Page 44 of Pure Recklessness

Those clothes were probably designed to hide her figure, but even if she wore a bin bag, there’d be no disguising her curves.

If anything, it made me more curious to know what she looked like naked.

What the fuck am I thinking?

I only fired Stefan five minutes ago for his inappropriate actions with junior staff members and here I was fantasising about an employee.

Again.

This meeting was supposed to address the inappropriateness of what happened last night. Not add fucking fuel to the flames.

Get it together, Blake.

‘Sit.’ I gestured to the seat.

Part of me wanted to close the door, but given what happened yesterday, it was important I didn’t make Eleanor feel uncomfortable. Valerie was on the phone so hopefully she wouldn’t hear our conversation.

‘I called you here to discuss the incident last night and how you’d like to proceed,’ I continued. ‘I can organise a meeting with HR so you can raise your concerns freely. I deeply regret what you saw. The company has zero tolerance for inappropriate sexual behaviour. It’s important that Sated is a safe place for all of our employees⁠—’

‘No,’ Eleanor said firmly. ‘That won’t be necessary. This is your office. You were in a private space. Having a shower and… I invaded your privacy. It’s not as if I walked into the room and you saw me and decided to whip out your…’

She paused and shook her head, clearly uncomfortable with saying the word ‘dick’ or ‘cock’.

See. Just like I thought, she was too innocent for me.

‘If you’d done it deliberately,’ Eleanor continued, ‘it’d be a different story, but I know that you didn’t. And I shouldn’t have stayed.’

‘Why did you?’ I blurted out. ‘Don’t answer that. It’s inappropriate. I’ll call Melissa in HR. We should have this conversation with her present.’

‘No. Please,’ she insisted. ‘Can we just forget it ever happened? I just want to do my job. You didn’t offend me. You didn’t make me feel taken advantage of or whatever your concern is. I’ll knock twice next time. Or, I won’t come here after hours. I’ll make sure Valerie’s here. Please don’t involve HR. Can we just leave it?’

I leant forward, clasping my hands as I thought about it.

I’d also like to forget it ever happened.

It was fucking embarrassing.

I needed my staff to respect me. I had an image to uphold. If word got out that I’d been caught wanking in the office, it wouldn’t look good.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘How’s the presentation going?’

‘Good!’ Her voice shot up several octaves and I instantly knew she was lying.

‘Update me on Monday,’ I said sternly. ‘And I see that you checked out some items from our shop for research.’

Her eyes popped.

I was surprised too when the alert flashed up on my screen. I didn’t normally get involved in staff requests, but my name had been included in the reason for the research, so it got flagged by Valerie.

There was an interesting selection of items and I was amused to see that Eleanor had included the Lip-Stick.

I wondered if she’d used it yet.

Inappropriate thought number five million and one.

Jesus. Get a grip.

‘Yeah, I… my colleagues thought it might help with the project.’