Shaft
Page 9
No. No no no no no. My stomach churns. This can’t be happening. Allie cannot work here. She can’t. There’s no way I can see her every day if I can’t be with her. And my Dad will go ballistic if he finds out what really happened in that elevator.
I think again of the blasted Ground Rules, and rue the day I ever agreed to them. I should have told my father when he made them a condition of my continuing employment that I wasn’t a teenager any more, and that who I did or didn’t choose to have sex with was none of his business. But I didn’t. And here we are. And now – oh god, I’m furious with myself – it seems that Allie will be working at Hart Enterprises.
Which means she is strictly, expressly, totally forbidden. At least, to me.
I watch the two of them shaking hands as the murmurs in the lobby rise, as a feeling close to despair floods my body.
Then my father turns to me.
“Well, Jonathan, don’t you want to congratulate Allie on her employment?”
“Of course.” I offer Allie my hand, and paste on a smile. “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll be very successful here.”
“Grand, grand.” My father looks from Allie to me with the trace of a smile on his lips as we execute what must be the world’s quickest handshake. “I’ll have Linda draw up a contract and send it over for your approval, Allie. I look forward to working with you.”
Allie murmurs something in the way of her assent, still too shell-shocked to respond properly. “Feel free to come to me if you have any concerns, Allie. But I’m sure that working for Jonathan will be smooth sailing. He’s pretty easy to get along with. Right, Jonathan?”
I literally feel the color drain from my face, and I don’t dare look at Allie. My father beams at us both, then turns to Linda. “Right! Better salvage what’s left of the day, eh Linda?” and the two of them move off through the crowd, a buzz of chatter rising in their wake.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Allie
What in the hell just happened?
I am frozen, rooted to the spot, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs that I fear they might break, or at least bruise.
Oh my god. I’ve just agreed to take a job at Hart Enterprises, only to find out that my boss-to-be is the man I’ve just let fuck me senseless in the elevator. My face flames. Obviously, I’m going to have decline the offer. There’s no way I can work under Nate. It’s not professional. Not to mention, it would be unbearable to be around him all day every day, knowing that I couldn’t have him, that he was off-limits.
Not that he’s interested anyway.
I turn to him, my eyes flashing. “I thought you said your name was Nate!” I hiss furiously.
My words seem to rouse Nate from his stupor . He gives himself a little shake, then steers me by my elbow to an unoccupied corner of the lobby.
“My name is Nate,” he says quietly . “At least – that’s what my friends call me. My full name is Jonathan. Most people call me John.”
“Oh god.” I cover my face with my hands. “What the fuck, Nate. Jonathan. Whatever your name is.” I peer at him through my fingers. “You realize that I can’t take this job, don’t you?”
Nate looks at me steadily. “It’s not ideal,” he admits. He lets out a sigh, and rakes his hand through his hair. The hair that I’d been raking my own hands through not even an hour ago.
My stomach churns, and I feel like I might be sick. To think: this morning, my biggest worry was getting through an interview without anyone noticing the coffee stain on my blouse. Since then, I’ve got stuck in elevator, let a stranger strip me naked and do pretty much whatever he wanted with me, screamed at one of the most successful and respected businessmen in Manhattan, been offered a job by that same businessman, and then found out that his son is not only the man I fucked in the elevator, but also the man who I am going to be working for.
My head is spinning. You couldn’t make this up.
“You know, I actually wanted this job,” I say with more bitterness than I’d intended. “I mean, I needed it, but I wanted it, too.” I sigh, study my hands. “Guess it’s back to the drawing board.”
“Allie.” Nate’s voice is soft. My had is in my hands. “Allie,” he says again, more forcefully this time. I lift my head to look up at him, and he smiles at me, though the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You should take the job, Allie.”
I let out a little laugh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you? Not after we...” I let my voice trail off.
Nate clears his throat. “We’re both adults, Allie. What we did – well, obviously it can’t happen again. But I don’t regret it, not for a second. And unless you do, unless you think you can’t work with me because of it, then I think you should take the job. Who knows? We might work well together.”
We already do, I think silently, remembering the way he fit so perfectly inside me, remembering how his teeth had felt as they teased my nipples to stiff, swollen peaks. I feel myself getting wet just thinking of it, and quickly bring my thoughts back to the situation at hand.
Can I work with him – with Nate – on a daily basis? Can I bear seeing him, knowing that he’s not mine, and never will be? That we can’t ever repeat what we did today, no matter hot it was? That I can’t even allow myself to think of him in that way?
If I’m completely honest with myself, I’m not sure I can.
