Sapphire’s Delaney Dilemma

Chapter 4

In the five years, she’d worked for DelCorp International she’d never once set foot inside the inner offices of Drake Delaney, and she’d always been okay with it. In fact, she preferred it this way. She had been summoned to his offices by Ms. Low for a meeting with Drake Delaney himself. Now as she was poised to know, she was cursing herself for the last two nights of insanely erotic dreams featuring him, naked and tied to her bed while she did whatever she wanted to him.

 On Tuesday evening after his phone call, she’d endured countless hours of torment by her siblings, scowls from her father and knowing grins from her mother. For some reason, she was now sexually drawn to a man she’d never once even contemplated as someone she wanted to bother with. It frustrated her beyond all belief.

To worsen matters, her attempts at lying low, blending in with the furniture like she had for the last five years, putting in her eight-hour day before going home to enjoy her personal life had been futile. Three times in the last two days, she’d run into Drake Delaney in the hall joining their offices.

In combination with the number of encounters she’d had in the three days prior to this, she’d seen him more in five days than the last five years. Once she’d been coming back to the office after lunch and had spent an agonizing ninety-three seconds in the elevator with him and his secretary while they pretended, she wasn’t there. She’d counted the seconds in her mind; they had felt interminable.

Another time she’d decided she was taking the stairs to avoid meeting him in the elevator and as she’d opened the door, she’d almost collided with him when he came from the kitchenette carrying a steaming mug of what she’d been certain was jasmine tea. Jasmine tea was one of her favorites and it had made her even more aware of him. A fleeting thought had occurred, perhaps jasmine was something they had in common forcing visions of him having morning tea with her after she’d ravished him all night.

To avoid jumping him in the stairwell, conjuring a spell and dropping them both somewhere secretive where she could play with him, she simply lowered her head and ducked into the women’s washroom. She needed to avoid any kind of conversation which might lead to her charming him and using him where he stood.

Then this morning, as she’d sat at her desk daydreaming of what he would look like if she’d bound him in leather binds to a four-poster bed and covered him in a scented, heated oil glistening on what she imagined was his perfectly muscular torso, he’d walked right in and asked her where Bill was. She’d stammered and sputtered like her twelve-year-old Honda Civic. Finally, after staring at her with one raised eyebrow, he’d simply told her to have the man call him when he came back from wherever he was and had walked out shaking his head at her as if she were a moron. He probably wondered how she’d even gotten the job she had.

 Standing there she wondered if perhaps he was going to fire her for being such an ass. It was not as if she would genuinely care if she were fired. If she was honest with herself, she had grown weary of listening to Bill’s incessant bitching over the fact she didn’t do his job up to his specifications. However, admittedly, she hated looking for work. It was such a menial task that annoyed her. She had no need for money. She had more in different accounts all over the world than she would ever use in a lifetime spanning a thousand years. It was simply about blending in with humans while feeling productive until she was ready to actually be productive; to produce a child of joint lineage who would someday be the most powerful sorcerer or sorceress ever known.

 She closed her eyes as she knocked once and waited for Ms. Low to come to the door. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes just in time to lock eyes with a pair of midnight blue ones and she stepped back in surprise. “Oh, Mr. Delaney. I wasn’t,” she started to speak and then stopped. “What was the point?” She asked herself with annoyance. She was simply going to sound like an i***t to him anyway. Why now of all times, did she have to be needing s****l gratification so desperately and why, of all people, was she fixated on him?

“Hello.” She looked to the floor in what she knew looked like a sheepish expression. She was trying to control herself from casting a spell over him and the office and taking him there in the open doorway.

“Come in Rose. I’ve been waiting for you.” He held the door open for her and put his hand on her low back as he escorted her past his secretary and through to the inside of his office. He waited for the usual and customary compliments on the decor, which bored him, but he was surprised when she simply stood next to a thick, leather chair on the opposite side of his desk and waited for him to speak. “Please sit down.”

