Chapter 2 The ution #2
“It’s not just that, Matt. She’s not performing.”
“She gave you the financial statements a week before they were due.”
“She comes in late,” Tyler continued. “What time did she waltz in here on Tuesday? It must’ve been about…eleven o’ clock.”
“She was training the divisional managers on Tuesday. It was your idea.”
He ignored the comment and soldiered on. “And you know what, Matt? I think…I mean, I truly believe that she is stealing money from the company.”
Matthew’s mouth dropped in absolute shock, but Tyler didn’t skip a beat.
“I’ve seen her, you know.” He nodded, rubbing his jaw pensively. “Many a time I have seen her print out the bank statements, circle certain amounts. It looks rather suspicious, don’t you agree?”
“It’s called a bank recon!” Matthew shouted. “She does it every month.”
“She’s never in her office,” he clipped, highly irritated that his friend was still defending her.
“She doesn’t have an office.”
“She dresses inappropriately.”
“For a grandmother, maybe.”
“And dammit, Matt, she…she has really nice eyes.”
“Great,” Matthew muttered. “I think we found our reason.” He walked to the door as if the conversation was indeed over but then stopped and turned back to Tyler.
“Just one question, Ty. How’s that reason gonna hold up in court?
When she sues us for unfair dismissal, I was just wondering if the judge would think that her having nice eyes was a valid reason for getting fired.
” Tyler’s shoulders sagged and Matthew tried to hold back a smile. “She blew you off, didn’t she?”
That was all it took for him to snap. “Who does she think she is?” he shouted, throwing his hands up. “Walking around here like she’s indispensable!”
“She is.”
“She said that I was ogling her breasts.”
“You probably were.”
“I was not. In fact, they were looking at me. Breasts, by laws of nature, are not supposed to be gravity-defying.”
“Newton would be upset.”
“You don’t get it, Matt. They were all up here.” He pushed out his pecs and moved his hands in a circular motion over his chest. “Just levitating all up here. Just big and round and perky and…awesome.”
Matthew pulled a face, somewhat intrigued but mostly disgusted. “Could you stop playing with yourself like that? It disturbs me.”
Restless and edgy, he began pacing the length of the room. “I blame you for this.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You were the one who started this whole mess. I was just minding my own business, trying to find a way to get Trisha back, and then you came up with this harebrained idea of dating someone else. Remind me never to listen to you again. You made me look like a fool.”
Matt laughed, his usual method of adding insult to injury. “I think you did that all on your own. It’s not my plan that’s flawed, it’s your methods. You don’t know how to charm a woman.”
He sighed and shook his head. “With a woman like Jordan, I need a lot more than charm.”
* * * * *
Tyler shut down his computer and pulled on his suit jacket.
It hadn’t been a very productive day. He was angry.
Actually, he was beyond angry. That prissy little accountant had really rubbed him the wrong way.
Not only had she turned him down and made accusations that were entirely untrue, she had also messed up his only plan of getting Trisha back.
He was a man who prided himself on always knowing what to do but he had come to the end of the list of ideas and he still didn’t know what to do.
He could put his ego on the line again and try once more with Jordan, but he had a feeling that the result would not be much different.
He thought about asking someone else, but Jordan was a sure bet.
He could trust that there would be no emotional attachments, no strings.
He could get the right reaction from Trisha and no one would get hurt, but she had to be so darn difficult.
It was a simple dinner request. There was no need for such complications.
He sighed and walked out of his office. Jordan was still at her desk and he suddenly became very awkward. It was best to just ignore her. Putting his head down, he continued walking.
“So what time are you picking me up?” he heard her ask as he walked by.
He stopped, wondering if he’d heard her right, or if it was just his imagination. “Excuse me?”
“I asked what time are you going to pick me up? For dinner…unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“No…what?” Tyler stood in front of her fairly stunned as his brain tried to make sense of this crazy woman. “I thought…with the…you know…and the whole breast…Seven is fine. Seven is good. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
She smiled. “Good. Seven it is.” She handed him a piece of paper. “Here’s my address.”
“Great.” Tyler took the paper from her hand and studied it for a few seconds.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Giovanni’s”
“Oh.” Her body language remained neutral, but her eyes showed her surprise. “That’s pretty fancy.”
Tyler fumbled for words as quickly as he could because he didn’t want her to get the wrong impression. “It is, but…don’t…I mean…this is not…a date.”
“I know.”
“Just in case you think…”
“I know.”
“Because we don’t have that boss-accountant sort of relationship.”
Her smile widened. “Tyler, I get it. You’re not interested in me in that way.”
“Of course not.”
“This is strictly professional.”
“Yes.”
“So you’ll pick me up at seven?”
“On the dot.” He smiled briefly before he slowly walked away. She was in fact mad, he concluded. A complete nutcase, an absolute loony bin and he was even crazier for going along with this idea in the first place.
* * * * *
Jordan arrived home feeling very unsettled.
Tyler wasn’t himself today. He wasn’t the type to openly stare at a woman’s breasts.
In his eyes there was Trisha and only Trisha.
She was sure she hadn’t imagined it. His eyes were virtually glued to her chest. And then he asked her out to dinner.
That, too, was completely out of character.
Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t the only person in the finance department, so why was she the only one invited to this little thank-you dinner?
He was up to something and she needed to find out what it was.
She opened the door to her townhouse and was greeted by a high-pitched scream of excitement.
