Chapter 5
“Where the hell is the damned technician?” Danica Moreau’s voice boomed through the office. “How the hell does AV equipment up and die over the weekend?” She sped past Sarah’s desk. “Get it fixed, please. Meeting with Blackbourne at nine!”
Sarah allowed herself one deep breath before picking up the landline phone and starting another hectic week.
The office was nothing but the worst bouts of whinging, as her mother would have called it.
When Ms. Moreau wasn’t convinced that her pivotal meeting would go to hell without audio and visual working in the main conference room, her wife held her head in her hands and bemoaned a monstrous headache that had been killing her since the night before.
Abby spared Sarah further thanks for her help before launching into a tirade about her mother.
Even one of the bodyguards who silently lurked around the office muttered about faulty technology and unruly charges.
Alicia Moreau’s female bodyguard continuously asked her to please settle down.
Her doctor had asked her to stay off her feet for a few days, hadn’t she?
To be fair, it was a big day in Moreau Tower.
Ms. Moreau was launching a new tech subsidiary that was projected to make the company billions – if she could take on the staunch competition.
To help, she was bringing in an old friend from the Blackbourne family, who would become a temporary “partner” for the sole purpose of taking on the likes of Lake Technological Solutions and Coleman Communications.
The Blackbournes had a solid background of marketing against tech giants, if certain Finnish companies had anything to say about it.
Still, Sarah was used to commanding big days around the office.
That was one of the areas Abby still apprenticed beneath her for, since the only other person to compare to Sarah was her own brother.
Nigel hadn’t worked for the Moreaus for a few months now.
His resignation was one of many turning points around there.
If only people would stop complaining for two seconds!
Ms. Clayborn do this. Sarah do that. Who the hell are you? Oh, the help. She better be more than the help for as much as she was paid to run the Moreaus’ lives for them. Had she hoped her boss’s marriage and baby would settle her down a little? Ha! Fat. Fucking. Chance.
“Where the hell is Blackbourne! She’s late!”
Abby stood up from her desk, phone cord wrapping around her arm as she searched for Danica’s face in the crowd of black suits swelling in the room. “Her driver says she’s about five minutes away, ma’am! Traffic from the airport!”
“The fuck is she doing getting into town now?” Danica approached the shared working space with a grumble. “She was supposed to be in her hotel by last night.”
“Sorry, ma’am, I have no idea.”
Danica glared in Sarah’s direction. “Ms. Clayborn, run down to the marketing office and get me that backup USB John promised me. Looks like our AV will stay on the fritz.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sarah turned off her computer monitor. “Be back in a few.”
“You better be. As soon as Blackbourne gets here, we’re starting the meeting. Assuming my wife hasn’t gone missing, too.”
“Last I saw, she was in the employee bathroom, ma’am.”
Sarah glanced at Abby before showing herself out of the office. Sure enough, Alicia Moreau emerged from the women’s restroom with a sick look on her face.
I remember those days. While she didn’t envy the pregnant missus for her ongoing ailments, the reminder was absolutely unnecessary on a Monday morning. Sarah didn’t have any time to hole herself up in the bathroom to cry over things she couldn’t control.
She darted down to the in-house marketing department four floors below. John Creech, head of the talented team, intercepted her in the waiting room and placed a black USB stick into her hand. “Let Ms. Moreau know that we’re having AV problems down here, too.”
Sarah would get right on that.
She detoured through the nearest security depot, since the Moreaus demanded a fresh copy of the previous week’s reports every Monday.
The supervisor on duty pushed forward a small stack of folders he had signed off on five minutes before she walked through the door.
He never once looked away from a monitor when she came in and picked up the folders.
Nor did they ever say a word to each other.
USB tucked into her front pocket and folders secured beneath her arm, Sarah hopped into the elevator and rode the final two floors up.
She shouldn’t have emerged so quickly.
“Shit!” Her hurried body smacked right into the woman standing in front of the elevator doors. Before she could chastise her for standing right in her way, however, a bodyguard she didn’t recognize swept in and pried Sarah off the woman.
Effectively knocking her over and making her drop the folders, of course.
A small commotion erupted because of this unfortunate event.
The suited men standing around the one she bumped into flanked their charge and oversaw Sarah scrambling to pick up the folders and disarrayed papers within.
The woman responsible, however, turned around and quickly bent down to help Sarah as soon as she realized what had happened.
“My apologies,” she said, svelte hands deftly picking up the Friday afternoon security reports. “I shouldn’t have been standing right there.”
“It’s not a problem.” Sarah snatched the papers without looking the woman in the eye. She would have to tilt her head back to see past her bangs, and she didn’t have time for that now.
