Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel(4)
A faint click as he withdrew the card signaled that the door had been unlocked electronically and plunging headlong, the two of them entered the dark entrails of the building. For one of them it all appeared routine, for the other, it meant the terror of uncertainty as she was led from all that she had known until then.
~~~
They crossed a mostly empty parking garage level. Sara saw only a few vehicles, most of them foreign looking to her eyes, all of them luxurious without the least sign of dust on them.
In very short order, they came to an elevator with no obvious buttons to push. Instead the white plastic card did its trick once again, and the doors slid smoothly open to reveal a stark interior of glass and stainless steel.
As they stepped inside, Sara could not help but feel that she had walked into an isolation booth.
She watched as he pressed a series of numbers on a keypad next to the usual elevator buttons. Then appeared an almost seamlessly incorporated drawer that slid out and upon which he carefully placed his fingers. She heard a small beep accompanied by a green light as he withdrew his hand and the device disappeared from view.
What the hell is with all this security? I mean, what's next, retinal scans followed by rectal exams?
Sara was already having trouble not believing that she had somehow fallen into a movie. A film about a handsome stranger and his mysterious life, only the casting for his love interest was all wrong.
Except that she was living each moment, not watching it on the big screen.
Her stomach fluttered with that thought and then did it again as the elevator smoothly went into motion. She felt the familiar sensation of any elevator, but this one continued to accelerate for far longer than the elevator she usually took each day.
In time, the elevator slowed to a halt and the doors slid open, not into a corridor but directly into an office.
Or, at least, a receptionist's office.
A beautiful blond was seated at a desk and looked up mildly. Her eyes turned hard as she took in Sara with a quick glance that flicked down to the red stain and back up again.
The white shirted man nodded at her and said, "Giselle, une chemise pour la mademoiselle. De préférence celle en soie et perles."
The blond seated at her desk cast an appraising look at Sara and nodded, saying, "Oui, Monsieur. Tout de suite."
He took Sara by the arm once more and steered her to a comfortable looking chair across from the receptionist.
Sara sat, wincing slightly as she did, then looked up at him.
The stranger was looking into the distance, beyond her, beyond the boundaries of the office, his face pensive.
Then, in a low voice he said, "Look...about earlier. I'm not sure what to say about that, except that I'd like to make amends. Giselle will bring you a clean shirt in a few minutes and you can go back to work, if that is what you want.
"I should be able to make the arrangements...you won't be fired."
Then his gorgeous amber eyes held her for the first time since the events in the restaurant manager's office. His stunning eyes held her in all their intensity as he said, "But, I would prefer that you stay. I need to see about a few things. It shouldn't take long, so I'm asking you to wait here for me.
"Will you do that? Will you wait for me?"
I have been waiting all my life for you, she thought then bit back such ridiculous sentiments.
"If you're sure," she said, "I can wait...if you really want me to."
He watched her, almost not blinking, before nodding slowly.
"Good. That's good," he replied and began to turn away.
He came back to face her, his visage as focused as ever upon her and continued, "You know...I can't promise that you won't have regrets about me. On the contrary, I can promise you that you will. But, you must know that you will have my full attention very soon, whether you like it or not."
That he spoke to her this way in the presence of the other woman, the one he had named Giselle, felt like a victory to Sara. He saw her and only her in that moment as all else fell away.
Then a smile broke upon his lips, lifting up the corners of his mouth and drawing into lovely lines that reached to what must have been childhood dimples in his cheeks. It was as though he was illuminated from within as he smiled for her and Sara felt her heart break just a little.
Of course, she would wait.
~~~
Within half an hour of his leaving her, she heard the woman named Giselle take a call.
Sara had settled in to a plush chair that faced the receptionist's desk and had nearly forgotten that she wore a stained shirt in an office she had never seen before and that her very employment was likely hanging by a thread. Except that she believed what he had said--he would make arrangements.
And Giselle had dutifully left almost immediately after the white shirted man had gone. She had not said a word to Sara, or even looked at her for that matter. Gone for less than a minute, the blond came back and acted as though Sara did not even exist.
Sara did not mind, though. She was used to it. The women in data entry acted as though she were no more substantial than a mildly disagreeable perfume, wrinkling their noses ever so slightly at her passage, then forgetting her entirely as she gained her cubicle.
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.