10. Natalie
10
NATALIE
T he hand traveling up my thigh set off sparks along my skin.
We weren’t supposed to be doing this. It was wrong, but it felt so right. My body was aching for him.
His breath was hot against my neck, and each kiss was a brand. James was claiming me.
“Do you want me to stop?” he rasped in my ear. He nipped my earlobe and my head fell back from the sheer pleasure of it all.
Did I? My brain listed all of the reasons why I needed to push him away and be done with him forever, but I was desperate for his touch.
His mouth found mine again, and as we kissed, our lips betrayed the need we both felt. I arched against him, my nimble fingers searching for his skin beneath his velvet vest.
Velvet?
“No matter what happens after, know that my thoughts will always be filled with memories of you. The soft skin of your breasts, the warmth between your legs, begging for my attention…”
His fingertips finally brushed against my soft folds, and I bit back a cry. It was the first time he was touching me, but James was playing me like a maestro. I felt ready to unravel almost immediately.
“If you were still in your petticoat, I wouldn’t be able to do this,” he said as he stroked me, gentling my legs wider apart.
Hold on. Petticoat?
James must have sensed hesitation because he pulled away, his eyes stormy. “May I continue my journey?”
I was about to answer but everything went sluggish, like I was underwater and struggling back to the surface. Someone was yelling at me to hurry up, and it didn’t sound at all like James.
I opened my eyes and slapped off my alarm.
It was just a dream. My hand was shoved in my pajama bottoms.
I wanted to scream out in frustration. It was the third time I’d had a rake dream with James replacing the star of the novel, and the third time it had ended before I could get off. I was so horny I could barely see straight.
My fingers caressed my stomach as I tried to put myself back in the dreamy headspace, but my alarm went off again, effectively killing the mood for good.
Time to get up and get to work, I guess.
L avonte texted me on the way to the office with a skull emoji, saying the “vibes were off.” He didn’t respond when I asked for details, so I prepared myself for whatever was going down. As always, I stopped in the kitchen first thing for a cup of coffee and ran into Rhea.
“Did you hear?” she whispered in a conspiratorial voice, glancing around the room even though it was obvious that we were alone.
“Lavonte texted and said something is up, but he wouldn’t tell me what’s going on. Fill me in. The stress is killing me.”
She looked around again. “Have you seen Lorraine lately?”
It took me a second to connect the name with James’s assistant. I shook my head. “I don’t really know her, except passing by her desk a few times.”
“Well, she’s been up to something. Or should I say someone . Turns out she’s pregnant!”
I frowned in confusion. “Isn’t she, like, in her mid-forties?”
“Oh yes, she is.” Rhea nodded, clearly enjoying being the office newsie. “And it gets better; she had an affair with Tony in vendor relations!”
“No way!” I gasped. “They’re both married!”
“Indeed they are. Quel scandale !” Rhea pursed her lips in a prim expression. “Since she’s a geriatric pregnancy, she needs to go on bed rest for the final four months, so James is down an assistant. Worst time for it too since he’s doing two jobs and trying to hire a replacement for Clint. He is not going to be fun to have around.”
She was right. James had been doing his best to keep all the balls in the air, but it was clear the strain of trying to be all things to all people was wearing on him. Not that he’d admit it. We all noticed the emails time stamped as being sent at two in the morning, which meant that the guy was basically working nonstop.
I pondered how the news was going to impact our day-to-day lives. It wasn’t like James hung around the creative floor, but he did pop in throughout the week, and we had a group check-in meeting every Friday morning. Was his typical grumbly mood going to turn darker due to the stress?
Rhea and I gossiped our way back to our floor and as I settled into my workspace, an absolutely insane idea started flitting around my brain. There was no way I could commit to it, and I tried to bat the concept away, but the more I attempted to talk myself out of it the stronger the pull to go for it became.
