“Well, I must be going!” she trilled. Honest to God trilled. And then she clasped my hand earnestly. What the hell was this? “My dear, I wish you the very best.”
She must be more relieved than I ever thought possible that Grant and I were kaput. Sure, it wasn’t the best PR move for Grant and the company, but he was free and clear of me now and I was no longer a financial liability nor a smudge on their good family name. No wonder Portia was in such a good mood. Too bad I wasn’t.
Portia swept out of the bathroom, leaving me with but one thought in my severely rattled head:
What the fuck?
FIVE
There were probably dungeons and torture chambers more intimidating than the executive boardroom, but I’d certainly never come across any. The dark walnut of the long table gleamed malevolently, and the dim wall sconces definitely added to the Pit of Despair vibe.
Standing and sitting around the room were plump, self-important men who looked as though they’d been born in their thousand dollar suits, they seemed so at ease with the power they held. The room was long and narrow, my seat the farthest from the door and thus the farthest from escape.
And of course seated at the opposite end of the table, like a king about to pronounce royal decree, was Grant.
The second I stepped into the room, Grant’s eyes had snapped towards me; his head had remained still, as if he were a wolf tracking me with his ice-blue eyes, not wanting to give away his intent with movement. His tie matched his eyes, made them seem even brighter, like lasers that could cut straight through me. I could feel his gaze burning along the lines of my body as I took my seat, trying not to feel the flush of heat it awakened between my legs.
Our eyes met, and again I saw that flicker—of the old Grant, the one who’d accidentally driven us straight into a duck pond on a souped-up golf cart, the one who I’d beaten at video games, the one who’d laughed with me and moaned my name and pulled my hair and—but then he looked away again, his jaw set, his neck gone stiff with tension.
“So you’ve deigned to join us,” he said coldly, without glancing at me again, even though a peek at my watch told me I still had five minutes before the meeting officially started. “And where are we on the projections for the next quarter?”
“Well, the situation’s growing in complexity because—”
“I didn’t ask about the situation, Miss Newman,” he cut me off, his voice hard. All other chatter in the room dropped to dead silence. “I asked about the projection.”
“I’m just trying to explain—”
“Do let us know when you are actually able to explain, instead of simply trying,” Grant said, already dismissing me. “In the meantime, if anyone else has actually prepared for this meeting…”
There was a sudden flurry of movement and sound as the others began to address the first item on the agenda, but I couldn’t raise my head to meet anyone’s eyes, let alone listen to their words and come up with appropriate responses. Unshed tears stung my eyes, and my cheeks burned with humiliation. That asshole—he had no right—I was going to—to—to—
Worse than the fact that Grant had been so unspeakably cruel I couldn’t even think of an appropriate retaliation was the fact that some small traitorous part of my brain—no, who was I kidding, my brain had nothing to do with this—was actually aroused.
Even as I longed to storm off and have a good cry in my office, my mind was assaulted by mental images of Grant in that dark suit, taking control, ordering me to my knees…maybe he’d slowly unwrap that blue tie from around his neck, tease the soft silk fabric across the sensitive skin at the tops of my breasts, before tying it tightly around my wrists and—
I felt myself growing lightheaded, my thighs tensing, and I tried to shove my thoughts back toward the meeting. I couldn’t think about this, not now. I couldn’t think about Grant’s deep, dark voice demanding, about me complying. I couldn’t think about how I might pay him back for his pleasurable tyranny…
Dammit! I couldn’t let myself think about that. I had to focus. Baby steps. People were talking, focus on the people talking. Portia was talking. Okay, Portia was talking, so what was Portia—
Wait a minute. Portia?
What the hell was Portia doing at an executive meeting?
“In summary,” Portia said, “While our performance in some areas has been heartening, questions remain. Why have we not made more payments on the Jankowski Project loan? Why aren’t we pursuing more cost-cutting measures?”