As one, they all turned toward the speaker, now coming out of the same office at a much slower, more purposeful pace. Krista’s jaw clenched. Why me?
“They want to know if I can go down ten percent on price if they opt for the package,” the newcomer said in a lackadaisical manner, powerful body strolling up with the graceful slide of a fencer. “I was thinking that’s more than satisfactory. If so I can close it today.”
“Sure, sure. Get it done.” John waved his hand to shoo the man away.
“James, who is this?” the salesman asked in a sophisticated, smooth voice.
She had a brief moment to wonder about her excessive sweating problem in embarrassing situations as Mr. Montgomery dryly said, “Hello, Sean. This is our newest employee: Krista Marshall. Krista, meet Sean McAdams. Sean is a salesman here at the company.”
Sean’s intense gaze never left her. “Hello.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Krista comes to us straight out of college,” Mr. Montgomery continued in a bored voice. “She received top marks in her class from a prestigious school in Washington. You were what, top twenty, Krista?”
“Top five percent,” she replied quietly, silently cursing him for embarrassing her. She was doing a good enough job on her own.
“Yes, top five. A real dynamo!”
And that was before he said dynamo…
Sean smiled like a cat toying with a brightly colored bug. “It’s a pleasure.”
He studied her for a moment longer before nodding to John and turning away toward his office.
“Oh, and Krista…“ Sean’s gaze found her again. “I believe you have something that belongs to me, but don’t worry about it. I reprinted it. You can shred your copy, if you don’t mind.”
Krista, realizing what he was talking about—what piece of paper she’d gotten off the printer that he was talking about—stared dumbly. He smiled and resumed his powerful stride into his office.
Oh yeah, people would notice that weird factor. Great.
“Well, Krista, you let me know if sales can do anything for you, okay?” John said earnestly, shaking her hand again.
Mr. Montgomery sighed and started walking away.
“Sur—“Krista cut off, watching her boss plod down the hall. She looked back at John in despair. “Sorry, I gotta go.”
“John likes everyone to go to him for anything,” Mr. Montgomery said as soon as she had caught up. John was still within hearing range. “But you try to get anything done, and he bars the way.”
All Krista could do was inwardly groan.
When 5 o’clock rolled around, Krista couldn’t sprint out of work fast enough. She headed straight for happy hour with Kate and Jasmine, two friends from college who moved to San Francisco shortly after graduation. Krista had never thought to move, letting them escape to California unhindered, but when Jim had found her at a party, shortly after serving him a restraining order, and punched her in the face, she decided skipping town was the right, and only, way to play it.
Yes, he’d gone to jail—he took down another three people who got in the way, all of whom had pressed charges—but he’d get out eventually. Something as trivial as the law wouldn’t stop a man like Jim. Not being able to see out of one eye for a week drove that point home.
Krista spotted Kate in the corner sipping her drink.
Twenty-six with long brown hair and large, luminous eyes, Kate had a dainty look, but a contrasting foul mouth. She was also pygmy short, which was funny when she started throwing out the f-bombs. Her one, self-proclaimed, greatest flaw was always falling in love with g*y men. In her defense, it was an easy thing to do, especially in San Francisco. More than half the population of g*y men had great style, excellent hygiene and unbelievable bodies, not to mention being intelligent, educated and cultured.
Kate was in love a lot.
“Hey, Kate,” Krista said as she flung her handbag into the corner of the booth and crawled in.
Kate jumped, and then giggled. “You ass**le,” she said by way of hello.
“Did I grow, or is this pub fashioned after people your size?” Krista asked as she tried to straighten her legs under the table.
“Har har. How was your first day?”
“No, seriously. Is this not the smallest booth in the world? Let’s go to the bar.”
About then Jasmine showed up, looking like a painter. She was a tall girl and rail thin with a short bob and a cloudy disposition, but always managed to make things fun regardless. Or maybe she sought to up the fun factor since she thought everything was dismal.
