Page 16 of All Out of Love

CHAPTER TEN

Over the next two months, Toya saw Grayson very sparingly. Her second day on the job, her first full day, she found out that he was out of the country on business. And while he was gone, Lois Javits and Dena Allen conspired to remove her from out of his office and place her in the tiny room next to the file cabinets.

But if they thought they were hurting her by getting her away from the boss, they were wrong. She was glad to go. She didn’t get that job to be all goo-goo eyed over the boss when every woman in that house probably had those same goo-goo eyes over that same boss. She wasn’t looking for a man, she was looking for a career. A chance to get established again. And she was going to move up that ladder to the top by working, not sleeping. They thought they were harming her. They were doing her an enormous favor.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss seeing him around. She didn’t see him for a whole week after her first day. Then that second week, he worked at home only once that she knew of. But mostly he was at his corporate office. And even on that one day when he was home, she only saw him for a brief minute.

She had just gotten off of the phone and was putting the message in the computer for the correct employee the call was for, when she suddenly got a sensation.

When she looked up over her computer, she saw him standing in the hall staring at her. She smiled when she saw him, and waved. She was just that happy to see him. But he didn’t smile at all. He looked kind of upset. And he quickly walked away.

Her feelings took a blow when he didn’t even return her smile. She’d never admit it to anyone, but she felt kind of crushed by the way he behaved when he saw her. Why didn’t he speak to her? They hadn’t seen each other in nearly two weeks. They left, she thought, on great terms. He could have at least said hey you, dog. Something! But he said nothing. Didn’t smile. Didn’t wave back. He just left.

Grayson had just gotten back in town that previous night, and because he could hardly sleep a wink he was up extremely early. He decided to work from home that day. All the meetings he had scheduled with his various executives had to be moved to his home office. Which they were quite used to doing.

The first person he wanted to see that day was Latoya Morgan. He, in fact, was anxious to see her. While he was out of town, he asked Miss Javits about her a few times. Mainly because Lois was her boss and would know how she was faring. She knew not to let Latoya be aware of his interest in her. But he had to check on her, and she was the best source.

Lois said she was doing her job, which was how Lois described her employees. They were either doing their job or not. There was no high doing or low doing. There was only doing or not doing in her book. Which didn’t help him at all. But he didn’t pursue it.

He got busy that day in his home office as he had back-to-back-to-back meetings that went on into the late afternoon. By the time he took a break, he realized he hadn’t seen Latoya all day.

That was when he left his office and decided to go ask Lois personally. Where was Miss Morgan? Why wasn’t she set up in his office the way he had ordered it? But as he was walking by one of the file rooms, he noticed that the small office next to it was occupied. When it usually wasn’t. He casually glanced over at that office as he was walking by. And that was when he saw Latoya.

When he saw her on the phone sitting behind that small desk in that tiny office, he stopped in his tracks. What the hell?

He specifically told Miss Javits that she would answer the phones in his office. All she needed to provide her was the headphone system so that background noise would not be a factor and his office conversations would not be overheard. But she put her in a different office anyway? He knew better than that!

But he found himself standing there and staring at her. She was hard at work, the way he knew she would be, and he wanted to feast his eyes on her whenever he could. She made for good conversation that wasn’t about business all the time. That was why, on the spur of the moment, he ordered Lois to set her up in his office. The fact that she would move her angered him.

But he still couldn’t move. He continued to stand there. She looked so pretty sitting there in that professional way of hers. And the way she dressed, with her clothes and her hair always so neatly put together, you’d think she was a senior VP at Carrington, not the telephone lady. She was certainly smart enough to be VP. Why not give it a go?

Because she was affecting him just by looking at her. That’s why! She was touching his heart as well as his loins. That’s why! No woman had ever turned him on intellectually and sexually before. Not ever. But she stimulated both of his heads. He even had an arousal just watching her crossed legs as they flapped beneath her above-the-knee skirt. She said her mother said to never look like what you’re going through, especially if it was bad. She looked like a million bucks.

But what was he doing? Everything he was certain she wanted, such as marriage, such as kids, such as a lifetime commitment no doubt, were the very things he didn’t want. Why hem her up when her biological clock was already ticking? He’d already pulled up her file on his computer. She was thirty-one years old. Although she was much younger than he was, as she was thirteen years his junior, she had no time to waste on bed rolls with him. Which was all he’d want from her.

Or was it?

That was the part that alarmed him. What if he wanted more from her? What if he overlooked every red flag that screamed it would never work and decided to go for broke with her anyway?

Going for broke was always a scary proposition to Grayson. He was a cautious man. So much so that when she looked up at him and smiled and waved, he froze. He didn’t need this kind of baggage to drag him down. What was he doing? He quickly walked away.

He did go see Lois Javits and chewed her out for disobeying his direct order. “Do it again and it’ll be your ass looking for work,” he warned her.

But when she apologized profusely and said that she would set Latoya back up in his office at once, he told her to leave her where she was. She was comfortable, he said. No sense in disrupting her because of her boss’s refusal to follow a direct order.

That was when Lois said that she’d be gone in a few weeks anyway.

Grayson, who was standing in front of Lois’s desk at the opposite end of the hall, was confused. “What do you mean she’ll be gone?”

“Paige will be back.”

Grayson frowned. “Who the hell is Paige?”

“The girl that answers the phones. She’s been out on bedrest maternity leave. She’s had her baby, a very beautiful little boy. She’s returning next month.”

The idea that Latoya could slip through the cracks and he would not be able to see her again stunned him. And concerned him. “Give Paige a different job,” he said. “It can be at the same pay so she doesn’t lose anything. But Miss Morgan stays put.”

Grayson could tell Lois was astonished that he would jump through all those hoops for a temp worker. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to ruin Latoya’s life by interjecting himself in it. But he wasn’t going to ruin her life by plunging her back into unemployment just because some other person was returning to work.