Yearning Absolution (Yearning Series) (3 page)

They stepped into the elevator and
Cole hit the button for the garage. Gwen stood looking up at the numbers as
they counted down the floors. She twisted her fingers together, her nerves were
frayed. There were so many things changing all at once. But she was trying to
take it one step at a time. Everything would settle again, all in time due time.

“Hey, relax.” Cole stepped behind
her and rubbed her shoulders. She leaned back against him, his arms moved to
slip around her waist. He rested his chin on her head and rubbed soft soothing
circles over her stomach with his fingers. “It’s going to be a good day. This
is your dream coming true, right? You’ll have your own space to design and
create whatever you want with all the tools and materials you could desire at
your disposal.”

“But what if he finds me?” Gwen
turned in his arms and buried her face in his neck as she wrapped her arms
around his waist.

“Look at me, Gwen.” Cole spoke in
his cooler, business voice. Gwen lifted her head to look into his startling
green eyes. The same eyes that had trapped her like a fly in a spider’s web.
She couldn’t get away even if she wanted to now. Their relationship was moving
faster than she was comfortable with, but she didn’t want to slow down. She was
falling fast head over heels in love with this man. “I have people taking care
of it. You just stop thinking about it. Trust me, I won’t screw this up. We
will find him and take care of it before he is stupid enough to try something.”

“I believe you. I just know how he
is.” Gwen said as a shiver ran through her causing Cole’s grip around her waist
to tighten. She snuggled her face into his neck again and took a few soothing
breaths of that scent that was uniquely Cole. “Going to work will be good,
it’ll help get my mind off it. It’ll be good once we get there and I can focus
on something else.”

The elevator dinged signaling
they’d arrived at the garage. Gwen stepped out of Cole’s embrace and he clasped
her hand before moving out of the elevator towards the awaiting town car. Doug,
Cole’s driver was waiting for them. He opened the rear door for them when they
got close. Cole signaled for Gwen to enter first before sliding in next to her.
Gwen smiled when he took her hand again. He rested their hands on his knee. His
phone started ringing and he slipped it out of his pocket.

“Sorry, I have to take this.” Cole
said giving her a brief kiss before answering the phone. Gwen tuned him out
sure it was just one of many business phone calls he dealt with a day. She took
out her own phone from her purse and sent McKayla a quick text to wish her a
good day and let her know she’d call her later in the day. Then she sat back
and watched the scenery pass by as they made their way through the sea of cabs
and pedestrians on the way to the office. Cole still had her hand in his while
the fingers of her other hand were drumming on her leg. Finally his call ended
and he pulled her closer so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders, her
head resting on his shoulder. “I’m already hooked. I could seriously get used
to this. So much nicer than making the ride alone to work or dealing with all
the people on the subway.”

“Eh, you know I personally like the
subway better. I met someone pretty special to me there.” Gwen smiled. Cole
laughed softly.

“Yea I suppose that is true. If I
hadn’t decided to use the subway, I’d never have met you.” Cole took a deep
breath with his nose in her hair. “I suppose I do love the subway for bringing
me you.”

“You are so sappy sometimes.” Gwen
wrinkled her nose looking up at him.  

“Only for you.” Cole leaned down to
capture her lips with his. Unfortunately, they were pulling in front of the
office. Doug guided the car down into the underground parking garage. He moved
quickly around the car and had the door open for them. Cole got out and held
out his hand to help Gwen from the car. “Now the fun starts.”

Gwen wasn’t sure what he meant by
that, but she knew their relationship would be kept secret. They’d talked a bit
about it over the last few days. Gwen didn’t want everyone to think she got the
job because she was sleeping with the boss and Cole was very careful about his
persona at the office. He didn’t want anyone to think he had a weakness they
could use against him or his business.

As they walked to the elevator,
Cole didn’t take her hand. Gwen found she missed his large warm hand wrapped
around hers. But she crossed her hands around her purse that she held in front
of her as they waited for the elevator. She cut her eyes over to look at Cole.
He was doing the same thing to look at her and it made her laugh loudly. She
mumbled “Stop looking at me.”

