Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01

by Lost (and) Found (v5. 0)

  That was one good thing about Mr. Montgomery—he always tried to get something out of the company. It didn’t matter if it was for himself or his crew, it didn’t matter if it was money or a new microwave for the break room; if there was a chance he could get the company to spend money, he would drop everything and pursue it.

  He muttered something else she didn’t catch, probably “Yeah,” his favorite catch phrase, and wandered away. She just shook her head and went back to her work. It was out of her hands now.

  The day after Krista had just finished a report that was supposed to take her all day, and was about to step out for a late lunch, when the phone rang from conference room B. It was true that she was a fast worker, but these deadlines were ridiculous! If they didn’t have the giant database with pre-completed reports, she might understand, but as it was, the amount of time she wasted emailing her friends and shopping online was staggering. In order to have work all day, or most of the day, anyway, she would have to work at a snail’s pace.

  She grabbed the phone, thinking about restaurant choices, and said, “Research, Krista speaking.”

  “Krista.” Her mind snapped away from sandwiches and clung to the plastic earpiece pressed painfully against her head. She couldn’t help it, she loved the way Sean said her name. The nuance of it. The tone. It was like he reached through the phone and licked her ear.

  She was going to get in so much trouble from Kate.

  She decided not to give him the satisfaction of recognition. Plus, he was on speaker. Lord only knew who was listening in. “Yes?”

  “This is Sean.” He paused, and when she didn’t fill the space—maybe she was taking the failure to recognize a little far—he said, “McAdams.”

  “Oh yes, hi.”

  “You’ve been successfully assigned to my team. Could you please come up to conference room B? I would like to speak with you.”

  Krista had a rush of pleasure before she could stop herself. She pushed it down fiercely.

  “Oh, sure. Do I need to bring anything besides a notepad?”

  “Just your winning personality.”

  Trying not to roll her eyes, she hung up. Then tried to control her elation as she made her way upstairs. She told herself, over and over, that she was excited to see her lucky mug, and that was it. As she walked in, excitement unfurling from her gut, she looked around at five faces, one being extremely gorgeous in another perfectly fitting suit that hopefully had her mug.

  She met Sean’s clear green gaze as he glanced up at her, did a once over on her body, and returned to the report he was working on. Excitement turned to uncertainty as three sets of eyes settled on her, judgment plain on their faces.

  “Great,” Ray said as he stood and walked toward the front of the room. His wasn’t one of the three. “Krista, I’ll get you some water.”

  “Um, thank you.” She swallowed and sat in the chair closest to the entrance. It took her half a second to realize she should’ve sat closer to everyone else. She wasn’t doing a great job of closing the gap the stigma of her department had opened.

  “Krista,” Sean began, looking up and leaning back in his chair, “let me introduce you around. You know Ray, of course.” Ray gave her a nod as he handed her a glass of water—in her lucky mug! She beamed at him. He smiled back sheepishly. He obviously didn’t know what her lucky mug meant to her. It was killing her that Sean had it imprisoned.

  Ray sat down a few seats away from Sean.

  Sean didn’t pause for the exchange, though the humor in his eyes said he recognized it. “This is Judy, the manager from the Art Department.” He nodded to an older woman with impeccable style and dress. She looked like she made gobs of money while still seeming homely. She seemed stable and motherly while also being cutting edge. Krista wouldn’t have thought the crisscross in image possible, but there she was.

  “She has been working with the company for five years and has assisted on various accounts. Before us she worked with many large companies through her impressive employment history. She brings extensive knowledge of their wants and needs artistically. In addition, she still teaches in the field, and has her finger on the pulse of art technology.

  “Next to her is Marcus.” Marcus was a strikingly handsome black guy. He looked at Krista and nodded. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt and promoted utter relaxation in his regard and demeanor. Krista felt relaxed just looking at him, which was hard to do because everyone was still assessing her.

