Chapter Three
She had been at her desk for twenty minutes when Xavier's assistant called over.
"Mr. Morrow would like to see you. Now if you're free."
Claire saved what she was working on, which was nothing important, and stood and smoothed her skirt and told herself there was no reason to feel anything particular about walking into the new VP's office for the first time.
She was a project manager with three years of clean performance reviews and a reputation for getting things done quietly and correctly. Whatever this was, she could handle it.
She knocked on the open door.
"Close it behind you," Xavier said without looking up.
She did. The office was large and ordered, nothing on the desk that didn't need to be there. He finished whatever he was reading and set it aside and looked at her with the same attention she remembered from the party, steady and total, like she was the only thing in the room worth focusing on.
"Sit down, Claire."
She sat.
"I'm going to offer you a role," he said. "I'd like you to hear it completely before you respond."
She nodded.
He laid it out with the same directness he seemed to apply to everything.
Account Executive on his team. She would own client relationships directly, manage existing accounts, attend pitches and client dinners and agency presentations.
The compensation structure was base plus performance bonus, and when he told her the base she kept her face neutral with some effort because it was substantially more than she was making, more than she had expected to be making for another several years at least.
"Your background is project management," he said. "Internal facing, coordination, delivery. You've had some client exposure when they've been on site but always in a support capacity. Never owning the room."
"That's right."
"This role is different. You would own the room.
" He let that sit for a moment. "The clients you'd be managing make decisions based partly on results and partly on relationships.
The agency they choose to work with is often the agency whose people they want to have dinner with.
That's not a cynical observation, it's just how this industry works.
My team represents this agency in every interaction and I have specific standards for what that looks like. "
She nodded again, holding his gaze, professional and composed.
"Presentation matters on this team in a way it may not have in your current role," he said.
"How you carry yourself in a client meeting, how you walk into a dinner, the impression you make before you've said a word.
I'm not asking you to be someone you're not.
I'm asking you to be the best version of what you already are. " He paused. "There's a difference."
She held his gaze.
"I'll set up a wardrobe allowance for you through the agency account.
Client entertainment is part of what we do and looking the part is a legitimate business expense.
" He said it matter of factly, like a reasonable administrative detail.
"Take your husband shopping with you. I spoke with him briefly at the party.
I think he'll know exactly what this role calls for. "
The room was very quiet.
She wanted to ask what that meant. She wanted to ask what exactly they had talked about.
About how a twenty minute conversation at an open bar had given Xavier Morrow the confidence to reference her husband in a meeting about her wardrobe without any apparent concern that it was an unusual thing to say.
She didn't ask any of it. She sat with it and kept her face even.
"The transfer won't be official until HR processes it tomorrow," he said. "I'd ask that you keep this quiet until then. These things have a way of creating noise before they need to." He looked at her evenly. "I suspect you're someone who can keep a secret when it matters."
"I understand," she said.
He nodded once. "Do you have questions about the role?"
She had approximately forty questions, none of which were about the role. "Not right now," she said.
"Then I'll take that as a yes."
She realized she hadn't actually said yes. She also realized she was never going to say anything but yes.
"Thank you," she said. "I appreciate the opportunity and am looking forward to it."
He was already looking back at his desk. She stood and walked to the door and let herself out and pulled it closed behind her with a soft click.
She walked back to her desk and sat down and stared at her monitor and thought about what Jason might have said at that party.
I think he'll know exactly what this role calls for.
What had Jason told him? She thought it over all morning, quietly, beneath the ordinary surface of her work day.
They had talked at the bar, she knew that much, she had seen them together briefly before Xavier crossed the room to find her.
But Jason didn't know Xavier. He hadn't known who he was talking to.
Which meant whatever he'd said he'd said freely, the way Jason talked when he was relaxed and drinking and in a good conversation with someone he'd just met.
She thought about the things Jason said when he was relaxed and drinking.
The things he'd said about Greg and Sandra and Claire in a dress that would make men stare.
Her face was warm and she made herself focus on her screen.
By the end of the day she had kept her word and told no one. She gathered her things at five thirty and rode the elevator down alone and drove home with the secret sitting in her chest the whole way, quiet and strange and not entirely unpleasant.
* * *
Jason was in the kitchen when she got home, something on the stove, a glass of wine already poured for her on the counter. She picked it up and leaned against the doorframe and watched him for a moment before he noticed her.
"Hey." He smiled. "Good day?"
"Interesting day," she said.
He turned from the stove. Something in her voice made him read her more carefully. "Yeah?"
She told him. The meeting, the role, the compensation. His eyebrows went up at the number and she watched him process it, the genuine pleasure of a proud husband.
