most important part.
“Nothing,” I grimace.
“You’re at the bottom, you understand?” Boris says. His expression flickers with blackness, like a tropical squall passing through his face. “But if you work hard, then maybe one day you can be like Serge, here…”
“What’s that, boss?” Serge asks.
He’s got an expression like a beaten dog on his face. I guess he was the last new guy. I know not to expect any support from him. He’ll be too busy trying to stay out of Boris’s bad books.
Boris pushes his chair back, and hefts his leg upwards. His foot collides with the conference table with a thud.
He grins wickedly then tauntingly says, “The dirt on the bottom of my shoe.”
I wait it out. I figure that turning the other cheek will get me further than fighting. This is hardly the first time I’ve been bullied.
Boris looks at me expectantly. A flicker of annoyance flashes across his face when he realizes I’m not going to react. I hide a smile of satisfaction.
“Cold bitch,” he mutters. “Screw it. So, you want to know why you’re here?”
I nod. The fewer words I say, the less ammunition Boris will have.
“This place is a mess,” Boris says, waving his arms about. “They love talking about how long they’ve been in business, but you know something?” He pauses, and seems to change the direction of his thought.
“What did you think of Peter?” He asks.
I wonder if this is a test. “He’s…” I say, searching my brain for a diplomatic way to reply.
The truth, as I see it, does not leave me thinking much of my new boss. It’s not his looks; it’s that he doesn’t seem to know the first thing about what his team is supposed to do.
Or he doesn’t seem to care.
But am I supposed to say that to Boris?
Luckily, Boris loves the sound of his own voice too much to wait.
“He’s a piece of shit,” he says scornfully. “He doesn’t know the first thing about IT. Hell, for all he knows I could be stealing every last cent in our clients’ accounts, and,” he clicks his fingers, “it would disappear, just like that: poof.”
I study his expression carefully. The other two programmers seem locked under his spell. I can’t believe they don’t see what I do – that Boris is just a braggart.
“Why don’t you?” I ask, not taking my eyes off his. There’s something that’s hard to put into words about Boris. He has an aura – but it’s black and dirty. I know he’s hazing me, but part of me wonders whether he’s telling the truth.
Boris pauses for a long time before he answers. I have to resist a shudder as his eyes roam hungrily across my body.
“Maybe I am.”
The room goes silent. You could hear the head of a pin drop. Hell – a falling feather would sound as loud as a jet engine.
Finally, when I begin to wonder if their awkwardness will stretch on forever, Boris throws his head back and laughs.
As if they’ve received the memo, the other two men join in. When Boris stops, they stop in seconds. How pathetic.
“Got you,” Boris says.
You didn’t.
“If I was robbing this shithole, you can bet I wouldn’t bother turning up to work again.”
Boris speaks about Landwolfe with such disgust in his voice I wonder why he bothers turning up at all. Still, all this talk of theft has me feeling uncomfortable. I shift in my chair.
“Nervous?” He grins. The humor doesn’t stretch to his eyes. “Good. You’ve got an impressive CV, Kim.”
His change of direction throws me off balance. I don’t know why he’s suddenly being nice to me – or at least, what he thinks is nice. “Thanks, I guess.”
“What you’ll be doing is developing – or helping me – to improve our algorithmic trading department.”
I get it. You’re important.
“And what does that involve?” I ask.
His face contorts into a smile. “Doing what I tell you.” He laughs.
I don’t.
“Thanks to me, this department is the bank’s most profitable,” Boris boasts, after leaving me to squirm. “We take our client’s money, and we move it in and out of the stock market hundreds of times, faster than you can blink.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, “and how does that make money?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern,” Boris grunts, “but it’s about volume. Besides, some of these clients… let’s just say they aren’t too worried if they lose a little bit of money.”
What the hell does that mean? I wonder.
I can’t figure out why any client of this bank wouldn’t mind losing part of their investment. But
Boris is done. I know that no matter what I ask, he’s not going to bother to answer.
His fingers fish across the table for a box of cigarettes. “I’m heading out,” he grunts.
“You mind if I go find a glass of –”
“I don’t give a fuck what you do,” he replies, not bothering to look at me. Serge laughs. I grimace.
I trail far enough behind Boris out of the conference room to be certain I won’t have to talk to him, and deliberately choose in the opposite direction to him.
I already know that this is going to be one of those jobs I leave at the door when I finish up at night.
I head toward a railing, and look down into the lobby, five floors below. Offices ring the walls, ten floors high, but there’s a huge, imposing atrium.
Something catches my eye.
Or, should I say – someone.
He’s trailing behind a tall, almost model-like blonde woman. I can’t be sure from this distance, but I can guess that the looks she keeps throwing him are puppy-like. Her attraction is obvious, even from here.
I wish he would turn round. Any man attractive enough to turn the head of the girl like that…
Forget about it, he won’t be interested in you.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to look.
The mysterious man has a dark, navy blue overcoat cradled over one arm. He’s blonde, and in his late twenties. And he’s tall. Darn tall. I think I’d disappear in his arms.
I wonder if it’s his first day too.
“What makes you so special?” I mutter bitterly.
This guy, whoever he is, gets the red carpet rolled out for him, but me – I have to ask, then what do I get?
I get a pack of hyenas disguised as computer programmers.
I turn away. “Forget about him, Kim,” I tell myself. “Looks like the blonde got first dibs.”
Besides, who am I kidding? There’s no way I’d ask a guy like that out; and the possibility of him asking me?
Don’t make me laugh.
