Chapter 5
Five
S teph’s head was still spinning at just how quickly she had become the scapegoat she’d feared and was trying to organise the thoughts in her head and slow the rushing of blood in her ears when Jon spoke again.
“Mr Baker, please unhand Miss Pryor. I disapprove of men manhandling ladies. Maybe we could discuss Miss Pryor’s points further.” He gestured towards the table again making Steph’s head spin the other way at this further change in proceedings.
Jack did now release her arm that was already beginning to ache where he’d gripped it.
“So, Mr Baker, do you normally throw your junior staff under the bus so quickly and then fire them without questioning whether they are in the right?” asked Jon seriously.
Jack shifted uncomfortably as he took his seat.
Jon continued, “Miss Pryor is spot on in her assessment of the deal and I think that although you are this short–” he barely held his thumb and forefinger apart, “of licking my boots, I reckon you told Miss Pryor to send the proposal late. Now, I like to be worshipped, but this is not what I am looking for in a legal team, so stop trying to crawl up my arse and let Miss Pryor talk me through the deal I should have been offered, unless you’re really firing her, in which case I will hire her immediately.”
Jack sat back in his chair and looked at Steph. “Apologies if things got a little heated, but of course you will continue to work for Baker, Ross and Riley.”
“Are you okay?” Jon asked Steph, ignoring Jack and Andrea’s presence, his eyes remained fixed firmly on her.
Steph nodded, although she was still a little shaky and flustered by how things had gone. She glanced back at Jon, then Andrea before beginning to go through the financial points of the proposal again.
“Right, I think we have a point to start negotiations,” Jon said about forty minutes later. “Although I am unsure whether it would just be easier to employ my own legal team. What do you think, Miss Pryor?”
“You could, you certainly have the room to house a bigger legal team, but in order to access the degree of legal expertise that we can offer it would be very expensive and you would have employer obligations to them all,” she said honestly.
“I see, is that your opinion as an employee of Baker, Ross and Riley or as a shrewd accountant?”
“I don’t know about shrewd, but it is my professional opinion,” she told him.
“Umm, okay, then I will not reduce the level of legal services I want from you, but we can renegotiate cost, but Mr Baker and Miss Stewart are surplus to those requirements and until we have completed our negotiations, finalising of roles and transition I would like Miss Pryor to take up a desk here in my current in house legal department to ensure that they know what their limitations will be and when to forward to you. The cost of her time and services will of course be covered by us,” he said to Jack, irritating Steph with his words making her feel like a commodity rather than a person with an opinion that should be valued.
“That seems reasonable,” her boss replied without deferring to Steph in any way, clearly someone else who didn’t deem her worthy of being included in the discussion.
“That’s not really my field,” she protested, uncomfortable at the thought of being traded, but more than that she was nervous at the idea of being here, on Jon’s home turf.
“I disagree,” said Jon. “I think I would like you to commit to all day Wednesday and Friday afternoons, if that works for you, Mr Baker?”
“Yes, I think we can work around that. Miss Pryor has a reasonable workload that we can redistribute slightly for the duration of this arrangement, don’t you think, Miss Pryor?” asked Jack with his first inclusion of her.
“Yes, of course. I have a very good team.” Her opinion was unnecessary it seemed so she resigned herself to this being a done deal, but she knew that if she secured this contract, another promotion or even head hunting could be just around the corner and right now her only ambition was work related. The way Jack Baker had been prepared to sacrifice her meant head hunting was her preferred choice of moving on up.
“So, we have a deal in principal, but if I can possibly commandeer the rest of Miss Pryor’s afternoon and finalise the amendments, you can have them back for the morning, Jack.” Jon was already making his next move and Steph wasn’t convinced it was professional.
“Sounds fair enough to me, although we are almost at the end of the business day.” Jack glanced at his watch.
“I will of course provide a working dinner for Miss Pryor if we run beyond the close of business.”
Steph definitely sounded like some business acquisition now, causing her irritation to rise further right up to the point where Jon looked directly at her and smiled. Her earlier reluctance to be playing any kind of game with him on his home turf was proving to be well placed if a mere smile had her annoyance subsiding.
“Then I look forward to receiving the revised proposal in the morning.” Jack turned to Steph. “My office at half-past-eight and we will discuss your workload.”
She nodded at him thinking she had no choice in that matter either.
Andrea led Jack out leaving Jon standing opposite Steph.
“Hello,” he said in a low, hushed tone.
“Hello,” she replied with a flush rising across her chest and neck as she whispered her response.
“You really are very intimidating in your day life.” He stepped closer.
Breathing deeply, she managed to reply, “So are you. I have never seen Jack Baker sucking up before.”
