Ben, however, seemed totally cool and calm as he sat at his desk looking devilish. He was the kind of man that your mother always warned you about. In fact, he was the kind of guy that should be made to wear a bright red, flashing warning sign around his neck. His casual, bordering on disinterested, way of leaning back in his chair and running his hands through his hair and—oh God—chewing on the end of his pencil was intoxicating. And not just for me. Every woman that left his office looked like they’d just had the best sex of their lives. They all had a sort of flustered, dazed look to them—even some of the guys. God only knew what he was saying to them.
As the day went on, I tried desperately to remain calm, but it was getting harder and harder as more co-workers came out with titillating stories of him—Vampire girl was especially vocal. He’d glanced over in my direction a few times when he’d called the names of people sitting nearby, but still he’d showed no recognition whatsoever.
The torturous hours dragged on until the day was almost over, and still my name hadn’t been called. At five I got up and started packing, completely thrilled to have been overlooked, but then—
“Sera De La Haye?”
4. This Smile Could Be Detrimental To Your Health . . .
The sound of my name dripping from his lips caused a strange reaction inside. I froze, like a mime artist in mid movement. Then I sat back down in my chair, locked my eyes onto my computer screen and stared straight ahead, unblinking.
“Sera. Sera De La Haye?”
I didn’t move. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his black figure striding towards me and within seconds, he was standing above me.
“Sera?”
I knew I couldn’t keep pretending I hadn’t heard him, so I nonchalantly held up my hand. “Just give me one moment please, I’m in the middle of something very important.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I imagined being fired on the spot. Not only had I slept with him,my boss, but now I was making him talk to the hand—what a disaster.I pretended to read a few more words on the screen, unnecessarily nodded several times, muttered to myself and wrote something down on a piece of paper for extra effect.
“Done,” I said. Then I stood up and, totally misjudging how close he was, my body bumped into his. I took a quick step backwards but it was already too late, the damage had been done. AndOH, how it had been done! His sudden close proximity and the brief feel of him set off an involuntary chain reaction inside my body and I found myself fantasizing about him bending me over the desk and showing me who was boss. I felt sweat beading on my forehead and I tried desperately to drag my eyes away from his mouth—stop staring at his mouth. Stop staring at his mouth.
I could still make out a few pieces of glitter stuck to the side of his face and caught in his beard. I guess I had marked my territory. Ben watched my eyes, and then his lips—which I was still staring at—curled up into a tiny, slight smile.
“Better things to do than meet the new boss?” he asked.
My heart crawled into the back of my throat and lodged itself there. “No . . . no,” I said. I sounded panicked and tried to rein myself in a little. “There was just something very important from a client I had to look at. Very important, in fact, and it needed my immediate and undivided attention.”
“Important?” he sounded amused.
“Yes! So very, very . . .” I paused, wondering how many times would technically be considered too many to utter the word ‘important’ in one sentence. His eyes drifted down to my lips as if he was waiting for me to say it again. “But of course my meeting with you is far more important than the client thing, it can wait and I’ll—”
He held his hand up to stop my rambling, which I was grateful for, but all I could think about was how I’d sucked on his fingers the night before. I’d never sucked a finger before, but he’d obviously done some kind of black magic on me and unleashed my dormant inner porn star. I snapped out of it and willed myself to look up at his eyes, and, when I did, his smile grew.
“I like your dedication,” he said casually, like he was speaking to any other employee. “It’s good to know my staff are so hard working.” There was still no recognition on his part, and a part of me still wanted to bitch slap him into tomorrow.
“Shall we?” he asked, gesturing with his arm toward his office.
When I stepped into his office, I immediately became aware of the smell lingering in the air—the same soapy, spicy, sandalwood smell as the night before—minus the vodka and sweat, of course.
Ben closed the door behind me and walked to his desk. “So . . . Sera?” he started, as he leaned back in his chair and looked me directly in the eye.
I felt an electric jolt reach across the table and shock all my senses to life. I sat up straight and crossed my arms over my body protectively. “Ben. Boss. I mean, Mr . . . . um . . .” I stammered. I had no idea what this guy’s surname was!
“White.”
“Sorry, what’s white?”
“My surname.”
“Oh.” I felt the sudden hot flush of embarrassment sting my cheeks. “Of course. I knew that. Ben White.”
He smiled at me curiously and I could see he knew that I had had no idea what his surname was. And I would never have guessed it either. White seemed like the most inappropriate surname for him. White conjured up images of sugar and spice and kittens in mittens. And he was none of these things. BenBlackwould probably be more appropriate.
“So . . . Sera De La Haye,” he said, breaking my train of thought.
“Yup. That’s me.” I tried to sound upbeat.
“That’s a very interesting surname. Very . . .” he paused, looked me up and down and then smiled. “Exotic.”
