Starr Destined (Starr Series) (9 page)

“How are those proposals for the Liverpool venture coming along, Steven?”  I asked one of them, whose jaw had dropped open a little as he looked at us, and took in the fact that we were obviously together.

“Oh… umm…  I’m still working on the latest figures, Mr. Starr,” he muttered, as he glanced at Sera.

Sera looked flushed, but I smiled reassuringly at her.  After all, I had given in to her plea that we suspend our lunchtime office sex sessions.

“I mean it, Liam.  No lunchtime hook up.”  Sera had said this morning.

“Why not?  There’s a lock on my office door,” I’d smirked at her.

“I'm not walking the walk of shame back to my desk,” she’d insisted.

“It would hardly be that - you’re exaggerating,” I’d protested.

“Please, Liam.  Let’s just cool things down at the office for a while.  It’s alright for you, you're The Boss, no-one will dare say anything to you.  But I'm the new girl who still has to prove herself to everyone.  Don't make things more difficult for me than they already are in an office full of blokes.  Once people know about us, I don't want to be labelled, as just ‘The Boss’s Totty’.  I still want to be taken seriously.”

“Okay, I see where you’re coming from.  I suppose I can just about manage to last the day, as long as we’re seeing each other tonight,” I'd sighed.  This was just after we’d had sex in the shower this morning, and twice the night before - we just couldn’t get enough of each other.  “But trust me; we will be having office sex again at some point in the future.”

Sera had just raised her eyebrows at me.

Now, she looked at me in surprise as I exited the lift with her on the third floor, instead of contin
uing to the top floor where my office was located.

“You’re not coming right in with me, are you?” she whispered, as she tried to extricate her hand from mine.

“Of course I am,” I smiled serenely.  I wanted there to be no doubt about the message I was sending out loud and clear - that Sera was with
me
- that she was
mine
.  That was the best part about going public, as far as I was concerned.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, as I held the door open for her, but didn’t let go of her hand.  It was a large open plan office, and Sera’s desk was over on the far side, so we had to walk past the marke
ting department who were also located on this floor.  All heads turned and followed our progress in a stunned silence.

“Oh…  Sera…  Mr. Starr…”  Tom stuttered as he looked up and saw us holding hands.  Sera was blushing a very pretty shade of pink by now, as everyone in the office was staring at us.  It wasn’t that unusual for me to drop in - I like to make unannounced visits to all areas of my business from time to time - but of course they had never seen me holding hands with an employee before.

“Good morning, Tom.  I thought I could have a joint meeting down here with you and Seraphina at twelve thirty today, so you can both update me on the progress of your projects.  Does that suit?”  Sera looked at me in surprise.  My thinking was that if I couldn’t get to see her alone in my office, I might as well take the opportunity to see for myself how she and Tom interacted together.  It’d also be another opportunity for everyone to see me with Sera.  And this way, no one was going to be able to accuse us of sneaking around.

“Yes, of course, that’d be fine,” Tom replied, as he quickly tried to recover from his obvious shock.

“Good.  I’ll see you both later then.”  I put my arm around Sera’s waist and pulled her to me, as I leant down to kiss her cheek.  “I can't wait until tonight,” I murmured in her ear, before I let her go and walked back out of the office, smiling to myself as I imagined how the tongues were all going to start wagging this morning.  I really didn't care, because the world might as well know how I felt about the woman who was going to become Mrs. Starr, just as soon as I could get her to agree. 

“Did my eyes
just deceive me, or are you and The Boss…?”  Tom asked the second Liam had left the office.  He pushed his glasses back up his nose, his soft brown eyes staring at me as if seeing me in a different light.

“What?”  I tried to behave all nonchalantly, as if nothing unusual had happened.  I fumbled around unlocking my desk and getting my things out, ignoring the fact that my face was bright red, and that everyone in the office was staring at me.  Trust Liam to drop me right in it - that man didn't believe in doing things by halves.  We couldn’t just quietly walk in to the building together and then go our separate ways, could we?