 “Thank you,” she whispered. Moisture was pooling between her legs and as she sat, she made sure her deep plum peasant skirt did not tuck between them or for certain she’d have a big wet spot on the front when she stood up. The simple feel of his hand on her low back had made her wonder what it would be like if he was touching her bare skin. Then her imagination was spiralling out of control. She was worse than a teenage boy on his first date. She took a steadying breath and waited for him to speak. When he leaned his hip on the desk just inside her line of vision, her gaze drawn to his lean, narrow hips and the way his pants fit snugly across the expanse of his crotch. She’d bet her last dime he was more than adequately endowed to satisfy her needs. She flicked her gaze to the floor.

“You seem nervous Rose. You can relax.”

She turned her startled gaze to his and although he certainly couldn’t be accused of smiling down or even being moderately friendly, he wasn’t glowering at her like he had been in the last few days.

“It’s come to my attention you’ve been overseeing a lot of Bill’s own workload.” He wished she would look at his face, but the girl was so intimidated by him she had a hard time looking anywhere but the floor and if he had thought it possible, his belt buckle, or directly below it. He found the stare strangely erotic. He put his hand on his belt buckle and her eyes moved from the floor to his hand and then back again. She was ogling his body, whether consciously or not.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she didn’t like Bill, but she certainly didn’t want to tattle on the man either. It somehow seemed childish.

“Don’t be modest, Rose. What I want to know is why you’ve permitted him to get away with the way he treats you, the workload he’s assigned you and the fact he does not pay you accordingly.” He’d done some investigation after Sara Low had advised him of the deeply insulting conversation she’d walked in on following Tuesday’s meeting.

“Mr. Delaney,” she started to speak but he cut her off and instructed her to call him Drake. “Okay, Drake,” using his name aloud for the first time made her stomach burn with crazy hormonal reactions, “I don’t mind working hard. I come to work, I do my job and then I go home. I don’t want to cause anyone any trouble.”

“Then you’re content to be treated like a servant and intellectually inferior to someone, when it is quite obvious you are the one carrying the office and doing the duties assigned to someone who gets paid much more than you?”

She shook her head. “When you put it like that, no, but I just...”

“You’re no longer working in William Wilkins’ office.”

Her head snapped up. “I beg your pardon?” His eyes were no longer narrowed on her, and he wasn’t smiling in the least, but his countenance almost had a pleasant tone to it. He seemed almost happy to be firing her. She considered replicating the spell she’d done Monday in the car on the soldier in the back seat. If he were found with his pants soaked in blood and his body lifeless on the floor, nobody could accuse her of anything; or at least prove it.

“My admin assistant has decided to stop working and dedicate more time to her family. I’m sure you’ve seen her around. She’s incredibly round with her third child and anxious to be finished here.”

“Oh, Wanda, yes, I’ve seen her. She looks so lovely with her growing belly.” She sighed longingly as she couldn’t help it. She loved the sight of a pregnant woman. She’d spent hours with her sisters Amethyst and Diamond when they were pregnant, sometimes just sitting and rubbing their bellies and talking to their unborn children. Someday her own belly would be so round, if of course she could make up her bloody mind and decide when she wanted to pursue this goal.

“Yes,” he hadn’t really noticed but he guessed she must be correct. “The problem is, I’ve been unsuccessful in finding a replacement. I tried a temp agency but the two women they sent over were not suitable.”

The first girl on her third day of work, had entered his office during his lunch hour and had began undressing in an odd striptease supposedly to turn him on. He’d simply tossed her dress back at her and fired her on the spot. The other had sent to his e-mail a scandalous photo of her with two men asking if he’d like to be the third. He’d forwarded the e-mail to her employer at the temporary agency and asked them to deal with her appropriately. It had only been this morning after he’d gone to William’s office and noticed how hard Rose seemed to be concentrating on her work when he’d interrupted her, she’d popped into his mind to replace Wanda. The moment he’d remembered she still lived at home, had a very over-protective father and no boyfriend, in combination with the way she dressed and wore her hair, made him realize she was the perfect candidate to replace Wanda. “So, I want you to take the job.”

“Take the job?” She asked quietly. “You want me to take Wanda’s place, working here in this office with you?” She watched as he moved and lifted her personnel record from his desk and flipped it open. She was going to have to find someone to satisfy her lust sooner than she’d expected because his long lean fingers flipping through the papers made her wonder what they would feel like on her naked skin.