He laughed at her observation and shrugged, unbothered by the other man’s sucking up. “Are you mad with me for bringing you here like this?”
She paused, considering how she felt about the charade that had led to her presence. “Yes, a little and I am not something to be acquired and traded, although you have managed to do precisely that with my Wednesdays and Friday afternoons.”
“I knew you were an accountant, you told me and Charlie told me you worked for them, but it wasn’t until I received the email last Friday with your name on that I realised it was you dealing with my contract and after not sleeping all night Saturday thinking about you; you, me and our time together, especially in that office, I decided that I needed to see you, so here you are.”
“I see, so nothing to do with the deal?”
“The deal seemed too good to be true and I thought it would be wise to get your take on it, and I may have invited the accountant along anyway, but as that was you, my hand was forced,” he admitted.
“Why do you need me here on Wednesday and Friday?” she asked, realising that he was stood right in front of her now.
“Wednesdays really are for my legal team to understand their roles and limitations within my contract with Baker and Fridays, well, that was impulsive, but I will get back to you on that one.” He grinned as he reached forward to undo her jacket.
“What are you doing?” she asked as his arm disappeared beneath the jacket and around her waist.
“What would you like me to do?” He brushed her lips gently with his without it actually qualifying as a kiss.
She giggled as she wondered whether to admit that what she wanted was for him to strip her bare and spread her legs and touch her everywhere. God, she couldn’t get that thought out of her head.
“You find my seduction amusing? You didn’t in the lift.” He sounded something between amused and affronted.
“No, of course not, and the lift was different. I still hated you then, but I was just thinking of something you said on Saturday,” she explained vaguely.
“So, you hated me in the lift? It didn’t feel like hatred to me.” He ran his hand down her back until it rested on her bottom.
“I didn’t like you very much, but I would have to admit that I found you attractive in a very arrogant kind of way.”
“So what about now?”
She realised he had pulled her blouse from her skirt and was touching her bare back, making her tingle all over, almost burning her with his touch. “I may have revised that opinion slightly, but you are still arrogant,” she told him as his hand that was now on her belly began slowly travelling up her body.
“But you still find me attractive?”
She nodded, making him frown at her. Presumably, he wanted to hear her say the words aloud.
“Yes, I still find you attractive,” she admitted with a snap to her voice.
“Good, because I find you very, very attractive,” he whispered, backing her against the conference table until there was nothing between them. There was no denying the large erection she could feel pressing against her hip. “Like I said, very, very attractive. Now what did I say on Saturday that is still on your mind?”
She shook her head suddenly embarrassed.
“Tell me. You know you want to.”
“We should look at the proposal,” she replied, trying to sound business like again and return to a safer topic.
“No way, darling, not until you’ve told me. Tell me and then if you still want to take care of business we will do that first.”
“First?”
“Yes, first. Business, then over dinner we can talk, and then as much as I would like to fuck you, I will settle for kissing and touching you,” he said confidently.
“Arrogant man,” she told him with a shake of her head but still smiled.
“Arrogant or determined, same thing. Now tell me, please.”
She tilted her head slightly at the addition of that one word, please and the note of pleading in his voice. Perhaps the arrogant persona wasn’t his only one. “On Saturday you said something that I have struggled to get out of my head all weekend.” She smiled nervously and continued, “You said I want to strip you bare and spread your legs and touch you everywhere.” There was a sudden hoarseness to her voice now.
“I did, still do, and that offer is still on the table. In fact, if you would like me to do that it could be you on the table, literally.” He pushed her back further against the conference table.
“What about the contract?” She desperately tried to regain some composure.
“It’s yours, the deal just needs minor tweaking.” His grin grew into a full smile as he allowed the hand that was still beneath her blouse to move again until it found her eager and erect nipples through her bra.
He began to roll one between his thumb and forefinger making her moan.
“You see, tweaking.”
Another low moan left Steph’s lips, her hands reached forward and she gripped Jon’s muscular forearms as if to steady herself as she went weak at the knees. She wondered how she found herself in this position again but more than that, she wondered just what his next move would be. Her thoughts were paused by the sound of a phone ringing. Jon’s phone.
He reluctantly removed his hand from under her blouse. “Saved by the bell, Miss Pryor.” He picked up his call, leaving her to compose herself and get down from the table.
With her composure barely regained, Steph looked around and realised that they could have been seen by anyone walking past as the conference room was essentially a glass box. How did he do this to her? Well, she kind of knew the answer to that but the truth was that she would need to be far more careful with him because he distracted her and got her hot and bothered far too easily.
He hung up and turned professional again. “Right, let’s get business out of the way.”
