An Executive Decision

by Grace Marshall

  ‘It’s like seeing eternity.’ Her voice was barely more than a whisper pressing against the luminous darkness.

  He slid his arms around her waist, and moved still closer. ‘It’s on a collision course with our Milky Way.’

  He felt her ribcage expand against him as her sense of wonder spread upward with her breath and found release in her voice. ‘Imagine the fireworks.’

  ‘Yeah, imagine.’ They both looked up with a start as the sky effervesced in a cascade of meteors. Then she turned in his arms and whispered against his ear. ‘You betrayed me, Ellis. Everyone knows about the Executive Sex Clause, and it’s all your fault. I can’t stay with you. I can’t stay with a man I can’t trust.’

  ‘No Dee, I didn’t betray you! I wouldn’t. I promise I wouldn’t …’

  But she wasn’t listening. She stepped out of his arms, shaking her head. He reached for her, but she pulled away. Then she turned and walked into the woods at the edge of the field.

  He stood for a stunned second and watched her, then he called after her. ‘Dee, wait. Don’t go. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you.’ And suddenly he was running after her through dense woodland hung with moss, ferns slapping at his legs, roots threatening to send him sprawling. He ran. But she was always just ahead of him, just out of his reach. ‘Dee, I can’t lose you. Please stay. Please let me explain.’ But she grew farther and farther away with each step, with each desperate breath, until he caught one last glimpse of her through the trees, and she was gone. All around him the forest was silent, unmoving, too dark for the night sky to penetrate the canopy. ‘Dee!’

  He woke with a start, drenched in sweat, gasping for air that was close and humid, thick with the smell of humans in a small space. It took him a second to recall where he was. The tent was tight and hot and next to him the two other men still slept, oblivious to his distress. One of them was Harris Walker. God, he hoped Walker hadn’t heard him cry out, because it was Dee’s name he called. And if any of the other details of the dream bled through to the waking world – well, he’d rather it not be Harris Walker who caught the gory details. He fumbled for the flashlight at the side of his sleeping bag, then he slipped out from under the mosquito netting and quietly unzipped the tent. He had to have some air. He had to think. He had to feel what was real again.

  Outside the air was no less thick, but it was less fetid. It smelled of fecund earth and damp heat. Not wanting to use the flashlight unless he had to, he felt his way to a tree at the left of their tent and leaned up against it, feeling the hard ripple of the thick bark pressing through his T-shirt. He couldn’t see the stars for the canopy, just like in his dream. The oppressive darkness brought back the ache beneath his sternum that he’d felt in his dream, that he’d felt when he thought he’d lost Dee. Suddenly he was desperate to call her, but the place they were tonight was in the deepest part of the Valderi forest. There would be no contact from where they were.

  It was just a dream, he told himself. He was tired and it had been an exhausting forced march to get here. He wasn’t at his best. When he’d left, things had been good between them. She had welcomed him to her bed. She had wanted to come with him, and God, he’d wanted her to. But it was an unnecessary risk and he would never put her in harm’s way. Besides, she was the only one who could close the deal with Scribal and Trouvères. And it was hers to close. She deserved all the credit. He could imagine her now in New York, in the big bed in the hotel room all alone. Was she missing him? He looked at his watch. It was just about time for her to get up and start her day. He hoped she hadn’t stayed up too late working. He hoped she had rested. If he’d been there he’d have made sure she did – after they’d made love, of course. His cock stirred in his shorts at the thought of being in her space, in her bed, in her body.

  How could he miss her so badly? They’d only been away from each other three days. But at the moment every part of him ached for her. It was crazy. She was his executive assistant, he reminded himself. No doubt she would have the common sense to keep her personal life from interfering with work. No doubt she would be level-headed enough to remember the Executive Sex Clause was a part of their working relationship. Neither of them needed, nor had time for, the complications of anything else, and what they had now worked so well for both of them.

