He cut her off with that same commanding tone. “It’s been filled. By me. And parking”—he shook his head and looked around with an expression of exasperation—“is a ridiculous problem here, so while I respect your need to stay and, uh, read, I need this spot.” Leaning forward, his eyes twinkled as he smiled, trying to charm her, his voice shifting from commanding to smooth.
It was working. The scent of his aftershave filled the car’s interior. Musk and man and something with spice—an expensive scent that was far too sophisticated for a guy who was one parking spot ahead of her in the food chain at Bournham Industries. He held her gaze for too long, letting silence hang between them.
He was what her friend Krysta called a “playah.”
And oh, how Lydia wanted to be played.
She hated herself for it, but right now Mr. Director of Social Media was stealing her parking spot. A girl had to have some limits.
“You’re telling me that HR gave you the director’s job and handed off my parking spot?” she squeaked. The voice that came out of her sounded foreign. Tame. Rattled. She brushed a stray lock of her dark brown hair and wished she’d spent more time on her appearance this morning. After a quick yoga session, she just showered, threw her hair in a quick up-do, and tossed on her version of administrative business casual: a loose, flowing J. Jill outfit she got off the clearance rack and her ancient Danskins. She looked like a preschool teacher at a posh tot place instead of an ambitious, up-and-coming corporate do-bee vying for the director of social media job.
Oh. That’s right.
It was taken.
He pulled back and smiled, a look of triumph and mischief on his face. “Now you get it. And I didn’t even have to buy you a coffee.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake, and I figured it might be caffeine deprivation. It is 7:30 a.m., after all.” Half his mouth turned up in a grin as his brow furrowed. “Then again, maybe I interrupted you at the wrong time during your reading.”
Biting his upper lip, Mr. Asshole Matt Jones had the balls to hide a laugh. As if she were supposed to be embarrassed reading Fifty Shades. As if she cared what he thought.
“Let me clear a few things up for you, Matt,” she announced. Finally. There she was. The real Lydia, the one who didn’t take crap like this.
“First of all, I don’t care what HR did with the parking situation. I won’t take your word for it, because for all I know you’re some creepy guy pulling a scam on me and if I get out of my car you’ll take me to your dug-out hole and lower lotion to me in a bucket, and three months from now you’ll mail dehydrated parts of my body to my mother.”
She took a deep breath and continued. “Second, if you really are the director of social media, kicking your direct report out of her parking spot when you haven’t even started your first day of work shows such extraordinarily terrible business instincts that I suspect you won’t be around long enough to qualify for the matching 401k funding through your precious head office.”
Eyebrows arched, now he did lean away. And cross his arms. Staring her down? She stared right back, working too hard to control her breath, trying not to let him see how rattled she was. He looked like a young Anderson Cooper.
But straight.
Oh, please let him be straight, she thought, then mentally slapped herself. Where did that come from?
He leaned in the window and reached for a strand of her hair. “Sorry, babe. Chianti and fava beans aren’t on the menu. And if I were going to turn you into something edible, I wouldn’t choose a dehydrator as my electronic item of choice.” His eyes surveyed her body as if he owned her.
As if he owned his time. And boy did he take it, seeming to document her full breasts, her nipped waist, the tight skirt that stretched across her knees in her seat, shoes kicked off and hose covering her pedicured toes.
She could feel him note the seam of her panties, like a collector of fine wines, or of horses, as if she were a specimen. The V between her breasts pinkened, her lungs filled with the scent of his skin, as if eager to inhale his dust, the lines between his eyes, the light freckles on his cheeks, the intelligence in his irises.
He was cataloging her. Taking inventory.
Until her own, defiant gaze caught his and she realized he wasn’t objectifying her.
He was appreciating her.
And that was way, way more threatening than being demeaned.
“See you at the office—and don’t forget to wash your hands when you’re done with that,” he said, pointing at the book. Turning on one heel, he sauntered off, his tight ass evoking a swoon in her that nearly made her growl with impotent rage and lust. Lydia stared at the main doors to the office building as they shut slowly under the control of the pneumatic system, Matt Jones’ body disappearing as if swallowed.
The day was not going well at all as she stewed in her Red Car of Pain.
Squaring her shoulders, she slipped out of her vehicle and walked with purpose toward the main entrance. If nothing else, she hadn’t relinquished her parking spot. A petty victory, but one she needed.
In the distance, the main doors to Bournham Industries stood apathetic, uncaring, and monolithic. Stone and steel didn’t care about a worker do-bee like Lydia. Pulleys and fuses and computer boards moved the elevator up, filled with Matt Jones, taking him where she knew he would need her.
Need her. She would be supporting the very person she’d intended to be. Director of social media.
Playing it cool, she stood in front of the fleet of elevators, pressing the button for the one that covered her floor, and wondering where he was. By the time she got to her cubicle she realized he wasn’t there yet, probably in human resources torturing one of those women with his arrogance. He carried it like a stick, poking people with it.
Stockinged feet propped up on her desk, leaning back on her ergonomically correct chair and using it improperly, with the first volume of Fifty Shades of Grey opened wide in her hands, she let herself sink into the plot.
Uh, yeah—the plot. It was the hottest trigger in publishing in ages, and she needed to practically memorize it for a huge project she was working on—one that might get her promoted out of admin hell.
A muffled tap tap tap announced his presence as he pseudo-knocked on the cloth-covered wall of her cubicle. He was the most charming asshole she’d seen in the past two years. And the only reason she knew it had been two years was because two years ago, right after she’d been hired, she had actually met the CEO of the company, Michael Bournham.
This guy looked just enough like him to make her recall the encounter she’d had, though the new guy looked much younger. Where Bournham was known as the “Silver Fox” for having gone completely silver in his early thirties, this guy had light brown hair, green eyes (unlike Bournham’s famous sparkling sapphires) and a look of arrogance that was slightly watered down compared to the CEO.
“Excuse me?” he said, rapping on her door. Lydia put the book down, careful to make sure that the cover was facing away from him, and yet also noting the smirk on his face as he followed her movements and stared at the book’s back.
“Excuse me,” she replied, hands on hips, standing as tall as she could considering her stockinged feet and her obvious surprise at being interrupted by him again.