“Oh, now come on, Sera.  You were
holding hands
with The Boss.  He
kissed
you.  Time to tell your Uncle Tom everything.  And I mean, everything.”

That
so
wasn’t going to happen.  Tom could have the edited version, but he certainly wasn’t going to know the full X-rated version.

“Since we’ve been working together, we’ve found that we like each other.  That’s all.  No big deal,” I shrugged, feigning indifference.

“No big deal?  Are you kidding me?  You and The Boss?  Him walking in here openly with you like that, in front of everyone?”  Tom indicated the whole office with a sweep of his hand.  “So how long has this been going on?  And why haven’t you mentioned anything before?  Is it serious?”

“It’s early days yet - we’re just spending some time together to see how it goes.  Now, can we talk about something else?  How’s little Noah - have you got any new pictures for me to look at today?”  Usually it was a sure fire certainty that Tom could be sidetracked into showing me the latest pictures of his cute little baby.

“No changing the subject,” Tom insisted, standing by my desk with his arms folded across his chest, as he pulled himself up to his full height.  “I want to know more about this.  We work closely together.  So I think I have a right to know if my colleague is getting up close and personal with The Boss, because it affects what I might say to you.”

“No, it doesn’t, Tom.  You’re making far too much of this.  Just act exactly as you did before.  The fact that Liam and I are seeing each other out of work changes nothing.  You know how he is as far as work is concerned - he’s a perfectionist who can be a right royal pain in the arse.  That hasn’t changed one iota.”

“He just called you Seraphina, and you called him Liam.  That sounded so weird,” Tom grinned at me.

“Mr. Starr.  The Boss.  Whatever you want to call him, he’s expecting us to present to him later this morning, so we’d best get cracking, hmm?”  I reminded him.

“So, what’s he like outside work?”  Tom probed.

And I couldn’t help myself.  A silly stupid smile found its way onto my face as I thought about Liam.

“He’s pretty amazing, actually.” 

The words somehow slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them, but I quickly recovered and busied myself getting out my work sheets, as I started booting up my Mac.

Tom grinned at me.

“So it’s like that, eh?  I can see you're totally besotted.  Fair enough, I remember how it was in the early days when I first met Alice.  It’s just… well…  I certainly never saw this coming in a million years, given The Boss’s reputation, but fair play if it works for the both of you.”

“Please can we talk about work now, Tom?  And I’d really appreciate it if you’d try to quell any gossip, rather than adding fuel to the flames?  I just want to get on with my job,” I pleaded.

“Of course, you’ve got it.  I’ll do my best to shield you, but you know everyone is going to want to know all the juicy details, having actually seen you with The Boss for themselves.”  Tom’s face was serious now.  “But you can count on me to be the sole of discretion.”

And I knew I could.  Tom was such a great guy, the best friend I had in the office, acting almost like a big brother to me in a lot of ways.  Perhaps this was going to be easier than I’d expected.

Easier than expected?  How wrong could I be?  There weren’t many other females in the Starr Capital offices, so you’d like to think that maybe they could have been supportive and friendly towards me, under the circumstances.  But the gossip I overheard a bit later on that morning while I was in the ladies loo proved otherwise.

“Did you see them?  Apparently she walked in with him as bold as brass.  She hasn’t been here five minutes, and now she’s sleeping with The Boss.  That’s how she got her job, of course, seeing as she’s only just out of college.  She’s never fooled me - I know her type, with that faux innocent look of hers.  That’s how she managed to lure The Boss, pretending to be all young and sweet and inn
ocent, when she’s nothing better than a conniving little slut.”

I recognised the bitter and resentful voice as that of Liam's miserable cow of a PA, Joy.  I was shocked at how incredibly horrid she was being, as she maligned me behind my back.

