After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed)(19)
This monstrosity was the Signature Cabinet—the largest collection they had available and so expensive she’d assumed no one ever bought one.
“New man, Natalie?” Morgan perched his slender butt on her desk and turned over the card attached to the box to have a look at the inscription.
“None of your business, Morgan!” She smacked his hand playfully. It didn’t matter if he read the card. It simply said, ‘I’m yours. Be mine.’
Morgan laughed as he made himself more comfortable on her desk. “Hotel Chocolat. Hmm, he must be loaded or very in love. Which is it?”
“Morgan, get off my desk and let me get some work done!”
He was blocking her view of Stephano and she really needed to transcribe the minutes of her meeting and make some further notes while the ideas were fresh in her head.
“Be like that, then.” Morgan walked off in a huff, pretending to be hurt. “I won’t tell you what my new boyfriend got me for Valentine’s.”
“Too late! You told me he got you premium tickets for Billy Elliot,” she reminded him.
“Me and my big mouth!” Morgan covered his mouth as if to recall his earlier words and then laughed at the futility of the action.
He sat down when he got to his desk and got straight back into whatever he’d been doing. He could be playful at times but was one of the hardest workers on the team.
***
Finally they were alone in the office and Stephano came over to her desk.
“Are you insane?” she asked him. “It will take me a year to finish those chocolates!”
“A year?” He raised his left eyebrow questioningly, in the sexy way he did sometimes and her insides quivered. “I know how much you love those chocolates.”
“You’re so unflattering!” she accused, but burst out laughing because he was right. She could easily go through the entire box in less than a month if she didn’t impose some restrictions on herself.
“Are you free on Saturday?”
His question immediately killed her laughter.
Saturday. Not tonight.
It felt like déjà vu.
Was he taking the other woman out tonight?
“That depends...” she began hesitantly. The expensive box of chocolate indicated that he didn’t think that she was just a cheap fling, but like her he earned a yearly six-figure salary plus bonuses. The box of chocolate, though it cost more than it did to feed an average family of six easily for a week, wouldn’t have made a serious dent in his bank account.
“I’d like to take you for dinner at Sukho. I’ve heard the food there is great. It’s in your area, so you won’t be too far from home.”
She’d also heard good things about the Thai restaurant on Fulham Road and had been contemplating a takeaway order if she couldn’t convince her brother and his fiancée to let her treat them to dinner one evening soon.
“As friends,” he added when she didn’t give him an immediate response.
“Okay,” she agreed.
Stephano smiled and somehow she felt that she had agreed to far more than a meal between friends.
The rest of the week flew by. Stephano was out of the office on Thursday and Friday. He and another three members of the team went to Cadbury’s Head Office in Uxbridge for a series of meetings with top officials. The US company, Kraft, had taken over the privately-owned UK business company two years ago and was embarking on a charm offensive to woo the British public.
***
Natalie peered through a slit in her heavy blinds and watched Stephano as he double checked that he had the right address before opening her gate. He sent a questioning glance at the iron-grey 6 Series Convertible parked in her driveway. It wasn’t a typical ladies’ color and even the BMW dealer had been surprised at her eventual choice, but she loved her car.
She pulled back as Stephano covered the walkway with his quick, purposeful stride. She really needed to stop peeping through windows at him. She was behaving like a peeping Tom, or the female equivalent, but she couldn’t help herself. She loved to watch him walk. He had such a confident, sexy walk—his hips moving in a manly rhythmic way that made her insides quiver.
She stood at the door for a few moments after he pressed the buzzer before she opened it, trying not to appear too eager. His eyes swept over her hair, which she’d had curled for a change, lingered briefly on her cleavage which she was showing to maximum effect in a red sheath dress with spaghetti-thin straps. The dress was simple and would be unremarkable on a shapeless woman, but it followed Natalie’s curves lovingly, dipping in at her tiny waist and hugging her full hips and thighs.
“Come in for a moment,” she invited. “I’ll just get my wrap.”