The American Lover (3 page)

As I listened to Cassie callously eviscerating me, it was obvious that my marriage had been over for some time.

What a fool I’d been.  How could I have been so blind to what had been going on around me for so long?

Two years later

I
was not in the best of moods on Monday morning, thanks to John Beal, my lazy bastard of a boss.

I’d progressed to become a senior systems analyst at the Royal London Bank, which was in the final phase of being fully assimilated into the mighty American Western Bank Corporation.

When they’d acquired the much smaller but prestigious Royal London in a hostile takeover, it had proved very unpopular with our longstanding and loyal customers, who hated any kind of change.  As the main reason for the takeover had been precisely to acquire these extremely valuable high worth customers, in order to pacify them and prevent them leaving in droves, the American powers that be had promised that we’d be retained as a separate London sub branch, with everything organised so that customers would hardly be aware of any changes to their accounts. 

That was why we’d retained our Royal London brand name, logo and offices - for now anyway. However, we all believed it was only a matter of time before the AWB bosses reneged on their promises, once the dust had settled and the controversy had died down.  They were fully aware that, as much as customers might grumble, the reality was that as long as their financial matters ran smoothly, they’d be unlikely to go through the hassle and disruption of changing all their accounts.

So, we were frantically working behind the scenes to implement all the necessary systems compatibility upgrades that had been deemed necessary to bring us into line with the rest of the AWB corporation, while still ensuring there was no negative impact on our customers with any outage or down time.

It was a massive project, and over the last year, I’d been working my socks off to get our latest integration project up and running to meet the very tight deadline imposed by the head office in San Francisco.  Thanks to my reputation for attention to detail, I’d been given a specialist role, to prioritise the integration of the highest value customer accounts and shield them in every conceivable way from any kind of disruption.

And yet that hadn't stopped my boss from telling me late on Friday afternoon that I was being pulled, just so I could babysit some big wig they were sending over from the States.

Apparently, they needed some vitally important data from our systems to comply with a new dictat from the IRS - the U.S government agency responsible for tax collection and tax law enforcement. It was something to do with preventing financial crime, money laundering and such like, and from previous dealings I'd had with providing data for the American tax office, I understood that there was no point in arguing or trying to find a way around whatever the IRS demanded.  You just had to provide whatever they asked for
to the letter
. That much I did know.

And now it was falling to me to ensure UK compliance for what the IRS deemed as another branch of the American Western Bank, because these days my boss, John, was putting in as little effort as possible. 

He was just cruising lazily towards his retirement in just over a year, not bothering to keep himself updated on any of our system upgrades. So, although as senior manager it should have fallen to him to work with this head office executive, he knew his lack of knowledge would make him look a total pillock.  That’s why he was ‘delegating’ the task to me. 

Yay. Lucky me. Joy.

I was going to be the lucky individual who got to sit with this person for the next week to plough through all the data, when everyone knew the head office Yanks were a bunch of anally retentive workaholics, with absolutely no sense of humour, who looked down their noses at us and what they deemed our antiquated systems, even though they’d always been fit for purpose as far as we were concerned. 

Truth be told, I’d welcomed the heavy workload, because I'd desperately needed something to immerse myself in, and really wanted to prove myself.   When I’d transferred to this team about a year ago, I’d told everyone I preferred to be called Jack, from my surname of Jackson, in an attempt to move on from the pathetic ‘poor little Faith’ image I’d managed to acquire on my previous team.  But just because I was a geek who didn't have any kind of a life outside work, that did not mean I was looking forward to the next week.

Since my change of circumstances… okay, let’s not beat around the bush, let’s put it out there. 

Since my husband Drew had died two years ago, since I’d been widowed, since the bottom of my world had dropped out, I preferred keeping to myself, to be left alone to immerse myself in work. I found it much easier and simpler if there were no awkward questions, or well meaning gestures about my change of circumstances that just made things worse, and ended in everyone getting upset and feeling awkward.

Now John was telling me that because there’d been some last minute glitch about exactly who head office were sending over, this person would not have the necessary security clearance or expertise to access our systems. With the IRS breathing down their necks, postponing was not an option, so the only way round this was for me to access the systems for them, rather than just pointing them in the right direction and letting them get on with it.

“Look on the bright side, Jack,” John insisted. “Steve Maddens is so keen for us to make a good impression on head office, he’s authorised funds for us to host a welcome dinner at The Aviator on the first evening, as well as other events during the week, so it won’t be all work.  He wants us to create a really positive vibe to ensure our visitor is made to feel welcome.”

The Aviator was a very prestigious but expensive venue, so it proved that Steve Madden, the ambitious department head, and an undoubted brown-noser, was prepared to pull out all the stops in his efforts to climb the corporate ladder. And trust John to be up for a free meal on the company, even though he wasn’t prepared to break sweat by putting any effort in during the day.

“Well, I don't need to come along for that, surely? You and Steve are much better at all that kind of thing,” I pleaded, in an effort to get out of what promised to be a truly dreadful evening, exactly the kind of thing I loathed. For goodness sake, wasn’t it enough that I was going to have to spend my working days with some stranger, never mind the evenings as well?

“Oh come on, it’ll do you good to get out a bit more.” John turned his gaze on me. “After everything… it’s about time…”

I quickly looked away before I caught
that
look.
The pitying look
.  I took a deep breath as I reminded myself that John had been very kind and patient with me since I’d transferred to his team, which was why I put up with all his laziness.

And could I really blame him for losing interest in work, when all he wanted, was to retire in order to spend more time with his wife and family? Life was too short when you never knew what shit was waiting for you just around the corner. I knew all about that only too well.