It all came down to the fact that I loved everything about my job now that Clint was gone. The creativity, the freedom, my colleagues, the paycheck … I was right where I needed to be. But fashion was a fickle business, and talent was easy to cycle through since there were so many other hungry designers out there dying for a position like mine. And it wasn’t like James owed me anything. He could throw me out on my ass if he wanted to. If he wound up constantly in a bad mood because of all the extra work on his shoulders, the odds of him being in a firing state of mind seemed high. And who would he target? Gee, maybe the girl who’s been arguing with him since the day they met?
But what if I made myself indispensable to Branson, and more importantly, to James? Then there’d be no way to get tossed aside like I didn’t matter. I had too much experience with the feeling, and I never wanted to be in that position again, especially now that it felt like I’d found a home on the Branson team. Besides, I’d seen what his go-to response was to an unexpected gap in the workforce—he stepped up to fill it himself. Surely, that was an approach he’d respect in others, too.
“What are you up to, woman?” Lavonte asked as he walked by my desk. “You’ve been staring into space since you got here. You’re planning something.”
I grinned at him. “I’ve got a crazy idea.”
He chuckled. “I like that about you. You’ve got balls, girl.”
It was exactly the reminder I needed. “Why thank you, Lavonte! You’re right, I do have balls. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a bit with some hot goss.”
He did a little shimmy. “Oh yes, mama, bring me all the gossip!”
Five minutes later I was once again standing at my boss’s doorway feeling a little shaky. Was it because I’d had a sex dream about him? Possibly. More likely it was the risk I was about to take.
A chance to make myself the most important member of his team, despite what it would do to my workload. But honestly, before I’d gotten the promotion, I was working three jobs on top of school. It wouldn’t be that hard to have school on top of just two jobs. I glanced over at Lorraine’s empty desk and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
I strode into his office with my head high and my shoulders back. “Good morning.”
James scowled at me from behind his laptop. Whatever he was doing certainly had him in a bad mood, but I was about to change everything for him.
“What is it? I’m in the middle of something,” he barked, gesturing to his screen.
I ignored his tone. “I think you’re going to want to hear this. I have good news for you. I found a replacement for Lorraine.”
He frowned. “Already? Who is it?”
“You’re looking at her.”
JAMES
I stared at Natalie, trying to ignore the fact that she was perfectly turned out in a short black-and-white minidress that was modeled after one of our most popular ’70s designs. Had she made it herself, from the pattern in our archives? It fit like it had been sewn right onto her body. I was so focused on cataloging what she was wearing that what she said didn’t even register at first.
“Excuse me?” I finally managed. “What are you going on about?”
“Oh, come on, focus, James!” She frowned at me. “I said that I was stepping up to be Lorraine’s temporary replacement. To help you.”
What? No, that wouldn’t do at all.
“Well, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I shot back, ignoring the way my pulse ratcheted up a few notches at the thought of us working that closely together. “You don’t know the first thing about Lorraine’s job. I’d probably have to spend more time training you than actually having you support me. And what about your own work? When would you get all of that done?”
Her expression shifted to a petulant frown.
“Well, that’s a strange way to thank me for stepping up.” She crossed her arms, and I could feel her glaring at me from across the room.
“I didn’t ask you to step up.” I kept my eyes trained on the spreadsheet on my screen. “You need to stay in your lane, Natalie.”
“ Exactly , just like you did,” she replied in a mocking voice. “Mr. Spreadsheets is now running the creative department. That’s not a skill set leap at all. Makes total sense that a numbers guy is telling designers what to do.”
We scowled at each other in silence for a few seconds. The woman was insufferable.
And worse, she was right.
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my throbbing temples. As much as I hated to admit that I needed help, the truth was I did. Big time.
I was nearly losing my mind trying to juggle the jobs of CEO and creative department head. Lorraine had been helping me vet potential candidates for Clint’s position and now that she was gone, I was being forced to not only find his replacement, but hers as well. And to make matters even more challenging, our quarterly numbers were looking worse than I’d expected. I couldn’t dedicate myself to turning things around when I was being pulled in so many different directions.
