Taken (Dark Desires 1)

"I'm not trying to sound like a snob." I said to my best friend, Diamond. "I'm really not."

"No, of course not. I know that. I'm just really jealous and want to live my life vicariously through yours. Details, girl. I want the details." Diamond said before taking another sip of her martini. For the past couple of years that we had worked downtown together we met for drinks at least once a week. For the past eight weeks I have had to cancel because my work life and social life had...well...exploded.

In just that short amount of time I was fired from my job, tried to drown my sorrows in a three dollar bottle of beer only to be rescued by a drop dead gorgeous man who gave me a business card that resulted in my new job. And like the icing on the cake, I started dating the drop dead gorgeous man.

"So, he sends his limousine to pick me up two times a week. He said he'd send it every day if I wanted him to but I would feel funny about that. Wouldn't you feel funny about that?" I asked Diamond whose eyes were rolling in her head.

"No. I would not feel funny about that. Not at all." She took another sip and then began flapping her hands wildly. I knew that meant she had forgotten to ask something important before she took her last gulp of vodka.

"Have you driven past your old worksite, you know, just in case any of those old cluckers are out there? Don't tell me you haven't at least thought about doing that."

"Right?" I had to laugh. Diamond knew me so well. Granted, I was a little more discreet than she was, but we were always finishing each other's sentences, reading each other's minds and considering each other's feelings. It wasn't uncommon for us to feel an urge to just pick up the phone or stop by unannounced only to find the other once had some good news to share or bad news to work through. Like a set of twins from totally different parents we just had a connection. "I have. I'm such a snob but I have!"

We laughed so hard I was sure the people around us thought that at five-fifteen on a Tuesday afternoon the two women in the booth in the back were already drunker than skunks.

"Did anyone see you?" Diamond asked.

"Nope. But I can't say I didn't have fun anyways." I said gushing like a school girl whose boyfriend drives a red corvette and picks her up at the front of the school.

"And you're not giving up, right? You're going to keep going until someone sees you getting into or out of that stretch. I want to know the look on their faces. My gosh, you know whoever it is will leave skid marks they take off so fast to report what they've seen. You'll be like an urban Sasquatch sighting."

By this time my stomach was hurting from laughing so hard.

After ordering another round and calming ourselves down I shook my head and looked at Diamond. She was beautiful with black hair, thick black eyelashes and a perfectly placed beauty mark high on her right cheek.

"And then there is the boss." I said. "Di, I can't believe I'm talking like this. This is what plays on an endless loop on the Lifetime network. Weird, unrealistic love stories that always end in..."

"End in what? End in blissful happiness? End in mutual friendship? Nat, you are an awesome person. I can see why these dudes are both interested in you. You're just plain amazing both inside and out."

Taking another sip I blushed at Diamond's compliments.

"This is just too good to be true, though. I'm not the kind of girl who dates Billionaires, let alone two."

"Well, I guess they don't know that." Diamond said, smiling at the waiter who brought us our drinks and watching him just a little as he walked away. "Now tell me. Joshua is the guy who got you the job with what is the runner-up's name?"

"His name is Marty Reid. He's the President and CEO."

"And you are the assistant to his assistant?"

"Yes, and let me tell you his assistant Denise is a ballbuster. She doesn't take any crap from anyone, she watches over Marty like a hawk and makes sure everything is just so or else be prepared for a lecture." I said, my eyebrows well up into my forehead.

"Is she mean?"

"No. I wouldn't say mean. She's precise. Very professional. But she doesn't seem to bat an eye when Marty asks me to stay late with him."

"How did that all come about?"

I thought for a minute and was almost shocked at how easy it had happened.

On about my third day at my new job I was still very nervous. Denise was rattling off instructions that I was scribbling down from the minute I got there in the morning to when I left at night. It seemed like everything that needed to be done had a specific procedure that had to be followed. That night she was leaving me to handle locking up her desk and Mr. Reid's. Except, when I went to lock up Mr. Reid's office he was still there.

"You don't plan on locking me in, do you?" He asked, scaring the daylights out of me.

"Oh, no. Well, you're not supposed to be here. Denise said I was to lock up. Are you leaving?" even though he was the big boss I answered to Denise and I didn't want to screw anything up.

"Well, I suppose I could but I've got some Chinese food on its way."

"Okay. I'll just wait around until you go then." I said, not really knowing what else to do. You know how bosses can be. If you assume they are going to do something that requires common sense you'll get bitten in the ass every time. I should know. Every boss I ever worked for lacked the sense of the common man. If I left without locking up Marty would leave, not think to lock his own office door and that would be the night the place gets looted. Who would they blame? Not the dumbass CEO who didn't lock his door. The secretary who was told to do it, that's who.