Sarah could imagine, but at the same time, it was still a little odd. She didn't know how to react, so instead of saying or doing anything, Sarah did her best not to comment.
Once they decided that she was supposed to be there, they made a call and told her he was ready for her at the top. Sarah got into the elevator and pushed the top button as instructed, then was quite surprised to find that security guards came with her. They also had to use their palm print and retina scan, just to get the elevator to start moving.
What in the world were they doing there that would make the security so stiff? Was there really such a threat to Harold's life? Sarah hadn't heard about that, but there was a lot about Harold that she had no idea about. Being in the building, going through the security, it felt like she didn't even know him at all. When he had tracked her down at the conference, there hadn’t been any guards with him. Or if there were, she just hadn’t seen them or recognized them for what they were.
She thought about that the whole ride up, trying not to let herself be too nervous, but it was pretty well impossible not to freak out about the whole situation. It was such a great professional promotion, and Sarah just knew that she would enjoy the job so much better with Harold. He, the owner of the company, had noticed her worth, so most likely the people that worked for him would as well. Meeting with him again made her feel a little strange. Surely, he couldn't do this with everyone that was in his employment.
When she got to the eighteenth floor, the top where Harold was supposed to be, it opened up into what looked more like an apartment than an office. There was even a bed in the corner that she couldn’t take her eyes off of.
The armed guards that had ridden up with her stayed in the elevator as it started to go down. Sarah started to relax, thinking that the crazy security protocols were behind her. But then, of course, she saw four more security guards, and her heart rate immediately went right back up to slamming in her chest. Sarah didn't know how to feel about any of it. It honestly just felt like a mess. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into, but it looked to be a bit more than she was ready for.
She almost wanted to get back on the elevator and go back down to the ground floor where things made sense. Then, she wouldn't worry about security protocols or anything else. Then, she could just focus on finding another job, one that she wouldn't dread going to every day.
“You're not leaving so soon, are you?”
Sarah whirled around to see Harold standing there, smiling at her like he knew exactly what was going through her mind. Sarah didn't like the idea of that at all. She would be embarrassed if he truly knew. Between the wonder of what he looked like naked, and the fear that she felt because of the security guards, none of it added up to anything that Sarah wanted him to know about.
Sarah laughed. “I was thinking about it.”
Chapter 11
Harold
Harold could hear Sarah's heart racing and he could literally hear the blood pounding through her veins. His senses were heightened, had been since he had started to make the change in his teenage formative years. Never had he been so happy to have them, though he wasn't quite sure what had her so worked up. She was barely looking at him, acting like he was going to attack her at any moment. Harold wanted to, but not in the way that she was afraid of.
“It's good to see that you came. You shouldn’t leave though, Sarah. You’re meant to be here.”
Sarah agreed, though it didn't feel like she truly meant it. Harold was trying his best to look into her eyes and her heart and know what was there. He wanted to, really he did. She was elusive, everything about her was. Sarah was made to drive a man crazy and a shifter as well, apparently. Usually, Harold didn't feel anything for humans. Why he felt something for Sarah, he really didn't have a clue. But it was there, ever constant and undeniable.
Harold shouldn't have been paying as much attention to her as he was. He was trying to containerize, understand her, maybe read some of the emotions that seemed a little muddled when he looked at her. That's what he wanted to do. Instead, he had to focus on something else, because his mind couldn’t stay on the task at hand.
“Would you like some water?”
Sarah said that she would, and he went to the bar to make her one. He didn't usually serve water in his place, but he could not see himself offering an alcoholic beverage to her, either. She would not understand it and probably read into it the wrong way. He would probably read into it the wrong way as well, hoping that she would get tipsy enough to push back the inhibitions that were holding her back.
When he handed it to her, their hands touched for just a moment, and then she pulled back from him with this weird look on her face.
“It feels like you shocked me.”
“Maybe that was just the electricity of the connection we seem to have.”
Harold wanted to say more, that she was somehow dragging him in under her spell, even though he was pretty sure that she didn't even know what she was doing. Sarah was human, and she wasn't dumb by any stretch of the imagination, but she was probably ignorant to his world and everyone in it. She probably thought that humans were the only people on the planet, all the same. Harold just knew that she wasn't ready to know more, but he still found it amazing.
Sarah asked him why she had been brought there.
“You know that I still have a little bit more time on my contract.”
“Yes, but I wanted to iron out the details of your employment with me.”
“You don't waste time, do you?”
Harold agreed that he didn't, saying that time was one of the most precious things to him. He didn’t want to waste a minute of it.
“What can I do to help facilitate it, then?”
“You can tell me where you would like to start in the company.”
Sarah smiled, telling him that she had been looking over some numbers that were public information in the report to the SEC every year. Sarah pin-pointed several numbers that were far above industry standards.
