His Indecent Proposition (2 page)

Why, she thinks proudly, I
do
deserve
this job.

Channing Crawford listens to her monologue
with an intense look in his blazing blue eyes. When she finally
finishes, he says, “Impressive, Susan.”

“Thank you, Mr. Crawford.” She has been
standing all this while, and now her knees have a sudden urge to
buckle.

He intuits this and gestures to one of the
chairs in front of his desk. “Sit.”

“Thank you.” She seats herself
gratefully.

She is still a little terrified. Less so
than when she first walked into the room, but it’s still there – an
omnipresent, overpowering awe of him that sends palpable quakes
down her torso and limbs.

“How old are you, Susan?”

“Twenty-nine this year.”

“Isn’t that a little young to be VP?”

“Age should not be a determinant, but merit,
sir.”

He nods. His eyes haven’t left hers. She
feels herself being drawn into his blue, blue eyes – the windows
upon windows of their depths. She doesn’t dare blink for fear of
losing herself.

He says, “And what would you do for this
job?”

“Anything, sir.”

“Anything?” His deep voice takes on a
dangerous timbre.

“Yes.”

She is aware she’s treading on dangerous
territory now. Still, the offer is open-ended and questionable.
Anything
can mean working till twelve midnight every office
day and coming in on weekends and holidays.
Anything
can
mean chasing another three hundred million dollar contract to the
ends of the Earth.

Anything
is a speculative word . . .
every bit as speculative as what really happened in that Iraqi
desert.

Is she dreaming or is there an appreciative
gleam in his eyes?

“Do you have a boyfriend, Susan?”

Now the conversation is veering down a path
she had not expected. Does she really have a boyfriend? Well, she’s
technically dating Brad Thornbird, but they are not living together
or anything. She isn’t even sure they are going anywhere with their
relationship.

“Yes, sir.” A bead of sweat trickles slowly
down the back of her neck.

His eyes slowly dip to her chest and focuses
on her two jutting breasts. She has large breasts, and she can’t
mask them with officious buttoned-up clothing.
Oh my God, is
Channing Crawford checking me out?

“I have a proposition for you, Susan
Chalmers,” he says calmly. His gaze rakes her face again.

The gnawing apprehension bubbles over in her
stomach.

Oh what oh what is he going to ask me to
do?

He says, “I have seen you around and taken
note of your progress in all these years.”

You have?
She’s astonished.

“I believe you have the ruthless ambition to
make things happen for yourself.”

“I do, Mr. Crawford, I do.” This comes out
in a bit of a rush.

He leans back in his chair, and it creaks
with protest.

“You see, I have certain personal needs. I’m
looking for the right woman to fulfill them, and I believe you have
the characteristics to tend to my needs, Susan.”

She can’t believe what she’s hearing. Her
jaw drops.

“Wh-what kind of needs, Mr. Crawford?”

He steeples his hands. “Let’s just say I
enjoy taking a strong-willed, ambitious woman like yourself and
molding her into someone who will bend the knee and obey my every
command. Are you that woman, Ms. Susan Chalmers?”

The proposition dangles in front of her like
a carrot on a stick.

This can’t be happening, she thinks. This is
surreal. Channing Crawford
wants
her in the physical sense?
He who is unattainable and lives in the clouds, who is secretly
desired by every woman in the company, only they are too afraid to
even speak of it?

Bend the knee.

It sounds deliciously depraved . . . and yet
tantalizing.

Her terror surfaces again.

“Wh-what’s in it for me, sir?”

“I will be making a decision on the
Vice-President post by Friday next week. Leonard Drake, a fine
upstart individual with extremely impressive paper qualifications
and a track record that dwarfs even yours, is your main contender –
as you no doubt have acceded. He has promised to bring in the
Buchanan contract by Thursday next week.”

He lets this float in the tension-filled air
between them.

The Buchanan contract? Her spirits sink. The
Buchanan contract is the Holy Grail of contracts – the biggest,
most notoriously sought among them. Edward Buchanan is a recluse
whose company is worth eighteen billion dollars.

