Читать книгу Crazy, Undercover, Love - Nikki Moore - Страница 8

‘I said strap up, not shut up.’ Staring into my eyes, he grabs both ends of the seatbelt, pushing the tongue decisively into the buckle. I clutch the armrests. ‘I’d never speak to a staff member that way.’

If he hadn’t gone on about boundaries earlier, the intense expression on his face might make me wonder if he finds me attractive. He held my hand for longer than necessary when I took my little trip into his lap too … but no, those are crazy, unwelcome thoughts.

‘Sorry,’ my mouth is suddenly so dry I worry my lips will stick to my teeth, ‘my mistake.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Grabbing the spare end of the belt with a sure hand, Alex tightens it slowly and smoothly. The practical action is so erotic it’s ridiculous. Frozen to the seat, I’m ultra-aware of his broad shoulders and how close he is. I inhale his crisp, sexy aftershave; hear the even sound of his breathing; notice the tiny lines at the corner of his blue eyes, which add an extra zing of charisma. Skin fizzing, my nipples peak again and I gulp. Hard.

All the reasons for staying professional are forgotten. I want to lean forward, drive my hands into that thick, dark hair and kiss him, nibble on that biteable lower lip and get lost in the sensation of his tanned, confident hands all over me.

‘No problem,’ he says, with a funny twisted smile, breaking the spell, standing to take the chair opposite.

‘Huh?’ I blink, dazed. Why does he look so annoyed? What was all that about?

As the plane lifts off, I stare at the carpet, my body humming along with the vibration of the aircraft. My emotions feel as tangled as the Christmas lights Jess and I recently bundled up and shoved away in the hallway cupboard.

I’m attracted to a man I can’t have.

It’s that complicated and that simple.

As soon as the seatbelt signs ping off, Alex wordlessly moves across the cabin. Sliding a slimline laptop from his briefcase, he’s soon fascinated by whatever is on it, but his focus is so fixed it feels like he’s freezing me out deliberately. Is he angry because after what he said in the car about female employees and my reassurances he picked up my physical reaction to him? Awkward.

Fanning my face, I catch the eye of the pretty, blonde cabin attendant. ‘Can I have some water please?’

‘Of course, Madam.’ She smiles politely.

Moments later she places a sparkling water in front of me, complete with perfectly squared ice cubes and a succulent slice of lemon. I hold the glass to the light, half expecting it to be encrusted with diamonds, or the water to be flecked with gold. I flush as I catch her watching me quizzically, before she edges away like I’m a mad woman.

Gulping back some water, my thoughts flow toward Alex again. It’s strange, playing it cool with men has never been a challenge. Perhaps because until now they’ve only ever provoked lukewarm reactions, as opposed to scorching-hot ones?

Alex is still frowning at his laptop when I look over. Admiring his long muscular frame, thick dark hair and gorgeous face, lust packs me a punch and I feel like I’ve been knocked out by a world heavyweight. What is it about him? I’ve known plenty of fit guys, men who are handsome and charming. I even had a brief thing with a wealthy banker; not my usual type at all. He was really attentive, lavishing me with luxury gifts and treating me to expensive meals, but when I wouldn’t sleep with him on our fourth date he backed off. To be honest, I was glad not to have to dodge his calls.

Alex is more than good looks and wealth, though. He has a confidence and complexity which make me gravitate towards him like the moon to the Earth, even though his ideas about women should repel me..

I have to put distance between us.

Shame it didn’t work with my assistant, who I was definitely not interested in. Cringing, I rest my head against the padded seat, mind zipping back to the time that work went from good to ugly without stopping at bad.

Then

My manager John was supportive and lovely, with years of experience that I learnt a lot from. The last of the old-fashioned gentlemen, he and his wife doted on their four grandchildren, even with his late shifts, and I loved listening to his stories about their youngest granddaughter’s quest for a full working monkey tail. He made coming to work a pleasure and everyone was sad when he retired early.

‘I’ll be leaving in three months’ time,’ he sank into the chair behind his desk, ‘and I think you should apply for my job.’

‘You do?’ I dropped into the chair opposite. ‘I’ve only been your PA for fifteen months.’

He smiled at me, adjusting one of the photos on his desk by a millimetre. ‘I’ve been part of your journey from casual bar staff to temporary front-of-house receptionist to supervising the whole customer-care team. You had some of the best sales when you worked on the floor – the customers love you – and your local marketing campaigns were very innovative. You were appointed PA because I’ve watched you grow passionate about the casino and thought your manner and organisational skills were exceptional.’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled, warmed by his praise.

