It’s Only Temporary by Iona Rose

Connor

Lisa, one of the accounts people came to my office to call me. It was my turn to meet with Samantha Price. I straightened my collar and ran my fingers through my hair. I was nervous as hell walking down the hallway to her office.

I gave a slight knock and her voice came from the room asking me to enter. She looked up and smiled and my nervousness dissipated.

“Connor Kennedy, have a seat. I’ve heard good things about you and I’m looking forward to working with you,” she said.

It had been silly of me to be nervous. She was not the hard CEO that the industry gossip portrayed her as.

“I look forward to working with you too,” I said.

She made a face. “I’m starving, how about we do this over lunch.”

That surprised me but I quickly recovered. “Sure.”

A minute after I’d sit down, I was standing up again and following her out of her office. She walked fast and didn’t pause or stop until we got outside. A man standing beside an SUV opened the back door and she slipped in. I hesitated for a moment before following her in and the driver shut the door.

“We’ll go to my club if that’s okay with you,” she said, settling into the seat.

“It’s fine.”

She smiled and patted my knee. It was too intimate a gesture considering we had only just met. I ignored it and pretended it was normal for a female boss to touch your knee.

“I love this city,” she said staring out the window. “I don’t think I can live anywhere else. What about you?”

I wasn’t sure which question she was asking so I went with the first. “I love it too.”

“Can you live anywhere else?” she said.

“I think I can. I come from Colorado and it’s beautiful,” I said.

She waved a dismissive hand. “You’d get bored there. I recognized you as a kindred spirit the moment we met. We need energy around us to thrive and cities do it for us.”

She was so passionate about what she was saying until I found myself almost believing her but she was wrong. The person who was most like her was Marjorie. I was ambitious but I loved life in its entirety, not just work.

It took us twenty minutes to reach the golf course. It turned out that she was an avid golf player and she made a point to play every weekend.

We made our way to the club restaurant and settled at a table by the window that overlooked the gorgeous golf course.

“It’s lovely,” I said although my mind was on what lay ahead rather than my beautiful surroundings.

“It is. I like to come here for lunch to relax my brain. You know how high pressure our industry is. If you like, I can recommend you to be a member,” she said.

I made noncommittal noises. I was not a golf person at all.

The waiter came and brought us menus. Samantha didn’t open hers.

“I’ll have a Caesar salad and a bottle of water please,” she said.

I asked for a steak, my go to meal when I was in a new restaurant.

“You should take better care of yourself. Red meat is not good for you,” she said mildly.

When the waiter withdrew, she stared at me as if I was an interesting specimen in the lab. “Tell me about yourself.”

I assumed it was an interview and told her about my education and experience. She nodded as I spoke and stared at me intently in a manner that was a little discomforting.

“My instincts were correct. I think we’ll work well together,” she said. “You’ll be my right hand man.”

My breath caught. “What about Marjorie?” I said. As ambitious as I was, the last thing I wanted was to take Marjorie’s job. She needed it more than I did.

“I’ll give her a chance and keep her but I think her ideas are outdated,” Samantha said.

The waiter brought our food and as we ate, we shifted topics to industry news. She was well read and very informed. The more time we spent together, I saw why she had gone as far as she had in her career. She was charming but more importantly she was a listener.

She listened as if whatever you were saying was the most important thing she had ever heard.

“I’d like to get to know you better,” she said when our plates were taken away. “I think you’re a fascinating man.”

I was flattered, but also confused. Why the heck was she throwing sexy vibes my way? I was not available and even if I was, I didn’t do office romances and I definitely would not date a woman who was more than ten years older than me.

We returned to the office and as we were about to part ways in the hallway, she took my hand and squeezed it in a very suggestive manner. If I had any doubts before, they were gone.

I’d barely sit down, when a knock came on my door and Marjorie slipped in. She sat down and stared at me.

“What’s going on? Lunch with the boss? Shouldn’t that be me? After all, I’m the one who runs this place.” Her voice was controlled but I could feel the anger behind her words.

“She asked me for lunch and I couldn’t refuse, could I?” I said.

“You could have suggested that she include me,” Marjorie said.

“I was fighting for my job, Marjorie. There was no way I was going to say something like that. If she’d asked me to jump and touch the ceiling, I would have without a second thought.”

Marjorie cracked a smile. “I get it, I suppose. What did you think of her? Did she say anything about me?”

I couldn’t tell her what Samantha had said, it would make her anxious as hell. “No she didn’t. I don’t know what to think about her yet, all I know is that she knows her stuff. I think we’ll be just fine.”

