FALLING HARD SERIES (4 stories)

CHAPTER THREE: CRUEL WORLD

Life is beautiful but the world is cruel.

That was Oden’s favourite quote, and boy was he right! Completely disheartened, Ashleigh dragged her feet as she left the office of yet another law firm, almost ruing the fact that she’d married so early as she was once again rejected.

Too inexperienced. Too young.

Twenty-three years old was quite young to be hitched, especially to someone as intimidating as Oden Fisher. Sometimes, she had the feeling that his outgoing personality swallowed her very existence.

Out of its own volition, her mind drifted to their first meeting. She’d been working as a trainee legal assistant in the Taylor Hudson law firm, as she’d just completed her graduation. To be honest, it was Pippa who had referred her as her friend worked as junior associate for the redoubtable Deborah Hudson.

When the much renowned Oden had finally joined office on her first day, it had taken only exactly one glance for her to fall. But even at twenty-one, she knew that was hardly enough to be called love.

Infatuation. Lust. Deprivation.

For one whole week, she managed to steer clear out of his way, making sure that their paths never collided. As for Oden, he was barely in office during working hours, most probably attending meetings with clients and must not even have noticed her.

Which had been exactly what she wanted until the Tuesday of her second week. She was brewing her coffee in the common kitchen, meticulously cleaning up her mess when a voice from behind her made her jump.

“God, this smells so good,” and she’d instinctively known that such a sexy bedroom voice must have belonged to Oden. God was cruel sometimes. Couldn’t He have bestowed upon him a squeaky pathetic sound instead of that smooth chocolate masculine voice? Cruel and unfair.

Bracing herself, she turned around with a fake smile plastered all over her face only to swallow it back as she found herself staring in the most beautiful shade of green she’d ever come across. Squinting, she tried to place a name on that nuance of color. Olive? It was too bright thought. Chartreuse was more likely. It was an electric green which sparkled with intensity.

Caught up by the phenomenon, she completely missed his amused look and the way he subjected her to a head-to-toe appraisal.

He was so close that she could smell his expensive after-shave, his five o’clock shadow beard highlighting his cheekbones in quite a fascinating way. She couldn’t resist staring like a starved woman having been granted an oasis in a dessert, her eyes roaming everywhere on his face as her feminine instincts appreciated every inch.

“Umm… okay. That is quite rude,” he commented awkwardly which acted like a dose of reality to her enthralled state.

“Sorry,” she apologized instantly, bristling with self-indignation at her stupidity. Must she behave like such a besotted fool in front of the man? Granted he was gorgeous but that was hardly a reason to drool over him like a puppy.

Ugghh woman! Get a life.

Turning around to catch her breath, she pretended to continue her menial task while desperately trying for something to say. Something smart.

“You must be TheFisher?” the rhetorical question out before she could control it. Damn her running mouth anyway.

He only grinned back apparently unoffended by the nickname as he moved next to her near the coffee machine. “Is that what they call me behind my back?”

Damn! Another goof!

Really feeling out of her depth, she shrugged in silence yanking her mug with more force than necessary, ready to make a quick exit.

“Can you make me some of that stuff?” he asked just as she’d reached the door.

Facing him, she didn’t even realize she was frowning. “I’ve promised myself that I don’t want to be known as an assistant who can only make good coffee,” she protested, all the while berating herself for being so outspoken.

Oden appeared also taken aback by her audacity, staring at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Like she was someone who mattered. Ash found herself catching her breath as she waited for him to explode. Was he going to fire her right away?

“Fair enough,” he capitulated instead, leaning his large frame against the quartz table, his body taking an appealing posture despite himself. “You seem quite confident about the quality of your coffee. Let me the judge of that first then we can negotiate.”

Spoken like a true lawyer.

Without further argument, Ash deposited her mug on the table, and opened her coffee ‘safe’ as her college friends used to tease her. She knew that the aroma was enough to depict the quality of the coffee she was going to make.

“Let me guess,” Oden immediately accosted her, sniffling excessively like he was running a cold. “Fresh beans?”

Smiling inwardly, she crushed the beans into a powder, the action so familiar to her that she could even do it on her sleep. “From Mr. Rachid Hassan, an immigrant from Yemen.”

“Hmmm,” he mused as he stared lovingly when she poured the dark rich brown liquid into his mug.

