Betrayed 2(67)

With a sense of purpose, she walked into her office after waiting for her to get off of a conference call with Japan. I could see on one of the monitors that her husband felt that he had been castrated. He had the look of somebody that was under the gun and being made to play a certain role in her empire. I could tell that he didn’t want to face the truth of his demotion to the other side of the world. I was positive that she did not reveal to him the dalliance with Marshall underneath his nose. This was her way to avoid the ugliness of divorce.

I was basically a temp, assigned whatever duties that were left over at the end of the day and expected to have it done before the deadline. I walked very slowly by Lillian’s office door. I was lingering with a cup of coffee up against my mouth. I didn’t have to worry about Susan because she was in the office standing in the corner with her arms crossed defiantly like she was judge, jury, and executioner.

“I’m surprised by this invitation. You’ve never shown any interest in having me join your little group before. I have to wonder what has changed to make you want to proffer this olive branch. Tell me, Tina, do you have any ulterior motives for bringing the wolf into the henhouse. You do know that your friends are going to feel awkward. Is that really the impression that you want to give them about yourself? Sucking up to me is one thing, but kissing my ass is something different. I like you and I think that you have a real future here underneath me.” I was sure that Lillian was using this as a way to bring Tina into the stable of lovers that she already had on the side.

Marshall had learned by tapping her phone illegally that her text messages were quite explicit. She had different men and even women in ports of interest. I had read each and every one of those text messages to get a better understanding of the girl. She was trying to hide from those that she considered underneath her. It made me feel like the temperature in the room had risen a few degrees. They were vivid, quite obscene and I had no idea how she could kiss her husband with that dirty mouth.

“I don’t care what other people think about you. With your husband, always away on business, it seems lonely to me to be walking around that big house of yours all alone.” It seemed that Tina had no idea about her after-hours activities with those of whatever sex that she deemed appropriate to bring into her bedroom.

“I sometimes feel that way, but I’ve never had any interest in bending elbows with my people. I’ll have to give this some thought.” I could tell that she was visibly impressed by the moxie that it took for Tina to approach her with this lame ass idea. “You might be the only one in the office that has ever made such an offer. I’m not sure that is a good thing or bad thing. I could treat this as a social experiment. I do like the idea of making them shift nervously in their seat. They think that they are safe from me when they leave the office, but this will prove that I have no problem in interfering in their fun. I’m only going to do that because you invited me. I’m going to make that quite known by the end of the night. That’s going to sully your reputation and make you feel like a leper among those people that you considered your equals. If you can live with that, then I will consider you for a certain promotion that has been just out of your greedy grasp.” She sat behind that desk like she was a god. If that were true, then Susan was her faithful messenger willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe.

It had made it easier for me to get into her office without her being there. The only thing that was missing was access. It was a good thing that we were on the second floor. I was going to have to scale the building in the dark using night vision goggles that Marshall had procured for me. I wasn’t much for heights, but it was the only way. The only place that wasn’t monitored was her office. There was a sentry that went around the building at certain intervals during the evening. I’d already staked out the place and found that the guards were predictable. It was like clockwork, but anything was possible to change that routine. In the week that I had been there, it was pretty much the same thing every time and I could set my watch to how they put their schedules together.

Tina walked out and didn’t even notice that I was loitering in the area. She was positively giddy. Marshall was doing the work behind the scenes and I was in the trenches getting my hands dirty. It felt kind of exciting playing the spy. The only thing standing in my way was Susan. She was a problem. I had no idea how to get her to trust me without being too obvious about the attempt.

I had very discreetly talked with those of the staff and they said that she really was a mystery. There was nothing to indicate where she came from and she did very little talking to make friends. She was diligent in her duties and had shown up when she was least expected to check up on her security force. There was no method or pattern to her visits during the night. She wanted to catch them doing something wrong and felt a personal presence was necessary to keep them on their toes.