  He tried not to think of Garrett knowing about the Executive Sex Clause, and even more distressing, the fact that now Stacie knew, or at least strongly suspected. Dear God, surely they wouldn’t do anything to sabotage what he had with Dee. Surely it would all be all right, since they both liked her, since they both were pleased with his choice of her. He mentally kicked himself. It wasn’t like he was bringing his girlfriend home to meet the family, the embarrassing family, but it sure as hell felt that way. He wiped sweat from his forehead and swatted away an insect which buzzed around his face in the darkness. Sometimes he had strange dreams when he was tired. He hadn’t had the really bad ones since that first year after Caltech. But even they hadn’t disturbed him like this one did.

  ‘You all right, Thorne?’

  Ellis could barely make out the shape of the man in the inky black of the night, but he recognised Harris Walker’s voice coming from the dark shadow now standing beside him.

  ‘Heard you thrashing about. You OK?’

  Ellis gritted his teeth. ‘Fine. I’m fine. Just a dream. Probably the strange place and not enough sleep.’

  Harris came to his side. ‘And missing Dee. You called her name.’

  ‘Probably dreaming about work,’ Ellis lied, and did his best to sound matter-of-fact. ‘I do that a lot.’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ Harris said. ‘I had nightmares all the time when I was practising law. Not so much any more, now I’m not. But I never called out my legal assistant’s name and told her I couldn’t lose her.’

  Ellis felt the muscles in his shoulders knot. ‘I told you it was just a dream.’ He shifted against the tree, sensing the presence of the man rather than seeing him, and knowing full well that even though Walker couldn’t see any better than he could, he was still studying him.

  ‘I talked to Dee before we left,’ Harris said. ‘She said the two of you were good.’

  Ellis didn’t say anything. He wanted to tell him it was none of his fucking business, but, at the same time, he was pleased that Dee had such a loyal friend. If the shoe were on the other foot, Ellis might have already resorted to violence if he’d been Dee’s best friend and she had returned home from the stupid comedy of errors she’d had to deal with at his house.

  Harris continued, ‘You didn’t ask for my opinion, but as long as I’m Dee’s best friend and you’re both playing at this stupid Sex Clause thing, you get it anyway. You’re both in over your heads. The sooner you figure it out, the sooner you face what’s really going on, the less painful it’ll be when the shit hits the fan. And you can’t possibly think that it won’t happen when you’re playing with the kind of fire you two are playing with.’

  Ellis bristled and pressed up away from the tree, nearly bashing heads with Harris. ‘You’re not the only one who want what’s best for Dee, Walker.’

  ‘Of course I’m not. I’m just the only one with a clear head at the moment,’ he said. Silence fell between the two of them, and the night sounds of a strange place flooded around them, feeling close and ominous. At last Harris heaved a sigh. ‘I’m betting if you make it right with Dee, Thorne, the dreams will stop.’ Then he turned and went back into the tent, leaving Ellis alone with his thoughts.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Trouvères had no offices in New York, so the planning for the first of the joint project between Trouvères and Scribal was done at the Scribal building. Marston had been doing his best to arrange a trip to Atlanta before Jason headed back to Paris so he and Dee could see the plant that was to be fitted with Trouvères technology. So far, the trip had been cancelled three times due to interruptions on all fronts, including heavy rains that had caused flooding of the roads into
the plant. In the meantime there was plenty to do, and Dee was happy to immerse herself in the work and the scheduling of future projects. She was finally beginning to understand why Beverly had liked Marston. In spite of his cantankerous ways, the man was forward-thinking and enthusiastic about the new technology and about what it would mean for the future of the industry.

  There were business dinners almost every night. When there weren’t, Dee had made excuses to avoid Jason’s constant offers of attention. He had offered to take an afternoon off and show her around New York City. He had asked her to join him for dinner. He had offered to see her back to her hotel when one of the dinners with the Scribal contingent had run long. With each new offer, Dee became more convinced Ellis might be right after all.

  In all honesty, there had been a few fantasies about Jason when she was headhunting him for Trouvères, but he was married, and he was her client, so they had never been more than that. And now there was little room for thoughts of any man who wasn’t Ellison Thorne. But the week would be over soon, and she’d be back in Portland and so would Ellis. At the moment, when she had time for fantasies, they all pretty much headed in that direction.

