Field of Pleasure (5 page)

“C
hyna, do you have the commodities report?”

Chyna looked up from her computer screen to find Eric Steinberg peering over the top of her cubicle.

“It's still printing,” she answered. She snatched the papers from the bed of her printer and tapped them on the desk, straightening the thirty-plus-page report that would likely be skimmed then tossed aside. The printer spit out the last couple of pages, and Chyna added them to the stack and handed it to Eric across the top of the five feet high cubicle wall.

“Hey,” Eric whispered. “Meet me in the copy room in five minutes.”

“You're a newlywed, Eric. You shouldn't be inviting coworkers to the copy room,” Chyna said, tsking.

He cut her with a dirty look. “Just meet me in the copy room.”

Grinning, Chyna locked her computer screen and headed for the common area. She peeked into several
of her coworkers' workspaces as she traveled along the long corridor of cubicles.

“Thanks for your help with the commodities report, Elaine. I just turned it in,” she said to one of the interns who shared a cubicle with two others.

Chyna remembered those days. When she'd first started at Marlowe & Brown Hedge Fund eight years ago, not only did she share a cubicle with two other girls, they all shared the same computer. She'd graduated to a computer of her own several months later and over the course of the past eight years had moved to her own cubicle.

But she had her eyes on a bigger prize. An office. With a door. And, be still her heart, possibly even a window.

Okay, that was asking for a bit too much. She would be happy to work in a space where coworkers had to knock to enter instead of just poking their heads over the top of her cubicle. Chyna was so close she could taste the free lattes that were served in the Monday morning management meetings.

She entered the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee—not a fancy latte, but a caffeine boost nonetheless. She was emptying a packet of sweetener into her cup when Eric's voice jolted her.

“I said the copy room,” he said.

She jumped, sending sweetener everywhere. “Goodness, Eric!” Chyna dusted at the smattering of white powder that clung to the front of her sweater. “If you don't mind, I'd prefer not to have a heart attack today.”

Eric grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her out of the open kitchen area and into the adjacent copy room where he closed the door.

“What's so urgent?” Chyna asked, wringing her arm from his grip.

“Guess who just accepted a job with the Cohen Group?” Eric asked with a smug grin.

“You're leaving?”

“Not me,” Eric snorted. “Are you forgetting who my father-in-law is? I'm here for life.”

“Then who?” Chyna asked.

“Katie Parker.”

Her heart started thumping like a Broadway ensemble within her chest. “Don't you toy with me, Eric Steinberg.”

“Being the son-in-law of one of the founding partners has its perks,” Eric said. “Melissa and I had dinner at her folks' place last night. Tom spent the entire meal griping about the Cohen Group stealing away his employees. He said Katie turned in her resignation yesterday afternoon.”

Chyna managed to quell the exhilaration that was on the verge of erupting out of her, but just barely. There were several candidates vying for the recently vacated junior management position in Marlowe & Brown's Risk Assessment department, but Katie Parker was the only one with an edge over Chyna. Katie had recently earned a MBA in finance whereas Chyna was still working on her bachelor's degree. They had both been at the hedge fund for eight years and were even when it came to practical work experience. And they were both light years ahead of the other candidates.

If Katie was no longer in the running for the position…

“Eric, are you one hundred percent sure about this?” Chyna asked. “You'd better not be toying with me.”

“I'd never joke about something like this. She's leaving at the end of March,” Eric said. “That job is yours. Con
gratulations.” He gave her a thumbs-up before heading out of the copy room.

Chyna sucked in a steadying breath, hoping to abate the excited, almost nauseated feeling stirring in the pit of her stomach.

This was what she wanted. It was what she'd been working toward for the past eight years. When she'd applied for a job as the assistant to an assistant at Marlowe & Brown, she hadn't even known what a hedge fund was. Three weeks out of high school, the only thing she'd known was that she wanted to work somewhere that required a business suit. She used to envy the women in suits who had always looked so important riding the subway on their way into the city. Her goal in life had been to become one of them.

It hadn't taken her long to discover that at a place like Marlowe & Brown, even the coffee fetchers were required to wear business suits, which was why she'd devised her five-year plan. It had taken Chyna longer than she'd first anticipated—she'd had to take off two semesters from school when her dad first fell ill. But it had all been worth it in the end. She was less than a semester away from earning her bachelor's degree, the only requirement of the junior management position that she did not possess. If Katie Parker and her MBA were no longer a threat, that job was hers.

Chyna told herself the burning in her chest was just a touch of indigestion from the overly strong coffee, and not uneasiness. She straightened the tiny boxes of paper clips and Post-it notes in the supply cabinet. Now that the prize was within her grasp, she needed a few moments to digest this new turn of events and think about how it would affect her life.

She needed this promotion. The salary was nearly
forty percent more than what she was currently making as an administrative assistant. Of course, it also meant she would no longer be a nonexempt employee, but that didn't matter. She was hardly ever called on to work overtime.

That would change if she moved into the junior management position, though. Chyna had worked in Risk Assessment long enough to know the ins and outs of the department. It was commonplace to find management here long after the sun had gone down.

What would she do about the classes she taught at the dance school three times a week? Her girls wouldn't understand anything about reviewing and analyzing credit inquiries. The only thing they would understand was that their teacher had pushed them to the side because she had more important things to do.

“You don't even have the job yet,” Chyna chastised herself under her breath. Liani constantly accused her of heaping unnecessary worry on her head. She was beginning to see her friend's point.

Still, as she made her way back to her cubicle, Chyna couldn't help but think about all she would have to give up in order to earn an office with a door. She had devised a pros-versus-cons list the minute she'd learned of the position, and even though the cons were winning by a landslide, there was one thing on the pros list that outweighed everything else.

