RomanceFromSweettoKinkybyBerengariaBrown (3 page)

“No. Actually I don’t want her sent away. I’d like to get to know her.”

Where did that come from? Why would I want to know about a useless office worker? I
never wanted to know about any of the others.

Yeah but you didn’t look up their details in the employee files either!

Gareth leaned back in his chair, confused. “Am I really interested in a woman I’ve never spoken to? One who is with another man, this John?”

Actually, yes I am. I like looking at her slender figure. I want to undo that long black hair
and run my fingers through it. I want to look deep inside her dark eyes and I want to kiss her red
mouth and see her pale skin blush with heat and lust.

Hell! Where did that come from? I didn’t even know I knew what color her eyes are. Here
I am acting like she’s the woman of my dreams or something.

Tomorrow I’ll ask her out to dinner on Friday night. Or would Saturday be better. No,
she probably wants to be with this John on Saturday. Friday night she’s more likely to be free to
accept. Somewhere we can go straight from work. Hmm. Let me think. Trev’s Steakhouse? No,
too noisy. Top of the Town? No, she’d want to dress up for that. I know. I’ll book us a table at
Suzette’s. Yeah, Suzette’s will be perfect.

***

Anwen was relieved the next morning to find her in-tray had not magically refilled itself overnight but that pleasure was short-lived. At mid-morning an elderly partner, Mr. Pendleton-Shaw, staggered up to her desk with a huge file, saying. “I’ll be out of the office next week and all these papers need to go out in today’s mail. I have marked on each one what needs to be done.

I want to sign them by 4 p.m. to make sure they catch tonight’s mail, thank you.”

Anwen nodded and smiled but it didn’t take her more than ten minutes to realize any chance of a lunch break today had disappeared. She kept her head down and her fingers hard at work all day, but managed to have the file back on Mr. Pendleton-Shaw’s desk with five minutes to spare.

He didn’t even read any of the letters and forms she’d labored over, simply signed them and gave them back to her to place in the envelopes and put in the mailing tray. When that was done she reminded Miss Forbes that she’d worked through lunch and left.

***

Gareth looked up just as her back was disappearing out the door, her purse slung over her shoulder. Without stopping to think, he immediately hurried after her, catching up to her in the parking lot.

“Where the hell are you going? Your desk is buried a mile deep in work that should have gone out already,” he said, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her around to face him.

Anwen wrenched herself out of his grip, her face as white as a sheet. “Excuse me, Mr.

Caldwell. I worked through lunch on an important project for Mr. Pendleton-Shaw. If you leave a list of what you need done urgently I’ll do those tasks first thing tomorrow. Goodbye.”

Gareth could see her body stiff with tension, or maybe fear, as she quietly walked to her car, got in and left.

“I really stuffed that up didn’t I? There’s no way she’ll accept a dinner invitation from me now. What she needs is an apology.”

His shoulders drooping, he walked back into the building.

Anwen was shaking as she drove home. What was going on? Why had he manhandled

her? Was there something important of his she’d missed? “I really thought I’d checked carefully for the most urgent stuff, but everything is urgent or overdue or about to be,” she sighed. “Still I’d better check again first thing tomorrow, as well as doing whatever he puts on that list for me.

I hope this is just a major backlog of work though, and that the pace is not this fast all the time. I almost need to clone myself.” She giggled, her natural good humor starting to restore itself.

“He looks so yummy. It’s a shame he has a hair-trigger temper. I don’t think I could live with a man liable to fly off the handle at a moment’s notice. Listen to me—live with a man! He hasn’t even asked me out on a date or even for a coffee. And a partner is way beyond my reach anyway. I’m wasting my time even dreaming about him.”

***

“You’re very quiet tonight, Anwen. Is something bothering you?” asked John.

“This place I am working at the moment, one of the partners is—I don’t know.

Intriguing? Confusing me? To look at, he is every woman’s dream. Tall, well built, reddish-brown hair. Drives a very nice car, wears very nice suits. Has a killer smile although he seldom smiles. Today, for no reason that I can fathom, he ran after me to yell at me and say there was a lot of work on my desk. Well, there
is
a lot of work on my desk because every time I start to get some of it done, other people put more there.”

