“Tea for Miss Pryor, please, Andrea, and no calls until nine, but let H.R. know that Miss Pryor is here and will be down there for eight fifty-five, thank you.” His words were concise and to the point as he entered his office.
His office was much like his home, light, glass and chrome with a minimalistic feel to it. There was a large leather sofa like the ones in reception at one end of the room, a couple of closed doors and a huge bookcase full of legal and business manuals. He sat back in his leather chair behind his desk that had a wall of glass behind him looking out across the city.
“Please sit.” He pointed towards the leather seat opposite his own. Once she’d taken her seat he turned serious to ask, “Why were you talking about going to bed with Ted downstairs?”
She couldn’t decide if he was angry or joking.
“I wasn’t, I just said about bedtime reading.” She laughed and then realised that he wasn’t laughing back.
“It doesn’t amuse me that you talk about yourself in bed with strange men.”
His ridiculously serious tone as well as his hypocritical words only served to irritate her. Surely what he was offering her was the same as what he was accusing her of. “Unless they’re you.” Unbelievably, even to herself, when she saw his hard expression soften and be replaced with one of confusion her own tone mellowed, almost against her own will. “Sorry.”
“Me too,” he replied as Andrea knocked on the door and once summoned appeared with Steph’s tea.
After the door closed again she asked, “You still think I’m slutty Steph, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what I think. You confuse me, Stephanie,” he admitted. “I hated the way you were at Lindsay’s hen night and then at the wedding you were very different and on Monday, corporate Steph was another persona.”
“And which did you like?” she asked curiously.
“I know I have no moral high ground here and I probably sound like a dick, but I liked parts of them all and was hoping I could cultivate a blend.”
“I see.” She had no clue what else to say but felt excited that he had thought about it, about her but insulted that he wanted to cherry pick what he perceived to be her best bits.
“We can talk about it over dinner.”
The assumption that they were going to dinner and that the option of him cultivating his chosen blend of her best bits was beginning to get to her, to rile her. But wasn’t this what the premise of their relationship would allow? For him to get her preferred qualities and none of the crap. When they saw each other, met up, she would be happy, compliant and grateful for his time and attention. In return she wouldn’t have to listen tohis moans and gripes. She wouldn’t be subjected to his annoying habits; leaving his dirty washing on the bathroom floor, clipping his toenails in the lounge, farting as they wandered around the supermarket or whatever his habits were. And sex, they would each get sex, strings free, uncomplicated sex. That was how this would work, wasn’t it?
“If you want to,” she replied petulantly.
“Don’t be all sulky about it. We’ll talk tonight. Think about what you want from our arrangement.”
“I haven’t said that there will be an arrangement yet,” she countered, making him smile.
“Yet? Such a small word and yet it carries so much potential,” he replied with arched brows before turning serious again. “I know this is unconventional . . .”
“And messing with my head,” she interrupted.
“Mine too, but please, let’s talk about it, over dinner and if you decide you don’t want it then I will back off and we’ll keep it strictly business, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed with a pang of sorrow that he might back off.
Any earlier spinning of her head was nothing compared to the gyrating it was currently doing.
“Come on, drink your tea and I’ll take you down to H.R.”
Clearly this was his attempt at strictly business and although it was reassuring that he could do this it was also slightly alien without the undercurrent of their usual flirtation and banter, the ‘flanter’ as her youngest brother had once referred to it as.
“And walk in front, I really do like to watch your arse swinging and do not allow slutty Steph to put in an appearance today,” he ordered.
Okay, maybe he couldn’t do strictly professional.
Steph was sittingat her desk in the open plan legal department and felt slightly out of place. She really wasn’t a legal person. She was an accountant. She was working on some accounts on her laptop in an attempt to avoid the suspicious expressions of the legal eagles around her when the phone on her desk rang.
“Hello, Stephanie Pryor.”
“Hello, Stephanie Pryor, this is Jonathan Brooker and I was just sitting in my office thinking about you so thought I’d call to say hello and to ask how life is treating you in legal?” His question sounded filled with genuine interest.
