Chapter 26 #2
“Shh!” Eve closed Jamie’s hand over the note. “Come on. Spot me this favor. Like I said, I’ll owe you one. Want me to talk you up to some of the other women I know? I can do that. Maybe get you some invitations… but come on. I’m going crazy! She won’t talk to me!”
Jamie stared at the now crumpled note in her palm. “Dare I ask what this is?”
“What the fuck do you think it is? Pages from the Marquis de Sade’s diary? Pfft. Hey, though, don’t read it. Seriously.”
“All right.” Jamie put it in her pocket. “I don’t make any promises about her. She’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to date you.”
“I know. That’s why I’m going through you, her friend, and her boss’s fiancée.
She’s gotta at least take the note from you, because she sure as hell won’t take it from me.
I’ve been there twice in two months, and she always conveniently goes to the break room when I’m around.
” Eve grunted in frustration. “You know, she didn’t have anything bad to say about that night you caught us stealing the sheets.
She even gave me her number, although she ended up blocking mine.
What the fuck gives? I never got an explanation. ”
Jamie almost laughed. “You got it bad for her, huh?”
“Have you seen her?”
“A few times, yeah.” Eve would be into the ultra-femme types. The lipstick lesbians, Jamie believed they were called. “Well, if you want to know what she’s told me…”
“Duh?”
“She’s said that you’re too domineering for her. You intimidate her, and she thinks you’re into lifestyle stuff like your sister. She’s not.”
“Well, shit.” Eve sat back, crossing her arms. “I’m not either! That stuff’s fun for the bedroom, but I’m not into stuff outside of it, like my stupid sister. Give me that note back. I’ll make an addendum.”
“Oh, no.” Jamie scooted off the bench, already forgetting the pain on her face. “I’ll take it from here, thanks. But if she keeps telling you no, you need to let her go.”
Eve shot her a look that almost pierced Jamie’s bruised nose.
She briefly hit the showers, taking ginger care of her injury.
Jamie dressed in her skirt and blouse, brushed her hair, and emerged in the maw of the gym, where she bade her farewells to the women who had waited there.
Gwenyth and Eve were only half interested in her departure, but Kathleen went out of her way to flash the tiniest smile. Perhaps Eve had said something.
It was a quick jaunt to the Thompson-Coleman building – recently renamed as such – from the sports center.
Quick enough that Jamie eschewed the car and walked, hoping that her nose would feel better by the time she graced her fiancée’s office with her presence.
She was in luck. Not only was her nose getting over itself, but any traces of blood could not be seen.
Jamie double-checked this in the elevator mirrors while the operator watched her.
This place is still kind of a mess. Jamie was starting to think that every time she came into the executive offices.
Before, any hint of “Jacqueline” had been hastily removed from signage, leaving behind shadowy reminders on the walls and letterheads.
Now, they were all replaced with Adele’s last name, although some signs were taken down to be tweaked, and letterheads were still phasing between Etta’s name and the dual leadership.
It didn’t help that whoever was in charge of making the new sign hanging in front of the elevator had accidentally made the Thompson one size too big, so it looked like it was eating the Coleman for breakfast. This probably says a lot.
Natasha was also in transition.
“Good afternoon, Coleman Ent… I mean, Thompson-Coleman executive offices. This is the office of Etta Coleman. How may I help you?”
Jamie waited until the receptionist was off the phone before approaching her desk. Amanda was also at her desk a few yards away, organizing folders from that morning’s executive meeting. Jamie did not miss that monotonous work.
“Hey,” Natasha said, slamming a pencil upside down on her desk. “She doesn’t have anyone in there. You can probably go in. If not, tell her you barged in without my say so.”
Jamie perched on the edge of Natasha’s desk and made sure nobody else was paying attention as she slipped Eve’s note into her friend’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger. I owed someone,” Jamie lied.
Natasha unfolded the note and perused the first few words written in Eve’s flamboyant handwriting. Jamie caught them as well. “It’s been nearly four months since we…” The note immediately folded again, Natasha’s face turning red.
“Remember what I said! Don’t shoot the messenger.
” Jamie pretended that Natasha wasn’t glaring at her.
She slipped off the desk and shuffled toward Etta’s office door.
“By the way,” she hissed in Natasha’s direction, “you should really go on another date with her. She’s got it baaaaddd for the lipstick style. ”
“What are you trying to say?” Natasha hissed back.
Jamie put her hand on the door handle behind her. “That she’s still clit-drunk on you. Or whatever the phrase is.” The door gave way, and she disappeared into Etta’s office before Natasha could come after her.
Etta was by herself, sitting at her desk, turned toward the brightly lit window overlooking the commercial district and the river in the far distance.
They were close enough to the ports that Jamie saw a freight ship making its way against the river current.
Her face lit up like the window the moment Etta noticed Jamie and put her phone back on her desk.
“Aren’t you a sight for these sore eyes?” She held out her hand for Jamie to take when she came over. Her skin slipped against the fine fabric of her clothes, hips and ass thumping against Etta’s lap as she landed without a care for her fiancée’s legs – that’s how badly she wanted to be held.
“I got hurt at the gym and now I need attention.”
“I’ve been thinking about you ever since I left the house this morning.”
“I’m sure. It was either that or think about my naked mother at the breakfast table.”