Though all of them went to the same college with the same major, each of them landed in different fields. Jasmine was a designer of some sort and Kate ended up in product development. They all had jobs, though, so they didn’t complain too loudly.
“Hi,” Jasmine said, sliding onto her own bar-stool.
“So, Krista,” Kate said. “What about these embarrassing stories from the day you text about earlier?”
“Ooh, I love embarrassing stories!” Jasmine clapped happily, catching the eye of the older bartender and pointing to the tap of Harp.
Krista couldn’t help a grin. “I have a few. First off, my boss!”
Kate and Jasmine settled into their barstools expectantly as Krista unfolded the strange events of her first day. When she started talking about Mr. Montgomery and his various quirks, humiliation turned into hilarity.
Finally Krista got to the most embarrassing story.
“Wait,” Jasmine said as she bowed her head with a thoughtful expression. “You picked up a piece of paper, which you had heard print, in order to look normal? I don’t get it. Was he hideous or something?”
“Or creepy?” Kate asked as she leaned over her martini to get a good look at Krista’s face.
Krista cleared her throat and shrugged. Kate and Jasmine immediately honed in.
“He was hot, wasn’t he?” Jasmine accused with an evil smile.
Krista shrugged again, hating that her friends could read her so well.
“He must have been super f**king hot to make you lose your shit!” Kate chortled, matching Jasmine’s delight.
Krista kept the shrugs coming.
“Seriously? He was that hot?” Jasmine asked with a quirked eyebrow.
Krista felt herself flush. “Okay, yes. He was hot, okay? He just surprised me, is all. He was in my space—I wasn’t all ga-ga over him, or anything! I know to steer clear of hot guys!”
“Womanizing guys,” Kate corrected.
“Same thing.” Jasmine waved the thought away. “Describe him!”
“Seriously, you guys. There’s nothing to describe. He was pleasant looking, he smelled good, and he surprised me in an enclosed space. It’s not like I’m great with people. He could’ve been anyone and I would’ve been a dweeb!”
“De-scr-ibe-him,” Jasmine enunciated.
Krista rolled her eyes. “Fine. He was over six feet—not much over, I don’t think. He had really green eyes—super green. Hard to look away from eyes. Stop looking at me like that!” Kate held up her hands as if to say there was no look. Krista continued with a red face. “He had blondish hair in kind of a spikey ‘do. He had these, like, noble-born features ….”
Jasmine shook her head to cut her off. “What does that even mean? Who do you know that’s noble?”
“Just…I don’t know…like, straight nose, chiseled jaw—like a guy a photographer would have a wet dream over.”
“Okay, so he was noble, fine. Body?” Jasmine asked with hungry eyes.
“Jaz, whoa, get laid already,” Kate said as she leaned away.
Jasmine huffed, “I need to. It’s been a while. But I loves me a good hot man.”
“Nice body,” Krista continued, thinking back. “Biceps, super broad shoulders—he was like, hulking in the entryway. Trim waist.”
“Dress?”
“Suit,” Krista matched the girls’ smiles. She couldn’t help it. “Tailored, silk tie that matched his eyes…he looked good in it. He wore it like a second skin. He like…lounged in it, or something.” Krista shook her head, trying to calm the hatching butterflies in her stomach.
Like any girl, Krista also loved to look at hot guys, but this one had been different somehow. There was certain quality to him that made her act like a teenager with a crush. It hadn’t happened since she was a teenager with a crush.
“So…he was super-hot and you freaked out,” Kate summed up.
“Well, it wasn’t just that his face was perfect, you know? He was rugged and masculine, but so damn smooth he’d melt in your mouth.” Krista fanned herself, finally giving in with a bright smile, “He gives me fire-crotch just thinking about him.”
“Hah!” Jasmine pointed at her with victory. “I knew it!”
“So hit that, Romeo,” Kate laughed.
“She’s a chick. She’d be Juliet, dummy,” Jasmine said flippantly.