But could I handle having even more Natalie Reynolds in my life? That was the real question. I had no doubt that she’d pick up on Lorraine’s work quickly, but being my assistant basically meant being my shadow. I had a tough enough time sitting across from her during design meetings. She was a distraction.
No…a temptation . One I wasn’t about to mess with. My life was complicated enough.
“I can do this,” Natalie said. “And you need to admit that you need some help. You need me, James.”
If she only knew how right she was, even if it was not in the way she meant. My eyes drifted down to her legs before I could stop myself.
“Why would you offer to take on even more work?”
“Because you took a chance on me,” she interrupted, her stormy expression shifting to vulnerability. “I was nothing but an hourly employee before you stepped in and gave me my dream job. You changed my life, and helping you out when you need it is the least I can do in return. I sort of feel like I owe you, James.”
Her eyes were almost pleading, and she seemed more real and honest than I’d ever experienced. I wasn’t used to this side of her, the softer Natalie Reynolds.
As much as I enjoyed going head-to-head with Natalie, I liked this version of her too.
I swiped my hand over my face. Yeah, I was overwhelmed, and the solution Natalie was presenting, while not perfect, did sound like it could work for the short term. The biggest task for my assistant right now was helping sift through the applications for the new head of the creative department, and no one had a better idea of what the position needed than Natalie. The problem in the scenario was me . Could I trust myself around her? There was always a buffer between us during the creative meetings. I had other people I could focus on—which was vitally important, since every time I looked at her beautiful face something dangerous flared up in my chest.
“Besides, if you work yourself into an early grave I might wind up with another boss like Clint,” she continued. “So consider my offer a little selfish.”
The devilish smile playing on her lips felt more like the Natalie I’d gotten to know.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Yes, you can fill in for Lorraine until I find her replacement. Thank you for the offer. I appreciate it.”
“Excellent,” she said as she plopped into the chair on the other side of my desk. “What’s first?”
I stared at her. “You plan to start now ?”
“Well, duh. I need to get up to speed on what’s going on so I can manage my tasks and create a workflow. I’m actually ahead on the couture project and the Pantone retrospective stuff. That, uh, that one’s been keeping me busy but I’m still on track.”
Her cheeks went red at the mention of the retrospective, and I wondered what she was up to. Clearly there was something going on there that she didn’t want me to know about. The woman didn’t have a good poker face.
“The first thing you need to do is go through the applications for Clint’s job. We’ve been getting a ton of them but obviously not everyone is qualified. Lorraine has been weeding through the ones that aren’t a fit at all and then forwarding to me the few that actually sound like they could do the job. In addition to that she was attempting to set up interviews with a few of the ones I liked.”
“Ooh, so you mean I get to help pick my next boss?” Natalie rubbed her hands together gleefully. “I could totally game the system to make sure the person I like gets through to you.”
“Well, obviously I want you to like whomever I pick,” I replied. “I want the whole team to feel good about Clint’s replacement. They had to deal with him for far too long. And you, even in that one week, suffered because of him. I won’t let that happen again.”
She paused and stared at me in her annoyingly intense way. I braced for impact.
“I think it’s important that you know that everyone seems to be okay with you leading the team. For now, I mean,” she said. “Kind of weird considering you have no design background.”
A backhanded compliment. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to effectively lead people. And what makes you think I don’t know anything about design?”
“Well, your brother was the—” She stopped abruptly and dropped her gaze to her hands.
I felt my jaw clench at the mention of Christopher. “My grandmother made sure everyone in the family had a chance to shadow every department, from quality control to sales support. And yes, even design. You might be shocked to discover that one or two designs in our archive have my name on them.”
Her eyes went wide. “ Seriously ?”
I chuckled. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Natalie.”
She hopped out of her chair and gave me a wicked grin. “Well, now that I’m your assistant I guess I’m about to find out your secrets.”
She had the gall to wink at me, then turned on her heel, and I watched her gorgeous ass sway out of the room.
Hopefully not all of my secrets.