Ash couldn’t help feeling thrilled at his fascination, surely to capture the attention of a man of his caliber was next to impossible. For her, coffee was cult. She needed her morning coffee rituals with fanatic precision, and finding that Oden was as addicted as herself was kind of cute.

“Milk?” she asked and he nodded but took the cup from her and added two spoons and mixed the concoction.

So, he also had his coffee without sugar. Another plus point for him.

“Mmmmmmm,” he moaned loudly as he hastened to take his first sip, and Ash forgot about her religious ritual of afternoon coffee as she nearly dropped to her knees in pure exaltation. That man was really a specimen but with him letting out appreciative sexy howls like that, it was impossible not to be turned on. Erogenous places she never knew existed within her awakened to life from their dormant states, and she squeezed her legs together in order to reign in Mrs. G – that was the name she’d given to her p***y when it misbehaved.

“Local roaster near my place. He has a coffee plantation at his place and I have been buying fresh beans every afternoon from him for the past three years.”

Ash winced at her lame attempt to distract Mrs. G, resorting to vapid nonentities like a schoolgirl. Thankfully, the man seemed caught in a trance of his own, and Ash hesitated, uncertain if he was even hearing her. Maybe she should leave him to his new-found love.

But the vision of him so enchanted by her coffee glued her to the spot as she allowed herself full liberty of admiring the man for the sheer beauty he exuded.

The inopportune interruption as some other staff entered the kitchen was as welcomed as resented. Without giving herself time to react, Ash dashed towards the door without even bothering to take her own coffee mug.

That should have given anyone who knew her enough indication of her distress. Ashleigh Leia Campbell never skipped her coffee rituals. Never.

Which was why she was in quite a foul mood for the rest of the evening, her wrath directed at a certain gorgeous male who had hijacked all her attention, rendering her inordinately useless.

A few hours later, she gave up any pretense of getting any work done and snapped her laptop with an irritated snarl.

“My, my. Someone is in a bad mood,” came the ever so sexy drawl across her cubicle and she forgot to breathe for a moment.

What was Oden doing at her desk?

The question must have been written all over her face because he shrugged nonchalantly as he all but dropped her mug on the papers she’d been working on. “You forgot that,” he supplied oh- so-helpfully, before adding. “I drank your coffee as well in case you were wondering. It would have been such a waste.”

That confession did nothing to improve her temper, on the contrary it got worse.

“What do you want Oden?” she snapped bad humoredly, and heard the audible gasp from her colleagues around her. Nobody spoke to Oden in such a tone, everybody worshipped the very Earth he walked on. But Ash had skipped her afternoon coffee and that vile man had just rubbed salt to her wounds by admitting to stealing it!

“Coffee blend?” he asked without missing a beat.

She sighed in defeat. “Yes. Mocha Java.”

“What if we cut a deal?” he queried, leaning over her desk which inadvertently gave the impression that they were whispering something intimate. “I would need two cups from you twice a day. I think I am never going to like that brackish thing they make in my entire life.”

The words were spoken so passionately that Ash found her anger melt at how endearing he was. Like a child trying to wriggle himself out of a rule.

“So, I’m going to grant you something which has never been given to anyone in this office before.”

He sounded serious and Ash would have believed him if it wasn’t for the way his marvelous green eyes sparkled with mirth. He was teasing her?

Still in close proximity with her, Ash had to swallow hard past the lump down her throat but still couldn’t manage a word out. She’d rather not anyway, it would sound too pathetic if any word came out. And Mrs. G was pulsing out of rhythm when she had no business here!

“So ask me anything in return. You have TheFisher in a tight spot.”

A kiss? For one insane instance, Ash bit her lips in consternation, thinking she’d uttered the words out loud. Thanks to his unchanging expression, she finally gathered that it was only her mind which was thoroughly corrupted.

Feigning casualness which she was far from feeling, Ash pretended to consider his request for a while. Asking for a work privilege or personal favor would end their interaction, and she was interested enough to pursue that attraction without apparent desperation.

“What do you like more than coffee?”

The olive-green color intensified as shock registered in Oden’s eyes, seeming completely taken aback by her odd question. When he realized that it was a genuine query, he started to think, his thick eyebrows forming a perfect pattern.