“You think so?” Marjorie said.

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

All that was bull. I was just as insecure about our future as she was but I’d made a decision not to worry about something that was out of my control.

The next few days were weird with Samantha calling me into her office more than necessary and touching me in a manner I thought was uncomfortable. When Bianca asked me about the new owner, I told her everything else except how uncomfortable she was making me.

I was relieved when the week came to an end. I was meeting the Mathew and Tony after work, which I was looking forward too.

Just before I left the office, a knock came on my door and when I looked up, dismay came over me when I saw that it was Samantha. I plastered a fake welcoming smile on my face. I ran over possible things I might have done wrong and came up with nothing.

She shut the door behind her and came and sat down. She tossed her blond hair to one side and crossed her legs. I shifted about in my chair. I was uncomfortable and yet she was the one in my turf.

“So Connor, what are your plans for the weekend?” she said. “I was hoping that you would accompany me to dinner. I’m meeting with the team from CPA foundation.”

My heart leaped at the mention of one of the largest foundations in the country and their marketing budget ran into hundreds of millions of dollars. I grinned at Samantha. “I’d love to come.”

It would be a learning experience for me being at the heart of such talks, plus I wanted to see Samantha at work. I had admired her work for years. She had reached the pinnacle of her career and I guess the next step for her had been to have her own agency.

I couldn’t wait to see how far we would go as a company. Five years from now, we would probably be cited as one of the largest agencies in the country.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she said. “Text me your address and my driver will pick you up at six.”

“I will.” I left the office and hurried to our usual meeting point.

As I strolled, I couldn’t help feeling that we were on the verge of joining the big leagues and I was grateful to be along for the ride. I’d never been on any of the initial client meetings and this time, it wasn’t just any client. It was one of the most coveted accounts in the country.

I wondered briefly why she had picked me. The natural and logical choice would have been Marjorie. But I wasn’t going to kick a gift horse in the mouth. I was just grateful for the opportunity.

“Glad to see you’re back to your usual lateness habits,” Mathew said as I pulled out a chair and joined them.

I grinned. “Evening fellows.”

“Why do you look so happy?” Tony said. “Don’t you and Bianca ever fight? Kate and I are currently not on speaking terms.”

I cocked my head to one side. “You know, we actually don’t. There’s nothing to fight about.”

Angie and I had fought constantly. I tried to recall what we usually fought about and came up with zero. It was petty stuff but with Bianca we don’t have petty stuff to fight about.

“Lucky bastard!” Tony muttered as the waiter came to take my order.

“You sounded pretty desperate yesterday to meet with us today,” Mathew said when the waiter left.

“Yes,” I said. “Now I’m not sure what to think.” I told them about Samantha and the way she’d been behaving as if she’s seducing me but after her invitation, I thought I might have read her wrong.

Tony laughed. “She’s still seducing you buddy, she’s just upped it to another level.”

“A level you can’t resist,” Mathew added.

“She figured you weren’t falling for her charms and went to the one place where she was bound to get your attention. Your work. She knows you’re an ambitious fucker, so she gave you bait and guess what you did? You bit it. Hard,” Tony said.

“Fuck.” They were right. I’d been so flattered that she’d picked me that I hadn’t stopped to consider whether she had an ulterior motive. “I don’t get why she picked me though.” There are so many other men she could hit on. Men who are more handsome and more charming than me.

“That is definitely a puzzle,” Tony said and rolled his eyes. “I hope you haven’t told Bianca. That would be a dumb move. You don’t want to deal with an insecure or jealous girlfriend.”

“What should I do? I can’t cancel the dinner! I really want to meet that client,” I said.

“Who said anything about cancelling the dinner? String her along,” Tony said.

“You’re walking a tight string,” Mathew said solemnly. “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. For once, I agree with Tony. String her along until she gets tired and moves on to a more willing prey.”

I raised my eyebrows. Prey? A minute later, it dawned on me that Mathew was right. I was indeed prey to Samantha. I wondered how many times she had played that game. I took a sip of my cold beer.

“I hate to lie to Bianca,” I said.

“This is one instance where you may have to,” Mathew said. “It’ll stress her unnecessarily. What matters is that you don’t cross the lines.”

“I have no intentions of crossing any lines. It’s not my style,” I said.

Still, I wasn’t feeling comfortable about the whole thing. “I hope I’m wrong and she’s not interested in me that way.”