LOVING THE HEAD MAN (22 page)

       Then he stood there, holding her by the catch of that towel, and smiled.  “I’m very glad to see you,” he said, “but not in this kind of weather.  And is that big old Buick out there your car?”

       “My
mm-mmother’s
,” Bree said, still cold. 

       Robert lifted her into his arms, pulled back his bed covers, and laid her in bed, removing the towel and covering her up as he did.  Then he went to his suitcase, grabbed a brand new dress shirt he still had in its original wrappings, torn it open, and then put the shirt on Bree.

       He sat on the edge of the bed beside her prone, covered body.  “That’s your mother’s car?”

       “Yes.”

       “What do you drive?”

      
“My mother’s car.”

       Robert smiled, although it was hardly funny.  The idea that this woman,
his
woman, could be in this kind of financial state bothered him no end.  He rubbed her braids, loved the way her nose twinkled when she smiled.  The things he would give to her, he thought. 

       “You said you came all this way, in this monsoon, to talk to me?”  Robert was praying that it wasn’t bad news, that she hadn’t decided that she didn’t want to hitch her wagon to him, or even his company.  But what he loved about Bree was her individuality, her ability to make decisions based on what had to be done, rather than what she would prefer.  She had great leadership instincts, he thought.

       “Yes,” she said.  “I just wanted to tell you okay.”

       Robert expected more.  “Okay?  Okay to?”

      
“Everything, all of it.
  The job
offer,
and the relationship offer.”

       Robert smiled, his heart leaping again.  ‘Brianna, are you sure?”

       Bree nodded her head, still chilled to the bone.  “I’m sure.”

       Robert’s smile left, and just like that Bree could see his drain.  “You won’t regret it,” he said with all seriousness.  “I’ll be the best man I can be to you, Bree.”

       “And as soon as I warm up, I’ll be the best woman I can be to you.”

       Robert laughed, and then quickly undressed and got in bed with her, pulling her chilled body to his overheated one.  And if she thought Robert would be able to just warm her up and then leave her alone, she was monumentally misinformed.

       Robert held her in his arms, her body facing his, as she began to feel its warmth.  “Feeling warmer?” he asked her.

       “Yes,” she said, snuggling closer to him.  And it was that snuggle, where her butt pushed directly onto his penis, that caused him to lift the shirt she wore just enough to reveal that butt, to lift her leg, and to slide that ever-expanding penis inside of her. 

       Bree closed her eyes when he entered her.  It was exhilarating.  And as he slid in and out of her, making her feel warmer and warmer with each slide, she knew she couldn’t ever give this up again. 

       Robert felt that way also, as he caressed her with his penis, as he eventually laid her on her stomach, eased on top of her, and began to pump her.  He loved this woman.  He loved everything about this woman.  And the thought of it, that he was going down this road again, made him feel almost inadequate. 
Except he could never feel inadequate, inside of Bree.

TWELVE

A week later, on a bright Monday morning, she entered the revolving doors of the mammoth Colgate and Associates office building and hurried for the B elevators, her briefcase at her side, on her way to the tower.  By the time the elevator deposited most of its riders and made its way to the tenth floor, Prudence Cameron stepped on, with a stack of documents in tow.  When she saw Bree, she frowned.

       “Bree?” she asked, stunned.  “What are you doing here?”

       “Hello, Pru,” Bree said with a smile, her body leaned against the back rail.  “Congratulations.”

       “What are you doing here, since clearly your
sleep your way to the top
strategy failed miserably and you had the good decency to leave early?  Why are you back?”

       Although Pru’s comments stung, Bree was relieved when the elevator stopped at the twelfth floor, and more people piled on.  When the doors shut again, she and Pru were too far apart to continue any conversation.  And by the time everybody else who had come on were off and they were the only two left to keep traveling all the way up to the tower, Pru was reading a text on her cell phone and had apparently forgotten all about Bree.

       Until they stepped off of the elevator and saw, at the end of the corridor, Robert seated behind his desk talking with three gentlemen, but not so engrossed in conversation that he couldn’t see that Bree was now on the floor.

       “Brianna!” he yelled from his office, causing both Bree and Pru to look his way.  “Come here.”

       Bree smiled and headed for Robert’s office.  Pru frowned and walked over to Lois’ desk, handing her the stack of documents in her hand.   

       “I see Bret Drysdale have you document dumping again this morning,” Lois said.

