Blake couldn’t stop his foot from tapping as he rode the elevator carrying the to-go order of sushi. It had been Andrea’s idea to come and go separately when they dined together as to not give the wrong impression to his other employees about their relationship. Or, rather, the right impression. Besides the fact that it wasn’t anyone’s business, managers weren’t allowed to date their subordinates. Though dating wasn’t what he and Andrea were doing. Did the fraternization policy contain any wording regarding banging? He’d have to check.
Regardless, Blake approved of the separate entrances, but why was he the one who always had to go up last? And how did he end up carrying the food every time? He supposed it was appropriately chivalrous to attend to the baggage. The delayed arrival, however, proved to be … uncomfortable … on more than one occasion. Like when Andrea had gotten him thoroughly aroused before leaving for her trip upstairs. Like now.
Maybe it was a good thing he was carrying the food after all.
When the elevator finally stopped on his floor, Blake had to work not to run to his office. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a bit of gusto to his step. Especially as he got closer and saw that his door was closed. Andrea always worked with it open. What was she doing in there? Naughty things? Was she waiting for him, perhaps, undressed, spread out on top of the lateral file cabinets?
Whoops. He shouldn’t have imagined that. Now his stride slowed due to, well, necessity.
Blake was so focused on his destination that he didn’t notice the man sitting in his waiting room until he’d reached his office door.
“Excuse me?” The man leaped up from his chair. “Mr. Donovan, I need to speak with you, please.”
Blake furrowed his brow as he tested the door handle. It was locked. His pulse picked up. Andrea indeed had to be planning something.
“Mr. Donovan?”
Blake threw a glance over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m unavailable at the moment. Schedule something with my secretary.” He shuffled the lunch orders in an attempt to dig in his pocket for his keys.
“Your secretary appears to be out for lunch,” the man said.
Of course she was. Dammit. No, it was a good thing Sarah was at lunch since Andrea tended to get a little loud. He loved that.
“Mr. Donovan?”
Oh, yes. There was someone speaking to him. He gave another look at the bothersome fellow. It was an employee of his, he realized now. A manager in his project development department. Something or other Jennings. Bruce? No, that was the famous amputee cyclist. Or was that Bruce Jenner? He always mixed the two up. It wasn’t Bruce anyway. Something like that, though.
Whatever his first name was, Jennings had been in his office only a few weeks before to try to convince Blake to give a promotion to one of his team members. It had already been in the works, but still had yet to go through. That was surely why he was here now.
“Jennings, the paperwork has been submitted for Fullman. She’ll get her promotion soon enough.” Blake turned back to inserting his key into the door handle.
“That’s just it, Mr. Donovan.” Was Jennings always this pesky? “I’d like to revoke my recommendation. May I come in and talk to you about this?”
Hell, no. Except he didn’t have any excuse. He’d have to improvise. “Later. Right now my sushi’s getting cold.” He cringed. Sushi didn’t get cold. God, what an awful ad lib. “I mean…” But he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Too much blood flowing to the wrong part of his body.
“It’s really important,” Jennings pleaded. “Just a few minutes of your time is all I need.”
Blake cursed under his breath. “Very well.” He turned and set the takeout on his secretary’s desk. “Talk.”
Jennings looked at him skeptically. “Out here? I really think this would be best discussed in your office. In private.”
In private. That’s exactly where Blake wanted to be at the moment. Only he wanted to be in private with Andrea Dawson, not no-name Jennings.
Brad!
That was his name. From the expression on his face, Brad Jennings wasn’t leaving until they got this over with. With a sigh, Blake opened his office door slightly and said in an overly loud voice so that Andrea would hear him, “Of course we can meet in my office. We’ll go right in.” He paused to give her an extra moment to scramble into her clothes if need be. Blake tried not to groan at the missed opportunity.
When he’d delayed as long as he could without seeming like he’d gone completely bananas, he pushed the door open the rest of the way and cautiously stepped in. To his surprise, the room was empty.
Well. That was a concern he needn’t have worried about. But if Andrea wasn’t here, where had she gone?
It wasn’t the time to wonder. Blake gestured to Jennings to take a seat then shut the door behind them before he circled his desk to sit in his chair. “Now you say you want to revoke your recommendation for Fullman’s promotion?” Honestly, Blake was surprised by the request. Jennings had been quite enthusiastic about his endorsement a few weeks before.
