New Boss Old Enemy.: An Enemies To Lovers Office Romance Page 6

  I don’t feel any better. All Lottie has done is make me question everything once more. And then I wonder why she always accuses me of overthinking everything.

  I stand up, put my trash in the bin and head back to my office. I’m a little surprised to see Beatrice sitting behind my desk as I approach.

  She looks up guiltily as I step into the office. She covers the guilty look with a smile. “I was just sending a few emails while I waited for you,” she says quickly.

  “On my computer?”

  “Just making sure it all works.”

  I smile tightly. “Okay. What can I do for you?”

  She points to a stack of papers that she’s placed on my desk. “Mr. Miller asked me to print these out and bring them to you to send to our top twenty clients. Their names and addresses are in the database. Do you need any help using it?”

  “No, I’m good thanks. I’ll get on it right away.”

  Beatrice gets up rather reluctantly from my chair. She flashes me a smug smile that I don’t really know how to take before she leaves the office.

  I sit back down and bring up the database.

  By four o’clock I’ve sent out the letters, wrote up the minutes from the meeting and completed the report. I open up the diary app, just wanting to familiarize myself with Ashton’s schedule for the next day, so I can keep on top of what’s going on. My heart sinks when I see the app. All of the text is written in what I think might be German.

  Fuck. What do I do now? I think for a moment and reach for my desk phone. I’ll call Jess and ask her how to switch it back out to English. I pull my hand away from the phone. I can’t help but remember the way Beatrice laughed on my tour and told Jess she’d be hearing from me a lot. I don’t want to be the newbie who can’t do anything for herself.

  I think back to Beatrice sitting behind my desk looking guilty when I came back from my lunch break and I smile to myself. I know what this is. It’s trick the newbie time. And I won’t fall for it and run to Jess. I can figure this out myself. If I panic at the first trick, more will come. If I fathom this out and get it sorted myself, the novelty will wear off, and I’ll be accepted as one of them.

  I don’t know a lot about coding, but I know enough to get into the backend of the system and I know enough to find what I’m looking for. The language tag. There’s a whole load of gibberish that I don’t understand – symbols and commands – and then I find it. The part I need to change is simple. Sitting between two quotation marks is the word German. I quickly delete it and change it to the word English. I cross my fingers, click save, and exit the backend of the program.

  A triumphant yes escapes my lips when I see everything has reverted back to English. I go back to my original task and familiarize myself with Ashton’s day tomorrow. He has an early meeting and then another one later on in the afternoon. I make a few notes on my notepad of what he’ll need for the two meetings, so I can make sure everything is ready for him when it should be.

  Finally, at five, I shut down the computer and slip out of my office. I steel myself for the moment I’ll come face to face with Ashton and I tap on the glass door.

  He smiles and waves me in.

  “I’m all done unless you need anything else,” I say.

  “Nope, all good,” he replies. He holds up the report I brought him earlier. “This is really good Elena, thanks.”

  I feel myself blush at his praise. I’m going to wear a little more make-up tomorrow. I can’t have Ashton seeing me blush every time he says something nice to me.

  “How was your first day?”

  “Good,” I confirm. “I think I’m finding my feet.”

  He smiles. “Give it until the end of the week and you’ll feel like you’ve been here all of your life.”

  I nod and return his smile. “So goodnight then,” I say.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  I go back to my own office and gather my things. I’m just about to leave when Beatrice appears in my doorway. I smile and wave her in.

  “I just wanted to make sure everything’s ok,” she says.

  “Everything’s fine. Thanks for taking the time to check in on me.”

  “And you have Mr. Miller’s schedule for tomorrow?” she asks.

  I know exactly what game she’s playing. She wants to know if I’ve encountered her handy work yet. I smile and nod.

  “The diary program is working, ok?” she presses.

  I could just keep nodding along, but I decide to put her out of her misery. “It is now,” I say. “The coding was a little off. The text turned to German, but it’s all fixed now.”

  “Oh. You must have hit the wrong button or something.” She grins. “Did you call Jess to fix it?”

  “It’s not a button I could accidentally press. You have to go into the backend and manually change the code. Someone must have been in here and done that,” I say pointedly. “Hazing the new girl and all that. But no, I didn’t call Jess. It was a simple enough fix, so I just did it myself.”

  “You know coding?” she demands. She looks pretty pissed off that her hazing didn’t have the desired effect. Either Jess is right about her and we’ll be laughing about this soon enough, or Beatrice really has taken a dislike to me.

  “I know lots of things, Beatrice. Things you would never imagine I would know,” I say cryptically.

  She makes that hmm sound again and then she turns to leave my office. “Well see you tomorrow then, Elena.”

  “You sure will.”

  She walks away.

