My relaxation bubble popped when I heard the sound of kitty claws and remembered that Sam was currently destroying whatever it was Mr. Brighton had sent me.
Infuriating man. It was bad enough that he took up every second of every day with his constant emails full of notes and demands. Then he invaded my mind when I was home, too. Not to mention the flower arrangement, bizarre dinner invitation, and the subsequent phone call.
I flattened my hands on my bare stomach and allowed my mind to wander for a few minutes. Was it all a game to him? The whole situation seemed very thrill-of-the-pursuit. It was obvious that he was used to having women throw themselves at him, so perhaps his interest in me was that I was not chasing him. In fact, quite the opposite. I was actively trying to get out of his life, not more invested in it. But then again, why would he even want me to throw myself at him? By all accounts I wasn’t his type. What had Bryce said? Thin, blonde, easy.
Yeah. Not so much.
I sighed. I had never been a skinny girl, and for the most part, I was okay with that. In the years following high school, I had learned to embrace myself in a lot of ways. My curves and height, or lack thereof, were part of that acceptance process. I began to run my hands lower on my stomach, tracing the lacey edge of my panties.
“Mr. Tight Ass wouldn’t even be able to handle a girl like me,” I said to myself and Sam, if he was within earshot.
I didn’t know if it was the sensual feel of the lace, the darkness, or the memory of his cologne, but suddenly my mind started to wander through a series of images, starting with his tight ass. His perfect, firm-looking ass.
“He might not be able to handle a girl like me, but I’d know just what to do with him,” I added, my fingers slipping beneath the lace, feeling my soft skin, wondering how it would feel if they were Mr. Brighton’s instead. I arched my back against the bed as my fingers slid lower and lower, the heat building as I touched myself softly.
Behind my closed eyes, I could see his face, those dark eyes the way they had looked when he had been watching my figure out in the parking lot. Hungry. But then, his face morphed and shifted back to the cold, self-satisfied smile he wore and I instantly stopped what I was doing.
“What the hell?” I exclaimed, jolting back to a sitting position and shook away the remnants of my brief fantasy. “Get it together.”
I slipped on a long tank top and a pair of shorts before shuffling back out to the entryway to inspect the box. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t had anything since the trail mix at lunch, so I made a detour to the kitchen to make a quick veggie patty and slapped it between two pieces of sprouted grain bread. Then I returned to the box, steak knife in hand, doing my best to saw through the packing tape in between bites.
Eventually, I got the box open and started to dig through the contents. There were a dozen smaller boxes inside. It looked like the entire line of Plush products according to the also-enclosed catalogue. I wasn’t sure what it was all for, but I decided to take Bryce’s advice and get to know the products I was supposed to be trying to market.
The first step was to read each product label. A few years back, I had had a nasty reaction to one of the ingredients in a bottle of perfume and broke out in a horrific rash. When it first happened, I remember being extremely irritated, but once I did further research on how nasty some of the common beauty product chemicals are, I decided to accept it as a blessing that my body was allergic. Since then, I’d been a bit of a freak about reading labels of everything I put in, or on, my body.
I scanned down the listed ingredients and gasped when I saw BHA listed. Back when I had done my initial investigation into the different chemicals used in most make-up and body products, I had read about BHA and BHT’s, but found it hard to believe it was actually allowed to be used on humans in the first place. My memory was slightly foggy, but I remembered that it had shown very serious side effects in independent research trials, not to mention the un-environmentally friendly way it was created.
I dumped the pile of bottles from my lap back into the box and immediately shu
t the lid, sticking it loosely back down with the bits of tape I had cut off. The knot in my stomach that had hardly let up since two days ago when Mr. Brighton was first thrown into my world, now felt two times bigger. How could I possibly be expected to work on his account now? Knowing about the use of BHA changed everything. Again.
Sam cocked his head at me, as if waiting for an answer to the problem.
“I’ll just have to smooth things over with Rita tomorrow. The ads should be fixed. I did my part, now it’s time to move on.”
Sam stretched and started to lick his paws, clearly not concerned about my ethical dilemma.
I looked up at the red, vintage-looking clock on the kitchen wall, groaning when I realized it was already past ten o’clock and I would barely get six hours of sleep in before I would have to wake up and do it all over again. I dragged myself up off the floor, collected the protesting Sam in my arms, and trudged back to my room to get to bed.
***
“How can I help you, Allison?” Rita stared me down across her desk.
This was going to be harder than I had anticipated. I took a deep breath and did my best to lay out my case in a logical manner. I explained that the meeting with the design team had gone well, and that the new sketches I’d been shown earlier that morning looked great, and then I ever-so-gently reminded her that really, my job—or rather, the job I was hired to do—had nothing to do with client relations and managing accounts. In closing, I wanted to be done with the Plush account and go back to training on the coding work.
When I finished my defense, I sat silent, waiting for her to reveal my fate.
“I understand Mr. Brighton can be an exceedingly difficult client to work for. The Plush account has gone through more account managers than I can count in the short three years that Mr. Brighton has been with our company. And I’m also aware that this isn’t what you expected when you were hired. Truth be told, it’s not what I need you doing. Bryce touted you as a computer genius who would be able to be groomed to run the technological side of our marketing efforts. Something we desperately need, since right now it’s all a bit fly by night and not even close to organized.”
A little bubble of hope rose up in my mind, the feeling my ticket to freedom was close.
“But, that being said, I can’t risk making Mr. Brighton lose his faith, fragile though it may be, in what we have here because if he goes, so do his millions of dollars in advertising. And, he wants you to run things. Possibly you learned a valuable lesson about knowing when to interject, and when to remain silent. Your words can get you into a lot of trouble.”
That last shred of hope I had been clinging to washed away from underneath me at her scolding. I knew I deserved it. Keeping my mouth in check had never been a strong suit. But having her lecture me only made me want to rebel even more—until I remembered the paycheck.
“In other words, Allison, your talents and skills are on loan to Mr. Brighton until he says otherwise.” Her expression did not change but a shimmer in her eyes gave away her delight at resigning me to Mr. Brighton’s will.
“Understood,” I said, once I was sure she was done speaking. I rose from my seat, preparing to leave.