Sapphire’s Delaney Dilemma

Chapter 2

Sapphire looked at her bottle of water and wished she could re-enact the scene from the Wizard of Oz where the witch melts into the floor and disappeared forever. It couldn’t happen of course. She loved water. She swam all the time. However, she wished it for a moment before she shook her head at Mr. Delaney.

 She wasn’t shy. She just did not need nor want the unwanted attention. She put her hand to her chest. “Me?”

 Delaney was a strangely popular name and after a short fruitless search when she’d joined his company it had been concluded his name was simply a coincidence. He was simply a forty-year-old human man with an insane need to make money who bore the name Delaney. He could have been born to a goat for all she knew, and she hadn’t given him a further thought since the first day when her fears were assuaged. He was as mortal and boring as they come.

“No, the other woman in the very back row in the furthest seat possible,” he drawled sarcastically as he stepped off the stage and headed in her direction. He held his hand out for her book. “What are you doing?”

His sarcasm irked. She controlled the urge to turn him into a goat. She looked to the blank page and blinked rapidly. “Taking notes Mr. Delaney.” She whispered now, hating she was suddenly the center of attention, and more than a few people were looking at her with pity.

Perhaps he would fire her, and she wouldn’t have to work for Wilkins anymore. She knew she’d have no such luck. He simply was going to try to humiliate her in front of the room. Luckily for her, she considered herself better than the entire lot of them put together, so they didn’t matter in the least.

However, the man with the midnight blue eyes and the sexy swagger suddenly, most definitely mattered.

“Sexy swagger?” She thought astutely aware she was watching him stride in her direction. “Where had the notion come from?” She had never even looked at the man with more than annoyance in the past and suddenly he was sexy? She needed to reign herself in.

“Taking notes? You’re in the back talking to yourself and laughing. What are you drawing in your little sketchbook?” He held his hand out for the spiraled notebook reminding her of a schoolteacher she’d had more than a hundred years ago. When she hesitated, he took it from her, oblivious to the zing travelling up her arm at his touch.

He flipped the page back one and then to the page she had been holding open. He stared incredulously. “Why?”

“Why am I taking notes?” She met his gaze. “Mr. Wilkins’ likes to go over the meetings in detail so he can make sure he didn’t miss anything.” She whispered suddenly very much aware he was a man with all the parts needed to make her cloudy mind clear once again. She had to stop thinking of him like this. She bit her lip.

“You wrote it word for word!” he exclaimed in surprise as he flicked his gaze back and forth from the woman who shrunk in her chair as if afraid, he was going to tear her to shreds. He glanced from where she sat to the notebook in his hand. “How did you keep up?”

“I write fast,” she whispered while she mentally applauded herself for her perfect longhand. “Okay, I cheated,” she conceded to herself, but it mattered not because he tossed the book back on her lap and walked away. She struggled to get her overreacting libido under control.

He pointed to her. “If anyone here missed any bit of my speech, William’s admin assistant has it word for word.” He rolled his eyes and then began to talk again to answer the redhead’s question. His eyes never again moved back in her direction, but Sapphire could still feel the way they’d burned on her when he’d gotten close.

Forty minutes later, when the lights came up and she was able to rise to her feet she saw her boss starting angrily in her direction. She gave a slow shrug and twisted her lips at him. It wasn’t her fault she’d brought pen and paper to the meeting. She waited at the door for him and then all the way back to their office space, she listened to him give her grief for her foolishness, letting this too, curb the last remnants of her desire for the impossible.

“You couldn’t just sit there and not draw attention to yourself?”

“I was in the darkest corner away from everyone else, not sitting center stage wearing a see-through negligee and no panties.” She wanted to say the words but instead she bit her lip and kept her face to the floor. Sometimes the desire to kill the stupid human man was overwhelming.

Her silence only served to further irritate the increasingly flushed man and as she sat behind her desk he stood in front of it, giving her a tongue lashing for her inept working behavior. She kept her face devoid of all emotion as she decided it was time for this man to finally die. She’d had enough. She was about to cause every ulcer in his body to erupt simultaneously when a voice in the door stopped her.

“Excuse me. Miss Browning?” A svelte woman no bigger than her adolescent niece Alluring, stood in the door with a wide sympathetic smile in her direction. Her eyes were friendly, and her gaze was completely on the woman taking a verbal battering from her supervisor.

“Miss Low.” Bill Wilkins almost tripped over himself as Drake Delaney’s secretary stepped into their space. “What can we do for you?

“Well, actually, I’d like to ask Miss Browning if she wouldn’t mind giving me a copy of the notes she’s taken today. Mr. Delaney said they were to the letter, and he likes to go over them to ensure he hasn’t missed anything. If he has, he’ll call another meeting and address everything else.”

She gave a glance in the woman’s direction, unsure of whether she was glad or annoyed her murderous thoughts had been interrupted. She decided it was better the woman had shown up and she nodded once, her own smile tentative at best.

“Of course, Ms. Low, I’ll draft them up immediately. Would you prefer I email or print them for you?” She rarely dealt directly with the CEO’s office. Normally requests would go to their secretary and the secretary would pass them to her and she would advise Bill. She was simply the middle person and she preferred it this way.

“Email is fine. Thank you.” She was about to turn in the door when she paused and looked to Mr. Wilkins, her smile gone and her eyes cold. “Mr. Wilkins, I should remind you the company has a no-harassment policy and the way you were treating your assistant when I came in was abysmal. I would hope for your sake Mr. Delaney does not personally hear you speak to your employee in such a way.” Her voice was light and airy as if she were relaying to him the morning weather and yet there was no denying the seriousness of her tone or the depths of anger in her eyes.

