Illicit Affairs by Holly Dixon

Twenty-Two

Although Samantha didn’t realiseat the time that she was actually referring to Nate and not Peter, Ava followed her advice and began dressing a lot more provocatively to work.

At first, she went easy on Nate, starting off with just some low-cut blouses and a couple of short skirts, but as the days went on with no attention received from her boss, her workwear got a lot more risqué to the point that Ava started to receive attention from some of the other gents in the office. It wasn’t that she was invisible to Nate, she had noticed his jaw flex, the way he’d ball his hands under his desk, and could only imagine what she stirred in his pants. However, after a day or two of enticing him to utter more than two words to her, she began to get creative.

There were many ways to seduce a man in an office environment, for example: licking envelopes provocatively, bending over to fill the printer to expose your lingerie, sucking the spoon clean that you used to stir his coffee, but Ava’s favourite had to be the filing in Nate’s office. It was at the top of a tall set of shelves, so Ava had to stretch up so high that her short skirt rode up and exposed the fact she wasn’t wearing any panties.

That was the day Nate ruined his shirt and burnt his cock with hot coffee.

And yet still he refused to acknowledge her, and nothing seemed to work. She’d put typos in her emails, left her desk messier than normal, and she even came into work late! Mr. Brooks was adamant that she didn’t exist in his eyes other than as the good little assistant she was. He was avoiding her to the point of exile, and it drove Ava towards breaking point.

“The following images will be used as evidence in court, but also to spook you and shake your defence, Mrs. Forbes.” Peter was leading the briefing and exhibiting things on the large screen at the front of the room while Ava, Charlotte, and Nate sat around a large conference table. “I must warn you now, they are of a highly explicit nature regarding Oliver’s death.”

“Very well, Peter. Go ahead, I’m ready.” Charlotte sniffled behind a handkerchief, dressed in the most extravagant black dress that Ava had ever seen. She looked like she was attending a gala and not her attorney’s office.

As Peter brought up the images on the PowerPoint presentation, Ava’s gut lurched, and a churning mixture of stomach acid and her lunch filled her throat. She covered her mouth, catching Nate’s concerned gaze. His brows creased together as if asking her if she was okay, and she nodded as she gulped down the bile and reluctantly looked at the screen.

Oliver Forbes’s flimsy neck hung from the gym apparatus inside his art-deco-themed apartment. Even without blood flow, his skin was still slightly tanned, however, his face was a ghostly pale shade and his lips were stained a ghastly blue. He wore white silken pyjamas, flawless if not for the sunset-coral smear down his shoulder, a colour that wasn’t quite the shade of blood and seemed out of place. His feet dangled like the rest of him, toes pointed towards the floor and only inches away from saving his life.

“As you know, Freya has been detained for being the main suspect in this case since there is hard proof of her being at the crime scene and having a motive for wanting her brother dead—to absorb his share of the inheritance,” Peter explained as he continued on through the PowerPoint, bringing up images of evidence bags containing strands of Freya’s hair upon the gym apparatus and Oliver’s skin cells under her fingernails. “Her alibi is paper-thin, stating that although she was sleeping over at Oliver’s apartment that night, she believes she was drugged during the auction event, having no recollection of the evening. While we wait on forensics to come back, the spotlight is then naturally turned to yourself, Charlotte.” He held up a file and began flicking through it to produce a piece of paper that he slid in front of Mrs. Forbes. “During the night of your stepson’s death, you claim to have been at a night spa in Wembley, a twenty-minute drive from Oliver’s apartment…”

“I was there; I have booking receipts to prove it!”

“Yes, you clocked in at eight-thirty in the evening and we have CCTV footage showing you leave just before nine-thirty. However, Oliver died fifty minutes later…” Peter stated.

“Why do I feel like I am on trial right now?” Charlotte scowled at her lawyer.

“Mrs. Forbes, what Peter is trying to explain is that we have a void of time to fill with no hard proof to back up your alibi. Do you have any witnesses that can vouch for you?” Nate explained, the sound of his deep voice sending chills down Ava’s arms. It was the first time in days that she had heard him say more than a few words, even if those words weren’t directed at her.

“I’m sure the caterers would be able to confirm my whereabouts.” Charlotte’s demeanour softened as she glanced at Nate.

“Perfect, can you arrange a meeting?”

“Certainly, I’ll do it the second I am home, Nate.”

Nate? She was calling him Nate?! Ava fumed to herself.

As the meeting wrapped up, Charlotte and Peter began making their way outside as Nate stayed back typing something on his laptop. Ava saw her opportunity and leapt at it as she closed the door and watched Nate’s head pop up from behind his laptop, his thick brows slanting down into his whisky-coloured eyes.

“Ms. Archer?”

“I think we’re a bit past the Ms. Archer crap, Nate,” Ava sniped, her red heels prowling towards him, relishing in the way his eyebrows jumped back up in surprise. “You’ve been avoiding me for days.”

“No, I haven’t,” Nate said flippantly, his eyes glancing back down at his laptop. “It’s impossible to avoid someone you work with.” He shrugged, maintaining his cool composure despite Ava now standing a meter away from him with her knuckles pressed down against the large table and glaring daggers at him.

“Don’t play coy with me, sir,” she warned, prowling around the table like a scornful lioness. “You’ve been avoiding me, and I want to know why.”

“I told you already, I’ve not beenavoidi—”

“I am not some plaything you can toss aside just because you’ve had your fill! I was never looking for anything meaningful with you but that doesn’t mean you can treat me like dirt on your shoe, Nathaniel Brooks!” Ava’s voice cut across the room, dominating the space as her boss’s face winced ever so slightly.

“Look, Ava, I’m sorry if I made you feel like that, but this is for the best,” he sighed wearily, slumping in his chair as he dragged his hands down his face. “I don’t want to make things complicated, but I just don’t have room for you in my life… There’s a lot you don’t understand.”

“Try explaining it to me then.”

“Why can’t you just accept that I can’t get into this with you?” he snapped.

“Can’t or won’t?” she hissed, stood next to him now as her arms crossed over and inadvertently pushed her breasts up in the swooping neckline of her ruby blouse.

A moment passed where no words were uttered, Nate’s eyes lingering on her chest before he suddenly barked, “For fuck’s sake, will you please start dressing more appropriately for work!”

“Oh, what’s wrong, Nate?” Ava feigned confusion as her fingertips ran down her cleavage. “See something you like?”

“Oh, come on!” he whined, pressing his thumbs into his eye sockets as his head hung back in exasperation.

However, the last thing he had expected was when Ava’s leg suddenly appeared at the side of his thigh and her tight behind landed down upon his lap as she straddled him. His mouth fell ajar as he questioned, “What the hell are youdo—”

“Nate,” she cut him off with her finger pressed to his soft, plump lips, “I’ll make this quite simple for you; if you really don’t want me…push me away…and you’ll never see me again…”