“Poor man, being taken in like that, not realising she’s just using him.  Mr. Starr’s always been far too dedicated to the business to spend much time on girlfriends, so he’s probably pretty clueless, and that’s how she’s hooked him,” whoever the other woman was chipped in. 

I nearly snorted out loud.  They were the clueless ones, if that’s how they saw Liam. Clueless with women - really?  He’d obviously covered the tracks of his private life very well, but right now that wasn’t doing me any favours.

What really made my blood boil was that if I didn't even  know who this woman was, she couldn’t possibly know anything about me, but thanks to Joy, she’d already made up her mind that I couldn’t possibly have got my job because of ability or hard work.

“It won’t last - it never does, Felicity.” 
Who the hell was Felicity?
  “Once the novelty has worn off, he’ll come to his senses and see her for what she really is, and then she’ll be out of that door before she knows what’s hit her,” Joy pronounced.  “I, for one, won’t be sorry to see the back of her, and then things can get back to normal.  She’s no doubt the reason he’s been acting so odd lately - cancelling meetings, then rushing off, snapping my head off if I dare to question him.  I bet she thinks she’s got him wrapped round her little finger, but that little tart has overestimated her powers, because he’s no fool.  She may have set her sights on him, but he’ll soon figure it out, and then she’ll be history.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Joy.  Well, I’d best get back - not all of us resort to such underhand methods to get on, do we?”

And then they were gone, leaving me fuming at what I'd just overheard, because it was so unfair.  My first instinct was to go after them and confront them, but I knew that would just result in a slanging match, which wouldn’t help things at all.  Then I considered telling Liam, but I quickly ruled that out - I didn't need him wading in to fight my battles.  In the end, I decided the only way to prove them wrong, to silence them, was to work harder than anyone else, to prove that I deserved the position I'd been given, and that I wasn’t guilty of sleeping my way to the top.  But I also decided that I wanted any further PDA’s between Liam and me at work to stop - it would only rile these women even more and make matters worse, in my opinion.

So I did my best to keep my distance from Liam when he appeared in our office for the meeting, making sure Tom was between us the whole time.  Luckily, Liam was in full-on work mode, as he grilled us both about the draft Evergreen logos, while he perused the sheets of work spread over the desk.  I did allow myself the luxury of sneaking a good look at him, drinking in how great he looked in his pale blue striped shirt and dark navy blue trousers, admiring his great backside as he leant over the desk.  Of course, I knew that he looked even better in the buff…  My mind started wandering, so I hastily shut down that train of thought.

“I think this one would work best,” he indicated his preferred choice, which happened to be the one that I also preferred.  “But I’d like to see exactly how it would work on all the different formats before I give the final go ahead.”  Liam was as decisive as ever.  No dithering around, just straight to the point.

“Of course, we’ll get to work on it, now we know which one to concentrate on,” Tom said.  “Sera was just putting the final touches to it.  She thought that would be the one you’d plump for.”

Liam glanced up at me and smiled briefly.  From working together previously, I had a pretty good idea of what he liked and what he didn't.  Having said that, I always wanted to make sure he had a full range of options, rather than assuming I knew what he would want.  It was, however, very gratifying to know that I'd got it right.

“Fine.  So you’ll have something for me to look at by tomorrow?”  Liam stared at us.  I knew he was challenging me, to prove he wasn’t going soft.

I saw Tom hesitate - it was a tall order, but I was determined not to give anyone reason to think The Boss was going easy on me, aware that everyone was bound to be listening in to our meeting.

“Of course.  We’ll make sure everything is at least to the draft stage for you to see by this time t
omorrow,” I promised, as I smiled over at Tom’s worried face.  If it meant working late, then that’s what I would do.  “Once I’ve got them to that stage, I can hand them over for Tom to progress on the technical side.”

“Good.
I suggest we have another meeting tomorrow, same time.  Then you can show me how far you’ve got,” Liam said as he turned to me, but
I busied myself with tidying the papers away, leaving Tom to deal with him.