"Claire, that's incredible."
"It's not official until tomorrow. He asked me to keep it quiet."
"Of course." He turned back to the stove and then turned back again. "Xavier offered you this?"
"This morning. Yeah."
Jason was quiet for a moment, stirring something he wasn't really paying attention to. She watched his face.
"He mentioned you," she said carefully. "When he was talking about the wardrobe allowance."
The stirring slowed. "What do you mean?"
"He said to take you shopping with me. That he'd spoken with you briefly at the party." She kept her voice even. "That he thought you'd have a good sense of what the role called for."
Jason set the spoon down.
"What did you two talk about?" she asked.
"Just. You know. Party talk." He picked up his own glass. "I told him you were good at your job. That you'd been in a supporting role for a while and deserved more. That kind of thing."
She looked at him. He met her eyes and held them and she couldn't tell, not entirely, how much of what he was saying was the whole story.
"There's a spending allowance," she said, moving on because moving on seemed like the safer option. "Through the agency. For clothes. Client facing stuff."
"How much?"
She told him. His expression shifted into something she recognized, something that had been in his face on the drive home from the party and in the bedroom afterward, that particular combination of excitement and hunger that she was starting to understand had a certain shape to it.
"We should go this weekend," he said.
"Jason."
"What?"
She set her wine down. "He's my boss. Whatever you're thinking..."
"I'm thinking you should have clothes that fit the new role."
"I know what you're thinking."
He looked at her across the kitchen with that expression still in place. "What am I thinking?"
She didn't answer. Her face was warm again and she picked her wine back up and looked away and said she was going to change before dinner.
* * *
She told herself her horniness wasn’t from the images her husband was putting in her head about dressing a certain way for her new boss.
She was still telling herself that when Jason's hands found her in the dark, and she let herself be turned toward him because it had been a long day and she was tired and it was easier than continuing to think.
"Tell me what bothers you about it," he said quietly.
"Nothing bothers me about it."
"Claire."
His hand moved along her side. "He's my boss," she said. "I can't just…I can't walk into client dinners dressed like…" She stopped.
"Like what?"
"Like Sandra."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not Sandra. Because I'm a professional and I worked hard to be taken seriously and I'm not going to show up to a client dinner with my…" She stopped again. His hand had moved beneath her panties and she was having trouble with the sentence. "Jason."
"What?"
"That's not helping me think."
"I know." His fingers moved and she was already warmer than she wanted to be.
"I have a confession,” Jason whispered against her ear. “I told him I wished you dressed like Sandra. At the bar. Before I knew who he was."
Her breath caught.
"He said women like that command a room. Open doors. That decision makers pay attention to a woman who knows how to walk in and own it." A pause. His fingers rested over her clit.
She stopped breathing for a moment.
She had heard those words that morning. Sitting across from Xavier in his office, composed and professional, taking the job offer like it was a straightforward career opportunity. He had said almost exactly that. The same phrasing.
Jason hadn't known who he was talking to. Xavier had known exactly what he was collecting.
She hated how her body responded to that. Hated the immediacy of it, the complete absence of any delay between understanding and wanting. It went against everything she knew about herself and none of that seemed to matter at all.
Jason’s fingers were circling again and her wetness was undeniable. Her body didn’t stand a chance.
“Fuck Claire, you like this.”
“Don’t.” She tried to fight it as she squirmed under his touch.
"Don't what?" Jason said softly.
She didn't answer.
"Don't talk about it?" His fingers moved slowly. "Or don't make you think about it?"
She said nothing. Both. Neither. She didn't know.
"Because you're already thinking about it," he said. "Your body likes the idea. But you’re probably right Claire. It would be very very bad for you to dress like a little slut for your boss.”
"Jason—"
"So bad that you should probably tell me what you can’t do Claire. Say it. Tell me what you can’t do baby.”
Her breath caught. His fingers pressed and she felt her pussy flood and the words came out before she could stop them.
"I can't—,” her breath caught. “I can’t dress like a little slut for Xavier."
Her pussy spasmed the moment she said it. She started cumming before she could decide how she felt about any of it.
She was still cumming when she pulled him on top of her.
He didn't need any encouragement. He didn't last long.
When he finished he collapsed against her and she held him in silence.
Xavier's name had come up in bed twice now, and both times it had sent them both over the edge faster and harder than either wanted to admit.
Neither of them spoke. His breathing evened out first. Hers took longer.
She lay in the dark and thought about the same words coming from two different mouths in two very different rooms, and what that meant about the morning she thought she'd understood.