A recluse who donates generously to the
church.

“I see,” she says, the pit of her stomach
caving in. How can she possibly compete with that?

But that’s precisely the point.

She
can
compete with it.

Her voice is shaky as she says, “What would
you require me to do, Mr. Crawford? And for how long?”

“Let’s make it until Friday, Susan Chalmers.
As for what I require . . . well, let’s just say you will do my
every bidding . . . my every command.” His crystalline blue eyes
bore probingly into hers.

She licks her lips nervously. “And would
those . . . requests . . . be sexual in nature, sir?”

He waits a beat before answering, “Yes, for
most part.”

A deep, complex emotion courses through her
– strangely filled with equal parts fear, desire and conflict.

He adds, “I should warn you that there will
be pain along with pleasure. You will be possibly be subjected to
practices foreign to your nature. I would require your absolute
compliance. Once you have agreed, refusal of any of the requests is
not an option.”

She breathes sharply. Her heart is beating
very fast against the curvature of her ribs.

Refusal not an option? Just what does he
have in store for her? She thinks of this volatile, dangerous man
moving like a thief in Iraqi desert night, and she suddenly has an
idea of what he can and will do.

Her hands begin to tremble at the
thought.

She manages to say, “I would like to think
about it, sir.”

“Needless to say, I trust I’ll have your
discretion over the matter.”

“Yes, of course, sir.”

“I’ll expect your answer first thing
tomorrow morning.”

She nods. She feels as though all the energy
has been drained out of her.

“That will be all, Susan Chalmers.”

She knows she is being dismissed. She gets
up. The back of her panties are soaked through with her pooled
sweat.

As she exits the CEO’s office, she can feel
his eyes burning a hole in her back.

2

Susan goes back to her room, sits down and
stares at her monitor without being able to register a single word
onscreen. The meeting plays over and over again in her mind.

You will do my every bidding . . . my every
command.

I should warn you that there will be pain
along with pleasure. You will be possibly be subjected to practices
foreign to your nature.

Once you have agreed, refusal of any of the
requests is not an option.

Every word is like a hammer, a blow in the
cavern of her skull.

She has never been more petrified in her
life. Her palms are slick with sweat as she grips the edge of her
desk. She can’t even talk about this with anybody . . . well, not
if she valued her job.

She hears voices outside her door and looks
up. Leonard Drake is showing a trio of visitors she does not
recognize around the office. As they stop to admire a framed sales
chart of the best year the company ever had, he takes the
opportunity to poke his head in.

“Ah, you’re back. So how did the meeting
go?” He’s cordial, almost chatty. Very unlike his usual
demeanor.

“It went well, thank you for asking,” she
says smoothly.

He grins. “Well, I’d better be getting back
to showing our guests the boardroom. This is the Buchanan
acquisitions team. Can’t stress enough the importance of getting
their account.”

He leaves, the Buchanan team in tow.

She’s flummoxed.

So fast?

The way the Buchanan acquisition team is
chatting to Leonard – amiably, laughing as though they are old
friends – is nothing short of appalling. The implications are
obvious. She can already see the glistening ink on the contract
sheets where they will sign, effectively adding half a billion
dollars to the company’s revenue and Leonard’s spreadsheet. She can
also see the Human Resource statement slip calculating Leonard’s
commission on this.

And she can clearly visualize ‘LEONARD
DRAKE, VICE-PRESIDENT’ in gold letters on the door of the new, much
larger office he will occupy, all the way up in the floor just
below the CEO’s room.

She stares out of the door at their
retreating backs, her mind turning cartwheels.

A short musical tone from her docked laptop
alerts her. Incoming email. She checks her Inbox. It’s
[email protected]
.

Frowning, she clicks it open.

It says: “Hi babe, can’t make it for dinner
tonite. Somethin came up.”

Her mouth flattens. Brad is always doing
this – cancelling at the last minute and leaving her in a lurch to
make plans of her own.

She looks at her palms. Her flesh is
indented with her fingernails. Her head feels as though it’s been
laundered in some super spin cycle of a washing machine.