  “Marcus is a whiz kid at reaching various audiences and demographics. He has worked with companies such as Apple, Coke, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. You give him a desired pool of people, Marcus will give you a way to reach that pool easily and effectively. He is an underused star in this company... until now.”

  Sean smiled at Marcus and Marcus’s eyes glittered. Krista could see his head whirling with ideas even as she looked at him. Either that, or it was the swirls of crazy. He was from art, after all.

  “And last, but certainly not least, is our secret weapon.” His eyes turned intense as they peered at a cute, bubbly blond girl. She looked about Krista’s age or a little older, had bobbed, stylish hair, giant brown eyes, and was tall and slim. In short, she was a knock out.

  She looked back at him with flirtatious desire and utter confidence. She even batted her eyes! High maintenance, definitely. She would be a match for Sean, though. She was certainly the type of woman Krista imaged he’d choose.

  “This is Monica Devine.” The way he said her last name, as if it were a comment rather than a name, made Krista wonder if they were doing it. He was all drippy with lust and desiring eyes and creepy sex-filled gooeyness. It was gross. If they weren’t bumping uglies yet, it wouldn’t take long.

  Krista got a pang of jealousy before she clamped down on that ridiculous emotion. Utterly absurd! He was welcome to her. And she to him. They seemed like they’d play the same game—a game Krista had absolutely no interest in playing. And it wasn’t because she was terrible at it!

  “Monica is our part-time team member—I wasn’t able to get her full time.” He actually pouted as he said it. It wasn’t cute. “She is our party planning specialist. We are going to need to sidle up to this client without our intentions known. Right now that is through an independent company that we hope will be bought out. That’ll get our foot in the door. If that fails we’ll go for plan B. But, Miss Devine will be throwing casual parties that will make communication not only possible, but easy.”

  Sean smiled in a sleazy sort of way. Monica smiled back in a flirty care-free way as she turned her eyes on Krista, who was unimpressed with the whole scene. To be polite, she nodded hello as she turned her eyes back to Sean.

  Sean followed Monica’s eyes…to Krista. “And this is Krista. She is fairly new with this company and comes from Marketing Research.”

  There was a small groan from the group. Sean smiled. “Now, now, we need market research like a baby needs milk. Anyway, this is our team. I have high hopes for us.”

  Sean turned to Ray to ask him to pass out their first assignments. Krista couldn’t help but feel like an outcast already. She got a crappy introduction, she was still getting stared at fairly constantly, she got groaned at, and she was quickly discarded as Sean moved on to other business. It didn’t look like this was a step-up. More like a step sideways.

  Add that to the fact that she would have to deal with Sean more, and the attraction, and the constant desire to smile and then strip—she wasn’t sure she made the wisest decision. She could not afford to unravel. She was supposed to be growing up, getting stronger, and really coming into her own. With that clown around all the time, she would find life a constant struggle.

  She, again, wished fervently for an easy life. Was that so hard?

  ~*~*~*~

  On the other side of the table, Sean saw Krista sullenly listening to Ray go over the information she came up with in barely contained resentment. He shouldn’t be doing it--Ray had warned him against it--bu
t Sean needed to test her a little. He wanted to see how she would handle Ray giving her presentation. He also wanted to keep her a mystery. So far the rest of the company, including Ray and John, thought he’d picked the new Researcher because of her looks. They thought Sean wanted an excuse to work her into his bed.

  And yes, that thought had crossed his mind. But this decision was solely based on what he knew she was capable of. He would let people talk now, because it would make Krista look better when they had to eat their words. And Sean was positive they would. Ray, an experienced salesman, and even after having practiced the presentation a few times, was still stumbling over some of her information.

  She was also looking good today; professional. Ray must have been right about the state of her yesterday. She’d felt she’d bit off more than she could chew. Today, though, she was fresh, well dressed, and eager to prove herself. It was what Sean needed.