Etta’s visage almost turned sour. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have blocked that completely from my broken memory. I’m pretty sure that was you naked. Yes, it must have been you. Naked woman sitting next to me at breakfast? That was my fiancée, not her mother. Yup.”
Jamie embraced her as well as she could in that position.
Etta had taken the whole nudist thing the exact way Jamie expected: when she found out, Etta stood, utterly perplexed, then disinterested in the world around her.
Her subsequent disappearance into her office to “answer some emails” was an unelaborate excuse to drink some more.
When Luna first walked by her naked, Etta balked, turning so red that Luna giggled and told her she was too much of a lady – but to go ahead and look, of course!
When Saul bounded down the main staircase with an extra skip in his step?
Etta went and sat in the garden as the sun went down.
It took Jamie going out there to drag her back in, promising that a very important conversation was being had about the nudity.
Beatrice was still flabbergasted and muttering about crazy hippies.
Harris was the only one completely unbothered.
According to Etta when Jamie brought this up, the butler had “seen all there was to see in this world already.”
“Are you busy this afternoon?” Jamie asked, happy to change the subject. “I’ve got some stuff for us to look through. As usual.”
“Here I thought you came by to see me.”
“That too.”
“Keep this wedding stuff up and I might think you only want me for my opinions on flowers and silk… stuff…”
Jamie couldn’t contain the laugh following that. “I did come by to see you, and to get your opinion on flower and silk stuff.”
“Well, I have a pretty important business call sometime within the next half hour. I suppose we could chat until then. I don’t know how long it will last, though.”
“Then let’s get started!” Jamie plucked her binder out of her bag and flipped it open to the first page. “How many vegetarian options should we have?”
As the minutes went by, Jamie quickly caught on that this was a one-sided affair.
Usually, Etta offered up more opinions, especially when she was in a more chipper mood like she was right now, but she spent more time being distracted by the fall of Jamie’s hair, the swish of her skirt, and the movements of her lips than anything else.
More than once, Jamie called her out on this, and she admitted to having certain needs that weren’t served on the fly around the office since she left her service.
“Oh, right. This is around the time you would haul my ass in here to fuck you, isn’t it?”
Etta lazily looked at her watch, then at the clock on the wall to compare notes. “Most definitely. If not fuck you, at least make sure you were earning your keep in other ways.”
The cunnilingus queen. I would have her. Jamie spent more time with her face between Etta’s legs than in any other position in that office. Now Amanda did all the grunt work without any of the benefits. The poor thing… Jamie almost thought that.
“What are you trying to say?” Jamie leaned against Etta’s chest, the sturdy back of her office chair groaning beneath their combined weight. “That I’m not earning my keep as your fiancée and future wife?”
“I’m not saying that at all.” Nevertheless, Etta grinned. “But if you’ve got any ideas…”
Jamie grinned back at her. “I’ve always got ideas.” She kissed her, immediately feeling that tongue push into her mouth. I really need to come by more often! She sort of missed the thrill of fooling around in her office with nobody else any wiser.
The blasted phone rang.
“Ms. Coleman,” Natasha’s voice said over the intercom while the phone beeped and buzzed, “it’s Mr. Hamilton.”
“Of course it is.” Etta kicked the chair forward, holding Jamie with one arm while she picked up the phone with the other. “Sorry, my flower. No quickie for us right now. I’ve gotta take this.” She held the wireless phone up to her head. “David,” she greeted.
Jamie slipped off her lap and cleaned up the few wedding items that had traveled across her desk.
She watched her fiancée sit up straight in the middle of her desk, pulling out a pad and paper to doodle on while she discussed company stocks.
Jamie rubbed her shoulders for a little bit before walking away.
“Don’t be absurd,” Etta said, using her no-nonsense business voice.
For the longest time, that was the only voice I ever heard her use.
Back when she was so shut off from her emotions that she could barely say she liked Jamie with anything but sex.
“The price isn’t going to drop anytime this week.
We announced the new product in our tech line.
Yes, I’m sure. Next week, though, it will probably drop a little.
Nothing to be concerned about. I’m serious. ”
Jamie was going to leave for a while. Give Etta enough time to have her serious business discussion while she flitted about like she had the God-given right to do whatever she wanted in her fiancée’s office.
I do. Then she looked at her again, catching the mixture of playfulness toward her and seriousness toward the phone.
With her hair falling across her face, Jamie couldn’t help but swoon like the hopelessly in-love girl she was.
She put the binder back down on her desk and leaned forward against it. Shirking her light sweater and letting it drop to the floor, she smiled at Etta and waited for her to look back at her and notice.
When she did, halfway through mentioning the stock prices of her competitors, Jamie unbuttoned the top of her blouse and flashed her cleavage – and the crest of her bra. Etta’s eyebrows went up, but she didn’t say anything.
See how much you can deny me. Jamie liked fucking with her.
Well, yes, fucking her too, but fucking with her at work had its rewards.
She made sure Etta appreciated her figure as she continued to unbutton her blouse and pull it open so she had the grandest view of her.
Etta relaxed back in her seat and smugly smiled as she listened to whatever someone had to say on the phone.
It probably wasn’t as interesting as what her fiancée was doing.
Jamie sauntered over to the office door and made sure it was locked. She then returned, completely removing her blouse and letting it drop on top of her sweater.
Deny me now, ma’am.