The Stranger Just One Night Part 1(20)
When Mr. Dade walks out, I rise and rigidly accept the hand he offers me.
“Miss Fitzgerald, it’s so good to see you again.”
His teasing smile is disconcerting. I want to check to see if anyone else notices but I don’t want to give myself away. “May I introduce you to my team?” I ask.
He nods and I go around and give him the names of my colleagues. He greets them with his casual confidence and clipped words of greeting before turning his smile back to me. “I have to say,” he says to the room in general, “your boss has impressed me. Her enthusiasm and passion give me hope that you can help bring Maned Wolf to the next level.”
I glance quickly over at the assistant, who is now biting her lip. But my team doesn’t notice anything unusual.
I breathe a quiet sigh of relief for that small blessing and replay Mr. Dade’s statement in my head. I’m more taken with the word “boss” than I am with the subtle innuendo. This is my team. I have never had one before. I’ve finally been given control!
But when we follow Mr. Dade out of the waiting room, as he begins the tour, I replay other things in my head—the feel of his hands between my legs, the kisses he placed in my hair.
And as I think of these things, I look back at the assistant. She’s watching me, almost wistfully, almost admiringly. She sees my details. And in this moment I realize that control is becoming increasingly out of reach.
CHAPTER 7
ROOM AFTER ROOM, office after office, Mr. Dade leads my team through the winding corridors of his life. And it’s clear that this really is his life. Evidence of that is in the way he describes his products with a boyish giddiness that I haven’t seen before. It’s evident in the way he caresses the plans given to him by the engineers he introduces to us. Not as intimate as the caresses he shared with me earlier but loving nonetheless. I hear it in his easy laughter as we chat with his marketing team over a lunch meeting in the conference room. He knows the names of every employee and knows exactly how they fit into his operation. He recites their duties to us with the enthusiasm of a man reciting the stats of his favorite football players. My staff takes copious notes as do I. But even as my pen glides over my notepad my eyes continue to flicker up to him. Everything about him fascinates me. Even the way he moves as he leads us to our meeting with his other top executives.
“Keep in mind that this place is more than just a company to Robert and me,” his VP says good-naturedly as he shakes my hand, then Asha’s, then Taci’s, and so on. Mr. Dade stands a step behind him, owning the room without saying a word. “Particularly for Robert,” the man continues. “His house? That’s Robert’s home away from home. But this is where he really lives. This is his true home.”
The statement takes me off guard. My career has always been a huge part of my identity. I’m driven by success, motivated by failure . . . but the company that employs me . . . was there ever a time when that place felt like home?
Mr. Dade laughs softly and shakes his head. “You’re not much better, Will. If I’m here for seventy hours of a week, you’re here for sixty-eight. It’s why your wife hates me so much.”
Their banter is good-natured and kind. More than that, it’s brotherly. Tom Love, Nina, Dameon, were any of them family?
I watch as my team flashes plastic smiles and nods encouragingly at this man, Will, who is now rattling on about projections and corporate ambitions. I don’t know these people. Yes, I know their strategies, their work ethic, their level of intelligence, but I don’t know what makes them truly unique. I don’t know how long that wedding ring has been on Taci’s finger or who put it there. I don’t know why there’s just a tan line where Dameon’s band used to be. I don’t know what pictures are inside that Tiffany’s locket which always hangs around Nina’s neck.
And they don’t know me. If they did, they’d spend more time wondering about why my hair is down.
The only one of them I’ve ever spent any time wondering about is Asha. She has a seductively dark energy, darker than her brown Indian eyes or thick black hair. Her dress is tighter than anything I would ever wear to the office but her conservative blue blazer makes it acceptable. Still, you have to wonder what happens when she leaves the office and takes off the blazer. Does she live another life?
I wonder, but if I’m right, it would be hypocritical for me to fault her for it.
Mr. Dade is looking at me now. I feel it without having to return his gaze. The man can slip inside of my head as easily as he slides inside of my body. He looks away, toward the VP’s desk, not so unlike the desk I had been on just over an hour ago—eager, wet, his.