You already know what you’re going to
do.

So do it.

3

For the second time that day, she walks into
the CEO’s office. Ms. Radcliff is standing up behind her desk and
reaching for her purse.

“Susan,” she says in surprise. “It’s
lunchtime. Aren’t you going out?”

“I just have something to say to Mr.
Crawford. It’s regarding a suggestion he made this morning,” Susan
says. The blood rushes in her ears and makes all sorts of
turbine-like noises. She can hardly hear herself speak.

“Of course. Just let me buzz Mr. Crawford.
He’s not used to sudden interruptions.”

“Tell him it’s urgent.”

Ms. Radcliffe puts down her purse and
punches a button on her phone. “Mr. Crawford? Susan Chalmers here
to see you. She says it’s urgent. Yes, twice in one day, it must be
important.” She laughs.

Susan watches this exchange. She envies the
seemingly comfortable camaraderie between Ms. Radcliffe and her
boss. If only it were this easy –

Ms. Radcliffe puts down the phone and
smiles. “You can go right in.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t keep him too long. He doesn’t usually
take lunch, but it’s also his private hour, and so I wouldn’t want
to take too much out of it if I were you.”

“I promise I won’t.”

OK, here goes. Susan steels herself, bites
her lower lip and pushes through the double doors. It’s amazing how
much this man affects her.
No man should have the right to
affect me this much
.

She’s immediately assaulted by those
electric blue eyes in that wonderfully sculpted face. She almost
takes a step back in terror. At the same time, she can’t take her
eyes off him. She’s like a prey which must soon be devoured by a
predator . . . and this will be
of her own
choosing.

“Twice in a day, Susan,” he says, not
getting up from behind his desk. “I’m beginning to think you’re
stalking me.”

Again, she feels the power radiating out of
him. Her stomach goes queasy again and her feet wobble in her high
heels. If he were ugly and old, she could at least attempt to
marginalize what she is about to do. But he’s young, extremely
handsome and fascinatingly powerful in every sense of the word.
Omnipresent
is the term she ascribes to him. He sucks all
the air out of the room, and she’s breathless as a result.

Before she can lose her nerve, she says in a
rush, “Yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“Yes to your proposition, sir. I w-want the
job and I’m willing to do whatever it takes.” A warm flush
traverses down her body as she says this.

He regards her for a long, long time, and
she’s beginning to think that perhaps she had heard him wrong
previously . . . and he has no idea what she’s talking about. In
fact, this entire morning might have been a dream brought on by too
much stress.

I think I’m losing it.

Then his eyes crinkle in amusement. He says,
“I’m glad to hear of it, Susan Chalmers. I admire ambition when it
comes to ascending the corporate ladder. Reminds me of myself when
I was younger.”

I thought you were in the military, she
wanted to say, but she isn’t certain. There are so many things she
isn’t certain about when it comes to Channing Crawford.

“You’re a beautiful woman,” he says. “You
have the right body proportions . . . everything I like in the
female form. Take off your clothes.”

She thinks she didn’t hear right.

“Wh-what?”

“I said take off your clothes. I would like
to see the merchandise before I trade in a VP post for it.”

Merchandise
. So that’s what he thinks
of her. Dread pools in the pit of her stomach.

“You mean right here?”

“No, I mean in the street.” He leans back.
“Of course I mean right here. You can lock the door if you feel
more comfortable.”

Again, the fleeting thought –
so
fast?
– crosses her churning mind. She hesitates only for a
moment, and then she turns to wrench the double lock in the door so
that it slides back home.
Click
. No escape now.

She turns to him again.

It’ll be OK. He finds me beautiful.

I can do this.

She begins to unbutton her blouse from top
to bottom. He stares at her – a frank appraising gaze that
simultaneously unnerves and excites her. Oh yes, she is excited as
well because he is a very, very attractive man.
And he wants me.
He wants me enough to see me naked.
Her buttons are gold, and
she undoes them carefully, her fingers almost slipping because of
accumulated sweat.