  Marston had just left for a charity dinner, and Dee was packing up for the evening, hoping to order room service and have a nice long bath before she settled in to write her report on the week’s negotiations. She wished the trip to the paper mill had happened. She really wanted to see for herself what would be taking place, but there was no help for it. The Scribal building was nearly empty; she could hear the cleaners vacuuming a conference room down the hall. Jason knocked on the door of the little office Dee had sequestered. ‘You’re gonna kill me,’ he said, offering a sheepish smile.

  ‘Why would I do that, Jason?’ she asked, checking her BlackBerry before she shoved it into her bag.

  ‘Because I left the flash drive with the template for the training manuals on the table in my apartment. I’m sorry, Dee, I took it out of the bag to get to the adapter plug and forgot to put it back.’ Though Trouvères didn’t have an office in New York, Jason maintained a flat there after the move to Paris, since he made frequent trips back.

  He looked down at his watch. ‘I know you have an early flight tomorrow. Look, the apartment’s not far from your hotel. Why don’t we share a taxi there? I’ll get you the flash drive, then you can go on. What do you think?’

  There wasn’t much choice now, she thought. She packed the last of her belongings and shut the door behind her, falling into step next to him.

  ‘I finished looking over those projections a few minutes ago,’ he said when they stepped into the elevator. ‘They sound too good to be true.’

  ‘I know, but actually, they’re rather modest.’ She hefted her bag onto her shoulder. ‘That’s the beauty of this project. It takes all three of our companies to do what none of us could manage on our own. And one of the results will be amazing profits.’

  He offered her an amused smile. ‘I see Thorne has instilled in you his philosophy for win-win deals.’

  ‘That philosophy’s what attracted me to the company in the first place.’

  His smile became suggestive. ‘You sure it was the philosophy and not the company’s dashing CEO?’

  She bristled slightly at the remark, but Jason didn’t notice. ‘Dashing men are easy to come by,’ she replied. ‘Good philosophies aren’t.’ Her BlackBerry rang into the quiet elevator and they both jumped. ‘It’s Ellis,’ she said. She wished like hell she was alone. She hadn’t heard from him in three days. The butterflies in her stomach felt like a raging stampede.

  She moved as far away from Jason as she could get and spoke softly. ‘You all right? How’s it going?’

  ‘I’m fine Dee. I can’t talk,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d want to know we just closed the deal. Harris got lots of pictures and as soon as I’m at a place where I can, I’ll call and tell you all about it.’ His voice was suddenly soft, warm. ‘You OK?

  ‘Better now,’ she said, hoping Jason didn’t notice the flush in her cheeks, the acceleration of her pulse.

  ‘Good. I’m looking forward to our debriefing. I think we’ll have lots to celebrate. See you soon, Dee.’

  It took her a second to realise Jason was staring at her. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. Yes, fine. Things are coming along in Spain.’ She shoved her BlackBerry back into her bag just as the elevator opened on to the ground floor.

  Jason hailed a taxi in front of the building and they settled in for the ride. For a minute they rode in less than comfortable silence, then Dee spoke. ‘Marston thinks the trip to Atlanta may happen after all. If so, I’ll know before my flight leaves in the morning. He’ll have his secretary take care of it. Will you be able to come?’

  ‘Sadly not this time,’ he said. ‘The timing is bad. But I’ll be back as soon as I can and then I’ll fly straight to Atlanta. Tomorrow, it’s back to Paris for me.’

  ‘You must be anxious to get home to your family,’ Dee said.

  He shifted awkwardly next to her and adjusted his safety belt. ‘I guess you haven’t heard the news.’

  ‘News?’

  ‘I’m surprised Yvette didn’t tell you, actually. I figured for sure Thorne would. Dee, I’m separated. The divorce is final in three weeks.’

  She caught her breath, feeling more uncomfortable at being alone with him in the taxi. ‘I’m really sorry, Jason. I didn’t know.’