“You first.” Cole said quietly
back. He was trying to keep the smile from his face but was failing. They both
entered the elevator when it arrived. Cole pressed both her floor and his floor
buttons. She would be a few floors under his office in her own design space.
Before the doors could close, two other people entered the elevator. Gwen
stepped back to the very back to make room for them. Cole however stayed at the
front. He leaned back on the side of the elevator so he could still see her, as
well as the other people in the elevator.

The elevator stopped at the lobby
picking up a few more people. One of whom seemed to know Cole and started
quietly talking to him. As the elevator moved up people got off and on at
various floors. When they reached Gwen’s floor, there was still a handful of
other people on the elevator. Gwen stepped off and waited a beat before looking
over her shoulder. She glanced at Cole and winked just as the doors closed

Gwen walked to her office to find
the door open. She looked left and right but there was no one else around. She
slowly stepped inside the room. She jumped back when a loud clatter came from the
far corner of the room. Her heart pounded in her chest as fear surged thick and
hard through her. But, a short blonde haired woman with a thick black streak
near the front, popped out from behind one of the counters. Her hair was longer
in the front almost long enough to tuck behind her ears but pixie short in the
back. Noticing Gwen, she quickly made her way to the front of the room. She was
speaking as fast as she walked.

“Hi there. You’re Gwen, right? I’m
Coral Lyn Shaw. I’m your assistant. I hope you don’t mind but I opened the room
and was just making sure everything was where it was supposed to be before you
got here.” The woman couldn’t have been older than 23 or taller than 5’2”, Gwen
noticed as she tried to keep up with the words spilling from her mouth at
lightning speed.

“Um, hi. Thanks, I guess.” Gwen’s
heart was still beating overtime from the fear that’d surged when she heard the
unexpected noise. She took a few deep breathes to calm herself then
straightened her shoulders and walked into the room. It was exactly as she
remembered; a large room with large tables, bare mannequins and a table with
various supplies. She noticed now there were three sewing machines placed on
the farthest table that hadn’t been there the last time she’d been here. That’d
been when she had been hired and had come to do the paperwork. The lovely lady
in Human Resources had given her a tour of the whole building.  “Yes, I am
Gwen. Nice to meet you. So, do you go by Coral Lyn or Coral or Lyn?”

Coral Lyn laughed, “Call me Coral
or Coral Lyn. I’ll answer to either. Just not Lyn. I can’t stand that name.
It’s actually what my name is but when I turned 18, I changed it to fit my
personality better. Lyn is so boring and I’m anything but boring.”

Gwen smiled at her. Apparently it was
normal for the girl to speak fast and often. “Ok. Got it. Anything but Lyn.
Check.”

“Yep. That works.” Coral Lyn flipped
out her arm to look at her wrist, which was adorned with a bright yellow watch
that went perfectly with her bright yellow jeans and bright blue t-shirt that
was tucked into them. She had heels on to match. “Time to get to the meeting.”

“Ok.” Gwen was going to have to get
used to this fast talking, very brightly dressed woman. But she thought they
would get along well since Gwen didn’t normally chat a whole lot. Gwen sat her
purse and bag filled with her work in one of the drawers under one of the
tables before grabbing her keys and locking up behind her and Coral as they
made their way towards the elevator.

“Today we are meeting in one of the
conference rooms on the 30
^th
floor. It’s where we normally have
them. Sometimes they are held in other places though. It’ll be exciting to
introduce you to all the old crotchety designers here. You are so young and
look like you really could be fun to work with.” Coral continued to talk as
they waited for the elevator. Gwen just nodded. She’d have plenty of time later
to tell Coral she knew how things pretty much worked later.

