It had been over a month since I had any sort of substantial conversation with Samantha Doyle. The pleasantly cool days of early autumn had morphed into the biting northwestern rains of late November, and a wet chill had permeated the air. I had left on a three-week-long business trip with stops in Tokyo and Madrid, and when I returned yesterday I received a rude welcoming full of premature Christmas music and Kirk’s collection of wooly scarves.
The Wordsworth Company had an alternating group of two or three employees working in our largest office and sharing the space. Samantha stopped in occasionally, and I got frequent emails informing me of progress, but it was mostly a lot of paperwork and legalese that was dealt with by our legal and financial departments. So far everything seemed to be going smoothly.
I had gotten back a day early, and so I decided to drop into work that afternoon to say hi to everyone and check up on progress. I had a bag full of various souvenirs for the staff, which mostly consisted of tiny porcelain rice bowls that I got gotten the company name etched onto at a high-end souvenir shop in Tokyo. The day already seemed saturated with post-vacation malaise, and my head was unpleasantly numbed from the jetlag.
I walked into my office to see Sabryna absorbed in fiddling with the controls on a device that hadn’t been on the wall when I left.
“Morning Sabryna,” I said, grinning as I watched her turn around to see both me and the cherry-blossom painted bowl I had placed on her desk.
“Johnathan!” she said, and gave me a quick hug. “You’re back already?”
“You betcha,” I said, and plopped down in an empty chair, still exhausted. “I see the new intercom system has been successful installed.”
Sabryna glared at the lit-up electronic screen on the wall. “If you say so,” she said. “I still don’t see the point. We all have each other’s cell numbers. We’ve never had a problem with just texting.”
I sighed. “It’s more for our reputation than functionality,” I explained. “It’s so when potential clients come in they think we have the most advanced tech…and then we get their business.”
Sabryna smiled at me skeptically. “If you say so, Torver.”
“So, what else has been going on?”
Sabryna sighed as she typed some dates into her computer. “Not much. Samantha Doyle and some of the Wordsworth people are in the other room working out some legal stuff.”
“Ah,” I said. “Anything else?”
Sabryna laughed. “You mean, has Samantha said anything else about you? Did Amy leave her panties on the floor of your office? That kind of thing?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Like I said,” Sabryna said, giving me a knowing look. “Literally nothing.”
I bit my lip. “You haven’t heard anything about…a cruise? Have you?”
Sabryna burst out laughing. “A what? No. What on…nope,” she said, putting a hand on her forehead, “You know what, I don’t wanna know.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and snuck out down the hallway to see how the Wordsworth negotiations were going.
I stood at the edge of the tiny conference room window to see Kirk, Cassidy, Samantha Doyle, and two of the Wordsworth lawyers crowded around the table. Things seemed to be running smoothly—much more smoothly than they had been when I left. One of the Wordsworth lawyers was leading the discussion, and Samantha and Kirk were listening intently.
Samantha seemed far more at peace with the arrangement than when I had seen her last, and I hoped it wasn’t because I had gotten her hopes up about delaying the layoffs. Her hair was in a looser sort of bun today, and a dainty opal necklace brightened her eyes…her strength had more of an aura of calm surrounding it. I really did hope she would be happy here.
“Spying now, are we?”
I jumped and turned around to see Amy a few steps behind me.
“Hi…um, Amy.” I stuttered a bit. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“It’s very nice to see you again too,” Amy said, her gaze locked on mine. “Did you have a nice trip?”
“Ah, yes,” I said, unsure of what to say next. “The um. The sushi was very good.”
Amy laughed. “I have heard the sushi in Japan is some of the best.” I was already hitting myself for saying something so stupid.
“Anyway,” I said, feeling myself already becoming a bit hot under my collar from her stare and the fact that she had caught me watching the meeting. “I’m just walking around the office, checking in on a few things, and then I should go home and get some rest.”
Amy smiled. “Very good,” she said, and kept gazing at me intently, her lips parted and her hands twisting at the hair at the nape of her neck. “And you do know, Johnathan, that even though I’m technically Samantha’s assistant,” she took a step closer and looked down for a brief moment, feigning innocence. “I can always assist you with whatever you need.” Amy stared back up at me and ran a slender finger down the length of my silk tie. Ohmygod, this was really happening.
I couldn’t help but grin boyishly at the compliment of having such an outright sexy woman hit on me so shamelessly, but unfortunately, this was work, and Sabryna was right—I couldn’t risk messing up our relationship with Wordsworth over something like this. I took a deep breath and tried to force the blood back up to my brain.
“Thanks, Amy.” I said, and held out my hand to meet hers in a formal handshake. “But I have all my work delegated out to my own employees right now.”
I was stunned by Amy’s apparent indifference to the snub. “Very well, Mr. Torver,” she practically purred, and I watched her circle around in her nude-pink heels and saunter down the hallway.
I didn’t get the impression she thought our conversation was over.