“The food’s excellent at The Aviator, and it’ll give you a chance to do some networking with Steve.  Be good for your career, seeing as it’s really important to you now that... well, you know what I mean.” John left hanging in the air what he really meant.
Not like I was going to be leaving to have babies any time soon, was it?

“Fine,” I agreed begrudgingly, resigning myself to getting through the next week as best I could. There was little to be gained in kicking off, not when work was the sole focus of my life these days. 

At least being so busy would give me the perfect excuse to deflect everyone’s attempts to persuade me that two years was long enough to grieve for Drew, that I was still only twenty seven years old and that I had to start thinking about getting back into circulation again. I knew my friends and family were right, but the trouble was, I had no idea whatsoever of how on earth to go about finding a way to move forward, which was why it was so much easier to just bury myself in work.

And now I had the perfect excuse to continue doing just that - for the next week anyhow.

***

I got the summons from my boss at nine thirty on Monday morning.

“Would you come through to my office Jack, please?” John phoned through his request from his office just around the corner, obviously too lazy to be bothered to get off his fat backside and walk round.

Bugger.

I’d been hoping for a last minute reprieve, that head office hadn't been able to get anyone to come at short notice after all.

“Okay, I’ll be with you in just a minute.” I sighed in resignation, as I put the phone down and got up to make my way through the large open-plan office.

“Chin up.  I heard they were sending Roz D’Souza, that dragon who came over from head office last time.  If that’s the case, I wish you the very best of luck with her,” my colleague Maria commiserated as I walked by her desk. 

Maria was the nearest thing I had to a work friend. Outgoing, chatty, social, friendly, flirtatious - she was all the things I wasn’t.  She was dark haired, olive skinned, gorgeous and sexy, and she always dressed to catch the men’s eye. 

Me? Well, I was plain, boring and I dressed more for comfort. Other than ensuring I was clean, tidy and presentable, I had no desire to draw attention to myself, preferring to just quietly melt into the background.

As I approached John’s office, thanks to Maria I had a picture in my head of this Roz D’Souza being the slug-like Roz character from Monsters Inc. What can I say, I love that film, even though I’m an adult. Disney rules in my book. If only real life matched up in the Happily Ever After department.

So when I walked in, I think my jaw dropped open, and I may even have drooled a little, before I pulled myself together, thanks to the truly gorgeous male specimen sitting there with my boss.

This guy stood as I entered the room, towering over both John and me.  I estimated he must have been at least six foot three or four, and from his build he obviously worked out, because there was not an inch of spare flesh on him anywhere as far as I could tell.  And I admit I had a pretty good look, as I didn't seem to be able to stop my eyes from drinking him in.

He was smartly dressed in an obviously expensive and well cut navy blue suit, blue tie, black glossy hair, unexpectedly on the long side for a banking executive, just curling over the collar of his crisp white shirt. Square face, strong jaw line, full lips, straight nose. Hint of a five o'clock shadow even at this time in the morning. Looked to be in his mid thirties.

For goodness sake, I almost laughed out loud at how corny my classic jaw dropping, drool worthy reaction to this guy was, but to be fair, he did seem more like an exotic creature from another planet, rather than a member of the boring banking universe that I was much more familiar with.

I noticed he was frowning slightly as he looked down at me, I guessed because I didn't conform to the stereotypical image of a successful corporate business woman. I never bothered to power dress, seeing as mine was a backroom role, and I didn't feel the need to impress anyone.

As I stared back at him, I couldn’t help noticing that he had the most unusual, piercing eyes I think I'd ever seen. Tawny, amber-coloured eyes. Put me in mind of a wolf, somehow.

Of course he noticed me checking him out, and his frown lifted as the tiniest hint of a smile played round his lips.

Now I may have been out of the loop for some time, but I immediately recognised the signs. I had no idea either whether or not he was married, but it was obvious this guy was used to female attention. Well, naturally he would be, looking the way he did. But it was like a cold shower, a reminder for me to stop ogling him.

I smiled back coolly, to let him know he needn’t worry, I certainly wouldn’t be one of those females chasing after him, because I wasn’t the slightest bit interested.  Certainly not now. Not that I ever really would have been, seeing as I’d met Drew when I was only sixteen, and we’d been together ever since.

And let’s be honest, even if I had been, this guy was way,
way
out of my league. I was under no illusions. Men like him preferred their arm candy stunning and impressive - they weren’t interested in quiet, mousy little creatures like me. That was okay, I was fine with it, because that took the pressure off. I didn't have to try to impress him or be flirty. All that was expected of me here was that I perform my work tasks efficiently, so I could just carry on being my usual reserved self. 

I never used to be this way.  I used to worry what people thought, about offending them, but these days, I didn't see the point in pretending to like things if I didn't, or agreeing to do things I didn't want to do, because I found in general it made life much simpler and straightforward if there were no complicated misunderstandings to deal with.

So I certainly wasn’t going to be intimidated by this guy.  I was really good at what I did, even if his sceptical look told me he thought he was being fobbed off with the office junior. I knew I looked younger than my twenty seven years, and I suppose it didn't help that I was wearing my usual comfortable flats, which, as I’m only five foot five anyway, made him practically a foot taller than me.

“Jack, this is Caleb Mackenzie from head office. We’re very honoured to have him working here with us, as he’s one of the senior executives from San Francisco, with a special remit for security and anti-fraud measures. He’s agreed to come here to pilot a ‘back to the floor’ exercise, which potentially could be rolled out over the whole corporation he tells me, to prevent executives from losing touch with the core business.”