Jennings cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. Ms. Fullman is not pulling her weight. She’s always late, when she comes in at all. She’s distracted and unfocused. Todd, Jerry, Susan, Aaron—all of us are left to clean up her mess.”
Movement across the room pulled Blake’s attention. As nonchalantly as he could, he peered over Jennings’s shoulder toward Andrea’s area. And there she was, her head popping up over the edge of the desk from where she was hiding on the floor behind it.
On the floor behind the desk … they hadn’t done that yet, had they?
“Does she even have approval for all this missed work?”
Blake’s eyes darted back to Jennings. He blinked, trying to remember the question he’d just been asked. Oh, yes. “She does have approval for time off. I can’t discuss that with you, though, of course.” Fullman, he’d only now remembered, had been dealing with a mentally unsound ex-husband. She’d refused the leave of absence Blake had offered her, wanting to keep a semblance of normalcy in her life. But even though she’d been tardy and absent more than usual, he hadn’t noticed any decline in the quality of her work. Was there something he was missing?
If there was, he didn’t have any idea what it would be. Andrea, on the other hand, was missing three of her buttons. As in, her shirt was practically wide open, and he could see it clearly since she was now standing behind her desk. She had been waiting in some form of undress then. My, oh, my.
“No, I don’t expect you to tell me what’s going on with her private life”—Jennings’s tone was terse—“but she shouldn’t be given a promotion. Not when…”
Jennings kept talking, but Blake’s complete attention was on Andrea. What on earth was she doing? She should stay hidden behind the desk. Or if she was trying to sneak out, she at least should be properly clothed. He wiggled his fingers in front of his own shirt, hoping she’d understand the gesture.
She did.
Jennings, however, did not. “What’s that? Did you want me to keep going?”
“Yes, yes. Please.” He wiggled his fingers again pretending that’s exactly what he’d meant by the action the first time he’d done it.
While Jennings continued his complaint, Blake watched as Andrea tiptoed across the room to the office door. Her hand settled on the knob and Blake tensed hoping her escape was silent.
It wasn’t.
Actually, what Andrea did was not try to escape at all. She opened the door, loudly, then hurried to the other side of the door so that by the time that Jennings looked toward the noise, it appeared as if she were entering, not exiting.
Blake covered his eye with one hand. Whatever she was up to, he was sure to be unimpressed.
“Mr. Donovan, I apologize. I didn’t know you had company.” Her voice was sweeter and higher-pitched than usual. “And I hate to bother you, but I really need to speak with you.”
Blake forced a smile. “Ms. Dawson, I’m in the mid—”
“Now, Mr. Donovan.” Now, that was the bossy tone he was used to. She seemed to remember herself and added a lighter, “please.”
Obviously, Andrea had something to say.
Blake stood. “Excuse me one moment, Jennings. My, um…” He was too flustered to remember what title he’d given his matchmaker. “She needs to talk to me.”
He hurried out after Andrea, expecting that she was upset about the interruption in their lunchtime plans. “I’m sorry, Drea, I’m disappointed, too,” he said in a hushed tone when he reached her. “I’ll get rid of him as soon as possible.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I needed to tell you. I mean, yes, I’m disappointed, but I have something to say about that guy.”
Blake looked back to the man he’d left in his office. “Jennings?” What could Andrea possibly know about him? She hadn’t been present the last time the employee had come to his office, and Jennings’s office was on a whole other floor.
“Yes. Jennings. He’s making that stuff up about Fullman.”
It was only because he suspected the same thing that he pursued Andrea’s suggestion. “Why do you say that?”
“He likes her. Like, really likes her. My guess is that he recommended her for promotion thinking that would earn him favor in her eyes, but even after that she still refused to go out with him.”
“No, that’s not possible. He’s a manager. He can’t date an employee. It’s against the rules.”
She glared at him incredulously. “Uh-huh. And everyone follows those rules.”
There was that.
“Anyway, when she turned him down he got all butt-hurt. She rejected him. He didn’t like it. And this is his retaliation.”
Well that was an interesting theory. A theory that might make sense. Only how could Andrea possibly know that? He asked her.
“Easy. He only referred to her by last name, while he used first names with the other employees. He’s trying to distance himself from her. If he said her name, he’d probably get all shifty and nervous. What did he call her when he was in last time?”
Blake tried to recall. “Not Fullman. He must have called her by her first name. I don’t remember what it was.”
“Of course you don’t.” She winked at him.
God, she was sexy when she did that.