Security.

This promotion would mean having a savings account that could finally reach five figures before she had to dip into it to help her parents out with their bills during the months when their fixed income couldn't cover them all. It would mean having the freedom to buy herself a nice
sweater or pair of shoes without waiting for them to go on sale.

Chyna didn't want to think about the things she would have to give up if she were offered this new job. Nothing was as essential as the peace of mind that would come with her forty-percent-bigger paycheck.

She sat behind her desk and pulled up another report that was due by the end of the day. Her cell phone trilled in her purse.

“That's the third time in less than twenty minutes your phone has rung,” her coworker Ma Ling said from one cubicle over.

Chyna's breath caught. That many calls in such a short time span could only mean one thing: something had happened to her dad. She dove into the bag for the phone, imagining her dad on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face.

She didn't recognize the number. Oh, God, it had to be a hospital calling.

Ma Ling stood just outside the entrance to her cubicle, concern pinching her forehead into a pronounced vee.

“What happened?” Chyna answered with a frantic gasp.

“Is that how you answer the phone?”

Jared Dawson's amused murmur sent a barrage of emotions ping-ponging through Chyna's system. Relief that it wasn't the hospital calling to say her dad had finally coughed up one of his emphysemic lungs was instantaneously followed by a surge of nervous energy.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought it was some kind of an emergency.”

“It is, in a way. I only have five minutes left of my break before another two hours of drills. I wanted to
make sure I got hold of you before going back to the practice field.”

Chyna eyed her coworker standing anxiously a few feet away. She covered the receiver and mouthed, “It's okay.”

Ma Ling's tense face visibly relaxed and she returned to her cubicle.

“Are you still there?” Jared asked.

“I am,” Chyna said, pushing away from her desk. “Just…give me a minute.”

The cubicles didn't offer much privacy, and she didn't want the entire office to know that Jared Dawson was on the other end of the line. The minute she'd shared news of her freelancing job with the Saberrettes, her coworkers had started bombarding her with questions about the team, despite Chyna's repeated insistence that she did not have unlimited access to Sabers players. If anyone found out it was Jared on the phone the questions would never stop.

Chyna made it to the restroom and dipped inside. She stooped low, checking for feet under the stalls.

“Chyna?”

“I'm here,” she said. “Just making sure I'm alone. Jared, why are you calling me?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“To find out what time I should pick you up tonight,” he replied.

Chyna's eyelids slid shut. She'd been holding on to a string of hope that he'd forgotten about the dinner date she'd agreed to in the one moment her common sense had decided to go on vacation. She knew she should have called and canceled, but between work, class and the dozens of other things on her plate, time had slipped away from her.

“Jared. I'm sorry, but I can't go out with you tonight.”

“Did something come up?”

Yeah. Her good sense.
“You can say that,” Chyna said.

“What about tomorrow night?”

She should just come out with it. She had always been a Band-Aid ripper, not the gently tug type.

“Not tomorrow, either. I can't go out with you. At all.”

“Why?” The one-word question was drenched in disappointment.

Chyna winced. What had she been thinking to agree to a date with him in the first place? “I told you before, there are rules against dating players.”

“Haven't we already discussed this? That rule doesn't apply to you since you're not an official member of the squad.”

“Call it a personal rule then. I don't go out with Sabers players.” He groaned on the other side of the phone line. “I didn't say my rule was fair, but it's still my rule,” Chyna said.

“Well, I think you should have an exception.”

“It was Cedric Reeves, but I heard he's off the market,” she teased, hoping to lessen the blow of her refusal. That she was concerned about his feelings at all sounded alarm bells ringing in her head. His feelings, hurt or otherwise, had nothing to do with her.

“That's not funny,” Jared said about her quip. “Honestly, Chyna, are ball players really so bad?”

“Not all of you,” she said. “It has more to do with me. I—” The bathroom door opened and a woman from the acquisitions division entered. Chyna lowered her voice. “It's not you,” she said.

“You didn't just try to feed me the ‘It's not you, it's me' line, did you?”

She totally had. How guys who used that line could
stomach the overwhelming sense of smarminess that engulfed her was mind-boggling.

“In this instance, it fits,” she stated. “Look, Jared, I really need to get back to work. I'm sorry if you made plans already, but you'll need to cancel them. Or just take one of the other girls from the squad,” she finished, then ended the call before he could respond.

Chyna braced her hands against the countertop and studied her reflection in the mirror. Canceling had been the smart thing to do.

Liani had filled her in on how things worked between the players and those cheerleaders who chose to break the no-fraternizing rule. The girls allowed themselves to be wined and dined as they played the part of the hot girlfriend. Sometimes they got a pair of nice earrings or the latest Coach bag out of the deal, but often it was at the price of their self-respect.

The thought of finding herself in that same position ate at the very core of her being. She didn't need to latch on to a rich football player to get by in life. She had learned to rely on herself a long time ago. Ever since the day her father lashed out at her for asking for money to attend dance classes, Chyna recognized that if she wanted something she had to get it for herself. She'd collected aluminum cans and did odd jobs for her neighbors until she'd earned enough money to send herself to dance camp.

She didn't need anyone to take care of her. She did just fine on her own.

Jared had seemed sincere when he'd interrupted her study session last Sunday night. In fact, he'd been so sweet that she was hit with the warm fuzzies every time she walked passed the Patisserie, and it had nothing to do with their chocolate-filled croissants.

But it didn't matter. She had papers to write and dance classes to teach. She had a job promotion to score. She didn't have time in her life for any man right now, and even if she did, it wouldn't be a member of the New York Sabers.