Jordan looked up in the direction of the sound and saw her friend slash roommate Gemma, looking exactly like…
Gemma. She wore a long, airy, hot pink skirt with green trimmings at the bottom, an orange and yellow floral top and bright red shoes.
Her curly, strawberry-blonde hair was untidily swept up in a ponytail.
Jordan dropped everything when she saw her and rushed to give her a hug. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you home for another week.”
Gemma pulled away and shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “I got bored of the Maldives and decided to come home a week early.”
Jordan smiled. Only Gemma would say something like that.
She had been travelling the world since the tender of age of three.
Her parents owned a villa or an apartment in almost every major city in the world.
When she was eighteen, her parents had sent her off to Hawford School of Arts and bought a little townhouse so she wouldn’t have to live in the dingy, asbestos-infested dorm rooms on campus.
After a week, when Gemma could no longer bear the loneliness, she bought herself a cat and when the loneliness still persisted, she found herself a roommate from the University of Washington, Jordan Shepard.
Although she had found a friend, Gemma’s soul was still searching for something, yearning for something.
Six months after Jordan moved in, Gemma packed her bags, left her cat, Princess, and her townhouse in Jordan’s care and she was on the road again, returning to Seattle every couple of months when she got homesick.
Jordan had always wondered why she came back to this place and not her parents’ home, which was just a few miles outside of town, but that was Gemma.
No one could figure out how her mind worked.
She was flighty, unpredictable and very unreliable.
She was just a care-free soul who refused to be held captive by the trappings of society.
She did what she wanted and made her own way with no one to answer to but herself.
She was fun and adventurous and had a heart of gold.
“So how have you been?” Jordan asked. “How was your trip?”
“It was great!” Gemma sighed with satisfaction. “I met this guy with a name I can’t really pronounce. I just called him Jack. It’s a really nice name to call out in bed. I was going for the whole Titanic feel, but without the iceberg…or the ship.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of having sex with these random strangers you meet at night clubs?”
“It wasn’t a night club,” Gemma corrected.
“It was a bar…on the beach. I remember the way his skin glistened as he walked towards me.” She moaned sensuously.
“Rock hard abs and a tight ass…the biggest cock I’ve ever seen.
And I’ve seen plenty. I should’ve married him…
” She paused for a moment, very lost in her thoughts before she realized she was actually in the middle of a conversation.
“Oh, you asked me something. Don’t I get tired of having sex with random strangers?
Hmm?” She gave the question some thought.
“I wish I could say I did so I wouldn’t have to sound like a complete slut, but I don’t.
I really don’t get tired of it. Maybe I’ll stop after Jack and I get married.
I will marry him. We’re soul mates. I could never understand a word he was saying, which makes him absolutely perfect. ”
Jordan giggled. Even after a seven-year friendship with Gemma, conversations like these never got old.
She fell in love at least three times a year.
She spoke about marrying roughly fifteen different men but Jordan knew she would never settle down.
That would mean she would have to stay in one place and that was nearly impossible for Gemma to do.
“What about Mario?” Jordan asked. “I thought Mario was the guy you were going to marry.” She walked into the small kitchen and started preparing two cups of tea.
Gemma followed her in and hopped onto the counter next to the sink. “Mario? Who’s Mario?”
Jordan tossed out the tea bags and handed one cup to Gemma. “How can you not remember Mario? He was the guy you met at that underground club…you had sex on the tour bus.”
“Oh, Mario!” Gemma nodded her recognition. “I completely forgot about him after Jack worked his magic on me.” She took a swig of her tea. “Anyway, enough about me. What about you? How have you been doing?”
“Good. I’m doing good. Just been busy with work. Year end, auditors, you know how it goes.”
Gemma smiled. “Actually, I don’t know the first thing about year end and auditors, but please spare me the details.
It sounds dreadfully boring. So what do you wanna do tonight?
We could go to that club downtown…the one with the hot bouncers.
We could ask Neil to come along. He’s in more need of cock than you are. ”
Jordan groaned. Even though she was very tempted to spend the evening watching the “who picked up more guys” competition between Neil and Gemma, she had otherwise committed herself to something much less entertaining. “Gem, can we do it tomorrow night? I already have plans for tonight.”
Gemma’s eyes sparkled. “Who is he?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Jordan. You’re going on a date.”
“No! Not a date. I was distinctly told it is not a date.”
“But you are going out? With a man?”
“Yeah, it’s just dinner…with my boss.”
Gemma coughed out a laugh. “Are you serious? You don’t go out with anyone for over a year and then you cave in to date your deadbeat boss.”
“It’s not a date!”
“Then what is it?”
Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s…it’s weird. He was acting so strange today. He wasn’t himself. He kept staring…at my breasts.”
“Well, I don’t blame him. You do have a fantastic pair of knockers.
Those tits were made for the money shot in a porn movie.
” Gemma finished off her tea and put her empty mug in the sink.
“If you ask me, this is not a bad thing. Like I said, it’s been over a year and you are in desperate need of a good humping. ”
Jordan unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off her shoulders. “Gemma, he’s my boss. There shall be no humping. And I have a standard. I kinda have to be remotely attracted to a guy before I sleep with him.” She tossed her blouse into the washing machine before making her way to her bedroom.
Gemma followed her in and tossed herself lazily onto the bed. “If you’re not gonna fuck him, then why in the world did you agree to go out with him? It’s certainly not for his gripping personality.”
Jordan opened her closet and began rummaging for something to wear. “I don’t know, Gem. Something isn’t right. He’s up to something and I need to find out what it is.”