“In an elevator,” he said, the spark in his eyes mischievous, “if you’re alone with a member of the opposite sex, and by mutual admission, there is an attraction, what is the appropriate course to take? You have perhaps ninety seconds before the doors open.”
“A lot can happen in ninety seconds,” I managed, taking a sip of my chardonnay.
“Such as? Fingers trailing down your neck, my hand sliding beneath your hair, tipping your face upward?”
“That would be inappropriate,” I answered, barely able to speak. I felt sparks along my skin where he had suggested touching me. My scalp seemed to tighten, my chest rising, even heaving with a heavy breath.
“Would it still be inappropriate if I said ‘may I?’ first and you said yes?”
“No. Consent is the deciding factor.”
“Or is desire the deciding factor?” he challenged. Something rose in me then.
“Desire is subjective. You might think someone wanted you because you were projecting that or because of your ego rather than reality.”
“What about a purely biological response?” he teased, the curve to his lips absolutely filthy with suggestion.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a woman with eyes who didn’t react to you biologically.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
I nearly spit my wine out at the question. What the hell was going on? Was he really flirting this hard with me? And why? Surely there were women all over town willing to throw themselves at Brent. Why would he be pressing little old me so hard? Unless it was a joke of some sort. I almost looked around to see if there was someone with a camera hiding behind the fern in the corner.
“Your cheeks are flushed,” he pointed out ruthlessly.
“No kidding,” I said.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asked honestly.
“No. You just caught me off guard for a moment,” I said, trying to regain my composure.
“You’re not clutching your pearls,” he said teasingly.
“Just let me pretend I am, okay? I’m new to this job and not looking for a way to screw it up. I like my life and my career path. I don’t have any intentions of doing anything to jeopardize what I’ve worked pretty damn hard for.”
“Honorable,” he said lightly.
“Are you making fun of me?” I asked, feigning offense.
“Not at all. I find it oddly refreshing that you aren’t willing to trade sex for opportunity at work.”
“No. I think that’s demeaning to my education and the hard work I’ve put into establishing a good working reputation for myself.”
“I agree, it would be, but what if I were to tell you that if anything consensual were to happen, it wouldn’t affect your status at the workplace?”
I regarded him for a moment before answering. “So we sleep together and nothing at work changes?”
“If that were an option?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s possible, or at least not for me.”
“Noted.”
We went back to our meal silently for a few minutes, but I barely tasted my food as my mind raced over our conversation. What the actual fuck was happening here? We’d gone from a meeting on sexual harassment in the workplace to lunch to discuss implementing policy and ended up talking about sex.
As if sensing my thoughts spinning out of control, Brent cleared his throat to get my attention.
“Cat. Is it short for Catherine?” he asked.
“No. Caitlin.”
“Caitlin. That’s lovely. It also sounds incredibly young if I’m honest.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“Jesus, when you say that, I feel ancient.
I laughed. “Forty-seven isn’t ancient,” I said.
He leveled me with a look of surprise. “How did you know how old I am?”
I blushed again and before I could answer that I was basically a psycho stalker with his picture taped to my ceiling, he waved a hand.
“Never mind. So tell me about growing up in your small town. Tell me about you.”
“I have five brothers, so I’m an expert referee. I’m good at making deals, enforcing them. I was a natural for HR. For judging character and negotiating differences.”
“The only girl in a houseful of boys? I guess you learned to hold your own.”
“Yeah, pretty quickly. And I’m the youngest so my parents had already gotten used to raising boys. I wasn’t going to wear hair bows and be afraid of getting dirty that was for sure. They raised me to believe I could do anything the boys could.”
“Sounds like it was a good childhood.”
“It was. What about you?”
“I was raised by my grandmother. We didn’t have much, but she instilled a strong work ethic in me. I started working when I was fifteen and I’ve never stopped.”
“That’s directly from an interview you did,” I said, “what’s the real story?”
He chuckled. “I grew up wanting to prove I didn’t need my parents or anyone else. And I have. I didn’t start with nothing, because I had a grandmother who loved me and made sure I did my homework and ate supper every night. And that was what kept me from screwing up my life too much—not wanting to disappoint her after everything she sacrificed to keep me. She was my dad’s mother. He was back in jail by the time I was born, and my mother was some girl he sold drugs to, who left me on his doorstep when I was a baby.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no idea. I guess the magazines make it sound like they were noble people who died in an accident or something.”
“It’s not something I publicize, although he was a pretty successful dealer before he got busted, so maybe my business sense was inherited,” he said ruefully.
“My mom is a peacemaker, so that’s probably where I get my people skills, but my stubbornness was entirely learned from dealing with my brothers. Especially Ben. He has to have the last word no matter what. I mean, there were days that if I was big enough, I would’ve thrown him right through a window,” I laughed.
“So that’s one of your negotiating tactics? Throwing out the window?”
“No, I’d need a burly assistant to do the actual throwing. It’s a goal of mine career-wise, to hire a former bouncer to be my secretary. Then they can toss people outside for me when I’m fed up,” I said. He laughed.
“So putting your office on an upper floor may have been a mistake.”
“That depends on how you look at it. If your chronic complainers to HR who don’t like how their coworker’s coffee smells or don’t like the music that someone listens to—if those people get tossed out an upper window, I’m not even sorry.”
“Note to self, send new hires for empathy training,” he quipped.
“Right,” I said, “So, you’re divorced.”
“Wow. That was one hell of a transition,” he said.
“Okay, I can be direct. I want to know. Since the whole raised by the grandmother after an accident bit was fake, what about the divorce? Was it real?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It was years ago. The main problem there was that our expectations didn’t match. I was working eighteen-hour days plus, and she didn’t like being left alone in a penthouse and maybe seeing me a couple of days a week for an hour or two here and there. We’d have Sunday brunch, but she spent it complaining that I was never around, and I spent it ignoring her and figuring out how long I had to sit there before I could leave.”