  Next thing he needed was to get her to trust him. They would have a hard time working together if she didn’t want to be in the same room.

  Chapter Eight

  When Ray was through doing a hack job on Krista’s material, Sean told everyone they’d receive further information the following day via email. They were dismissed.

  “Krista, stay behind, please,” Sean said as everyone else headed toward the door. Monica looked at her with daggers in her eyes.

  Krista turned back to Sean, who was still sitting in his chair. He was leaning back, his arms folded over his chest, his biceps bulging in the confinement of his jacket.

  “Sit, please.” Long shadows from the afternoon sun played across Sean’s strong features, glinting across his eyes. He had a bemused expression that gave Krista the feeling he was toying with her.

  She just didn’t know why. Or how. Or what to do to get the upper hand.

  Krista organized everything in front of her, still disheartened by the meeting, in an attempt to avoid Sean’s eye contact. She needed to find the best way to tell him she’d made a mistake—this group wasn’t for her.

  When she had nothing left to move around, and he still hadn’t said a word, she reached for her mug. The silence stretched. Getting awkward.

  Finally, defiantly, she met his eyes.

  Strikingly green. Fiery. Hungry. The silence lengthened as she watched him, watching her. The atoms in the room sped up. The electricity crackled. Krista felt a fresh burst of sweat under her armpits.

  “We need to clear the air if we’re going to work together,” Sean finally said with all traces of flirt gone. He was somber and sophisticated. The atoms started racing around even faster. Krista was doing everything she could not to fan herself.

  She nodded, not trusting her voice.

  “I think it best you get whatever answers you need. So ask. Please.”

  Krista shrugged petulantly. Her brain, past realizing how hungry it was, was starting to short circuit. She couldn’t think clearly through the fuzz.

  After a lengthy pause, in which Krista couldn’t get her thoughts clear enough to say anything, Sean asked, “Are you okay?”

  “What? Oh, I didn’t get anything to eat for lunch and my body doesn’t do all that well with low blood sugar. No big deal. Uh... let’s see...” She tried desperately to stay on topic, but her stupid brain was jackknifing.

  Sean jumped up gracefully. “Easily remedied. Come with me, please.”

  She never really noticed how polite he was, even when giving commands. Guy said please more than anyone else she knew.

  How had she missed that?

  Why did it matter?

  Without realizing it, she was following him out through the rows of empty conference rooms to the elevator. He pushed the button for her floor. When the doors opened, he gestured for her to go ahead of him.

  “I didn’t bring a lunch--I have to go grab something,” she said, not leaving the elevator when the doors opened again.

  “I figured. Grab your purse and we’ll go.”

  “I have money on me.”

  “Humor me.”

  Krista shrugged and headed toward her cube, him following behind. She noticed bored eyes looking up, as usual, but this time they stayed up as they saw Sean. With her.

  She needed to tell him she was pulling out. This was a bad situation for her. First the gossip in the break room, then the terrible intro, followed by Ray’s hack job, now the cube tabloid circuit. This was not the way she wanted to branch out her resume.

  At her cube she grabbed her purse and turned back, coming face-to-face with a pair of seductive, penetrating eyes.

  “Oh!” she breathed as she looked up, his mouth mere inches from hers. She could smell the ocean/musk of his body and the fabric softener of his shirt. The heat radiating from him fell around her in waves. His chest was so close, she could just lean in and—

  Don’t touch his pecs!

  ~*~*~*~

  Krista flinched backward.

  Sean examined with a hunger he couldn’t remember. He looked down at her, watching her within her space, surrounded by all her knick-knacks and pictures of her and her friends, and nearly reached for her. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so strongly. He wanted her with raw ferocity.

  “I think I m-made a mis-stake,” Krista stammered, backing as far into her cube, and away from him, as she could go.

  She was flushed and jittery, which meant she was thinking the same thoughts he was. Sean nearly took a step to close the distance.