5
Nate
“Is it always this goddamn cold?” I ask the cashier as he hands me the bottle, pulling my overcoat tighter around my body and popping the collar. It won’t do much to protect me from the driving wind that I’m already preparing to feel the second I step out of the liquor store, but I’ll take anything I can get.
“Cold?” the kid asks, raising one eyebrow. “Where are you from, man? It’s October, we’re barely into autumn yet. Just you wait. It gets worse. And worse, and –”
“Autumn? Oh –”
“You know – fall…” He says, trying to mimic me in what he thinks is an American accent. “This is England. If you wanted sunshine, you should have stayed back home. You know what we get here? One week of sunshine in August, that’s followed by eleven dreary months of drizzle.” He shrugs, “anyway – have a good one, mate.”
“Well you’re a bucket of laughs…” I grin, tucking the bottle of liquor inside my coat so that I don’t have to carry it – and freeze my fingers off. “Cheers… mate.”
As soon as I push the glass door to the liquor store open, the first droplets of rain fall out of the sky. Big, thick, splashes of water – cold, too.
“Great…” I mutter.
It’s a ten minute walk from Pimlico back the apartment Landwolfe rented for me by Vauxhall Bridge. Ten minutes is plenty of time to soak me to the bone… It’s a short walk down by the River Thames, but I’ve got my head down to avoid the rain doing battle with my eyeballs, and I don’t get to enjoy the view. In fact, I don’t get to enjoy much more than a gray cement sidewalk.
But what I see at the front door to Riverbank Tower?
That warms me right up.
I pull my maroon wool scarf tight around my neck. If I’m going to be a bedraggled rescuing hero – I’m going to be a smart bedraggled hero. Fuck, it matches her hair, at least now when it’s dark with rainwater.
“Here, let me take that!” I say, smoothly plucking a plastic grocery bag from Kim’s white-knuckled-soaked fingers. “You look exhausted.”
“Hey –” Kim shouts, thinking – I don’t know what. Perhaps that I’m stealing from her. I would never. Save, maybe, the suite innocence from between her legs. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought – never mind. It doesn’t matter. Thank you so much!”
I’ve startled her, and I love it. I’ve got her thick lips stumbling already, and I want them slipping over –
Later.
Kim blinks the rain from her eyes, but between the soaking droplets of water and thick strands of hair, I know she can’t see much. Not that there’s much of my face to see, between the scarf and the collar of my coat. Less is more sometimes. You’ve got to make them work for it.
“Come on,” I say, striding ahead, “let’s get you inside. You’re soaked through.”
The glass doors to the smart, expensive riverside apartment block hiss open. The warmth of the perfectly maintained lobby caresses my face, and music tinkles in the background. How the hell a one-time grunt from the Army Rangers ended up in a place like this, I’ll never know. All I do know is that I’m going to make the most of it: all of it.
“You okay, Sir?
The concierge gets up from his desk to help as Kim’s heels clack against the marble floor from behind me. I shake my head – ever so slightly – to warn him away. Kim’s all mine. I want to be the hero she didn’t know she needed. I’m going to be the answer to the question she hasn’t yet asked. She will.
“We’re all good.” He gets the message. He turns away, hiding a grin. I don’t care that he knows what I want to do to Kim. There isn’t a red-blooded man in England who wouldn’t want to do the same; but I’m the one who will get to.
I head for the bank of elevators, quickening my pace so that Kim doesn’t outpace me in her heels. They push up her calves, and she looks goddamn irresistible. I catch up to her, standing just an inch too close, so she can’t help but notice me.
“Didn’t I see you somewhere before?” Kim asks, turning a fraction and scrunching up her face. It’s all kinds of cute. She almost looks like she’s trying to fish a long-hidden away memory from the depths of her mind.
“I doubt it,” I lie through my teeth, plastering a broad smile on my face, “I only just landed yesterday: new job.”
“Hey, me too,” Kim says with a smile, just as the hood of her raincoat falls directly over her eyes. Her cheeks go crimson with embarrassment.
“Coincidence, huh?” I say. I reached down and steal the other shopping bag from her frozen fingers, sliding my own down the back of her hand. She flinches, and looks away. But I catch her eyes darting back at me. I know what she’s asking herself – “did he do that on purpose?”
I love how she can’t bring herself to look at me. I’ve got her off balance, and I’ve barely said hello. This is going to be a delicious pursuit. There’s something about innocence, like Kim’s, that I can’t resist. Sometimes a good girl needs a guy with a bit of bite – and sometimes, it’s true the other way around.
“Yeah,” she whispers, “coincidence.”
Fuck, I love that I’ve stolen the words from her lips.
I walk ahead of her, shopping bag in either hand like some kind of rogue, crusading Wal-Mart greeter. Only one with better shoulders.
“Sorry, mate,” a handyman says, wiping his oily fingers on a stained rag. “Whole system’s bunged up. I’ll ‘ave her sorted in a couple of hours.”
“Ah, crap,” Kim moans from behind me, “these heels are killing me.”
“Ladies first,” I grin, pointing up the stairs. There’s no way I’m resisting getting an eyeful of that ass. Kim’s got curves for days. I’m going to make them mine – but for now, a glimpse will do. That won’t satisfy me forever…
But for now I’ll deal.
“Thank you,” Kim says, walking past me. I get a noseful of a delicious scent – a sweet, floral perfume mixed with the clean aroma of fresh rain. She still hasn’t looked me straight in the
face. I love it. It’s a game, like chess – parrying each other’s moves back and forth. Except she doesn’t know she’s playing.
I see the handyman’s eyes fall on Kim’s curves, and I shoot him a black look. He gets the message.