  I laugh quietly. Maybe working here won’t be so bad after all. Because whether this is harmless hazing or Beatrice trying to sabotage me, my school days with Ashton have done one thing. They’ve prepared me to stand up for myself and not let anyone get one over on me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ashton

  Elena has been working here for a week now and I think she’s really starting to enjoy it. She’s good at the job, always turning her work in on time and to a high standard, and she has even started pre-empting what I might need and getting it done before I have to ask her which is always a good sign in a personal assistant. She’s fitting in well around the office and everyone seems to like her. Most importantly, she seems to be getting less nervous around me, and I think she might finally be accepting my apology and seeing that I’ve changed. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking and she’s just being courteous to me because I’m her boss. Either way, it feels like a step in the right direction.

  As if me thinking about her summons her, I look up and Elena appears in my office doorway. She’s wearing a black trouser suit and a yellow blouse. I can’t help but imagine myself ripping the buttons off her blouse and throwing it to the ground, pushing her trousers down and ripping her panties off her. I push the image away and motion for Elena to come in to my office.

  “You have the report I need?” I ask.

  It’s clear she doesn’t; her hands are empty. But I wasn’t joking when I said I needed the report by the end of the day and it’s already pushing on for three. I just want to give her a gentle reminder that I still need it without having to come down too hard on her.

  “No,” she says. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She’s still standing up, barely inside of my office door and I motion for her to come and sit down. She does, but she looks nervous now. Her hands are twitching as they rest in her lap and I’m almost sure she’s been crying.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Elena replies. “The report was almost finished. I thought I’d saved it but I can’t have done. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, my computer was shut down. I figured there’d been a power surge or something so I rebooted it. But the document was gone. I’ve been in touch with IT, but they can’t find any trace of the document to recover it. I’ve spoken to the secretaries and none of their computers did anything strange.”

  “Are you saying you thi
nk your work was sabotaged?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “No. I’m not accusing anyone of anything and I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I’m just at a total loss to what happened. I just wanted to make you aware of the situation. I still have all of the notes I made and I can get the report redone. I’ll stay as late as I have to make it happen. I just ...”

  She trails off. She looks down into her lap and I hate how sad she looks. I don’t honestly think anyone at the company would intentionally sabotage her work, but at the same time, I believe her story. If she’d forgotten about the report, she would have come up with a better cover story than this if she wasn’t willing to just hold her hands up and admit she screwed up.

  “You just what?” I press her.

  “I just hate that I’m going to miss the deadline,” she says finally.

  She looks up at me and there are definitely tears shining in her eyes. I stand up and make my way around the desk. I sit down on the edge of it, directly in front of Elena. I reach out and put what I hope is a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  She gasps as I touch her, but it’s not a fearful gasp. It’s a gasp that tells me she feels the sparing of electricity between us exactly the same as I do. My hand tingles where it touches her. She looks up at me with wide, lustful eyes and I want nothing more than to kiss her, but I stop myself. It would be unprofessional, and if I have misread Elena’s reaction, I could make her really terrified of me.

  “You said you could recreate the report tonight right?” I say.

  She nods, her eyes focused on mine.

  “Then you haven’t missed the deadline. I need the report for my eight am meeting tomorrow. As long as I have it by then, we’re good,” I say.

  It’s the truth. I have a potential new client who wanted a meeting at eight am on a Saturday. Yes, eight am on a damned Saturday. Normally I would have said no, but she’s interested in placing a huge order for our software, and if it comes off, we’ll smash our quarterly target. Elena relaxes a little at my words and I feel some of the tension leave her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she says. She sniffs hard and then she smiles. “I’m sorry for coming in here like this. I just wanted to keep you updated.”

  “You did the right thing,” I say.

  I am aware that my hand is still on her shoulder, and although it started out as a means of comfort, it’s been there too long for that now. She’s not making any effort to wriggle out of my touch, and if it’s making her uncomfortable, she’s hiding it well, but I pull it away anyway. It seems to break the spell and Elena looks away from me quickly and gets up.

  “I’d better go and get started then,” she says, flustered.

  “Elena wait,” I say when she reaches the door.

  She turns back to me and I smile at her. What I hope is a warm and friendly smile.

  “I’ll be working late myself tonight,” I say.

  This technically wasn’t true a minute ago. I had no intention of staying back tonight. But now I know Elena will be here and I’m confident she feels the attraction between us, I decide on the spur of the moment to be around. Maybe she’ll thaw even more if she has a chance to get to know me a little bit better.

  “Why don’t you stop by my office for a drink once the report is finished? It’ll be a good way to celebrate a successful first week,” I say.

  “Ok,” Elena says, a little warily. She smiles and I wonder if I imagined her wariness. “I’d like that.”

  I think it’s fair to say we’ll both like that. And if I’m reading this right, we’ll both like what’s coming after the drink.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ashton

  Staying late actually worked out well for me. I’ve managed to get through a load of those little tasks that I knew needed doing but kept putting off in favor of more important things. The office was mostly cleared out by around six. It is Friday night after all, and generally the only people working late on a Friday night are those who have dropped the ball through the week.

