Jenny

 

Christmas. The season of joy and goodwill to all men. The season of open fires and good food and festive TV.

And family. The most important ingredient of all.

Just not for me, not this year. This time around I was going to be holed up in a tiny box apartment with barely enough room for a sprig of holly, far away from home without anyone to share the good times with.

I ducked my head behind my PC screen, trying to avoid eye contact as my colleague Kristina called over from the desk opposite mine. She was wearing tinsel around her neck and a pair of sparkly red reindeer antlers on her head, clearly counting down the days of work left this week before clocking off for mince pies and family time.

I did my best to be visually engaged in my spreadsheet, praying maybe for a phone call, or an urgent email ping, or for the office printer to spontaneously combust or something, but no. No such luck.

The question came at me unperturbed.

“Back home to Cornwall for Christmas, Jenny? What did you put on your Christmas list? Been a good girl for Santa this year, I hope.”

She cracked a grin, and gave me a happy laugh, and I dragged my head up to face her, laughing along, even though I felt it grate in my throat like a sad piece of sandpaper. My heart pounded as my brain ran riot, struggling for an answer that didn’t make me sound like a pitiful loser without any friends.

I’d been doing pretty well to avoid this inevitable festive line of questioning, or so I thought. I mean, it’s obvious — nobody wants to feel guilty at knowing someone else is alone for the holidays, and these people were really still just acquaintances to me. I didn’t want to bring that grumpy shit down on them.

Even worse than leaving them feeling awkward at my isolation would be the potential mercy invitations. Come spend Christmas with me at my Uncle Bob’s. He won’t mind! Always room for one more!

No, thanks. Even the idea of being a charity guest made me want the ground to open up.

If the pressure of forming a response wasn’t bad enough already, the two other admin girls, Sally and Kay, looked up from their desks, tuning into our conversation. I felt the heat of four pairs of eyes fixed right on mine.

The radio in the background was blaring out Driving Home for Christmas, which didn’t help any, and Dawn from accounts chose that moment to walk on through with an armful of Secret Santa presents to go under the office tree.

I stuttered. I stumbled. I blustered my way around the question like a moron while they waited.

And then, in the very nick of time, I was saved by the bell – the bell being the company accountant announcing that the pre-Christmas planning meeting was being brought forward.

“Change of schedule!” she announced. “Mr Hart wants everyone ready to go in five minutes!”

You could feel the ripple of panic right the way through the room.

I was up on my feet in a heartbeat, and I had to be. I had notes from the previous meeting still to print off and I’d die if I didn’t have a fresh mug of coffee to take in there in case my throat dried up.

It seemed that Kristina was in a similar predicament. She cursed under her breath as her fingers smashed her keyboard, all thoughts of my crappy little Christmas long gone.

I’d been working at Hart Filtration for just two short months as a trainee logistics manager, and I was still far from finding my feet.

It’s not the kind of opportunity I’d have generally considered moving four hours up the motorway for, but my mum knew the Managing Director, Mr Hart himself, from way back when in her school days.

He was a man worth knowing, she told me. Doing very well for himself. Smart. Driven. Successful. Exactly the kind of boss I should align myself with for a firm foundation in business.

I’d applied, as she told me to. I’d bitten my nails as the invitation to interview came back from the Hart Filtration HR team, but somehow I managed to shine in a good light through the meeting with the head of recruitment.

And so here I was, and Mum was right in all those things she said about the big boss himself.

Mr Hart was indeed smart, driven, and successful, and his business was indeed going great guns – supplying specialist filtration technology to water plants across the country.

What she didn’t mention, and probably didn’t know, was that Mr Hart was scary as all hell. Stern. Intimidating. Brash and non-communicative. Eyes like daggers whenever someone got flummoxed over a bullet point in a meeting.

Oh, and gorgeous.

Mr Hart was absolutely, scarily gorgeous. In that shivers-up-your-spine, heart-pounding-in-your-chest, borderline petrifying kind of way that got me all hot and bothered.

Powerful men got me all hot and bothered.

Not that I knew many of them. Really just him, and this old high school teacher I had a massive crush on through my teens. I’d doodled about him in my notebooks, daydreamed about him for years on the school bus, and finally, in my final year, I’d written a whole range of dirty fantasies about him and posted them anonymously online. They’re probably still out there somewhere.

Anyway, Mr Fletcher was also stern and scary as all hell. When he’d get angry, he’d slam a text book down on his desk and curse in French under his breath.

Mr Hart, however, curses in plain English and there’s nothing under his breath about any of it.

He’s tall, dark, classically handsome in that approaching-forties businessman kind of way. His suits are clearly tailored, his hair is clearly barber-styled, and his eyes are light enough under dark brows that his glare could cut glass at fifty paces.

Mum said he was a good-looking kid at school. She didn’t say he’d matured into the kind of guy you’d feel butterflies for every time he stepped into your general vicinity.

I’d have told her all about it in detail over turkey if she wasn’t flying off to New York for the holidays.

I grabbed a fresh mug of coffee from the kitchen, and the last meeting’s minutes were spewing from the main office printer quite nicely when I arrived to grab them. I scooped them up in an eager hand, sipping coffee happily as I scanned my eyes over the bullet points on the way back to my desk.

I was trying to memorise them as well as possible on my journey up the corridor, aiming to avoid any awkward silences if Mr Hart quizzed me on any single one of them.

I was so engrossed in my efforts that I didn’t even register the swing of his office door as he stepped on out with his own paperwork in hand.

I registered too late to even think of stopping. My belly somersaulted over itself and my coffee did too, slamming right into his chest as I did.

I felt the burn on my tits, hotter even than the burn on my cheeks, but that wasn’t my first sense of urgency. His shirt was soaked right through, and worse, so was the crotch of his suit trousers. It was instinct that saw me gulp in air and send my hand out to brush the mess away. I managed one smear of the brown liquid on his chest, my eyes opening wide even as my fingers travelled instinctively lower.

And then I stopped.

Or, more precisely, he stopped me, his fingers gripped tight around my wrist. His grip was brutal. Definite. Tight and strong and hard and everything that would set my fantasies into overdrive if I wasn’t so thoroughly mortified.

“Shit!” I squeaked, sounding like a total fucking imbecile. My eyes met his and his were angry enough to burn me alive. The apologies came tumbling over and over. “I’m sorry, Mr Hart. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you. Shit, I’m so sorry.”

I saw my colleagues gathering open-mouthed at the doorway, and I flinched when he let go of my wrist as though he was going to fire me on the spot.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t speak. Not even a word.

The moment was hot, and heavy, and long. Way too long. His stare was bruising against mine, his mouth open just a little as he took in a hiss of breath.

His gaze travelled down slowly, from my eyes to my own open mouth and my heaving chest underneath. I followed his glare and found my blouse soaked worse than he was. The fabric was stuck tight to my skin, and you could see the red polka dots on my bra as plain as day.

So. Fucking. Humiliating.

“You should get cleaned up,” he said finally.

I managed a nod. One stupid nod before he brushed on past me.

And then I raced like an idiot to the bathroom.