“Does he make a habit of yelling at people?”

“No. That’s the whole point. I’ve never heard him be rude to anyone else. Even Miss Forbes seems to like him and she doesn’t seem to like many people at all.”

“So why would he be angry with you? Does he resent you taking that position, do you think?”

“I doubt it. He may miss Avril—everyone seems to think she walks on water, and if she regularly keeps on top of this much work she probably does walk on water—but I’m the fourth person they’ve had in four weeks so if he’d wanted someone else in this job they surely would have given it to her weeks ago.”

“Well, is he interested in you, then? Anger is often linked closely to love. And you really are a very beautiful woman. Your parents named you so well. Anwen is Welsh for beautiful.”

“Actually, I always thought I was lucky I didn’t get something totally unprouncable like Gwenhwyvar, Penarddun, or Rathtyen.”

“Or Enrhydreg, or Erdudvyl, or Creiddylad.”

“Wynnifred would have been okay though,” she laughed. Then she became quiet and asked, “Do you really think he may like me? Be attracted to me? He’s certainly very attractive to me. I feel quite drawn to him even though I didn’t like the way he yelled at me today and I could never live with a man whose temper was uncertain.”

“Hate and love are often two sides of the same coin. Just do your work to the best of your ability and keep an open mind about him. However, I wouldn’t go anywhere alone with him until you’re certain he is not a psychopath,” advised John.

“If he asks me to come look at his etchings I’ll insist you come too,” she joked.

***

Gareth spent long hours pacing the floor that evening. Apologizing to her was the obvious first step but where did he go from there?

“Tomorrow is Thursday and I have a reservation for two at Suzette’s for Friday. Until we can talk, have a real conversation, I’ll never know if I’m truly attracted to her. But will she come with me after I was so rude to her?

“Which brings me back to the apology. ‘Excuse me Miss Llewellyn, I’m sorry I

frightened you and yelled at you yesterday. Will you come out to dinner with me tomorrow?’

Yeah that’ll work. Not.”

He paced some more, thinking as he walked. “Maybe I could take her out to lunch. Does she leave the building at lunchtime? Hang out with some of the other staff? Lunch—oh shit!

That’s why she was leaving early. She never had lunch. I don’t think she had lunch on Tuesday either. Oh God I’m a fool. That’s why she was leaving early—she worked through lunch. Jeez.

How could I be so stupid?

“Does that make her likely to accept a lunch invitation from me or not? Maybe not. Or maybe she’d enjoy the break? Oh shit. I don’t know. I suppose I could talk to Lilian. Yeah, right, that’s a bright idea. ‘Excuse me Miss Forbes do you think Miss Llewellyn will go out to lunch with me?’ She’ll call for the men in white coats if I ask her that. So what do I do? What on earth can I say now? How do I get myself out of this mess?”

***

Anwen checked through the piles of paperwork as soon as she arrived and found nothing in the least-urgent pile that should have been attended to, although there were many things needing to be done very soon. She looked carefully for a note from Mr. Caldwell but although she could see his head bent over his desk there were no messages on her desk from him about priorities or extra work she needed to do.

Shrugging her shoulders she took out her most urgent pile of work and settled in to deal with it. She was getting a feel for the job and finding she needed to ask Miss Forbes about things less and less frequently. She’d also begun to make a few friends which brightened her day too.

Anwen shot a few careful looks at Mr. Caldwell’s office during the day. He was such an enigma. Was it possible he liked her or was John just imagining it? Oh well, she’d probably never know the answer to that question. Even though she found herself quite attracted to him despite his unexplained anger at her. “Stop dreaming about him,” she ordered herself.

***

Shortly before lunch Gareth went to Anwen’s desk and said, “Um, Miss Llewelyn can I speak with you for a moment please?”

Anwen grabbed a notepad and pen, squared her shoulders, and followed him back into his office.

“Well here it comes. What things have I not done?” she wondered.

“Please sit down.”