  “With what?” Sean asked slowly, looking at her br**sts, then her mouth, then down to her bare legs.

  “This group. Your team. I wasn’t feeling great yesterday—I didn’t have all the info. But now, after meeting everyone, and seeing how th-things run…I think I made a mistake. I think I’ll respectfully decline the opportunity.”

  It took Sean a minute to understand her words, but as soon as he did, he took an immediate step back. The haze that had settled on his mind cleared instantly. He had been worried about getting her to trust him, and then he leans into her space like a goon. It wasn’t like him, especially not when business was on the line. This lack of self-control was a foreign thing. He didn’t usually have to try so hard to keep a level head.

  He physically backpedaled even as he verbally did. “I’m sorry. Please, I’m so sorry about that.”

  “No, it’s fine. Seriously, it’s not that big a deal, but—“

  “No, Krista…” Sean’s back bumped the wall opposite her cube. He couldn’t get any farther away and still see her. “Look, that was unprofessional just then. That was my fault. That’s not how things would run. Please. I need you on the team. You were a conscious choice based off of performance. Solely performance. Please don’t assume—please give me one more chance.”

  Krista hesitated. She was fighting with something, he could see it. He pushed his advantage.

  “If we land this account, Krista, it would look great on your résumé . They are a giant company. They are well-known. You won’t get another chance like this where you are. Please, I can be an ass—I know this about myself—but I’ll try harder. I’ll steer clear of you in everything that isn’t strictly work related. Please. I need you for this account.”

  ~*~*~*~*~

  Krista took stock of the situation. She thought about what he’d said. About her own issues. She still wanted to say no, but it was solely because of Sean. The rest of the job sounded pretty good. It sounded like there would be a challenge. It also gave her the chance to work in a real team.

  But she would have to fight the desire with Sean constantly.

  She laughed to ease the tension, still undecided, and deflected: “That’s where Mr. Montgomery always stands when he talks to me.”

  Sean looked around him, then back at her. He was still as serious as a heart attack.

  Krista sighed in thought. “Okay,” she looked back up at Sean, so serious, hands at his sides, palms pushed against the walls along with his back, flattening himself to be farther away. He meant it—he wanted her in
a work capacity. For this, at least. “You get one more chance.”

  Relief flooded his expression.

  She threw her pointer finger at him. “But you are on probation.”

  Sean sighed hugely, “I am sorry about that, Krista. I—there’s no excuse.”

  “You’ll probably get a Thump-Bird if you keep going with the sighing. Anyway, I need to eat.”

  “Of course. Shut down your computer and we’ll go.”

  “It’s only 3:30. We’ll be back, right?”

  “Why bother? Shut it down. You’re on my schedule now,” he said it softly, careful to stay near the far wall.

  On one hand, was the second chance a good idea? On the other hand, she got to get out early.

  Early it was.

  She shifted gears quickly and emailed in her report. The deadline was five, so if she wasn’t coming back, she had to send it before she left. Hopefully Fatty isn’t pissed I’m sending it a couple hours early.

  Just in case, she put in a note explaining, in so many words, that it was all Sean’s fault. If she could have electronically sent an eye roll, she would have. It would have helped her cause.

  There were no messages on her phone, so she shut everything down and grabbed her handbag and jacket. She turned back to Sean, who had a puzzled expression on his face. The expression immediately cleared as he stepped further away to let her by.

  When they were in the elevator, with a man who said ”Hi,” to Sean briefly, then looked at Krista in interest, Sean said, “Sorry to intrude, but why are you worried about sending in your report early?”

  “What?” How did he know that? She didn’t write that in the email—or did she? Did he read the bit about it totally being his fault?

  As if in answer to her mental freaking out, he continued with, “Sorry, but I couldn’t help but hear you muttering. Do you not like turning things in early?”

  “Oh, uh, no.” What else did I mutter?? “Mr. Montgomery doesn’t like things before deadline. He’s afraid he’ll lose them.”