Sapphire had to keep her head down as the woman walked away otherwise, she was certain to laugh aloud at his stunned expression. She could only imagine the way his mouth was opening and closing as he tried to think of a comeback, but he missed his moment as the woman departed with a swish of her hips.

“Get on it and don’t screw it up like you did the third quarter figures. I don’t want him down here giving me hell again.” He punched the desk for emphasis, and he walked away.

Sapphire looked up at his retreating back, his pants hanging off the back of his flat bottom and she caught herself wondering how a man could have such a round body but no buttocks to speak of. She shook her head as she realized she still hadn’t coped with her s****l needs, and she was ogling her disgusting and married supervisor. She had to get a grip.

It was ten minutes past five when she finished typing the notes into the computer, opting not to cheat this time and then she hit send and forwarded them to Ms. Low. She was running late again, and she picked up the phone and called home and this time her father answered the phone. “Hi Dadai. I’m on my way home now.”

“Straight home.” He ordered her quietly.

“Yes, sir, straight home and I’ll even clean my room and put out the garbage too.” She teased him for his sudden tone.

“Sapphire Rose, you will be the death of me.”

She gave a chuckle at his words. “We both know it is not true. I will see you soon. I love you.”

She looked up to see Drake Delaney in the door and she hung up the phone, slowly wishing she hadn’t become so aware of him during the meeting. Oh, why had he had to notice her doodling and smiling to herself at the back of the room? “Because, nitwit,” she berated herself mentally, “he’s a genius who doesn’t miss anything from a wrong number on a form to a slacking employee.”

“Is William still here or is he gone for the day?” He let his gaze drift down her. She was wearing a brown pantsuit with an orange top under her blazer. It reminded him somehow of a rotten pumpkin hanging off her as if the insides of her shrivelled up because her skin couldn’t bear to touch the putrid outer layer of her attire. He kept his thoughts to himself though as he stepped further into the office.

“He is still in his office.” She spoke quietly as she lifted her keys to her hand. She didn’t know if she was supposed to stay or leave.

“Don’t keep your boyfriend waiting.” He waved at the phone and then the door.

“What?” She asked in surprise and then looked at the phone. He’d heard her say ‘I love you’ and had instantly assumed she had been talking to a lover. She gave a shake of her head. “That was my dad. He worries too much, and I have to call home to let him know when I’m leaving for the day.” Why she felt compelled to explain herself was unknown to her.

He almost laughed aloud at her words but then told himself he didn’t care an iota about her personal life. Instead, he walked away and entered William’s office without knocking and then closed the door behind him.

Feeling like she’d divulged information the hadn’t wanted to know she felt foolish as she made her way past the closed door and forced herself not to listen to the sound of Mr. Wilkins sounded like he was yet again defending himself. She was stopped by three different people along the way who all wanted copies of Drake’s speech and it took her nearly thirty minutes to reach her car. She was almost there when a man’s voice called to her.

“You, there!”

She looked up to see Drake Delaney calling to her from beside his car. He had his arms full of a briefcase and two boxes and he was tilting her head to approach him. He gave an impatient groan as she dragged her feet in his direction. She stopped near the end of his vehicle. “Is something wrong?” She was afraid in her state of frustration she might just take him with his arms full and unable to stop her.

“Yes, my hands are full, and the ground and the car are wet from the rain so I can’t set anything down and I need my keys from my pocket. Can you give me a hand?” She was going to reach into his pocket when he drew his eyebrow into his hairline.

“You could just take the briefcase.” His sarcastic tone was not missed on her, and her skin took on a deep red blush disappearing behind the thick frames of her glasses. He hadn’t realized they still made frames this large other than for sunglasses worn by movie stars hiding from paparazzi. As she took the leather case from his fingers he almost laughed at the trepidation in her movements. “I don’t bite.”

“Tell that to Wilkins’.” She muttered quietly before she could catch herself.

He paused in his movements at her words. “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing,” she spoke quickly and looked to the ground. She had no need to worry about the Guild killing her because she was quite certain she was about ready to die from either embarrassment or frustration on the spot. Either one would be welcome at this point.

“What is your name?”

“Rose.” She whispered to the ground she prayed would open and swallow her whole. Normally, she didn’t pray.

“Rose? Is that it? Where are you from?” He asked feeling as if he was yanking teeth from the mouth which barely moved.

“From accounting,” she said simply and then wished she could take it back. She waited for his reaction to the stupidity seeming to flow from her mouth but when she looked at him, he was waiting impatiently as if willing her to leave so he could go.

She turned and gave a little wave before, again in complete contrast to her normal graceful and controlled self, she stumbled over her own two feet and fell with both hands outstretched and landed directly on the hood of Bill Wilkins fire-red Ferrari. The alarm system sounded with an annoying screech and lights blaring and she wanted to kick the damn thing into silence, but Drake Delaney was helping her into an upright position and his fingers scorched her through the thin material of the jacket she’d donned and suddenly she was overcome with lust. The need to tear his clothes off and hers was almost debilitating and she needed to get away.

She tore her arms from his and raced to her car and climbed in. Without even looking back to see what kind of expression the man had on his face thanks to her insane reaction to his touch, she threw the car into gear and flew out of the parking area as if the devil himself was pursuing her. She didn’t even check her rear-view mirror ignoring the honk of the car she cut off as she tore into the street and in the direction of the freeway.