“Um. Uh. I want to apologize for frightening you last night. It was most objectionable and quite unjustified of me. When you come and go, and how you arrange your work priorities are none of my business. I shouldn’t have touched you either. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

Please forgive me.”

Anwen just looked at him, her jaw held rigid so it wouldn’t drop and leave her openmouthed in astonishment. This was so not what she expected to hear. Finally she realized he was looking at her, his chocolate-brown eyes wide and anxious, waiting for her to reply.

“Of course I forgive you. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done urgently and I can understand that it’s a worry for all the partners.”

“It’s more than that. I like you. I want to get to know you. And I think I might be jealous of—”

“Jealous because I did Mr. Pendleton-Shaw’s work before yours? I had to finish his work first because he’s going to be out of the office and he needed to sign it.”

Gareth took a deep breath then asked, “Will you have lunch with me today? That is, if you weren’t planning to work through lunch. Not needing to leave early or something?”

Lunch? With her? He
was
interested in her after all. John was right!

“No, lunch will be fine today, thank you. I’ve arranged to take next Wednesday off as John as his regular heart stress test then, but for eighty-five he’s remarkable healthy.”

“John? Eighty-five?”

“I’m sorry. Of course you don’t know what I am talking about. John is my neighbor. I’m his designated driver to all his medical appointments.”

“You can’t know how pleased I am to hear that. I’d thought he might be your significant other and I was already jealous of him. I want to get to know you better. I want to hold you and kiss you and— But perhaps we should just start with lunch. And dinner. I have a booking for two at Suzette’s tomorrow night. Should I make that for three? Would John like to come?”

“I think John will be happy for me to tell him all about it afterward.” Anwen smiled.

“Right. Shall we go to lunch then? suggested Gareth, opening his office door and making both their dreams come true.

Hot: Tasting the Holidays by Berengaria Brown

Marianne loved Christmas. She had thirty-one different pairs of Christmas earrings, one for every day in December. She also had holiday bracelets, necklaces and brooches, T-shirts, and sweaters, all of which were stored carefully in her special “Holiday” drawer, and were allocated their own day to be worn in the lead-up to the holiday.

Not for Marianne the last-minute rush to the stores on Christmas Eve, with a shopping list a mile long. All her gifts were thoughtfully chosen and professionally wrapped by December 1st.

Her tree was bought and decorated by December 15th, and holiday lights were draped in every room of her apartment no later than December 18th.

Her only problem was James. She loved him passionately, but he had zero holiday spirit.

Last year he’d phoned her at 4p.m. on Christmas Eve saying, “Hi, honey. I’m downtown. What would you like me to buy you for Christmas?”

When she’d replied, “Get me a surprise. Something you think I’ll like,” he’d bought her a pair of red-lace, crotchless panties two sizes too large for her. She’d thrown them in the trash and barely restrained herself from strangling him with them.

Did women really enjoy wearing such items? Or were they just something a woman wore specifically to entice a man? And what was with the two sizes too large problem? Did her butt really look that fat? Okay, she knew she could never pretend she was skinny, but her ass wasn’t that huge, was it?

This year Marianne had promised herself Christmas would be better, happier, more romantic. She’d included James in her menu planning sessions, although basically as long as there would be meat, vegetables and wine, pretty much anything was fine by him.

She’d also dropped hints about suitable gifts. Gold bracelets, gold necklaces, gold chains, even gold anklets. She really hoped he was seeing the theme here, although almost anything he gave her that showed he’d seriously thought about his choice of gift would make her happy.

James was a huge bobsledding fan, and after long hours spent searching eBay, Marianne had bought for him a signed poster of the Olympic gold-medal-winning bobsled team, which she’d had framed.

So with the meal and the gifts organized, all that remained was for her to plan a romantic evening for the two of them. Flowers and candlelight of course, a rich, full-bodied red wine to accompany the roast meat, champagne to toast their future and then some extra special sex.

Marianne had spent many hours planning their evening. She’d finally bought tubes of strawberry and peppermint edible body paint. While chocolate would have been her preferred flavor, she felt the holiday season demanded red and green artwork. And James’ body was the perfect canvas.