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Hearing voices in the corridor outside, I dressed as quickly as I could, then escaped the bathroom, blushing at a woman waiting for me to exit. Apparently, she hadn’t been there long, and the wait raised no suspicions. Even so, my cheeks flushed red as I gave her shy smile. Ducking my head in haste, I split the scene through the downstairs emergency exit. It was a rough walk up a steep lawn, but worth the trouble, since I couldn’t gracefully face the crowd of elegant diners in the restaurant above. I could imagine that at the moment of my retreat, there was a sign swinging from my body, emblazoned in neon letters, spelling out my sexual crimes.
Chapter Five
For the next two weeks I waited for Ellington Lloyd to confirm our activities at the Morrow Seafood Grill. The two times I was in his presence, however, no mention was made—not that I expected him to say something in front of other people. I did expect him, at the very least, to give me a wink or the nod of his head. There was none. In all the weeks of our surreptitious game playing, as nervous as I’d become, I was never so nervous as I was waiting for him to acknowledge our relationship.
Then one afternoon, exactly two weeks following the Morrow incident, Ellington came to my cubicle himself.
“Miss Sinclair, we’re going to need to talk. Monday in my office.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think we have some important matters to discuss.”
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p; “I imagine we do,” I said, fully honoring his comment.
He smiled, rather tentatively. “By the way, you have entered the office pool for the baseball playoffs, haven’t you?”
I’m sure I looked astonished. “No. I don’t know a thing about baseball.”
“You should know something. It’s the national pastime.”
Had I offended him? “I guess for some.”
He was being just like the charming Ellington Lloyd who schmoozed the office crowd and his clients with wit and the twinkle in his eyes. I decided that he was putting me at ease, but I knew right then that my weekend would be a disaster of more tortuous hours of waiting for our Monday meeting.
On Monday morning, I found a memo from Ellington on my desk when I arrived. “I’ve penciled you in at eleven.”
My body raced, memories, physical memories flooding it with sexual excitement. Not that I wasn’t already jittery with anticipation.
At ten, I had an employee review with Preston Lockhart, something I didn’t particularly look forward to, but it would be brief—the man was always brief. Maybe it would take my mind off the meeting an hour later. I’d certainly be no good to work until I’d had my first face-to-face meeting with my master.
The review went exactly as I expected—Lockhart hardly knew what I did. There wasn’t a clear yardstick to evaluate my performance, just the comments of the agents and the others for whom I did research. Apparently, the remarks about my work were favorable and properly recorded in my file. I did my work in a timely way. It was neat, organized and reasoned.
Still, Preston Lockhart always unnerved me. I couldn’t decide if it was the coolly critical formality or his amazing good looks that had me quaking, and just a little bit shivering in the regions of my panties. For all of his self-assurance, however, the vulnerability I felt beneath the surface of his demeanor intrigued me. I didn’t expect to ever get beyond that ripple in his polished veneer, but I would look for cracks, just to keep interested. I was in the process of doing that as our interview ended. He closed my file, sat back in his chair. I was prepared for his ending spiel about the company in the next quarter and his expectations for me, which were probably not much different than they’d been the last quarter.
“Another matter to discuss,” he started, just as I expected.
“Yes?”
He stared me down, like he was climbing under my skin. I squirmed in my seat. “I have sent you emails from time to time; instructions…”
I heard what he was saying, but it wasn’t computing in my brain. I couldn’t remember any specific emails. “Sure,” I answered, only because I had to say something.
“I expect for the most part you’ve done well with our arrangement, but then, the game is hardly started.” The tenor of his voice changed, becoming that intensely deep and sexual baritone that had been haunting me daily, nightly. My breath grew short, as I struggled to believe what I was hearing, to put all the pieces together and acknowledge the facts he was laying out for me. “My question is: Do you have the stomach for more?”
I think I dropped my jaw as a child would, in awe of something ten times its size. The anxiety in my gut made me nauseous. The surprise took not just my breath but my power of speech.
As long as twenty seconds passed. Doesn’t seem like much, but when you watch the clock, each tick of the sweep hand seems an eternity. He was content to wait for me, steepling his fingers in front of his impassive but elegant face. He was my least likely candidate for master, my least favorite. However, even as I believed that this was true, as I stared him down as critically as he was staring at me, I sensed that in time, I’d change my mind.
“Maybe you need to think about it.” His voice cut through me like a scalpel through flesh.
“And how much time would I have?”
“The end of the day.”
“That’s all?”
