Nonetheless, she wanted Shepard out of the frame. It’s just business, she told herself as she studied her face in the rearview mirror and applied a little more lipstick. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I just plain don’t like the man.
She got out of the car and took the stairs up to the lobby. It was ten after nine. In twenty minutes Shepard would be sitting in her office, sweating nervously as she discussed his future, and not even realizing that she had already decided his fate.
Kristin was pleased with the way she had engineered this. She’d needed to be clever about it because Brian still regarded Shepard very highly, and if she was honest, that was another reason why she resented him. So instead of simply letting Shepard go, she had consulted Brian about it first, and it had proved to be a wise thing to do.
Brian was, as she had anticipated, strongly against it at first, explaining that Shepard had been at OFS almost from the start. It had taken several private meetings, in which Kristin had been forced to use all her persuasive powers before she’d been able to wear Brian down. The numbers were conclusive, she’d argued. Shepard’s sales figures for the past year had been appalling. Brian had been forced to agree with that, but he’d also suggested that Shepard’s disappointment at not being promoted might have been a contributing factor, and of course the economic downturn had affected everyone’s results.
Finally however, when Kristin had even hinted that it might come down to making a choice between her and Shepard, Brian had reluctantly capitulated. He had wanted to break the news to Shepard himself, but Kristin had even managed to convince him that it would look better to the others if she did it herself. Poor Brian, she thought. He was so easy.
Kristin stepped into the lobby and caught sight of herself in the mirrored wall. As a final act of mischief - in order to make Shepard’s departure that much more painful - she had dressed for the part. Today she had chosen a sea-blue cotton blouse, under which her black lace push-up bra was clearly visible. She had left the top three buttons undone and had tucked it tightly into the waistband of her dark gray pencil skirt. Ordinarily on such a cold day, she would have worn thick tights, but today her shapely legs were encased in black nylon stockings and accentuated by the four inch red stiletto pumps on her feet. She’d gone a little heavier on the make-up than usual, and instead of her usual pony-tail, her hair hung loose over her shoulders.
She turned and appraised her profile. Yes, she thought, that will get some heads turning. Here you are, Henry Shepard. Take a good hard look at what you’re never going to have.
Kristin was so absorbed with her image in the mirror that it was a few seconds before she noticed George, the doorman, gawking at her from behind his desk. She couldn’t resist a smirk as she approached him. His face was an absolute picture.
“Good morning, Miss Hartman,” George said, standing up.
Kristin didn’t return the greeting. She noticed that George’s eyes kept involuntarily flickering down towards her chest.
“George,” she said. “Would you order two espressos and have them sent up to my office?”
She saw a brief look of indignation cross his face. He was a proud man, and old enough to be her grandfather.
“Of course, Miss Hartman.”
Without responding, Kristin turned, pushed through the glass doors of the OFS offices and crossed the thickly carpeted reception area. In the mirrors she could see George was still ogling her ass. Already, she could tell that this was going to be an enjoyable day.
Barely acknowledging the greeting from Angela, the receptionist, she strode through the research and development department, relishing the interested looks she was receiving from the staff.
She went into her office, sat behind her desk and took her laptop out of her briefcase. She had just started checking her e-mails when her cell phone rang. It was Charles Hayden-Reed, an attorney whom she had just started seeing.
“I miss you,” he said, by way of a greeting.
“Already?” Kristin smiled. “We only saw each other last night.”
“I couldn’t sleep, thinking about you.”
“Dinner was lovely. Thank you.”
“We should do it again.”
“That would be nice.”
“How about lunch?”
“Today?”
“Of course, today.”
“My, aren’t we keen?”
“I feel like a silly teenager. I can’t concentrate on anything.”
“I have a busy schedule today. How about dinner on Friday?”
“You’re killing me.”
“We could try Danielle’s? I can meet you there. Say, seven?”
“I have to meet a client, but I can drop the case.”
“Stop being an idiot.”
“Danielle’s then, on Friday. I’ll book the table.”
“I’ll see you there.”
“I think I’m in love,” Charles said, and rang off before Kristin could think of an answer. She looked at her phone for a few seconds, shook her head with amusement, and then returned her attention to her e-mails.
She ran down the list, opening the important ones, leaving the others for later. Then, with a jolt, she stopped as one of the messages almost jumped off the screen at her. It was from somebody she hadn’t heard from in a long while. Excitedly, she clicked on the message and read, ‘Am back in circulation and ready to do business again. I have acquired some more potentially lucrative information. If you are interested, contact me via the usual procedure. Clouseau.’
Kristin closed the e-mail and immediately deleted it. Clouseau was back! And what perfect timing! If this new information was anywhere near as a big as VIRGO had been, the company would once again be back on track, and Kristin would again be the savior. There was a knock on the door and Angela came in with the coffee. In a patronizing kind of way, Kristin had a little soft spot for the prim, smart redhead who was the epitome of efficiency.