“Also, he’s not wearing an orange tie.” She must have seen that as they’d walked in. “Yes, before you protest, I know that no one wears orange but me. But that guy normally does. Like, every day when I see him at the coffee stand. He’s rejecting orange now, which is usually a sign of sexual oppression. And he clicks his jaw. Another clear indicator.”
“You could hear that from across the room?” He had to be careful about what he muttered under his breath.
“How could I not? It was so loud.” She shuddered as if the sound was also an unpleasant one. “Finally, he clears his throat a lot when talking about her. So obvious that he has an emotional involvement.”
Blake almost choked. Is that what she thought when he cleared his throat around her? That was a ridiculous analysis. Wasn’t it? Though for Jennings, it did possibly fit. Only one way to know for sure.
Careful not to clear his throat, he said, “Thank you, Andrea. I’ll take your input to heart.”
He shut the door with Andrea on the opposite side of it this time, and returned to his desk. “I apologize for that.” He looked his employee in the eye. “Before we get back to Fullman—what’s her first name again?”
Jennings shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Uh, Ashley.”
Was that a bead of sweat above Jennings’s brow? He’d daresay it was. Hmm. “You know, Jennings, that there are some people here who don’t take some of the office rules to heart. Like the fraternization policy. Some employees date anyway.” Did he sound guilty when he said that? He didn’t let himself dwell on it. “I’ve fired one or two people over the years for exactly that type of violation.” He hadn’t, but there was nothing wrong with a good bluff.
Jennings’s eyes fell to the floor.
Yes, Blake had to agree that this was definitely a case of infatuation. Andrea had nailed that analysis.
Huh.
Was this what Andrea’s skills were really about? It was amazing how she could discern so much with so little to go on. He hated to admit it, but her abilities were wasted in her current position. After she was done with the matchmaking thing, perhaps he could find a better placement for her in the company. Somewhere she could use her skills to keep harmony within the company. In human resources, maybe.
Meanwhile, he still had the Jennings situation to wrap up. “There are other employees who are mindful of these policies. I would imagine that what might seem like a rejection to one person might actually be another person’s attempt to follow the rules. Keep their job.” There. That ought to ease the sting. Not that Blake cared much about Jennings’s feelings, but he was a good employee, as was Fullman, and Blake wanted the situation over with. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” Jennings clicked his jaw—oh, there it was! Andrea was right; it was loud.
“Now back to Fullman, are you really interested in pulling her promotion for review?”
Jennings shook his head. “No, actually. Now that I think about it, she’s not that bad. She’s great even.” He stood. “I guess I was just having a bad day. Needed to vent.”
Blake followed to his feet. “Understandable. We all have them.” He walked his employee to the door and opened it for him.
Jennings nodded once. “Thank you, Mr. Donovan. Sorry your sushi got cold.”
Blake stared at the floor and pinched the bridge of his nose. Cold sushi. Really.
“Did someone say something about cold sushi?” Andrea stood in the door frame, her hands full with the take-out bags from earlier, her expression amused.
God, she really was incredible. In a work sense, of course. How she’d completely saved him in that situation. And in a naked sense. She was incredible that way, too.
Andrea kicked the door shut behind her with her foot, set the bags on the floor, and began unbuttoning her shirt. “Then we’d better do something to warm it up, hadn’t we?”
Blake had always thought uni was best served at room temperature. He had a feeling he was about to find out he’d been wrong.
* * *
Andy could not have been more pleased with herself. Keeping Blake on his toes was becoming more and more enjoyable, albeit more and more difficult. This afternoon’s sushi extravaganza was a new high for her, one she was about to beat.
“Blake? Would you meet me in Conference Room Four in half an hour, please? Sarah has cleared your schedule.” She used her most innocent tone. There was no way he’d agree to this, if he’d known what she was planning, but that was kind of the point. She was going to prove to Lacy and Blake both that she could still rock this job no matter what was happening in bed. On desk. Whatever.
Once she’d gotten a distracted nod from her boss, she retreated to Four to organize everything. There were sodas, tea, coffee, cookies; what was she missing? Wine. She knew Blake would make judgments based upon it. Far be it from her to keep Blake’s beloved judgeys from him. She pressed the intercom and asked Sarah for a couple of bottles.