‘I’m just calling it as I see it and in the last year you’ve only improved. You’ve got a knack for finances and the customer and are a capable young woman.’ He picked up his trademark silver fountain pen, placing it in the pot on his desk. ‘Which is why I campaigned so hard for the company to fund the business admin course.’

‘Yes, and I’ve really appreciated the support, the way you’ve let me interview colleagues, and have extra days off, or swap shifts.’

‘I know you’ve appreciated it.’ He sat further forward. ‘It’s been obvious in your dedication and energy.’

‘I’m glad,’ I smiled, tapping my Biro against my notepad. ‘And you know I value your opinion.’ I hesitated. ‘I am interested, but I’m worried it might be too soon.’

‘Nonsense.’ He waved a hand as if swatting away a hyperactive fly. ‘I have complete confidence in you. You know the job better than anyone, and you’ve seen me doing it up close and personal for long enough.’ He was right. Part of the reason for becoming his PA was to understand what it took to be a manager. ‘I think you’ve got the skills for it,’ he continued. ‘You just need to believe in yourself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that.’

I hid a smile. He always came out with clichés. They were part of his charm and impossible not to inadvertently copy. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ll give it some serious thought and let you know what I decide.’

Discussing the idea of applying with Jess, who’d replied with a heartening, ‘Go for it!’ I was stunned to be offered the job after a demanding recruitment process. My team leadership experience was limited and I was certain there were better-qualified candidates but John’s reference and the policy of internal progression meant I was given the chance to prove myself. For the first eighteen months I did, and it was fantastic. Mandy, the assistant I recruited directly from the reception team, was lovely. She was eager to please and efficient and we got on well. Then she went on maternity leave and decided not to return and I got handed Tony Ferrier as part of an internal transfer I never got to the bottom of.

In his mid-twenties, broad–shouldered, squat and slightly pinkish, he reminded me of an ex-public school boy, swaggering around the place from the beginning. But he was polite enough, did his work with a minimum of fuss and didn’t create any drama, so I didn’t think I had reason to worry. At first we got on okay and shared a few jokes.

One Monday I came into the office and frowned, studying him. ‘You look a bit green Tony. Are you all right to be here?’

‘Yes,’ he smiled looking sickly, his normally pink cheeks pale. ‘I’ve been on a stag weekend. The after-effects are getting to me, that’s all.’

‘Right. Well, take it easy, drink plenty of water,’ I disappeared into my office and came back out, handing him a pack of tablets and can of energy drink, ‘and make use of these.’

‘Thanks.’ Taking them from me gratefully: ‘Do you suffer with hangovers often then?’

‘No. I keep a stock of stuff hanging around for staff. It comes from most of them working into the early hours. It’s hard for them to fall asleep when they finish, they’re still buzzing, so there’s a tendency to go for after-work drinks.’

‘Right.’ He sighed and rubbed his head.

I smiled sympathetically. ‘Have you got some quiet work you can do?’

‘Filing?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Okay. I’ll take the phones for a few hours while you do that and then why don’t you knock off early? I can handle things on my own.’

‘If you’re sure … I wouldn’t want you to think—’

‘I don’t. It was a special occasion, wasn’t it? And you’ve been doing well the past few weeks. Everyone’s allowed a night out occasionally.’

‘Thanks. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it.’

‘It’s fine. I know you won’t make a habit of it.’ A statement rather than a question, just so he knew I wouldn’t put up with it on a regular basis.

‘No.’ He groaned, rubbing his forehead again, ‘I won’t.’

‘So was it good?’ Leaning forward I pressed a few buttons on his handset to forward his calls to my phone, then looked up at him.

‘What?’

‘The stag do? What did you get up to? What’s the equivalent of tying someone to a lamppost nowadays?’

I glanced up, noting how bloodshot his pale-blue eyes were.

‘It was my older brother’s do. We made him dress as a woman and tell everyone we met that it was what he did to relax.’

I laughed, stepping back. ‘Oh, dear. Very mean.’

‘It was quite funny. It took some persuading but I won. He always says I get my own way, whatever I want,’ he said, returning my smile before going quiet. Our gaze held for a few seconds longer than polite and his smile widened.

Uh-oh, I thought. That’s not where I was going with this.

‘Anyway,’ I changed direction briskly, ‘I’d better get on with some work. And you’ve got that filing to do,’ I reminded him pointedly.