Sitting down at the conference table, she sat opposite him, perceiving the desk between them as some kind of safety net or at least a barrier. With each of them in possession of a copy of the contract they worked through the points quickly and concisely with virtually no disagreements or differences of opinion.
“I will give this to Mr Baker in the morning and bring the actual contracts when they’re ready for your signature,” suggested Steph.
“Just one more thing, I want you included in the contract,” he said seriously.
Steph stared at Jon, unsure what he was saying. Her earlier annoyance at being treated as a commodity was on the rise as she perceived her inclusion to be as some kind of plaything rather than professional. With the temptation to tell him to go and fuck himself before giving him a slap for good measure, she took a deep breath before managing to utter a single word response. “Me?”
“Yes, you, being based here on Wednesdays and Friday afternoons for the duration of the contract,” he explained.
Steph let out a small sigh of relief that she was still being viewed in professional terms even if it was still as a commodity so voiced her objections calmly. “I thought that was just until the contract was in force and your team here were familiar with it. I am not a lawyer. I’m an accountant and just put together the costings involved. The corporate legal bods put the actual details together.” His insistence that she needed to be included in this deal really did make no sense to her.
“You are so much more than an accountant, Steph. You have a good business head and you’re honest, to the point that it almost got you fired this afternoon, which reminds me, is Mr Baker in the habit of grabbing at his staff members and physically overpowering them, specifically you?” While his tone was one of concern, his expression was angry.
Steph shook her head. “Not me, and not that I’m aware of with others, although I may have to let my assistant know that she was wrong about him not sacking me.” She laughed.
“What do you mean? You expected to be sacked if this afternoon didn’t go to plan?” Jon looked far from amused.
“Well, I had a theory that I was involved, a junior and recently promoted staff member so that if the deal wasn’t made, I would be the scapegoat and sacked. Rosie said that Baker loves looking at my tits bouncing as I run past his office too much to sack me, but obviously not.”
“I didn’t like the speed with which he was going to make you his scapegoat and I was tempted to hit him when he put his hands on you.” Jon’s voice carried a cold flatness that unnerved Steph slightly. “And your assistant may have a point, but he watches your arse too.” Turning back to business he confirmed his need for her to be included in the contract. “So, your base here needs to be locked in, in black and white.”
“If that’s what you want,” she conceded with a sigh.
“It is. Now let me take you to dinner.”
Steph was about halfway through her dinner when Jon turned conversation to them and their personal relationship. “I have been thinking about our predicament since you left the wedding on Saturday and I think we need to find a solution that suits us both.
“I wasn’t aware that we had a predicament ,” she said coyly, almost whispering the last word, fearful of what might happen if she confirmed what he was saying.
“Don’t play with me, Stephanie. You know exactly what I am talking about. I like you, you like me, but you don’t want to be a one-night-stand or a fling, which is fine, but I am not in a position to ask you to be my girlfriend with promises I can’t fulfil. As you pointed out several times, I have a wife, so that leaves us here.”
“So?” Steph was intrigued but felt slightly sick at what any solution might look like because she hated cheating and cheaters and yet that might be the only option, for him to cheat on his wife with her.
“We could have a relationship, but I would still be married. You could be my mistress,” he said with that flat, cold tone she’d noticed earlier.
“What?” She almost choked on the drink she’d just sipped. Hearing the word mistress in relation to herself didn’t sit entirely easy with her.
“I told you I have never had a mistress before and I don’t know if there are rules as such, but I think we should sit down sensibly and discuss what each of us wants and negotiate the deal.”
“Really?” Her agitation was clear to them both.
“Yes.” He was as irked as her now because when they had agreed to have this conversation, without him divorcing, she would have to be the other woman. They both knew that so there was no need for her to take on the sulky tone. The truth was that he felt together they could be amazing, and perhaps in time he’d feel comfortable opening up about his wife and marriage.
“Like some hostile takeover?” She spat her response at him raising her voice slightly.
“Don’t shout at me. I was hoping that it would be more of a merger and certainly with no hostility. I know this may seem a little unconventional, but I am sure if you think about it you will see that this could be an ideal solution.”
“You’re serious?” she asked disbelievingly.
“Deadly. Please say you will think about it at least and we can talk about it again on Wednesday if you want to.”
“On company time? That seems a little unprofessional.” She smiled a wry smile, glad and relieved that his tone was lighter again now, even if that was because she appeared to be considering his proposal.
“Good point, Miss Pryor. It will have to be over dinner on Wednesday then.”
She sighed, her head telling her to immediately dismiss the idea, but her heart was currently considering overruling it. “I can’t believe I am saying this, but I will think about it,” she agreed, unsure who was most shocked by her consideration at becoming the other woman.