One by one, girls streamed into the room. Andy had jacked this idea from a TV show, but it seemed like an awfully good one. Gather twenty girls in one location, arrange for Blake to spend a few moments with each of them. Yes, it was a cattle call, but it would save her so many interviews. At the same time, it would give her a lot more to work on, vetting multiple candidates at once, instead of the usual one-at-a-time, no-my-boss-isn’t-a-serial-killer thing.
One by one, girls walked in. Exotic girls—Mexican, Thai, a stray Scot. All-American girls, from California and Texas and Virginia. Anyone and everyone whom Blake might consider a potential spouse streamed through the doors and helped themselves to one drink or another. When he himself finally walked in, a hush fell over the girls.
It was nothing compared with the pale hush over his face. This was clearly the last thing he had expected. Andy stifled her squee. It was so fun to see him unbalanced.
“Ladies, this is Blake Donovan. Please line up quietly by the door, he’ll receive you one at a time by the drink station. You will have only two minutes apiece. I understand that’s not long, but do your best to impress him with what you have. Ready … Go!” She hopped up to sit on a folding table, whipped out her notebook, and enjoyed the show.
To his credit, he managed to resist more than one fierce side-eye in her direction as the girls crowded around him. Despite her words, the girls were neither quiet nor orderly. The ones who’d been into the wine were, predictably, shoving for a spot by the front. A frighteningly serious-looking brunette managed to land the first position. She had delivered an impressive elbow to a competitor while beaming at Blake the whole time. “I’m Kristal Gilderoy,” she announced, as though he should be impressed. Blake stared at her silently until Andy kicked him. Her perch on the tabletop put her toe just at his shin, something she planned to take advantage of to keep him on his manners.
“Blake Donovan. Tell me a bit about yourself, Kristal.” Andy smiled and started scribbling in her notebook. Feathered bangs—not fashionable, even I know that. Doesn’t read celeb/gossip rags, clearly. Possibility here.
“I’m sure you’re kidding … But I’ll play along … I’m an indie musician … Very successful, I owe it all to my fans … The only problem I have with them is that they always want more of me…”
She actually speaks in ellipses. I can actually hear the dot dot dots. And I know her music. It’s quite awful. I think Lacy called her a nemesis one time. No possibility.
“Thank you, Ms. Gilderoy. Next, please!” Andy chirped. The girl looked disgruntled and opened her mouth to protest, but the recipient of her elbow jab gave her a shove and launched into her own spiel.
“Mr. Donovan, I am so, so, so freaking excited to meet you. I’ve been following your career. I’ve noticed a few things, though, that you are doing all wrong. Don’t worry, I’m capable of handling that for you. Did I mention I’m a lawyer? I am. And I am ready to go to war for you, both professionally and—personally, if you know what I mean.”
Andy didn’t bother to write down what she was thinking, namely thick-browed pompous weirdo. She merely looked at the woman’s name tag and told Ms. Kernal they’d be in touch shortly. Luckily, those two were the worst of the bunch. By the time the numbers dwindled to four, Blake was chatting informally with all of them.
Andy already knew the raven-haired Ukrainian girl had it in the bag, but she really appreciated the way Blake was loosening up. Look at him, chatting to the Scottish girl she’d only included because she secretly hoped they could become friends.
Fiona was redheaded, intelligent, educated, and goofy. Just Andy’s type. She was glad Blake was being nice to Fiona. That way when Andy called Fiona to let her down, there’d be no hard feelings. Andy could casually invite Fiona for coffee or something. She was so busy being pleased with herself that it took a moment to notice Blake himself was dismissing the ladies.
“This has truly been an unexpected pleasure. Andrea should be contacting you all shortly. Thank you again for making time in your day for this.” He began to walk toward the door, smoothly hooking his arm through Andy’s. It pulled her off the table and propelled her toward the door before she’d even had a chance to thank the candidates herself.
“Are you going to kill me?” she hissed through a grin over her shoulder.
“You know, Andrea, I don’t believe I will.”
“Really?” Andy immediately suspected a trick. “Why not? I totally freaked you out with that. I know I did. Your face was epic.”
“It probably was, wasn’t it.” He smiled down at her as they rounded the corner and headed back into his office. “But I had a nice time. There was one girl I would certainly entertain the idea of a date with.”
“I’ll call Natasha,” she said.
At the same time Blake said, “Please call Fiona.” Andy gaped.
“But—she’s not your type. Not even by a long shot. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Maybe you don’t know my type as well as you think.” With this, the man actually winked at her, and left her openmouthed as he grabbed his notebook and headed off to another meeting.