“It would be… umm… the pretzel down the streets,” he finally confessed, albeit a bit reluctantly.

Ash beamed with pleasure, even daring to bat her eyelashes coquettishly at him in a flirtatious way. “We’ve got a deal then. As long as I make you coffee, you will let me accompany you when you devour those delicious pretzels down the street.”

“Deal,” he finally concluded after closing his mouth several times like a goldfish unable to let out a single protest.

So, the following day their coffee-pretzel ritual began. When she entered the kitchen the next morning, her treacherous heart flipped over inside her chest as if it was expecting another encounter with Oden. But the man in question was nowhere in sight. Hesitantly, she brewed two cups and wondered about her next course of action. Did he expect her to bring him his cup to his office?

“Is that for Mr. Fisher?” Susan the kitchen attendant asked as she emerged from the corridor. “He asked me to bring it to his office if you can’t.”

Was that a hidden message? Was he testing her?

Caught in the dilemma, she urged herself to muster some courage to affirm that there was no problem for her to take his coffee to his office.

He was on the phone with him facing the window when his secretary allowed her past. Partly relieved, she was about to make a quick getaway when he turned around at the slightest sound.

Much to her disappointment, he showed no reaction when he saw her, making her feel foolish for having read between the lines. She sincerely hoped she was not developing a crush on that man, something which would be mortifying since it would never be reciprocated.

Flashing a brief smile when she caught herself staring – again, she placed the tray containing the two cups carefully on his desk, ignoring him as she shifted his cup to his desk. Without looking back at him, she again took utmost precaution to dangle the single cup with remarkable equanimity on the tray.

“Thank you,” he growled sexily and she could not resist looking at him, the reception in his eyes warm enough to melt her insides.

Oh God! He was coming onto her!

“We meet at two?” he whispered, before grimacing towards his phone in a telling gesture, and answering what looked like a question with lots of legal jargons she completely missed.

Her poor sodden mind could not register the subtlety as she was too intoxicated with the probability that he could be interested in her. Could she be misreading the signals?

Ash did not have much experience in guys hitting on her. Well decent guys like him anyway. Or guys whom she fancied too much for her own good.

With a dazed nod, she almost ran out of the office, her heart beating like she had participated in the world’s longest marathon. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t like the first time she had crushed on someone, she was after all a perfectly normal woman with hormones.

Her fixation with Oden felt more intense, like the feelings overwrote everything else. Her mind. Her rationale. Her bloody self.

Ashleigh was completely wasted throughout the whole day, jumping at every phone call, panicking whenever anyone called her name. When the clock struck two, she fidgeted in her seat, unsure of how to proceed. Should she go to him? Wait for him down? Wait for him?

Her phone pinged showing a message from an unknown number. Waiting for you downstairs near the elevator.

Not giving herself time to react, she grabbed her bag and scarf and rushed to the meeting place to find him wearing a large grin on his face in guise of greeting. That kind of reception was enough to make her forget her nervousness, and offered a smile in return.

They strolled down to the pretzel vendor in comfortable silence, like two old friends and she hugged herself happily while Oden ordered two pretzels.

At the first epic bite, she almost understood why he preferred the pastry to coffee. ALMOST.

“So what do you want to be known for?” he asked, with his mouth full of one mammoth bite of the pretzel, which was consisted of almost half of the pastry.

“Huh?” she was completely clueless of the direction of his question.

“The other day…,” he paused, chewing diligently with relish before continuing. “… you said you didn’t want to be known as one who makes good coffee. So what do you want to be known for?”

“Uhmmm… I don’t know. I mean… ummm.”

“No offense intended. Haven’t you ever aspired to be a lawyer?”

To his credit, he sounded more curious than disparaging with a smile so gentle that his handsome features shone with an almost angelic outlook. She smiled in turn despite having hated that question from others in the past.

“Every person who has studied law would inevitably want to become lawyer. I am not a good enough liar, I guess. I just can’t bluff. And you know it’s a cruel life out there.”

“I beg to differ. Life is beautiful but the world is cruel,” he corrected with a wink, the quotes proverb making sense then and even now.

As she came back to the present, Ash realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks as she was caught up in a terrible sense of nostalgia, wanting to undo her decision. Regrets swamped her, as she encountered a moment of weakness during the ordeal she was going through.