Falling for the Boss (11 page)

Victoria
started reading the first magazine but after only one article, her eyes were so heavy she could barely hold up the magazine.  She laid it down beside her, pulled her hat down lower, pushed her sunglasses higher and
relaxed her head against the chaise lounge
.  Almost instantly she was asleep. 

Thomas shook hands with
Jim Anderson,
the
Atlanta
bureau chief.  He had one more meeting and then he would be done for the day. 

“Why don’t we go to the bar outside and have a drink?” Thomas suggested.  “It gets pretty hot here in the summers,” he said, leading the way to the patio bar. 

They sat down at one of the tables and ordered
ice tea
. The sun felt good on Thomas since he’d been cooped up in conference rooms for what seemed like months. 

He was listening to Jim go over some of the details of an initiative the Atlanta office was experimenting with when the sexiest pair of legs he’d ever seen caught his eye.  He was facing the pool but could only see the legs and not the rest of the body.  One leg was bent and the other was straight out on the lounge chair. 

“So you think this will work in other areas of the company?” Thomas asked, forcing his attention back to what Jim was explaining. 

“I think it could be applied to several of the other offices but maybe not in the manufacturing branches,” he replied and continued on with his explanation.
“If the rumors are true that
ATI
is branching out into retail, it might be applied there as well, but would need to be adjusted slightly.”

Thomas tried to focus.  Jim was going over the financial details of his idea and all Thomas could do was nod in feigned understanding.  The woman was either asleep or was reading something very interesting because she didn’t move in any way the whole time he watched her. 

Jim continued on as if Thomas were paying complete attention.  Thomas on the other hand, leaned more to the right to see if he could get a glimpse of the body attached to those legs.  But nothing worked.  Thomas took a sip of his
iced tea
and hoped Jim didn’t notice his eyes straying or his mind’s lack of concentration.  Hopefully, his sunglasses hid his eye movement
s
.

Realizing that he was straining his n
eck to get a glimpse of the sun-
bathing beauty,
Thomas leaned forward,
using
Jim to block his view of the legs.  He was embarrassed that he was so undisciplined.  Usually, when he was at work, his whole mind was there as well
and he demanded the same of his team members
.  Well, that was before
Victoria
came onto the team, he corrected.  He seemed to be noting what she wore each day, if she wore perfume, when she left the conference room and, until she came back with whatever data or file she had been pulling, his eyes strayed to the conference room doors, waiting to see her walk
back in
. 

He admitted to himself that he loved the way she walked. 
She moved with the grace of a ballet dancer.  Her whole body was perfectly still except for her hips and her legs.  And she wore high heels that made her legs look shapely.  He suspected she wore them to make up for some of her height.  He wasn’
t sure, but he assumed she was about five feet
four or five
inches tall and wanted to hide that fact. 
The shoes she wore raised her height to about five feet, seven inches tall, which only brought her to the top of his shoulder. 
In any case, he loved watching her walk, admitting, if only to himself, that it was almost a
n obsession
. 

Thomas realized he was imagining
Victoria
walking down the pool side instead of listening to Jim and refocused.  Jim was still talking numbers. 

Then two things happened at once.  The woman rolled onto her stomach and another hotel guest moved
a
chair
that had been blocking his view of the woman
.  And his heartbeat accelerated. 
Now that she was lying on her stomach, he saw that
the
sexy
legs were topped by the cutest derriere. 

Thomas turned away, forcing his eyes back to Jim.  He took a
nother
long swallow of his
iced tea
and called to the waitress for anther
, wishing he could down a glass of scotch instead
. 

“One more question,” Jim asked.

Thomas nodded his head in inquiry
but knew that he was holding his breath in anticipation of the woman moving again so he could see her face
. 

“What’s so fascinating behind me that you’ve just agreed to spend a billion
dollars impleme
nting something you have no understanding of?”

Thomas flushed. 
He’d been caught and had no recollection of the conversation. 
“I’m sorry,” he said to Jim.  “I’m a little distracted,” he said, hoping the older man wouldn’t turn around and see the sunbathing woman. 

“Can I look?”

Thomas shook his head.  “It’s just some kids playing,” he lied.  “How about if we get out of this heat and continue our discussion?”

Jim nodded.  “Sure, sure.” He said and stood up to follow.  But he couldn’t cont
ain his curio
sity since he hadn’t heard any kids playing in the pool. 

“Wow!” Jim said
, catching a glimpse of the woman’s legs stretched out on the lounger
, then picked up his
iced tea
and followed Thomas into the coolness of the hotel. 

“Okay, I saw
what had you so captivated
.
I won’t be offended now that I have to explain my idea again.”