“Put it over there, Angela,” Kristin said.
Angela placed the tray on a low coffee table in the corner of the office and Kristin went over and arranged herself in one of the armchairs.
The receptionist regarded her a moment, and then said, “If I may say so, you’re looking quite ‘different’ today, Miss Hartman.”
“Really?” said Kristin. “How so?”
“What’s the word? Glamorous, I should think.”
“And does it suit me?”
“Very much so,” Angela replied. “I’ve always believed that a woman with your looks should use them to her best advantage.”
Kristin couldn’t help but laugh.
“You surprise me,” she said. “I’d always regarded you as something of a feminist.”
“Oh, I am in many respects. But it doesn’t do any harm to utilize your assets in this business.”
Angela was one of the few people in the company who would have dared to speak to Kristin so candidly, but her manner suggested that she was being sincere.
“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Kristin chuckled.
There was another knock on the door and Angela let Henry Shepard into the room. Kristin spotted a brief expression of sympathy pass across Angela’s face as she greeted Shepard before leaving them alone.
Kristin gestured to the vacant armchair and said, “Please take a seat, Henry.”
She crossed her legs allowing her skirt to ride slightly up her thighs.
Shepard hesitated before seating himself opposite her. He didn’t look too well. There were bags under his bloodshot eyes and he seemed tired. She thought back to a year ago when they had last been in such close proximity. Back then he had been full of enthusiasm and vigor, probably because he had harbored grand ideas of fucking the new girl. Well, things have most definitely changed, she thought. And you’re the one, Mr. Shepard, who is going to be well and truly fucked.
Kristin offered Shepard a coffee, and then got down to business.
&
nbsp; “As you know, as part of the company’s new austerity measures, I’ve been assigned to appraise each staff member’s performance to determine if their continued employment will be of benefit to the company.”
Shepard nodded, keeping close eye contact with her. He seemed afraid to let his eyes wander over the rest of her body.
“When I reached your file, I was surprised,” Kristin lied. “A red flag came up and as I am sure you are aware, your sales figures are well below expectations.”
Shepard didn’t reply.
Kristin said, “In fact, you’ve been underperforming for most of the year. I can understand short-term dips, especially during a recession, but other members of the sales team are at least achieving modest results.”
Still Shepard remained silent. His face had reddened slightly, and Kristin couldn’t determine whether it was through embarrassment or anger.
“Well, the purpose of this appraisement,” Kristin continued, “is to give you an opportunity to give your side of the picture. Perhaps there are some mitigating circumstances that you would like me to consider.”
Shepard’s eyes finally dropped fleetingly to her breasts.
He drew a breath and said, “I’m not arguing that my figures have been below par this year. What I would ask of you, taking into consideration my prior record, is to allow me some time to turn this around. I think the company owes me that.”
This is beautiful! Kristin thought. He’s virtually crawling!
“Well, Henry,” she replied. “That wasn’t the kind of answer I was expecting. You’re supposed to be giving me a reason to keep you on. I need something concrete. Do you have any leads?”
Shepard paused.
“Possibly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, nothing solid.”
“That’s it? You know, some of your colleagues have come up with a lot more than that. Why should I give you preferential treatment?”
Shepard suddenly appeared to be having trouble keeping his composure.
“Preferential treatment?” he blurted. “Come on, Kristin, we both know you’ve had it in for me ever since you got promoted. You’re angry because I spoke to Brian about you.”
Now it was Kristin’s turn to flush.
“I hope you’re not suggesting that I have some kind of personal motivation in making these decisions?”
“I think,” said Shepard, “that you’ve already made your decision.”
“You’re certainly not helping your cause by taking that approach.”
Shepard leaned forward and for one alarming moment Kristin thought he was going to lunge at her.
“Tell me honestly, Kristin,” he said, “that getting rid of me hasn’t been on your agenda the whole time. Yes, I’ve had a bad year, but my track record is well established. Brian knows that.”
“Brian and I have already spoken about this and he has left the final decision with me.”
That stopped him and Kristin knew she had calculated correctly. Shepard had always believed that ultimately he could count on Brian’s support.
Shepard asked, “How did you do it? How did you get to him?”
Kristin smiled. There was no need for any pretense now.
“The same way I got to you when I first came here. Men are so predictable.”
Shepard nodded slowly, now openly scrutinizing the shapely curves of her legs and causing her to involuntarily tug her skirt down.
“There’s something else I’m curious about,” he said. “How did you swing the Motoko deal? We all knew that ABACUS wasn’t advanced enough for a company of that size.”
His quick change of tack caught her off guard and if Kristin had ever held the slightest doubts before, she was now absolutely certain that Henry Shepard had to go. “That, as you know, is proprietary information,” she said stiffly.