‘Yes.’

As I backed away, he held his place, still smiling at me, still trying to maintain eye contact. As I went back into my office I had a twinge of unease but dismissed it quickly.

Everything was fine for a few weeks. Then, one Friday afternoon, I dropped a file, muttering under my breath. Tony appeared next to me, squatting down to help gather up the papers, handing them to me, fingers brushing against mine.

‘Thanks,’ I fumbled out breathlessly, flustered by my show of clumsiness. As I stood up I realised too late we were way too close. But to step away too obviously would be rude so I stayed put, shuffling the paperwork into order.

Staring into my eyes, he brushed something off my cheek. ‘Eyelash.’

‘Thanks.’ It was a line, and an old one, but it may have been genuine, so I said nothing, just smiled and looked over my shoulder. ‘I’ve got a report to finish so…’

‘Yes, it’s due in tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll get to it then.’ I paused awkwardly, not sure if I should say something after all.

‘I’m really enjoying working with you, Charley. You’re a good boss,’ he said, seeming to emphasise the last word.

Phew. He got that all we had was a professional relationship. ‘Good, great. Pleased to hear that. See you later.’ Turning, I swept into my office and was soon immersed in the sales data I was analysing. Forgetting about Tony and any fears I had that we were being too familiar.

But two weeks later he started ‘accidentally’ brushing against me in the outer office where he sat, as well as making mildly suggestive comments. I said nothing initially. I’d look stupid and paranoid if I raised it with him and had misunderstood what was going on.

I’d always thought there was nothing wrong with office romances if everyone was happy and they were handled sensitively, but they’ve never been for me. Especially with a junior member of staff, who’d be in an unfair position if things went wrong, given the imbalance of power. So the company’s anti-workplace relationship policy suited me fine. It was a moot point anyway. I didn’t find Tony attractive and there was something about him I was starting to dislike. So I gave him subtle ‘back off’ signals, hoping he’d get bored and leave me alone but it only increased his determination. One day he cornered me in the file run.

‘Fancy dinner with me tonight, Charlotte? Just the two of us.’

My back was to him as I flicked through confidential files in a cabinet, so he didn’t see the face I pulled or the deep silent breath I took to control my annoyance. By then there was a niggle about the potentially patronising way he spoke to female staff, but none of them had come to me and there wasn’t enough evidence to raise it with him.

Shutting the drawer slowly, I turned around. ‘Thank you for the offer, Tony, but it’s not a good idea. I’m your line manager and would prefer to keep this professional. Our contracts also make clear relationships between colleagues aren’t allowed.’ I forced away the urge to demand he call me Miss Wright. I didn’t ask any other team members to and didn’t want him to feel I was singling him out.

‘Right. I see. Sorry.’ He smiled tightly.

‘That’s fine.’ I nodded. ‘So, if you don’t mind?’ I waved a file in the air.

‘Don’t let me stop you.’

The way he looked me up and down made me edgy. Was he intending to make me squeeze past him? ‘Would you mind moving please?’

‘Sorry. Of course.’ He stepped back to let me pass.

Striding out, I chanced a look over my shoulder. He was staring after me, grey suit rumpled and pale-pink tie askew. The whole incident was another odd one, but hopefully he’d got the message.

The next day when I came in for the evening shift, he was sitting on the edge of my desk.

‘Evening, Tony. Can I help?’ Claiming my chair, I gestured him to take a seat opposite.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,’ he acknowledged, ‘and we can remove the problem.’ He paused, gave a smirk. ‘If you weren’t my boss we wouldn’t have a conflict in dating.’

My lower jaw momentarily dropped but I calmed myself, switching on my computer. ‘Sorry, what are you suggesting?’

‘If working together is a problem, we could change that.’

‘How exactly?’

Shrugging, he stretched his arms above his head as if totally relaxed. ‘Maybe if you worked at another casino?’

I stared at him in disbelief, wanting to wind his arms round his neck and throttle him with them. Anger sent tingles along my skin. I couldn’t comprehend what he’d said. Inappropriate didn’t begin to cover it. It was so bloody arrogant. I should give up a job earned through hard work just to have the opportunity to sleep with him? What alternate reality was he lodged in?

Going into hyper-formal mode, I straightened in my seat, squaring my shoulders. ‘I’m surprised at the suggestion, Tony. I’m very happy here and have no desire to transfer. And I have no desire for us to be involved. If you’re going to stay you’ll need to respect that. Can you work as my assistant on those grounds?’

