8. Matt
8
MATT
L oren claimed she was here to work. Nothing more.
The problem with her claim was that we’d already surpassed the concept of nothing more . Together for that one amazing night last week, I’d had it all with her in that hotel room. Meeting her felt like kismet, but realizing I was her boss felt like a cruel twist of fate.
“Nothing more?” I grumbled aloud, content with being able to voice my criticism in the privacy of my office. I couldn’t glare at her outright. Anyone could see. But no one would hear me.
I wasn’t okay with her dismissal, her icy rebuke and sassy insistence to “move on” from our one night together. That was the whole allure of a fling. No strings. No follow-up expected.
Yet, with every passing day, I wanted something else with her.
Something more.
I wanted Loren. Badly. And it didn’t help that she stuck to her word.
That first day, when I couldn’t stand watching Tom be close to her, I hated the possessiveness that burned within me. She thought she could put me in my place. Not once did she back down. In any other circumstances, a brand-new employee should have no business talking back to her brand-new boss, but she had. Loren stayed firm, not taking an ounce of crap from me.
And I couldn’t help but admire that gumption. I didn’t care for pushovers.
Then, when she snapped back and determined that she was here to work, she went right ahead and did so. Scouring over reports, browsing through data, and speaking with Rupert, Brad, or Eli, she was already proving to be a dedicated worker, careful to pay attention to details.
And I would be an idiot not to appreciate that drive. Hard workers were worth their weight in gold.
But when she moved around and seamlessly fit into the office environment here, I felt hesitant to know I had to… share her, for lack of a better term. I knew her first, without knowing who she was. Seeing her adjust to everyone proved how much of a sweet people pleaser she could be. When she was kind and not pushy with Brad, the older but hip wisecrack, she showed that she respected his impatient nature. When she was observant and listened closely to Eli, the nerdy geek, she demonstrated how easily she could get along with even the quirkiest introvert. Then with Rupert, the shy nontalker, she could amp up her smiles and really show him that she wasn’t a threat.
Loren was a sweetheart—to everyone but me.
Maybe it’s a case of wanting what I can’t have? I came on strong that first day, bewildered that my new employee was the “stranger” I wanted to fuck again. No one could blame me for being shocked.
Since I called her out and asked what she was up to, I was operating on anger that Tom could touch her and talk to her when I couldn’t. When I wondered if she’d be a distraction, I was motivated to show how much she was stealing my focus.
We’d proverbially drawn the line in the sand between us then, and she had made it clear that her charm, her wit, her easygoing manners would never be intended toward me.
It didn’t matter what she did or didn’t do. This desire I had for her wouldn’t slow or weaken. She starred in my dreams. She was the main theme of my thoughts. Like a virus, she’d invaded me and taken up residence to destroy any semblance of peace or concentration I could wish for.
One look at her, and I felt that ache to hold her close. One accidental brush against her arm, and I was taken back to how she’d clung to me in bed as I drove deep inside her. And the elevator? Fuck me, I couldn’t stand to be in that metal box with her, too easily reminded of our first kiss in the elevator at the hotel. I was using the stairs no matter what to avoid the situation of being in a ride with her.
“Like this is going to help my cause.” I tossed my pen to my desk and gave up trying to look like I was busy. Slumping to set my chin in my hand, my elbow on the desk, I settled in to glare at her chatting with Brad near the copier in the hallway.
Every day, she came in with a new flower. A new bow. Something colorful and perky, as if she needed a prop to make me look. I fantasized that she could be smiling at me as we spoke about something. I let my mind wander, wondering how she’d gaze up at me if I laid her on my desk and?—
“I’m telling you, those tacos are heaven in your mouth but hell on the gut.”
I jumped a bit, not realizing that John had let himself into my office. I’d been so stuck on staring at Loren, again.
“What?” I was missing something with that comment.
He furrowed his brow as he sat. “You looked like you were grimacing. It’s the tacos, right? The reflux always gets me about now.” He rubbed his flat stomach, groaning a bit in pain.
“Speak for yourself, old man,” I teased.
“You’re just as old as me, ass.” He smiled, sighing as he leaned back in the chair across from me. “If you’re not suffering from indigestion, what has you wincing like that?”
Wanting a woman I can’t have.
I shrugged. “Just thinking.”
He rolled his hand, prompting me to continue.
“About getting Gammon to go with us.”
“Ah.” He bought my line about work stress. It was true, anyway. When I wasn’t obsessing about Loren at the same time I was loathing the disruption she was in my life, I was thinking about the project. “But Loren seems to be a great addition.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating where she was out there in the foyer.
