“I don’t.”
“You so do, Sarah, and I like that about you. You don’t take his crap, and I think he likes it, too, because he has been asking for you for a few weeks now. You are who he wants to talk to, cantankerous as you can be sometimes. I think you guys deserve each other.”
Sarah didn’t want to believe it. Maybe she had been short with him a couple of times. It was hard not to be, when he would rile her up with his rudeness. It wasn’t like Sarah. She wasn’t usually so volatile and quick to have a temper, but there was just something about the man, something that drove her crazy. It was impossible for Sarah to know what to do with the way he made her feel. She believed Kelly when she was told that he was handsome, but he wasn’t cute to her. He was just a man that was on the phone, being rude to her constantly. It was enough to drive her crazy.
“I wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy, Kelly. Geez.”
“I don’t know. I wish someone would wish him on me. I am telling you, Sarah. He is really hot. Don’t you want to see a picture of him?”
Sarah agreed, but that was just because she was sure that he wasn’t as handsome as Kelly made him out to be. She would like to have thought that he wasn’t at all like that. Sarah had envisioned him as some kind of troll, and she really liked thinking of him that way. It wouldn’t help if she wanted to get with him on a personal level.
Sarah already thought a lot of Harold. Sure, he was rude, and he always had something short and spiked to say to her, but he was smart, damn smart, and even though she was usually giving him information, he would make comments that would be exactly what she was thinking. He was also very successful in business, something that was the end goal for her as well. Sarah didn’t want to like him, but she already did.
Chapter 4
Harold
“I have told you before, I don’t need all of the details, just the important ones. Are they paying you enough over there? You act like you don’t care about your job.”
Sarah sighed heavily and asked him again what it was that he found important.
“I don’t know, the important things. I shouldn’t have to tell you what your job is.”
“Fine, sir. I will give you a shortened version, since you find it difficult to actually read two whole pages.”
“You are insolent!”
She laughed and asked Harold if that was all that he wanted to talk to her about. Harold said it was and she hung up on him. It was quite funny to talk to someone so spirited. He knew that he would have to meet Sarah eventually, but Harold was having fun with things the way they were. He liked that they had this banter back and forth, and she wasn’t acting differently because of who Harold was.
Whenever he met someone in person, they changed. Harold didn’t know what it was, maybe it was his looks, or the amount of money that he had, but it was always this switch that got flipped and Harold didn’t like it at all. He wanted things to stay the same, which was most likely why he had been putting off going to the newest company that he was about to buy. He had to go, for meetings and inspections and the like, but he wasn’t going to be able to do that, not without knowing that Sarah wouldn’t be there. He didn’t want their relationship to end. Harold wanted Sarah to treat him the same way that she had been treating him.
Harold still had a smile on his face when Steven came in. He asked him what Harold was so happy about and he just shrugged. He didn’t want people to ever see him smile. It was hard enough to keep up the business front that he had, the outgoing persona, problem solving, ruthless businessman. It was the persona that Harold had picked up and that was the one that he was going to carry for as long as he was in business. No one dared to screw him over, because they knew that Harold would do much worse in retaliation. He had done it many times before and he was very willing to do it a million times again. Harold couldn’t be seen to have any weakness, which could be difficult.
“Nothing is up with me. What are you doing here?”
“I am here to see you. It’s one. We have a meeting, remember?”
Harold hadn’t remembered and he was sure that it was because of Sarah. He had been thinking about her most of the morning. He wanted to talk to her and was waiting for her call. She always called exactly at twelve thirty and today was no different. Harold had rearranged his schedule and his lunches, just so that he was in his office and able to take her calls. The secretary could have gotten it, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to talk to Sarah. Now, he had forgotten something else that he was supposed to do. She really was messing with his head.
“Yeah, I remember.”
Steven shook his head and told Harold that he could see that he had no idea what he was talking about. Harold knew that it was true. He couldn’t help it. There was just something about Sarah, and every time he thought about her, his mind went blank of everything else. What was the damn woman doing to him? Why was she like glue, sticking to him so that he couldn’t get her off of his mind?
“Well, you have to do the presentation. You know that it is you who seals the deal.”
“If I am the one sealing the deal, then what are you doing here?”
Steven smiled and said that he was the pretty one. “You bring them in with all your figures and fast talking, and I…”
“What, you sit there and look pretty?”
Steven agreed and that made Harold laugh. He was glad that Steven was just as ridiculous as always. It was nice to know that there was nothing else that he had to do but talk to Steven for a few minutes. It was hard to deal with everything going on, but Steven made it easier. They had come up from nothing together, working their way to the top, and Harold was happy that he wasn’t alone on the top of the mountain. It was nice to have someone that he knew and trusted up there with him.
Harold thought that he was in the clear. He had stopped thinking about Sarah, and then Steven asked him about her, or rather the woman that made him smile and laugh on occasion.
“Come on, you have to tell me who this secret person is. I know that it has to be someone good. The way that you have been acting lately, the way I have seen you smile, it makes me think that you have a new woman in your life.”
Harold laughed again, though this time it wasn’t hard for him to do it. The laugh wasn’t forced at all. Harold really did have a new woman in his life, it was just not in the way that he had expected.