‘Sure.’ He tried to look indifferent but a muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth. ‘It was just a thought. And after the way we talked, and you smiled at me—’

‘I was being polite.’ But guilt nagged at me. Had I encouraged him? Been too friendly?

‘It was just a thought, as I said,’ he reiterated stiffly.

‘Good. Then I think we should regard the topic as closed.’

‘Good,’ he repeated. ‘Everything you need is waiting in your in-tray. Goodnight.’ Standing abruptly, he stalked out.

After he left, I was unnerved enough to rush through the door onto the casino floor for a walk around. I needed to be around people, try and forget I’d just been propositioned by my assistant.

After sleeping on it, I hoped for the best and that he’d have abandoned his weird ideas. I was conducting staff appraisals for front-of-house staff the following morning so didn’t see him until lunchtime. There was no mention of the previous night’s conversation and I didn’t get an apology, but for a while it was better. The invasion of my space stopped and so did the inappropriate comments.

Then one evening I was working on a head-office project on rolling out succession planning across the London region. Tony had stayed on to pull data off the system, but was tense, motions jerky, not making direct eye contact.

‘Tony, we’re all right aren’t we?’ I asked, pouring us coffee. We were at the meeting table in my office, papers spread out around us, other staff either down on the casino floor or in the security or cash offices.

‘What do you mean?’ He looked over, frowning.

‘Our conversation the other week—’

‘Sure,’ he shrugged but his expression had gone hard, the planes of his face standing out starkly. There was a gleam in his eye which made me uncomfortable.

‘I just thought … you don’t have to be embarrassed. We can—’

‘Forget it,’ he ground. Holding the milk jug up: ‘White or black tonight?’

‘Black, thanks.’ I stared at him but he ignored me, hypnotically stirring sugar into his coffee. He was upset, so trying to pursue the conversation would obviously fall on deaf ears. I let it go, thinking he was having an off day.

‘Has your brother got married yet?’ I prodded, to change the subject.

‘Yes. Big wedding last weekend. He’s all settled with his perfect blonde princess and Mercedes and new partnership at his law firm now.’

The bitter tone and twisted expression told me more than the words did how competitive the sibling rivalry was. ‘Ok–ay.’ Clearing my throat, I turned a printed spreadsheet over. ‘Shall we look at this one now then?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, yanking it towards him.

I remember thinking: He’ll get over whatever he thought might be happening between us. He’s got other things going on.

Then odd things started happening.

Staff meetings mysteriously moved so I’d miss them, appointments were changed in the shared diary so I didn’t know when corporate clients would be arriving, making me look and feel hopelessly inept. Deadlines were altered, making me prioritise work in the wrong order and have to ask for extensions or face the embarrassment of sending it in late. I started keeping a paper diary so I could track deadlines accurately, make sure I wasn’t going mad. If I was out of the office, Tony would get everyone looking for me as if I’d gone AWOL, and would apologise quietly after the fact, saying he hadn’t seen the external appointments in my diary. When I asked what was going on he’d express innocence, saying he’d been confused.

I was so frustrated. His behaviour was unreasonable, but I wasn’t sure what to do. It all seemed so intangible and I wasn’t sure I could prove the ‘confusion’ was anything other than genuine human error. So I looked at our policies and procedures, researched sexual harassment online, went onto forums for research. It didn’t feel like he was bullying me as such and he was the junior employee. When I read all the horrifying true stories on the message boards and chat rooms of how people had ended up going off sick with work-related stress and falling into depression, even losing their jobs, houses and marriages, it made my own fears seem silly.

I settled for making notes of the date, time, location and content of any worrying conversations or events in my moleskin notebook, and called Human Resources. I didn’t name myself or Tony, wanting to guard my privacy and in hindsight, my pride. The HR Manager advised me to try and resolve the issues with my staff member informally and if it didn’t work to raise a formal complaint under the grievance procedure or take him through a disciplinary process, which would be taken seriously by the company. She took pains to ask if I felt physically threatened in any way but I couldn’t honestly say yes at that point.

Coming off the phone feeling better, I was determined to have a clear, minuted conversation with Tony, where I’d tell him I knew he was trying to undermine me and wouldn’t stand for it. That it’d be regarded as insubordination and a potential conduct issue. But before I had a chance, one awful evening cut my time at the casino short.

I never saw it coming, not what happened. Despite the storm warnings on the horizon I should have noticed.