2
TATE
“Luau tonight, snorkeling trip tomorrow, and the rest of the time is yours to do as you please,” I remind Linda, our new HR manager, as I survey our employees from the stage as they enjoy themselves with food and drink. To be honest, I’m not surveying shit. I’m looking for her. Sariah.
The one who got away.
The one who rocked my world and stole my heart but won’t return my calls.
The one woman I want to possess more than air or water or any other life-sustaining vice.
She is my vice. I know she felt it between us, too, but refuses to acknowledge it.
I understand; I really do. It can’t be easy for women to balance their strength and femininity in any corporate space, even if our firm isn’t like any other. She’s afraid people will mistake her promotion as favoritism because she fucked the boss—or her boss’s boss, as the case may be—but the simple fact is she earned that promotion tenfold long before that night.
I know it. She knows it. Her boss knows it. And her team knows it.
Still, she said there can be nothing between us.
The next day, she cut me off, hasn’t made eye contact with me in months, and only communicates about work through her boss—all of which makes me bat shit crazy.
But I get it, even if I hate it.
I’m barely listening as our CFO rambles on about something to our HR manager when I see Sariah walking in with Rivka Goldman, her team member.
Rivka is the daughter of Ira Goldman, who is Braedon’s fraternity brother from college. She is to Braedon as Sariah is to me—a temptation that burns so hot, it’s distracting—although I doubt they’ve had an inappropriate moment pass between them. They certainly didn’t fuck all night in an airport adjacent Marriott hotel room. He thinks I don’t know how much he craves her. As if I could miss the longing in his eyes whenever he sees her, as infrequently as that may be. She’s a good twenty-four years younger than him, not that I’m passing judgment. Sariah is almost twenty years younger than me.
My gaze fixes on her as she flirts with the big, beefy local working the luau before walking to one table in front of the stage. She looks fucking beautiful and beautifully fuckable at the same time in a strapless, wrap-around dress—the kind that is fun to peel off a woman while she stands still with her arms raised in the air. Just thinking about it makes my dick hard. For half a second, our eyes meet, and I’m caught by the way her eyes widen right before she narrows them and sneers.
“Where’s Braedon?” Linda asks, glancing down at her watch.
I rip my gaze off of Sariah and toss back the last of my scotch and soda. My third scotch and soda, to be exact. “I’ll go find him.”
It takes me a good ten minutes to wade through the crowd of approximately four hundred employees and their spouses. Every few steps, I get stopped, one person or another thanking me for this amazing vacation, beautiful location, etc, etc. I’m introduced to this spouse and that spouse, most of whom I won’t remember in the morning, not because I don’t want to, but because I plan to stay comfortably numb all weekend. It’s hard enough seeing Sariah in a blouse and skirt around the office, but in bikinis and sarongs and strapless dresses like she’s wearing right now? Just kill me already.
I finally find Braedon leaning against the bar, his eyes following Rivka as she walks back to Sariah. “Dude.”
Nothing. The man is fixated and oblivious to everything going on around him.
I snicker and slap my hand down on his shoulder, speaking a little louder. “Dude. What are you looking at? Or, more importantly, who?”
Braedon shakes his head and shrugs my hand away. “No one. Is it time to kick off this shindig?”
“It looks like most of our people are here.” I glance over at Sariah. Rivka is handing her a drink and they’re turning their attention to a couple of young guys that I know work for me. One is in finance, the other in sales. Both men are attractive, closer to their age, and perfectly suited to date the two women my business partner and I lust after.
Fucking pricks.
“Technically, there is nothing in our guidelines about interoffice fraternization,” Braedon says out of nowhere. Except it isn’t out of nowhere. He knows all about my night with Sariah and my unrequited lust.
I roll my eyes. “Have you run that by legal?”
“Of course not.”
I take one last look at Sariah, catching her eye before she once again turns her back to me.
I sigh. “This is going to be a rough weekend, my friend.” Clinking my fresh glass to Braedon’s—the bartenders are very aware of whom to take care of this weekend, with explicit instructions to make sure Braedon or myself are never without a full drink—I tilt my head toward the stage. “Let’s get this over with so I can start seriously drinking.”
* * *