Just One Night 1_ The Stranger(12)

It’s an obvious area for growth. Already there’s been buzz about some of the products they’ve introduced. It addresses a need, feeds into a society’s fears . . . there is always so much profit in fear. Insurance companies, Hollywood thrillers, cars with more airbags than cup-holders—they all bank on it.

My Mac chimes as a message pops up: an invitation from Mr. Dade for video conferencing.

My fingers hover over the keyboard, then move to the belt of my robe, pulling it a little tighter. I could ignore this. It’s eleven o’clock on a Friday night.

I should have waited until I was dressed to send that e-mail.

I could dress now, put on a suit, pin up my hair, but who wears a suit while at home at eleven on a Friday night? He’ll know I made an effort for him, not an effort to please but an effort nonetheless. He’ll know the affect he’s had on me, and that simply is not an acceptable option.

For some reason, rejecting the invitation doesn’t feel like an option, either. And part of me knows that my thinking, my compulsion to press Accept, is no good. But I don’t listen to that part of me. Not tonight. It’s speaking with too soft a voice for me to feel the weight of its wisdom.

I press Accept.

Mr. Dade appears on my screen like an apparition I summoned from some dark imaginings. He’s composed as he watches me from the comfort of his home. In the background I can see his bed. The duvet is a light, glowing orange that reminds me of flames.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” he says. “Do you always work this late on Friday nights?”

“It was just an e-mail,” I say, trying to keep my expression cool, lofty, compensating for the intimacy of the white robe. “I wasn’t expecting to conference. It was your invitation that was out of place.”

“Ah, but it was a working e-mail. I assume you’ll bill me for the time it took you to write it, and probably for the extra minutes it took you to think of it, and even to turn your computer on, probably. You choose your own schedule, Kasie. You chose this as a working hour, and right now you’re working for me. It’s my expectation that during the hours that you work for me, you make yourself fully available . . . to me.”

The words excite me but I press my lips into a hard line that I hope will help me draw the line in the sand that is necessary here. “I’m always available to talk about work, Mr. Dade.”

“You can call me Robert.”

“If we were friends, I would call you Robert.”

“And we’re not friends?”

He leans back and for the first time, I can see the graceful curves of the chair he sits in. An antique, perhaps from the eighteenth century. It’s a chair that speaks of domination and royalty, but mostly it speaks of money.

I understand money. I can handle it, manipulate it. I can handle this man in his ridiculously expensive chair.

“No,” I say firmly. “We’re not friends.”

“Lovers then? What do you call your lovers, Kasie? Do you address them by their last names? Their first? Or do you turn to words that are a bit more descriptive in nature?”

“We’re not lovers.”

“Oh, you’re wrong there. I’ve felt you beneath me, I’ve held those beautiful breasts, I’ve been inside your walls. I know where to touch you to make you lose control.”

“It was just one night.” I try to keep the chill in my tone but I can see that my line in the sand is now threatened by the tide. “An anomaly. I am not your lover now.”

“Ah, but then why do you respond to me as if you are?”

The words penetrate. They toy with my nerves and strain my willpower. I look away from the screen. This is stupid. It’s not in my plans. I’ve cleaned up the shards of glass from the dining room floor. Nothing else has to be broken.

“I want to meet with your directors, your engineers,” I say, still keeping my eyes away from the computer. I need to steady my voice, my breathing. “I want to talk to them about your capabilities.”

“Do you remember when you touched me here?”

I turn to look at the screen and with a graceful, almost languid ease he pulls off the black T-shirt he’s wearing. He’s perfect, beautiful, powerful; he runs his fingers over scratch marks on the skin that covers his heart.

Had I done that? I remember dragging my fingernails over his back but . . . oh yes, it was when he had pulled me from the wall and lowered me to the floor. He had gently pinched my nipples as I had pressed my hips against his, no control, just lust, desire, and that feeling . . . the feeling of him touching me, the feeling of him opening me up, thrusting inside of me until there were no words at all.