The elevator arrived filled with
other designers and their assistants. Coral quickly picked up a conversation
with one of them and was gabbing away as the elevator continued to ascend. Gwen
took a couple deep breaths. This was it. Her first real meeting as a real
designer. They stopped to pick up a few more people before finally making it to
the 30
^th
floor. The doors opened to reveal the same stern elderly
woman and her perfect, tight bun that had greeted Gwen the last time she’d been
on the 30
^th
floor, which had been for her interview for the job.
Gwen grinned as she thought back on the day, it had been an interesting day
that was for sure. It had been Cole who interviewed her and it’d been the day
he’d come back into her life after more than a year of being gone.

This morning, however, the
secretary didn’t even pay them any attention as the whole group exited the
elevator and moved to go down one of the hallways before spilling into one of
the many conference rooms.  It was a large room with a very large table in the
middle. There was also a small table with coffee and numerous breakfast foods
to snack on just inside the door. Coral was back at Gwen’s side as everyone
started to find seats. There had only been a couple people that had arrived
before their group. More and more people were filling into the room behind them
though.

“Hurry grab some coffee and a scone
or something. Let’s grab a seat before they are all taken.” Coral said before
making her way to the coffee table. Gwen followed skipping on the coffee and
picking up a small donut. She wasn’t really in the mood to eat. The butterflies
in her stomach were making her nauseated as they fluttered around. She and
Coral found a pair of seats about midway down the table. The closer spots were
filled by the ass kissers and the back seats were filled by people that didn’t
want the extra attention or just didn’t really want to be at the meeting.

Coral was speaking softly to Gwen
about who some of the other folks at the table were. Gwen had yet to spot
Victoria, the designer she had worked for as an assistant just a few weeks ago.
Gwen recognized a few of the other designers too but back when she had first
known them she’d only been a lowly assistant and no one paid her any attention.

Conversations quickly came to a
halt and Gwen knew he’d arrived. He’d never been to any of the meetings she’d
been at the last year because he’d been out of the country on other business so
it was interesting to see how everyone reacted to him. She kept her head ducked
as he made his way to the front of the room. His Vice President was close on
his heels, Gwen was familiar with the Vice President. His name was Harry Agar.
He was British and in his late 50s. He must work out because he still looked
pretty good in Gwen’s mind for an older gentleman.

“Good morning ladies and gentleman.
Thank you for all being prompt as we have quite a few matters to get through.”
Harry started. Cole unbuttoned his suit jacket as he took a seat at the head of
the table. His eyes looked at every single person sitting around the table as
Harry continued on with matters. Gwen wasn’t listening, she was trying to look
at anything but Cole. She could feel when his eyes landed on her. It was like a
spark jumped inside her. She slowly moved her eyes to meet his down the long
table. He let his eyes linger on her for a moment before moving on. Gwen tried
not to smile. She looked down at her hands and the pad of paper she had in
front of her. They had been supplied for every spot at the table. She fiddled
with it for a few moments before looking back at Harry. He was still going on and
on about standard meeting things that they talked about every single month.
Gwen could probably recite half of it back verbatim since it barely changed
over the last year.  “And now as most of you can see, our CEO has made it back
from his extended trip and now he would like to share a few new items. All
yours, Cole.”

“Thank you, Henry.” Cole slowly
stood and rebuttoned his suit jacket.  “I’d like to thank every one of you for
keeping up the good work even when I was away. Because everyone did their part
and things ran smoothly, I’d like to give everyone a bonus. They will be given
out with the next pay checks as my way of saying thank you to each and every
one of you. Also, we will be having a St Patrick’s Day Party coming next month
so submit where you’d like to see the party held to my secretary. Next, I’d
like to introduce our newest designer. Some of you may remember her. She was
Victoria’s assistant last year and starting today, she is the newest designer
on staff. Give a warm welcome to Gwen Black.”

Gwen tried to modestly nod at the
few people near her but Cole gestured for her to stand so she pushed out of her
chair. That’s when she finally laid her eyes on Victoria. She was towards the
end of the table farthest from Cole clapping loudly with a huge smile on her
face. Gwen waved at her and a few other familiar faces before sitting back
down.