       “You know it,” Pru said, then gave Lois one of those
what’s up with that
looks, as her eyes drifted toward Robert’s office.

       “Haven’t you heard?  Mr. Colgate personally hired Bree to run the recruitment office.”  Then Lois smiled.  “She’s higher ranked than you, Pru.  She might even be your supervisor.”

       Given what Pru had just said to her potential supervisor in the elevator, Pru didn’t see the
  humor
.  She was too mortified by the implications.

       “Come on in, Brianna,” Robert said as he stood to his feet and Bree made her way into his office.  The three gentlemen seated in front of his desk all rose to their feet. 

       “When did you get back?” Bree asked as she made her way around his desk.  She arrived in Chicago yesterday afternoon and, with the key he had given her, made her way to his penthouse apartment shortly thereafter.  He had asked if she would prefer her own place, but she knew she couldn’t afford a Chicago apartment right now and asking him to pay for a separate residence for her, especially since she would probably spend most of her time at his place anyway, would have been ridiculous.  “I thought you said you wouldn’t be back in town for another few days.”

       “Our client needed another family break,” Robert said and kissed her on the lips, his arm lovingly around her.  “Settled in okay?” he asked her.

       “Yes, thanks,” Bree said.  She found that she loved being at Robert’s apartment.  It was peaceful and clean and she was already able to do a little decorating of her own without feeling as if he would disapprove.  When they were in Nodash they each made it perfectly clear that they were in this relationship for the long haul.

       “Guys, I would like for you to meet my very special lady here, Miss Brianna Hudson.  She also runs my recruitment office.”

       All of the men said their hellos.

       “Bree, this is--”

       “Oh, you don’t have to introduce any of these gentlemen,” Bree said with a smile, as all three were renowned attorneys in their own right.  “
Wade Furth, Gerald Steiner
, and Lee Clayton, it’s an honor to meet each one of you.”  Especially Lee Clayton, she thought.  He was one of the most celebrated African-American attorneys in the country, a man who shouldn’t be sitting second chair to anyone, not even Robert, but had apparently agreed to do so as a favor to Robert. 

       “And please, sit down,” Bree insisted to the three lawyers, and they obliged.  “You too, Robert,” she added, certain that he was probably fatigued anyway. 

       “Monty’s retrieving some info for me right now,” he said to her as he sat back down, too, “but I’ve put him in charge of giving you a crash course on what your duties will entail.”  Just as he said it, Monty Ross entered the office. 
“Oh, Monty, good.
  I was just telling Bree--”

       “You aren’t going to believe this,” Monty said, closing the office door behind him. 

       “What is it?” Robert asked, knowing all too well what it usually portended when Monty had that worried look on his face.

       Monty hurried over to the flat screen TV that sat on the wall on the left side of the room, grabbed the remote and turned it on.  He flipped channels until he came upon a press conference.  To Robert’s shock, to Bree’s shock, Deidra Dentry, one of the former trainees, and Alan DeFrame, were at the podium, surrounded by journalists.

       “And he did it repeatedly,” Deidra was saying.  “I kept telling him that his sexual advances were not just unwelcomed, but that they were making me extremely uncomfortable, extremely so.  But Mr. Colgate still wouldn’t stop.”

       As soon as Robert’s name was mentioned as the perpetrator of her allegations, all three of the attorneys seated in front of his desk jumped to their feet.  In fact, the only attorney still seated in a room filled with nothing but attorneys, was Robert himself.  Bree, staring unblinkingly at the TV screen, was paralyzed where she stood.

       “I started avoiding him,” Deidra said as she took one finger and smooth down her long, blonde hair, her blue eyes almost glisteningly bright.  “When I knew he was in the building that day, I would make sure to shadow one of the attorneys who was currently at trial and would more than likely be in the courtroom more than at Colgate.  But, of course, I couldn’t avoid him entirely.  He is, after all, the head man, and if he wants you, he wants you.  And he would call for me so often that it was becoming nerve-racking.  And every time I went up to the tower and went into his office, he would start up again.”

       “Was it only words?” one reporter asked her.  “Did he ever touch you?”

       Deidra smoothed down her hair again.  “Yes,” she said. 
“In his office on his couch.
  He kissed me and fondled my breasts.”

       Bree’s heart dropped. She remembered when she and Robert were on his couch, and how he kissed her and fondled her breasts, and did even more than that.  But it was consensual.  But what if she would not have agreed, but he kept asking her, kept insisting?  It
have
been harassment to her then.