  He gave her hand an unsolicited squeeze. ‘Don’t be. I’m not. But I should have let you know the situation first hand.’ He paused, as though he weren’t sure where to begin. ‘Things have been rough between Lydia and me for a long time, and now that the girls will both be in college this fall, it felt like the right time to do something about it. That, and the fact neither Lydia nor the girls wanted to live in France.’ He set his jaw and looked away from her. ‘Though they don’t seem to mind the nice increase in salary working for Trouvères means.’

  ‘Jason.’ She extricated her hand. ‘You don’t have to tell me any of this.’

  ‘No, really, it’s all right. Honestly, I want you to know.’ He spoke without looking at her. ‘I was living in a flat in Paris and commuting back to New York. Finally, we both decided it was enough. With me in Paris and Lydia in New York, we were already separated. When we started talking about a divorce, the position at Trouvères was still new and demanded my full attention. I’m only just now beginning to feel like I might actually be in control and have a little time for a personal life.’

  Dee felt her insides tense. This was the part she was pretty sure she didn’t want to talk about. Not now, anyway, not after so much had changed.

  He looked up at her. ‘Dee, you were always there at the back of my mind, and I always wondered what might have happened if I’d been free.’ He touched her hand tentatively, then drew back, fidgeting with the collar of his shirt. ‘Anyway, when you called me the first time from Pneuma Inc., I felt like someone had turned the lights back on.’ He heaved a sigh, and stroked her fingers cautiously. ‘Now that the divorce is almost final, now that we see a fair amount of each other anyway – well, I’m hopeful.’

  She pulled her hand away, feeling a wave of panic rising in the pit of her stomach. Ellis’s warnings flashed in her mind, the ones she’d always brushed aside. ‘That was almost two years ago, Jason, and life’s gone on since then. There’s so little spare time for me right now that I can’t really imagine having time for –’

  Before she could say anything else, he leaned across the seat and kissed her, one hand at the nape of her neck, the other snaking in at the middle of her back. It wasn’t a lingering kiss, but there was no doubt as to its intent. When he pulled away, he held her in a tight gaze, his warm breath brushing her ear. ‘Now that we’re free to pursue it, Dee, don’t you want to find out?’ The man’s charm would have won her over in a heartbeat if Ellis hadn’t already stormed the castle and taken over every bit of space within.

  Before she ha
d time to do more than catch her breath, the taxi arrived at his flat. They took the lift in silence to the sixth floor, and when he unlocked the door and ushered her inside, he turned to face her. ‘Stay for a drink, Dee.’ He held her gaze. ‘Just one, and we can talk.’ He ran a hand through his dark hair, and offered her a flustered smile. ‘Best we talk, don’t you think? We both make our living negotiating good deals, and I … Well, I consider you a friend as well as a colleague. Dee, just let me say what I need to say.’ His smile became boyish and charming. ‘Just one drink, then you can go back to your hotel.’

  When she nodded her consent, he opened a bottle of wine and went in search of glasses. While she waited, she looked out the window onto the city below, feeling strangely like a teenager breaking curfew. Since Ellis had come into the picture, she had forgotten all about her passing attraction to Jason. Ellis wasn’t really in the picture, she reminded herself again. Sex was only a part of her job. But it didn’t feel that way. At least, not for her it didn’t. She didn’t know what he felt, and what did feelings have to do with it anyway? It was the Executive Sex Clause. It was their secret weapon. Had he ever given her any indication it was more than that? Hadn’t he said right up front they were free to see other people?

  Maybe they should see other people. Maybe it would be better to mix things up a bit, to back off a bit so every little thing that happened didn’t make her feel like a giddy teenager stuck somewhere between ecstasy and despair. Christ, it had already been such a rollercoaster ride. And maybe what Jason was actually doing was offering her a way to pull back just a little bit, just enough for her own self-preservation.

  And Jason was a good man, an interesting man, a man any woman would be happy to be with. It wasn’t like she was spoiled for choice, she reminded herself. A man who was a workaholic was a catch, a good provider. A woman who was a workaholic, on the other hand, was someone to be avoided at all cost. No time to cook, no time to clean, no time to pop out the babies and sit in front of the television and unwind in the evenings. The thought made her feel a little queasy.