Chapter Two
Elena
The offices of Saturn Intelligence were sleek and modern, with a glass exterior and shiny black floor, the promise of excellence as far as you walked into the building. It didn’t show that things were falling apart behind the scenes, that it was a matter of one investor pulling out before everything came tumbling down.
But I had faith in Noah Fuller. He could pull it all back together. He wasn’t the CEO for nothing. The papers painted him as the businessman that cared about people his kindness reaching deeper than his pockets. It was one of the reasons I had applied to be his PA. Working for someone who cared that much for the people around his had to be a good employer. I wanted to be a part of what he did. Noah had confidence and authority, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. He could make it happen.
Everything about Noah had taken my breath away when I’d met him. He had conducted the interviews himself instead of relying on HR to find him the perfect secretary. That personal touch. He had asked me questions about my personal life, about where I saw myself in five years’ time and not what I thought I could offer the company. It made me feel like I was important as a person, and every day working with Noah since had made me feel more so.
Again, he cared about me. He cared about all his employees here at Saturn Intelligence. He knew them all as if they were friends or family. He cared for them. It was beautiful to see and exactly the reason I was sure the company would stay open. He would never let his employees down, let them lose their jobs and sit on the streets with nothing.
Noah wasn’t only good with people and good at what he did. He was attractive in every way. He was the perfect definition of tall, dark, and handsome, with hair that he finger-combed back as if it was an afterthought and eyes that were drowning deep in power and emotion. A square jaw, a nose like an arrow, muscular and powerful. He was everything women inherently chose for reproduction, even if they weren’t consciously aiming to have children. Nature won out.
And Noah had a daughter. The only thing hotter than a man who knew who he was, was a man that could handle a child. Being big and bad was easy. Being soft and gentle when he could crush a man’s skull was a skill.
“You’re already here,” Noah said, walking into his office. I’d been standing by his desk, shuffling through the papers I’d prepared for him, hoping I’d left nothing out.
“You asked me to come early.”
“You’re earlier than early,” he said, grinning. “That’s what makes you so good.”
I flushed because I loved it when Noah complimented me. I felt like I was making a difference when he was happy. The poor man had had a shitty run. His wife had left him with a child that he was raising on his own, and his company was going under. Doing these little things for him meant something.
But it wasn’t only that. I had a crush on him. I, Elena Hayes, had a crush on my boss like a teenager. When I caught him staring at me, or he flirted with me, it made me squirm inside with delight.
“It’s my MBA that makes me so good,” I pointed out. I had an MBA. Why was I working as a secretary when I was qualified to do so much more? I guess I’d been waiting for the right job to come along. It had taken me three months of sifting through job ads, finding reasons not to leave SI. And then Noah had offered me a permanent contract, and I’d stopped looking altogether.
When I looked up at Noah, his eyes were already on me, and I flushed. He looked at me the way a man looked at a woman when he was wondering what was underneath her clothes. I’d put on a black lace bra and panties. It made me feel sexy. I wanted to be sexy for him.
“Everything is in here?” Noah asked, clearing his throat and pointing to the file which felt insignificant in the sexual tension we were drowning in.
I nodded. “Everything you asked for.”
“Perfect,” Noah said but he was still looking at me, and I wasn’t sure if he meant me or the file.
God, I wanted to sleep with him. I wanted him to pin me down and have his way with me. For a moment, I imagined him on top of me, my body writhing beneath him.
I shook off the thoughts. Sleeping with the boss was wrong. There were company rules, and it was unethical, anyway. I’d never slept with my boss before. I was innocent.
But for Noah? Fuck ethics.
The tension built in the room, and my eyes slid to Noah’s lips. I shouldn’t have been thinking about kissing him, but there it was. When Noah’s gaze went to my lips as well, I turned away from him. I had to get some distance between us if I was going to keep control of my urges.
“Will you sit in on the meeting?” Noah asked.
I looked to the side, back at his eyes. They were pools of black; mesmerizing. “If you need me to.”
Noah nodded. “It will help if you know what they’re saying so you can put it into perspective for me when I panic, later.”
He had no reason to panic. I didn’t tell him so, but I knew he would get through this. The investor meetings were a formality. Why wouldn’t they invest in a man with a public image as powerful and as personal as Noah’s?