The hand remained before her. “Let me help you up, Miss…”
Whatever. She clasped onto her hand and instantly felt the lurch upward.
Sarah always ate a light breakfast of a bagel and hummus. Good thing she ate light. Because she was liable to be as sick as Alicia Moreau when she looked into the brilliantly blue eyes of Luca.
Oh. My. God.
Frozen where she stood, Sarah had to check her open mouth and default to her most detached mode available in her arsenal. “You… uh, thank you.”
Don’t let her know you recognize her! Sarah did her makeup in such a way that few people would know she was Angel. That was part of the point of not only taking up a new persona but avoiding the detection of people who worked with her boss.
Apparently, she had not done a very good job avoiding those women.
“Least I could do after my bodyguard lost all of his manners.” Luca shot the man a sour look.
Detach! Detach! Sarah had the poker face of the century when she gazed upon Luca in her suited glory in broad daylight.
Holy shit. She’s even more beautiful during the day.
Her finely tailored three-piece suit was as pristine as the dark hair on her head, but nothing compared to those broad shoulders contained within a bristling jacket and a royal purple shirt beneath.
Perfume as pleasant as it was intense smacked Sarah across the cheek.
It was the amplified version of what she smelled Saturday night in New York.
If she recognized anyone… well, then her poker face was as strong as Sarah’s.
“Luca Blackbourne.” She gave Sarah’s hand a small shake. “You must be Ms. Clayborn, come to save my first meeting.”
“Uh, yeah…” Of course. Of course! “Excuse me.” Sarah blew by her and toward the conference room, her breath clogging her throat and probably turning her face blue.
“Ms. Clayborn!” Danica leaped up from the head of the conference table. The way she looked over her head implied Blackbourne and Co. came up behind her. “Please, for the love of God, tell me you have that USB stick.”
Sarah shuffled the disarrayed folders and shoved her hand into her pocket.
Then her other pocket.
Where the fuck was it!
Her pale face did not inspire confidence in the CEO of the company. Danica shared her panicked look before another heroic voice entered the room.
“Is this it, Dan?” Luca reached over Sarah’s shoulder. Her proximity forced Sarah to touch her again.
That surge of power passing from her chest to Sarah’s back almost knocked her over.
“Thank God.” Danica plucked it from Luca’s fingers and tossed it to the AV guy. “The shareholders are already arriving. Welcome to hell. Let’s get started.”
Luca put a gentle hand on Sarah’s shoulder to move her out of her way. “Excuse me, would you? You should probably go get her some coffee while you’re up. If she yells at me like that, I can only imagine how she yells at you.”
Their eyes met. Sarah’s widened slightly.
Luca winked at her.
A knowing wink? A wink of recognition? Winking for the sake of fucking winking?
Coffee. Yes, coffee. Danica would want coffee before starting the meeting. Alicia would want her red tea. First, Sarah needed to take the security files to Danica’s office and leave them on the desk.
She was one of the few people allowed access to the boss’s most private business domain. The greenery hanging from the ceiling and planted upon the coffee tables were the only signs of life when she entered, folders shaking in her hand.
Ms. Moreau’s desk was usually impeccable, especially on Monday morning, but today it contained a stack of photographs awaiting new frames so they could be hung up behind the desk.
There was one of her pregnant wife in white linen, enjoying a recent excursion to a Caribbean island.
One of her mother when she was younger, holding a baby Danica.
And one of her and Luca Blackbourne clinking champagne glasses together. They were uncharacteristically in T-shirts and jeans, their young visages dating them at least a decade. Sure enough, a banner above their heads said Young Women’s Social, ‘17. Must have been Princeton.
There was a note on top of it. An old note, based on the stain lining the edge. Not to mention, Danica had changed her handwriting two years ago. Just up and decided to make it more legible for the sake of good business. Yet Sarah still knew how to read her old, sloppy cursive handwriting.
“Congrats on the marriage, Lu. Can’t wait to be your maid of honor. Maybe that will be me one day, eh?”
Sarah hurried to stack the security folders as neatly as possible, although some were certainly out of place.
If she had to, she would blame the supervisor downstairs.
She didn’t have time to fix them herself, not with shareholders arriving and a huge meeting about to get underway.
Nor did she have time to think about the married woman she fucked Saturday night. The one standing only a few rooms away.
Angel wouldn’t have given a shit if Luca were married, separated, or chronically single.
Sarah, however, had half a mind to drive her $500 executive pen into Luca’s jugular and hope her wife had an excellent life insurance policy on the cheating bitch.
God, she was tired of rich people getting away with whatever the hell they wanted, the plebs in their way be damned.
Sarah already hated the Blackbournes almost as much as she hated most of the Moreaus.