I meet Nate’s gaze. God, he’s beautiful. I want to scream in frustration when I think of how different things could have been if only I’d bumped into him in Central Park instead; if we’d shared a carriage on the subway. Hell, I’d even take him spilling a beer on me in a lousy bar, which is how I’d first met Sean.
Yeah, and look at how that turned out, my subconscious reminds me smartly.
But if I don’t take the job...I shudder to think of my diminishing bank balance. Of more weeks lying at home in my pyjamas sucking half-melted ice cream off a spoon. Or – worse – trudging from interview to interview for jobs I don’t want but put myself up for anyway out of sheer desperation.
On impulse, I straighten up, square my shoulders, look Nate straight in the eye.
“OK,” I tell him. “I’ll do it. I’ll take the job.”
A fleeting look crosses Nate’s face – a look that seems like gladness and relief and fear all at once. But it’s gone before I can properly register it, and I push it from my mind.
“You’re right,” I tell him, in a voice that is far more confident than I feel. “We’re both adults; we’re perfectly capable of being professional about all this. Perfectly capable of not acting on our urges.”
Not in that elevator you weren’t, smirks my subconscious, and I swat the voice irritably away.
“Not that I have any urges. I mean, not any more. I mean...”
“I know what you mean.” Nate’s lips quirk in a grin and a warm feeling starts in my belly and spreads through my body.
“When you can start, Allie?”
“How does Monday sound?” I hold my breath. Nate looks at me for a long moment, then smiles – a genuine smile that lights his whole face. I feel that increasingly familiar surge of desire low in my belly, and do my best to quash it.
“Monday sounds perfect.” He holds out his hand again, and I reach to shake it, ignoring the electric charge that seems to race up my arm at his touch.
“I look forward to working with you,” Nate says. His voice is formal, but there’s an undeniable twinkle in his eye.
“And I with you,” I reply, equally formal. My mouth is dry, so I quickly lick my lips, noting immediately how Nate’s eyes fix on the tip of my tongue; how his eyes flash; how he swallows, hard, his Adams’ apple bobbing in his throat.
My sex tingles in response.
“See you Monday,” I say in a slightly breathless voice. Then, trying to lighten the mood: “Sorry; I meant see you Monday, Boss.”
Nate swallows again. “Monday,” he says finally, and nods. His voice is thick.
I turn to l
eave, my belly full of butterflies, nerves, and excitement at once, all kicked up, fluttering and drifting together like tossed confetti, or handfuls of leaves.
“Allie.” I pause mid-step at the sound of his voice, turn back to face him.
“Yes?”
Nate’s eyes are dark, but his mouth is smiling. “On Monday? Wear those heels.”
Without another word, he turns and cuts through the lobby, heading for the stairwell.
Wear those...what the?! A shiver travels through my body, a feather-light tickle along the length of every nerve.
Maybe Nate isn’t quite so ready to drop me after all.
My face splits in a grin as I head for reception to hand in my lanyard, a curious thrumming between my thighs making the short walk a rather more pleasurable experience than it would have been on a normal day.
Not that anything can happen between us now, of course.
Not that it will.
I drop the lanyard off with one of the beautiful receptionists, and then I head for the revolving doors with distinctly more of a spring in my step than I’d had when I’d arrived this morning.
The torrential rain has stopped, and the sky is clearing; here and there, a patch of brightest, cleanest blue shows through. The color of Nate’s eyes, I think, before I can stop myself. I close my eyes and tilt my face up to the clouds, breathing in a lungful of fresh, rain-scented air.
I’ve no idea what the future holds, but I have a sudden feeling that things are starting to look up for Allie Sinclair.
When I left my apartment this morning, I was stressed, unemployed, and I hadn’t had sex in so long, I couldn’t imagine ever having it again. Fast forward to a few hours later, and I’m wearing a smile that won’t quit, I’ve been offered my dream job - albeit in very unusual circumstances – and I’ve been thoroughly, wonderfully fucked.
It’s suddenly feeling like a pretty good time to be alive.
I practically float across the car park and down the street to where my little Fiat is waiting. The whole time, I’m picturing Nate’s face. Remembering his hands on my skin. How he’d lifted me as if I’d weighed no more than a twig. How he’d driven into me, groaning my name, making me feel like I belonged to him. How he’d said I was his.
I don’t know what it will be like spending every day around Nate, knowing that nothing more can happen between us. I don’t know if he feels the way I feel, as though I’m radiating light as I walk down the street. I don’t know if his world feels altered now, as mine does; unsettled, unfinished, strange.
As I let myself into my old jalopy and buckle myself in to the driver’s seat, still smiling, there’s only one thing I am certain of.
Working for Hart Enterprises is going to be far more interesting than I ever imagined.