Shepard pondered that for a minute, his eyes still roaming over her body. It looked to Kristin, as if he had already accepted his fate.
“I think you’re power-crazed,” he said finally. “You use your looks to get what you want and you’re obsessed with winning, no matter what. You’re a control freak who needs everybody to do exactly what you want them to.”
“I might remind you that you are talking to the vice-president of the company, Mr. Shepard,” Kristin said.
Shepard stood up abruptly, causing Kristin to instinctively lean back into her chair.
“Let’s cut the bullshit,” he said, looming over her. “Are you letting me go?”
“I think,” Kristin replied curtly, “that you’ve just answered that yourself.”
Chapter Three
Two days after his dismissal, Henry found himself sitting in a booth in a quiet corner of the Wheatsheaf Tavern, an unfashionable watering hole situated a few blocks from the OFS offices. On the other side of the table, nervously fingering a chilled glass of Heineken, sat Miles Bishop. The young programmer, a year out of college, was a strange-looking man who, it appeared to Henry, had stopped physically developing at the age of sixteen. Tall and lanky, Miles wore his greasy hair long, and his bony face was constantly breaking out in pimples. He also conveyed the same excruciating shyness common to pubescent teenagers. In fact his interpersonal communication skills were so poor, that when they had first met, Henry had thought he might be autistic. In fact, he had botched his interview so badly, that if Henry hadn’t intervened, he wouldn’t have been hired.
Henry’s instincts had been correct, because Miles had turned out to be a brilliant programmer. His work entailed spending hours developing and refining code and he was very good at it. And of particular interest to Henry, he had been heavily involved in the obscure enhancements to ABACUS that had led to the Motoko success.
Henry had spent the past forty-eight hours festering at home. Despite Kristin’s efforts to the contrary, Brian had ensured that he walked away with a more than generous severance packet, so seeking employment was not an immediate priority. This was just as well, considering Henry’s current state of mind.
In her office that day, he had been torn between two basic impulses. The first had been to put his hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her. The second, which, given the circumstances, he hadn’t been expecting, had been to lift up her skirt and bury his face between her thighs. The cursed woman was just so damn sexy that even through his fury he had still wanted to fuck her.
The moments after the meeting had been a total humiliation for him. Company policy dictated that any released employees were to clear their desk immediately. Poor old George had been handed the job of escorting Henry from the premises. Some of the sales team had shaken Henry’s hand and wished him luck but most had been too embarrassed to talk to him. Brian had remained out of sight, and although Henry had been bitterly disappointed with his impotence, he had concluded that his hands must have been tied.
So he had gone home, turned off his phone and seen off a bottle of Jim Beam in an attempt to purge Kristin from his mind. Drinking steadily, gazing at the television and sleeping fitfully, he had tried to fathom out how he had allowed her to infiltrate, overwhelm, and ultimately destroy his world. Even when he had slipped into an alcohol-induced sleep she had been in his delirious dreams, showing him the tantalizing dips and crests of her body, always out of reach, always with that condescending sneer on her enticing lips. How could it be possible to despise and yet desire the same person so much?
He had woken on his living room couch, unshaven, hung over and depressed. Eventually, he’d turned on his phone to find several text messages from co-workers expressing their sympathies and best wishes.
And then there was the message from Miles. Simply, We need to talk.
Henry’s instincts told him it had something to do with ABACUS and therefore, with Kristin Hartman.
So now Henry nursed his beer and waited for Miles to get to the point. From past experience, he knew there was no point in hurrying the lad.
“It’s done now,” Henry shrugged.
“She shouldn’t have fired you.”
“I know.”
“Nobody’s happy now. Only her.”
“Is she giving you a hard time?”
Miles continued to stare into his beer.
“She’s rude,” he said.
“Yes, she is.”
“She talks to me like I’m a little kid.”
“She’s not as clever as she thinks she is.”
Miles looked up now.
“I should have told you when you asked me before. I’m sorry.”
Ah, Henry thought, he’s getting to it.
“About ABACUS?”
Miles nodded.
“She thinks I don’t know, but I found out. I cracked her pass codes.”
Henry leaned forward.
“What did you find out, Miles?”
Miles looked around the bar furtively and then said in a low voice, “The architecture was stolen.”
Henry nodded. The whole affair had always seemed wrong.
“Who else was involved, Miles?”
“Nobody. At least I couldn’t find anyone else.”
“So it was just her?”
“I think so.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“No-one,” Miles said. “But I think some people have their suspicions. They’re afraid to say anything though.”
“What about Brian?”
“I don’t know. He should do. But I think he just…”
Henry put up his hand.
“Right, I get the picture.”
Even if Brian suspected something was amiss, thought Henry, he was desperate to get the Motoko contract. Why ask any unnecessary questions?
“Besides, he couldn’t prove anything,” said Miles.
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