“You graduated from Oxford, which surprised me actually for an American girl and I’d say I was impressed but I’m a Cambridge man myself and if I wasn’t so needy, I would have simply passed based on this little bit from your portfolio alone,” he almost smiled as he saw her lips twitch. “But I’ve decided to overlook this unsavory characteristic and noted in five years in your employ here, you have not used one sick day, not one appointment scheduled during working hours and other than the one report turned in a few weeks back, your work has been flawless.”

“I knew I made the mistake,” the words burst from her lips before she could stop them. “Bill had told me I’d had until the next day to finish the report and then changed his mind and he only gave me thirty minutes warning. I saw the mistake, but he was standing there huffing and puffing about how slow I was, and I got angry and said screw it and gave him the report as is.” She felt her lungs expanding as she searched for any excuse to get her out of this position, praying telling the truth would do it. She could not work for the man when she desired to have s*x with him. Lots of s*x with him. It was not a good idea in the least.

Drake was quiet for a moment, admittedly shocked by her revelation. “I’ll add honesty and integrity to the list of attributes to confirm why I think you should be here.”              

“No,” she shook her head suddenly as she noticed his fingernails were perfect and neat as they held the folder with her work history in it. She wondered what it would feel like to have his hands smoothing hot oil all over her body. “Damn,” she bit out angrily at herself.

“I beg your pardon?” He leaned one hip back against the desk. “Most people would be flattered at this opportunity Rose.”

“Most people would,” she agreed her throat thick with desire as she took in the way his black hair curled at the nape of his neck, needing a trim but left as if he couldn’t be bothered. She wanted to drive her fingers into the thick mass of it and pull it while he suckled on her breasts. She pushed out of her seat.

“Mr. Delaney,” as he opened his mouth she shook her head, “Drake, look, I am flattered but I am quite happy to remain where I am in the accounting department. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but I spend a lot of time trying to just stay out of everyone’s way and Wanda’s job often puts her in the spotlight and I really don’t want it.” She dug deep and came up with the lie. In her private life she loved being the center of attention. The more people fawned and fussed, the more content she was. She hoped he didn’t see through her pathetic inability to lie. “For example, in Tuesday’s meeting she had to call the meeting to order, and I would not like this at all.”

“That is something we can work around.” He assured her as she stood on the other side of the upholstered chair, gripping it as if it were a shield. Her brown eyes seemed larger than life behind her glasses and he wondered for a moment if it was truly fear she was feeling or something else. He pushed the notion away and reminded himself she was a wallflower with quite possibly no s****l experience to think of considering she still lived at home with her parents. “So, I should let you know this is more of an order from my office, rather than a request. I want you in this position. You will start training on Monday.”

 “Today’s Thursday. There is payroll to complete and ...” she trailed off as he told her William was just going to have to do his job and earn the six-figure salary he made. She stared at the wide window behind him, noticing for the first time the view of the city and she moved past him and touched her hands to the glass and closed her eyes for a moment.

 “It’s not so bad an offer you should contemplate jumping?” He said smartly. “I haven’t yet mentioned your salary will double and although your hours will remain from eight until four, you will have to do the odd weekend but if it’s a problem,” he broke in quickly as her mouth opened, “we can always work around this as well.”

She had no choice. If she wanted to continue her charade in this city, she would have to accept. If she quit now and someone called her employer for a reference it would be bad to know she refused such a huge promotion. She took a stab at one last attempt to dissuade him. “You know our team kicked Cambridge in the boat race this year. It was a rather disgraceful showing for your alma mater, I’m not sure I can overlook your education.”

She turned to face him as the sound from him was unlike anything she’d ever expected as he threw his head back and laughed aloud at her comment. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sheer magnificence of him; his masculinity enhanced a hundred-fold by the wide white smile, his lips pulled up on his cheeks as he chuckled. His blue eyes danced and lightened with his mood, and he dropped her folder on his desk with a slap.

“I think that too, we’ll find our way through,” he noticed the way her cheeks were tinted with pink, and she bit her bottom lip as if she were trying to not smile. “So, it’s agreed then. On Monday morning, you report to Wanda.”