“Whatever. Same dumb play.”
“Yeah, right,” Krista mentally shrank back from the suggestion. “New job. He’s the kind of guy that everyone probably talks about.”
“Yeah, true. And if he doesn’t have a girlfriend, which he probably doesn’t, all he wants to do is sleep around and then talk about it. I hate man-sluts,” Jasmine pronounced, going back to her beer.
“Yeah,” Kate agreed into Krista’s nod, “But they sure are nice to look at!”
All the girls fell on the bar laughing. A truer statement had never been uttered. The three of them were worse than any man when it came to gawking. They’d all three turn and look, smiling appreciatively, and then walk away without bothering to say hello, having no time for the man. Heartache or a bad lay was rarely worth the nice face or body.
Still…a girl could look!
“But when are you going to get back out there?” Jasmine asked, as her knowing chuckles subsided.
These girls, to some extent—Kate more so than Jasmine—knew her history. They knew about the bad nights and the dark days. They knew her recovery from the scared, weak woman her ex-boyfriend Jim made. They were her support network most of the time, but sometimes, like now, they branched out and pushed.
Krista shrugged uncomfortably. Jasmine was right to push. Krista was young. She’d made some mistakes—one in particular—but she couldn’t let that dictate the rest of her life. She did need to move on. She needed to learn to trust again. She needed to find someone safe who wouldn’t jerk her around.
She just didn’t feel like starting today. She said as much.
“But you do need to, though,” Jasmine persisted in a quiet voice.
Krista sighed, tears springing to her eyes unbidden. “Jim got ahold of a Facebook account. He’s been messaging with threats.”
“What?” Kate yelled. “When did this happen? Why am I just hearing about this?”
Krista waved her away, desperate not to let Jim ruin her day. “It was bound to happen, right? Even when he was cheating on me, or…the other stuff…he was always possessive. He thought we were going to get married,” Krista snorted in derision. “It’s just a computer. He doesn’t know where I am.”
“What’d you do? Did you contact his parole officer?” Kate pushed with round eyes.
Krista shrugged. “He wasn’t breaking any laws. I closed all my social media accounts.”
“I never use that crap, anyway. You’re not missing anything,” Jasmine deflected.
“Well, me neither—hence us not knowing this first-hand, but… Shit.” Kate stared at her drink.
The girls stared at their drinks for a quiet moment, each reliving some memory from Jim they’d rather forget. After a second, Jasmine said, “What did that salesman say when you waved his paper in front of his face?”
She could turn around on a dime, thank God. She steered the conversation back to safer waters.
After a deep breath, Krista said, “I didn’t hear what he said—I sprinted out of there too fast!”
“He wasn’t mad?”
“No. When I met him later, he was smiling about it. Definitely not mad.”
“Oh my god…” Jasmine had a somber look, like she’d just found out someone had just died. “He totally knows he makes you nervous!”
“Yup,” Krista said, peeling the label off her beer. “It was a print-out of some graphs for a sales presentation.”
“He works on the same floor?”
“No, thank God. He printed it from the art department. It had his name on it and everything. He had to go reprint.”
Jasmine started laughing.
“There’ll be no living with him now. You’re screwed,” Kate said as she shook her head.
“Yup.”
Chapter Two
Day two!
Training day, which had only taken a couple hours of the morning, and consisted of a ridiculously quick job rundown by a mildly disgruntled employee. Krista had learned a couple things. One, stay away from someone in the department named Dan. He farted.
When asked for elaboration, she was told by Rachel, the girl leaving, that she had to sit behind him and smell the funk all day. It was a medical thing, so not his fault, but still, that was a thing apparently.
Krista couldn’t stop a few stray giggles breaking free. What a thing to tell somebody!
Next, don’t talk to the art department, or Jacob, the IT Manager. Apparently Jacob read people’s email if they landed on his radar. Rachel didn’t have to tell Krista twice.