“Yeah.” A great addition for the team but a sore reminder of what I couldn’t enjoy otherwise.
Lusting after her only drove in the point that I wasn’t the ideal man to market a goddamn line of baby products. The Gammon reps, according to preliminary feedback, were looking for a family man. Someone settled enough to at least be in the progress of having a child. Which made sense. Someone using or potentially shopping around for the products would understand them better.
It wasn’t healthy, and I had no excuse to justify it, but that was a big part of my grumpiness toward Loren. She represented what I couldn’t have. What I had no business wanting, either.
“Don’t you think she’s fitting in well?”
Oh, she fits me well. Tight and wet. Eager and adventurous.
I cleared my throat, wishing the thoughts away.
“Yeah. The guys are taking to her well.” I furrowed my brow, finally having a chance to ask him if she thought all was going all right. If she’d gone to HR to complain about me, I would’ve heard about it sooner. “Has she said anything?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
“No concerns?” No… surprising news that we hooked up the night before she started…
“No. She hasn’t said a thing to anyone in HR.”
Huh. It seemed she wasn’t the type to kiss and tell, at least.
“Why?” He frowned. “Should she have?” As soon as he asked it, he smirked. “Like you wouldn’t handle any issues on your team to start with.”
I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned Tom yet. While he wasn’t groping her, he seemed too handsy to want to touch her somehow. I had yet to hear him say anything truly scandalous, but I caught her rolling her eyes once Tom walked away.
That total transparency concept hid nothing up here.
“Tom seems…”
“Aha.” He nodded.
“So, she has said something?”
“No. I think she’s the stubborn, independent kind of person to let things roll off her back and not get to her. And that she’s not likely to ruffle anyone’s feathers too soon.”
Not true. I got the hunch she’d love to slap me when we started into an argument.
“But Hailey Wallace, one of the women in Accounts Payable, is an old friend of hers. She was chatting with my assistant the other day and mentioned that so far, Loren loves her job. But Tom is too flirty.”
I rolled my eyes. “And he can’t take a fucking hint, either.”
“Is he being inappropriate? Harassing her?”
“Not yet, as far as I can tell,” I admitted. I didn’t speak up any further. His assessment of Loren was similar to mine. She did seem like someone to ignore a problem rather than report it. And it did appear to be nothing more than nonstop flirting, which she didn’t engage in.
But if I were to sic HR on Tom, what would I really be doing? Eliminating competition from going for the woman I couldn’t get out of my mind, but couldn’t have?
Besides, Tom was an excellent asset to the team. While he could be immature and act up like a classic goof, eager to be a comedian, he was an expert with graphics. He was a visionary at heart, and he was often the one who really connected our ideas with the end result of what the graphics department could make magic with.
“Hmm. Well, you’ll keep an eye on the situation,” he said.
Oh, I was keeping an eye on her , all right.
“But you’re fitting in with her, too, aren’t you?”
Stop asking me about how Loren and I fit .
I shrugged. “She stays late and seems productive.”
He rubbed his lower lip, pensive. “What about these episodes of you two bickering that I’ve heard about?”
I flipped my hand in the air. “It’s nothing.”
Just… our love language, maybe.
“She’s not a pushover.”
“Uh-huh.” He arched a brow. “I’ve heard that you and Loren don’t exactly… well, how to put this…?”
Don’t exactly have a chance of hot sex again? Yeah, that sounds about right, unfortunately.
“You don’t see eye-to-eye on petty things.”
Again, I shrugged. “That’s just the nature of brainstorming.”
“Is it, though?” He peered at me, studying me so closely that I wondered if he could see through me and realize the truth.
I couldn’t stand Loren just the same as I admired her. And desired her.
John was the very last person I’d fess up to, though, because this wasn’t a matter of my meeting a woman and wanting more than a no-strings-attached fling. Loren was becoming a critical component to my reaching my goals. She would help get Gammon as a client, and that would prove my readiness to be CEO.
“Yep,” I answered, wishing I’d spoken slower and not so forcibly.
Loren would not be the reason I lost this chance. She couldn’t be a distraction and ruin my concentration.
I hated to agree with her that it was time to “move on”, but maybe that was all that could happen between us. One hot night, done and dusted.
Because if she’s content with Tom flirting with her and won’t report how poorly we see eye-to-eye, maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
There was a very real and solid chance that the attraction I felt for her wasn’t mutual.
And damn, was that depressing as hell. She was clearly embracing and celebrating all her changes in life here. New job, new place to live.
What about me ? I hated that I’d seen her as a change in my life too, a halt to the rut of working overtime in the office and having no real life at all.