  By seven, I figured Elena and I were alone in the building. I have had a delicious warm feeling inside of myself ever since, and I keep thinking about what might happen tonight. I’d really like to get up the courage to ask Elena on a real date, and I might even kiss her if she accepts my invitation. To be honest, I’m hoping for a lot more than a kiss. I want to take her in my arms and make her body feel amazing things. I want to show her that my mouth, once used to hurl insults at her, can make her feel amazing as well as humiliate her. I want to show her how much I have wanted her all of these years. But despite that, I am planning on taking things slowly.

  I don’t want to rush Elena into anything. When I claim her pussy, I don’t want any nagging doubts in the back of my mind that she’s only doing it because she’s afraid of what might happen if she says no. I want to know for sure she wants me as much as I want her. I know I’m not imagining the chemistry between us, but that doesn’t mean Elena is ready for more. I’ll take things as slowly as she wants to. I’ve waited since school for a chance with this girl, so what’s another couple of months? She will be worth the wait no matter how long it takes to get her to see that we’d be good together. I know that much for sure.

  I hear footsteps in the hallway and I pull a sheet of paper full of numbers towards me. It’s this month’s profit and loss sheet. I have already studied the document in great detail and I’m pleased that it shows consistent growth, but I need something in front of me so it looks like I’m working on something; like I have a reason to still be here. It will look pretty creepy if Elena gets to my office door and I’m just sat here grinning out at her like a lunatic, and even if she’s not creeped out, she might think I stayed back just to check up on her and I don’t like that idea much more than the creepy one.

  I listen to the footsteps approaching. The anticipation sends shivers down my spine and my cock is tingling with the thought of what might come next. I can’t believe that in just a few short seconds, I’ll be sharing a drink with the girl of my dreams. After all of these years I have been obsessed with her, it’s finally going to happen.

  A quiet knock comes on my door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  I finally look up from the sheet of paper that is supposed to be commanding my attention. I flash Elena a charming smile. The smile slips instantly when I see it’s not Elena who has come into my office. It’s Beatrice, one of the secretaries. I had no idea she was still here. How would it have looked if she’d come to my office later and saw me sitting drinking with Elena?

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Oh nothing Mr. Miller,” she says.

  She’s twirling a strand of her hair around her finger which is distracting. I want to tell her to stop it, but I don’t. I just want her out of here. If Elena comes in now, I can’t very well give her a drink without offering Beatrice one, and I haven’t sat here for almost four hours after finishing up just to have a third party join us.

  “Let me rephrase that,” I say, forcing a smile. “Why are you still here at nine o’clock on a Friday night?”

  She’s holding a couple of files, but I haven’t asked her for anything that couldn’t have waited until Monday and I’m a little confused about why she’s here at all. She moves around my desk and sits down on it, positioning herself way too close to me. I try to move subtly but there’s nowhere to go without pushing the chair out and I really don’t want to offend her. She crosses her legs, her skirt riding up a little as she does it.

  “Oops,” she grins, tugging at the skirt but not really pulling it down any.

  Beatrice has flirted with me since the day she started working here, but she’s never gone this far before. I’m not sure why she’s decided tonight is the night, but it’s the night I’ve been dreading. I’m not in the least bit attracted to Beatrice. I mean don’t get me wrong, she’s a very attractive woman. But she’s no Elena. No one is.

  I’ve never done anything to encourage h
er flirting. If anything, I have been more formal with her than the other secretaries because I’ve always been afraid of giving her the wrong idea. Now it looks like she’s decided to take the wrong idea regardless. I’m going to have to turn her down and risk upsetting her.

  I don’t want to upset her; she’s good at her job, and she’s a nice enough woman. But I really can’t do this with her. And especially not tonight. Tonight is my shot at showing Elena I’ve changed. It’s not going to bode well for that if she sees Beatrice running from my office in embarrassment.

  “What are you doing here Beatrice?” I ask again, my tone a little more abrupt.

  “You sound stressed out,” she says. “Let me give you a shoulder rub. I’m very good at them.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I say.

  I’m too late. Beatrice is already getting back down off my desk. As she stands up, the files she’s holding slip from her hands and drop to the ground. Papers flutter everywhere.

  “Oops,” Beatrice says again.

  She gives me a smile that I can only describe as lecherous. If I gave her that look without any interest on her part, I’d likely be facing a lawsuit. At least her dropping the papers gives me a reason to move without it looking like I’m just trying to put some distance between us. I push my chair back, ready to bend down and retrieve the papers, but Beatrice beats me to it. The second my chair goes back she falls to her knees in the gap I’ve made.

  And of course that’s the moment I notice Elena standing at my door, her hand balled into a fist ready to knock. Her mouth drops open and I realize with horror that she can see Beatrice’s feet. From where Elena is standing, there’s no way this looks like anything other than Beatrice giving me a blow job.

  Elena turns and quickly walks away, almost running. I jump to my feet. Beatrice looks up at me with a grin.

  “Sit back down. I’ve got it,” she says.

  “Beatrice this behavior is inappropriate and you know it. I’m going to leave my office now, and when I return, I want those files reordered on my desk and you gone for the night and then we’ll never speak of this moment again. Is that clear?”