So why was she getting wet just thinking about it?
She wondered if something qualified sexual harassment if the harrassee didn’t mind?
Her best friend, Jenna, who had at least landed a job in her field after they graduated—nursing—had explained that all businesses did training about sexual harassment now. And of course, with so many younger, good-looking people working for the insurance giant that Oliver Pierce ran—including himself—the whole sexual harassment thing had to be covered thoroughly with all of the employees.
Kelsey stared at her computer screen, lost in thought. She’d tried for months to find a job in her field—journalism—after college, but it had been fruitless. Finally, in desperation, she’d applied for this position. Executive secretary. She had no experience as a secretary, but she was incredibly well-organized and could type ninety words per minute. She’d padded her resume with as many skills as she could muster, and to her surprise—to everyone’s surprise—Oliver had hired her. She still couldn’t figure out why.
She ran spell-check—Oliver was a stickler for errors—and then triple-checked the memo.
Please note the change in our Lockheed meeting time. Due to the audit, we will be meeting in conference room C at 2 pm tomorrow. As you know, the Lockheed account is up for re-bid, and I don’t think anyone else can touch us on it, but I need the Lockheed numbers from all of you at the meeting, everything up to date.
Regards,
Oliver Pierce
OP/kw
Kelsey hit “send” as Oliver’s office door opened. She glanced up, seeing Helena Lockheed exiting, the door closing quickly behind her, her long legs scissoring across the tile floor to the elevator.
She wondered what had happened behind closed doors—her imagination was working overtime—but neither woman spoke. Kelsey was too terrified to say anything, and she assumed Mrs. Lockheed found Oliver Pierce’s secretary too much of a peon to pay attention to. The elevator opened and swallowed the woman’s svelte figure, leaving Kelsey alone again, still waiting for the familiar “message sent” window to appear. It was taking forever! She nibbled on her index-finger nail as she watched the hourglass.
“What the—?”
A window popped up: “Message Sent to All Employees,” followed by a blinking “New Message” notification. So did it send or not? She wondered. Maybe the new message was her message? Hoping that was the case, Kelsey clicked on the latter, still frowning as she read:
Sexy. Those stripes are sexy. They’re driving me to distraction. Men’s room. Five minutes.
Kelsey’s eyes widened and her heart lurched in her chest. It wasn’t signed, and the User ID was strange to her: DUX217
Who was DUX217 and who the hell did he think he was? Kelsey considered printing it out and taking it to human resources to file a complaint. Certainly this would count as sexual harassment? Maybe she’d take it to Mike, the tech guy, to find out who the ID belonged to.
She read it again. He called me sexy. What had Matt called her? Doll. Not sexy. Still… could it be? The thought made her feel weak and a little dizzy.
“Did you send that memo?” Oliver’s deep voice startled her and Kelsey looked up to see him standing at her desk. The message forgotten, she jumped up, and then remembered what she was wearing almost instantly. His eyebrows rose again, looking at her outfit, his expression dazed and a little confused, almost as if he’d convinced himself it had been a hallucination before.
“Yes, sir,” she assured him, the phone ringing. She reached for it, seeing his gaze moving over her again. He was looking at her like he’d never seen her before.
“Good.” He glanced at her hand, still on the ringing phone. “You might want to pick that up.”
“Yes, sir.” She did as she was told, watching him walk down the hall and turn the corner.
“Kelsey, the copier is acting up again!” It was Matt.
“Is it the paper tray?” Kelsey sighed. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Somehow she had become the office copier expert—how had that happened? Every time it stopped working, for whatever reason, someone called Kelsey. She barreled around the corner and stopped short, her mouth dropping. There was a line at the copier that stretched to the filing cabinets. My god, was the whole damned office making copies?
“Oh good, there you are!!” Matt nudged his way to the front of the line. “Can you fix it?”
Kelsey opened the paper tray and found the problem immediately. She pulled out the extra paper that had been caught in the feeder, half printed and smeared with ink. She shut the door with a bang, standing back up.