Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 (12 page)

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--but 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.

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.”

Sean was quiet for a minute as the
guy hit his desired floor and exited. Another couple of people got in, said
”Hi,” to Sean, ignored her, and then started talking about their work for the
Dell account.

Sean said, “Why doesn’t James just
turn it in instead of hold onto it?”

Krista shrugged. “Million-dollar
question. If I wasn’t afraid of that scowl of his, I’d ask.”

“So you finish your work right on
time to keep him happy?”

“No, I finish really early because
the deadlines are too long, and then hold on to it until the last minute. That
report was due by the end of the day. Ordinarily I would wait until
4:50
or so. Hopefully he won’t be too mad. But
I am fully prepared to blame you if he is.” There. She admitted it.

Sean laughed as they reached the
lobby. “Understood.”

Once out of the building, Krista
let Sean lead. He had a lunch spot in mind, and since she needed suggestions on
good places to eat, she didn’t say anything.

He didn’t say much, either, as they
walked, probably thinking about their episode earlier. She couldn’t help but
notice his walk, though. He walked with purposeful, powerful strides, eating up
the ground easily with each step. He held back for her, because though she was
normally a fast walker, her four-inch heels weren’t conducive to sprinting. His
body moved with the symmetry of an athlete. Nothing was out of place when he
moved.

Once they got to the restaurant,
Krista’s stomach felt like it was imploding she was so hungry. When they walked
in she realized that it was an Irish pub, but a different one than she was in
last week with the girls. The bar was long, covering the entire right side of
the restaurant. Aside from a walkway along the bar, the rest of the space had
tables and chairs, with three booths in the back left corner. At the back of
the restaurant was a large kitchen with cooks busily getting orders out.

Instead of sitting at a table, and
there were more than a few available, Sean led her to the far end of the bar.
They took two stools and settled in.

“The waitress is completely
indifferent,” Sean said, folding his hands in front of him patiently. “The bar
has much quicker service.”

“Why come here if the service is
bad?” Krista said, looking around.

There were two waitresses in their
mid-thirties moving around the tables. Krista couldn’t tell their indifference
by looking at them. In fact, they seemed to gab to their patrons as they took
orders, asking if everything was alright, and moving on. They weren’t bustling
by any means, but they didn’t look lazy, either. The place was large—she could
imagine the waitresses having their work cut out for them if the place got
packed.

In the awkward hours between lunch
and dinner, most restaurants and bars in the financial district were slow.
There weren’t many tourists this far from downtown to fill the off-hour void of
the workforce. This restaurant, however, was still humming. It had a used,
worked-in sort of feeling, lacking the gloss and shine of the other Irish pub
she’d been in last Friday, but people seemed all the more relaxed for it. It
wasn’t pretentious, but it wasn’t dirty. It fit somewhere in between. Krista
felt comfortable here. And judging by how relaxed Sean was, leaning idly
against the bar, he was, too.

“It isn’t that the service is bad.”
Sean said, looking around. “Just indifferent. Sometimes that means you’re left
to your own devices a little too long. At the bar you generally get what you
need as you need it.”

Just as he said this the bartender
showed up. She was a middle-aged woman with a pleasant, laid back look.
“What’ll ye have?” She asked with an Irish accent.

“I’ll have a Guinness and a menu,
please.” Sean looked at Krista. He was still feeling uncomfortable with the
scene earlier. The scene he had made.

She figured she’d let him stew in
it for a while. “Uh, I guess I’ll try a Guinness as well, and a menu also.
Please.”

The bartender nodded once, put some
menus within reach, and wandered away, making a joke with a guy down the way.
Indifferent made sense. Polite indifference.

“Have you ever had Guinness?” Sean
asked with a bemused grin. He was bemused a lot. Was it just her or life in
general?

She hoped it was life. She was damn
funny, sure, but she didn’t think of herself as all that confusing.

“I mostly drink Guinness when in
Ireland
and
England
,”
she explained, making an effort to turn off her mental dialogue. “Not so much
anywhere else.”

“You travel there often?”

“Which? To
Ireland
or
England
?”

“Either. Both.”

“I haven’t gone anywhere in a
couple years, but when headed to
Europe
I tend to spend
some time in
England
.
It isn’t that I love it—I mean, I like it—but travel out of Gatwick to most
anywhere in
Europe
is crazy easy. Oh, and I understand
the language.”