The boardroom was as executively chic as the rest of the building with a shiny round table and chairs more comfortable than the armchairs in my own living room. The windows could close with shutters for the projectors, and there were power points at regular intervals between the chair for laptops and tables to charge.
The investors trickled into the room one by one, all of them wearing black or gray suits with faces that suggested we weren’t close to being in the clear. When everyone was present, Noah stood up and addressed the room.
“Thank you for joining me,” he said. “I want to give you an update on our progress, show you that you’re getting a bang for your buck.”
He proceeded to explain how the technology was coming along. Noah had developed a concept for a user interface that would change the way we approached technology, but it was risky. People didn’t like what was new unless it was close enough to what they already used. Noah had an advantage over other companies, though. He had a lot of fans, loyal to him because he was consistent, because he was reliable, because he’d been there from the start and stayed the same person they had known form the start. Noah’s concept was so different it was almost impossible. Except for his fans.
“And you think the public will take to it?” one of the investors asked. He was a tall, thin man with a permanent scowl. We hadn’t been able to get a prototype, and it made me wish we had.
“With the right marketing, I believe it will,” Noah said. “The beta team we’re working with already tested our latest version, and they’re happy.”
“But it’s so different,” another man said.
“Different is the buzz word of the day, right?” Noah said. “We’re trying to give the public something that will rock the technological word. Every now and then we have a moment where the world is rocked to its core. This can be the next milestone in technological advancement.”
I watched them all nod slowly, reluctant. What if we let them be the beta testers? I thought. If Noah could give them a product that was complete enough for them to use and they liked it, they would feel more comfortable about the funding. The idea of loyalty was potential money.
“We’ll need to reconvene in a few weeks,” someone said. “Maybe if you get some feedback from your research team, reviews we can look at. But if it doesn’t take, soon, we’re pulling funding.”
I glanced at Noah. He looked cool and collected as if the words meant nothing to him. But the skin around his eyes tightened, and his hands that had been flat on the table were in fists, and he was leaning on his knuckles. He was upset, but I was the only one that could see it.
“Thank you for your time and consideration,” Noah said when the meeting was over. “I look forward to seeing you back here.”
The men filtered out of the room again, mumbling amongst each other. Noah and I stood on opposite sides of the room, smiling politely until all the investors had gone. When we were alone in the boardroom, Noah sank into his chair with a sigh. He slumped forward and ran his hand down his face. I walked to him.
“We’re losing them, Elena,” he said.
I kneeled before him so that he had nowhere to look but my face.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said. “They’re skeptical now because it’s so new. People are afraid of what’s new. But when the radio was invented, everyone was skeptical, some said it was a fad. And look at where we are now.”
“I’m hardly Marconi,” Noah said.
“You could be.”
Noah smiled at me. “You’re such a ray of light, you know that?” he asked. “You do a lot for the company. For me. Thanks for that. You’re always here, and I see that.”
I nodded, fighting a blush. Now wasn’t the time to get blubbery because the man of my dreams was paying me a compliment. He was sincere is all, employer to employee.
Noah’s eyes slid over my face, taking in my features, and I swallowed hard. The atmosphere in the room changed, and I was aware of how close Noah was, of his eyes, his lips, his hands. Noah lifted one hand and hooked a strand of hair behind my ear. My breath hitched in my throat. When his eyes found mine again, they were smoldering, and I couldn’t think straight anymore.
I didn’t have a chance to imagine him kissing me. He dipped his head, pressing his lips against mine, and I froze. I was only immobile for a moment before I kissed him back. I moved my mouth against him, matching his movements as if I knew the kiss like a dance that we’d rehearsed. My mouth opened as his tongue slipped inside. I was suddenly hot and bothered, my clothes itching on my skin. I felt like I was going to burst with desire. I wished we were somewhere else. I wished we were somewhere he could pull my clothes off and touch my skin, soothing the nerve endings that were on fire.
Noah broke the kiss abruptly, and our faces were inches from each other, both of us breathing hard as if we’d each run a marathon.
“Oh, God,” Noah said. “I’m sorry.”
I wanted to tell him not to be. I wanted to tell him that it had been what I’d wanted. But he didn’t let me. He stood up and walked away from me, leaving the boardroom. I sat on the floor, my fingers pressed to my lips, wondering how in this perfect world we had slipped into a bubble that wasn’t supposed to exist.