The accountant droned on about corporate accounts, which didn’t help things. He kept glancing over at Cameron, thinking illicit thoughts about the other night, and then forcing his gaze away.
He wondered whether she had really been that good in bed, or if the situation was trapping them both in a bubble, making their night together seem much more magical than it really was.
If she wasn’t right underneath his nose, their night together would fade into the background. The fact that he couldn’t get the noises she’d made out of his head, the breathy little ohs to the shouts of pleasure… before he knew it, the meeting was over, though he'd be hard-pressed to admit that he hadn't retained most of what he'd heard. He hoped Cameron had taken good notes. They returned to his office without speaking to one another, and he got back to work, glad for the distraction.
After a long series of conference calls, Smith rubbed his temple, thinking again exactly how fucked he was.
His intercom beeped, drawing his attention. He pressed the button.
“Yes?”
“The senior Mr. Calloway is on the line for you,” Cameron said. “Should I transfer him?”
He let go of button for a second, sighing. Then he pressed it again. “Go ahead.”
After a moment, the phone started to ring. He picked it up.
“Father,” he said.
“Just calling to see how the new executive assistant is doing,” his father said. “Pretty little thing, isn’t she?”
He gritted his teeth. Of course his father would have an opinion on his assistant. His own assistants changed every few months because he couldn’t stop sleeping with them.
“She’s fine,” Smith said, keeping his voice calm.
“Well, that’s good. I was wondering if you wanted my lake house for the weekend. Take her there, show her the ropes.”
Smith wished he hadn’t expected this phone call, he really did. Unfortunately, his father was constantly encouraging him to misbehave, egging him on. Yet another reason for his strict rule against not combining work and pleasure.
“No, I don’t think I’ll need it,” he said. “Miss Turner and I will be too busy to be running around, I should think.”
“She’s not resisting your advances, is she?”
“There’s nothing to resist,” he said. Nothing now, anyway.
“I’ll fire her, if you wish.”
Smith hesitated. Although it was coming from entirely the wrong place, his father’s words did have merit. He could let his father take care of Cameron. He’d never have to see her again.
Too bad that wasn’t the kind of man Smith thought himself to be.
“No,” he answered firmly. “She’s fine where she is.”
Even though I can’t stop staring at her ass when she walks away, or thinking about what’s just underneath her skirt, he thought.
“All right, all right. Your loss. I’ve got calls to make. Talk to you later.”
His father hung up without preamble. He exhaled and leaned back in his chair, unsure what he was supposed to do.
4
A few days later, Cam straightened her stockings beneath her dress and shifted in her seat. She was looking through page after page of scanned financial documents, and coming up with nothing. And the damn stockings she wore took some getting used to, not that Erika cared.
After telling her editor a little bit of the drama — namely that she’d flirted with Smith at a bar prior to working for him — she’d gotten a stipend to go shopping.
She had plenty of dresses for work, and said so… but that didn’t stop Erika from giving her the stipend.
“Get some stockings, and the matching garters… and don’t forget panties,” Erika said. “Men love matching panties.”
Cam wasn’t sure what to say to that. She should turn red and stammer about how Smith was never going to see her panties, but he already had. She wasn’t sure how far she could go with her lie about whether or not they’d gone home together, so she bit her tongue and let it pass.
Now she was sitting in the office, staring out the window at the gorgeous view, and wondering if Smith had even noticed her lingerie. It was stupid to worry about, seeing as how he’d been hellbent on ignoring her the last few days.
She looked at the clock on her computer. It was almost noon. Time for Smith to go to lunch, and for her to clean his office.
It turned out that Smith had a compulsive streak of tidiness. Every day, he put all his trash in the trash can, and then sat the can next to the door. When she hadn’t noticed it the first day, he’d took her aside and showed her that the trash went into a bin downstairs.
He also showed her the cleaning closet, a sleek chrome panel in the wall of his office that opened to show a dazzling array of cleaning products. Every day at noon, she was expected to vacuum, dust, and polish everything in his office.
And she’d learned to be quick about it; the first time she cleaned, she took the whole lunch hour, trying to be perfect. She was alarmed when he came back from lunch as she was finishing, and then launched into composing a letter, expecting her to transcribe as he dictated.
Her stomach had growled all afternoon that day, until she could sneak away for a couple quick bites of her lunch. Smith Calloway was a little more than particular, that was for sure.
She sighed. Picking up her purse, she rummaged around inside and pulled out a necklace. The necklace had a locket, a little gold one, its etching worn smooth from being touched. She rubbed the outside of the locket now, comforting herself.
The phone rang at her desk, and she answered it.
“Hello?”
“Yes, this is the senior Mr. Calloway’s office calling,” a nasally older woman responded. “Mr. Calloway would like a meeting with both you and his son, as soon as possible.”
Cam’s hand flew to her throat. Had Smith complained about her to his father? She’d barely been here a week!
“Certainly,” she said, though it came out sounding weak.
“Mr. Calloway would prefer it if you came now. Will that be possible?”
“Let me check,” she said, putting the woman on hold. She put the necklace back in her purse quickly.
She took a deep breath, exhaled, and then went to Smith’s office door. She knocked, and was told to come in.
“What is it?” Smith asked, not looking up from his computer.
“Your father wants to see us both in his office. Now, if possible.”
She tried not to let her voice shake, tried to stand tall. It wasn’t as if she’d done anything wrong… yet.
“Us?” he said, pausing.
“Yes. Both of us,” she said.
He remained perfectly neutral, which she had learned to expect from him.
“All right. Tell them we’ll come up now,” he said, closing his laptop.
Cam nodded, hurrying back out to give the secretary the heads-up. When she hung up, Smith was at the doorway, his expression hooded.
She cleared her throat.
“Do you, um… do you know what this is about?” she asked.
He glanced at her, his midnight blue eyes curious. “I have no idea.”
She swallowed back any other questions she had. After all, she was about to find out what the big boss said, wasn’t she?