Thomas smiled
as he
sat down in a hotel lobby chair and forced himself to listen to Jim. 
In
the back of his mind, he determined that he was going to find the woman immediately after this conversation and get to know the woman. 
M
aybe the mystery lady
could push
Victoria
out of his mind and help him get focused. 

Jim went through his idea again and Thomas was able
to offer some arguments for an
d
against the idea.  They discussed the issues associated with it and Jim left an hour later promising to submit the idea on paper with more data so Thomas could bring it up with others and fl
oat the idea at a corporate level.

Thomas shook Jim’s hand.  “Sorry
for
being distracted earlier
,” he said.

Jim laughed.  “I completely sympathize.  Am I correct in my assumption on where you’ll be headed next?”

Thomas nodded his head with a huge grin on his face.  “Absolutely.”

A few minutes later, Thomas walked out to the patio bar again and looked for her.  Sure enough, she was still fast asleep on the chair in the same position
, several sports magazines stacked beside her and another one laying open on her towel
.  Her face was turned away from him so he couldn’t tell anything about her except that she had great legs, an incredibly alluring derriere and loved sports.  With that much going for the two of t
h
em, the least that could happen was a nice dinner. 
And hopefully more, he thought to himself. 

Thomas surveyed the length of her body.  She even had nice feet, he thought.  S
he was starting to burn, he noticed as he ordered an ice tea for her and
a
beer for himself. 

He walked over to the woman and picked up the magazine that was laying on the side of her lounge chair.  Apparently she was reading an article on the upcoming hockey season.  A
very worthy effort, he thought, nodding in approval.

“Excuse me, but you’re about to burn,” he said, holding his voice low so she wasn’t startled. 

The woman lifted her head instantly and looked around, trying to get her bearings. 

“I also brought you something to cool off,” he said, holding out the frosty glass of ice
d
tea.

The woman sat up and turned over, eliminating Thomas’s very enticing view.  But her new position showed that she had very nice breasts
and a tiny waist
encased in a black bathing suit. 

“Oh my,” she said as soon
as she sat down on her bottom and instantly lifted her derriere off the seat cushion.  

He didn’t mind.  Her new position just gave him a better view of her lovely breasts. 
“A little sensitive?”
Thomas
asked.  Something about her was shooting off warning signals
but he wasn’t sure what it could be. 

And then she took off her glasses and hat
with shaking fingers
.  “Thank you for the tea,”
Victoria
said, reaching for the glass that was dripping
condensation
onto the concrete pool patio. 
“I didn’t’ realize how strong the sun was out here.”  She smiled up at him.  “You’ve been gone a long time.  Were your meetings successful?”

Thomas almost dropped the glass he was so stunned.  He should have known!  Damn!  He cleared his throat.  “You’re going to have a
hard time on the plane tomorrow,
”
ignoring her question about his meetings.  He didn’t want to discuss work.  He wanted to pull her into his arms and run his hands along her perfect skin, test it out and see if it was as soft to the touch as it looked. 

“What were the meetings about?  If you don’t mind me asking.”

Thomas had to focus quickly and wracked his brain to remember the idea Jim had talked about.  “Oh, just an idea the
Atlanta
boss wants to toss around.”

“Do you think it will work?  Can you tell me the details?”

“Jim’s a smart guy.  He’s going to send me a summary and we’ll look at it.  You can run the numbers and see if it makes sense financially,” Thomas said.  He kept his sunglasses on but even so, he tried hard not to stare at her breasts.  From what he could see from her bathing suit, they were the perfect size, just right to fit into the palm of his hand, he thought.  He cleared his throat and looked at her face. 

“Sounds interesting,” she said. 
Victoria
looked at the back of her legs, embarrassed that she had fallen asleep for so long.  “What time is it?” she asked. 

Thomas looked down at his watch.  “Five o’clock,” he replied. 

“Oh no!  I haven’t packed, I haven’t done anything to get ready for tomorrow,” she said, and grabbed h
er sarong and tied it around her
waist.  “Thank you so much for waking me up, Thomas.  I promise I won’t do anything so silly again,” she said and rushed off to the hotel lobby.

Thomas stared after her.  “Damn!” he said and drank down the whole beer.  He shook his head and followed in her wake, knowing he’d have visions of those legs tonight in his dreams. 
He wished he’d never seen her figure like that.  He now knew what she looked like without those soft, feminine suits she always wore.  That knowledge, coupled with the fact that she wore sexy underwear, was going to bother him even more. 

“Dammit!” he said again and headed back to the bar.  He needed something stronger to get his body in control.  How could one tiny woman affect him so dramatically?  And consistently?  Why c
ouldn’t she be one of those wome
n that he dated where the excitement wore off with time and familiarity?  It seemed that this attraction he had for
Victoria
was intensifying as he got to know more about her.