Her Billionaire, Her Wolf(8)

The telephone chimed quietly and the blond woman picked up, listened without saying anything, then got up smoothly from her desk and stepped out of the room as she had done thirty minutes earlier. And, as before, she returned just as quickly, only this time she carried a white, cardboard box.

And as with the women in Sara's office, Giselle's face was downturned as if she was obliged to a disagreeable task.

She held the package out to Sara at arm's length and said, "A clean shirt. It is of silk and fitted with black pearl buttons from fresh water mussels."

Without changing pitch, as if she were reciting a mathematical formula, she continued, "You can change in there."

The cold, blond woman nodded to an adjacent, darkened room, its door ajar.

Sara only nodded in response as she took the proffered box and went to the room. What she had taken for a broom closet revealed itself as she flicked the light switch. Instead of housing an assortment of mops and cleaning supplies, she saw a meeting room with a long table lined in chairs running its length.

She shut the door behind her. The room was windowless and Sara gratefully took off her stained shirt.

She opened the nondescript white package and what she saw inside took her breath away.

The shirt was a thing of beauty. The feel of its shimmering texture was like cool water, its black buttons ringed in shining silver. Sara looked closer and saw a grey, nacreous rainbow glimmer in the buttons' color as she held the shirt up. The woman had not lied. They were beautiful pearls and while Sara could not be sure, something told her they were natural and not cultured.

Which meant that the thin slip of fabric in her hands was worth more than her entire month's pay...probably, far more than that.

She slipped it on and it felt like she was wearing nothing at all. The waist was gently gathered and the bodice held to her breasts in a very flattering way.

Giselle has excellent taste, Sara thought as she went back out the door, thinking to thank her.

But, the look on the blond woman's face was of undisguised distaste as she looked up. Sara's words of thanks died in her throat as Giselle said, "No. I prefer that you wait in there."

Her tone was dismissive as she returned to her computer screen and Sara understood that it had been exactly that--a dismissal. In a single glance, the blond had sized her up and had decided that she merited not a single thought more.

Sara returned to the empty meeting room, closing the door quietly behind her.

She did not mind. She was used to it.



~~~



Her anger had become a slow boil.

Sara no longer wore a wristwatch. The battery in her last one had died two months earlier and she simply had not taken the time to have it replaced. Never mind the fact that the few dollars it would have cost would hurt more than she would have liked to admit.

Only now, she wished she had spent the time and the money on a new battery, just so she could be sure she had every right to be furious with the man who had stuck her there.

The hours had passed and she had done her best to wait patiently.

Except that the meeting room chairs were far less comfortable than those in the receptionist's office. Ever so quietly, Sara had tried each one, but her bottom still pained her where his fingers had dug in so deeply to her tender flesh and not one of them eased her discomfort when seated.

At first, the tiniest sound had taken on overblown proportions. The least noise was exaggerated into the stranger's triumphant arrival, back and smiling, ready to sweep Sara off her feet.

Except that he had not come.

Except that Sara was tired of waiting for hours while the thread from which her job hung had grown overstretched and thin to the breaking point.

Except that she knew she no longer had any job to go back to and when she finally gathered the courage to leave this office, in very short order she would find herself outside the Abraxis Industries building and far from the security of steady employment.

Except that she no longer had any choice but to wait and this, too, was his fault.

She did not dare look for the strength it would take to hold her chin high and tell the frigid blond on the other side of the door that she would be leaving now and just walk out.

And her anger heated further as the small sounds of an office building slowly fell still. Those sounds that are felt more than heard, the signs of life that gradually drain away as the worker bees leave in the evening hours, content at last that the day's thousandth battle had been won and the business would live to see the morrow.

Except that Sara was still there, waiting, and the stubborn patience that had kept her calm the entire afternoon was worn away.

What started as fine wisps of steam rising upon her temperament had turned to a veritable simmer as the hours passed.

She strained her ears, listening for anything that might signal an end to her waiting, until, finally, Sara went as quietly as a mouse to the closed door of the meeting room and gently turned the knob.