27

“I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.” Her voice was soft, earnest. “I knew I couldn’t have you. I tried telling myself to let it go and move on. But nobody else would do. I kept comparing them to you. I couldn’t help myself. It was like you were always there in the back of my mind, like something everybody else had to measure up to, and they couldn’t get there.” Brenda looked away from him for the first time. She had returned to her usual chair and sat with her usual posture, the desk separating her from him. But everything was different now. Jason had the taste of her lips on his, the feel of her arms around him leaving an impression of warmth deeper and more lasting than the sunlight angling in against his back.

She went on. “I remember the first time I saw you. It was right out there. I’d only been with the bank a week or so. I was up here with Margaret. She had a presentation to do with Mark and wanted me along. I saw you across the room, walking with a whole entourage around you. There was something about you. I just kept staring. It was embarrassing.” She smiled, and the dimple in her right cheek was lovely.

The smile faded. “Jason, can we really do this? Please don’t play with me. I couldn’t bear that. But there’s so much against us. The rules of the office, Serena—”

“Serena left me.”

“But she keeps calling for you. I can tell by her voice she still feels for you.”

“Forget Serena. Whatever she feels, she destroyed it with what she did. I don’t want to talk about her.”

Brenda nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll never mention her again. I won’t even give you her messages anymore.”

“Good.” Jason pushed Serena out of his mind. It was easy with Brenda so near.

“But it would be bad if they found out around here, wouldn’t it? I know the HR rules, and you do too. They could fire us.”

“We’ll be careful.”

“I could ask for a transfer.”

“No. Don’t do that. I need you here.”

Her head tilted, and a blush rose through her face. The green of her eyes seemed to bore into him, compelling. Want for her erupted inside him.

He came out of his chair. Around the desk. It took forever. She rose to him and rushed into his arms again, the garden fragrance of her filling his senses, the warmth of her body against him. Her arms surrounded him, and her hands trembled against his back. Her face rose to him, close, the green in her eyes deep and mysterious as twin oceans, teeming with life and honesty and frailty.

They kissed. Delirious with her, Jason abandoned himself to the sensation of her against him and the texture of her mouth against his.

It was too much. Too much for this place.

He pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” Brenda searched his face, her eyebrows rising to ask him what she’d done.

It occurred to Jason how fragile she was in this moment, and how careful he must be with her.

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” He glanced at the door. From the position of the switch in the knob he could tell it was locked. But that wasn’t enough. “Look,” he said, touching her cheek with his fingertips, the softness of it as tender as the pale pink rose petal in its color. “I want you too. I want this. But more. And to have more, we have to be careful around here.”

He pulled away. He plucked a tissue out of the box on his desk and handed it to her, pointed to her mouth.

Her lashes beat with embarrassment, and she dabbed at it. “What about you?” she said. “You don’t usually wear lip gloss.”

Jason laughed. He wiped off the gloss and realized that he hadn’t laughed in weeks. “Tonight. What are you doing tonight?”

Brenda pressed herself into him and ran her hand down his arm to wrap his palm with hers. “Whatever you want.” She didn’t smile, just gazed into his eyes in a way that rattled his guts. Then she released him and went to the door, unlocked it, and returned to her desk.

* * *

Jason looked at his watch again. It was almost four thirty.

He could sense Brenda’s presence outside the door.

Eighteen unanswered e-mails spelled out their sender’s names, subjects, and dates in boldface. Half of them had attachments. One was from Mark, two from Vince. It would take some time to get through them.

He glided his mouse to get the cursor over the Start icon and turned off the computer.

A hand to his lips, he considered the layout of the desks outside his office. Brenda sat ten feet from Angie Barrett’s desk, and lenders were always hovering around. Anything he said to her out there would be overheard.

He slotted the laptop into his briefcase, then closed up a couple of files and dropped them in too. As if he would be working tonight.

Hands resting on the briefcase on his lap, he watched the doorway. Just a few feet outside it, she sat. He didn’t hear her typing or her voice. If she’d gone somewhere, he would have heard the sound of her chair rolling against the floor and the scrape of her heels when she slid her feet around to stand. He would have heard one heel on the plastic sheet between the carpet and her chair before she stepped off it, and he might have heard her speak a word or two to Angie as she passed.

He took up the briefcase and went to the doorway. The briefcase had to go to the floor for him to retrieve his jacket from the hanger on the back of the door. He draped the jacket over one arm and leaned over to pick up the briefcase. He cleared his throat.

Rounding the corner, he saw her. She lifted her eyes to him.

Angie glanced up, then back to the paperwork before her.

“I’m taking off,” he said to Brenda. “I have that appointment, then a dinner tonight.” He shuffled his feet, glanced toward Angie. Angie’s head stayed down. “You can go ahead and clear out if you don’t have anything too pressing.”

“Okay. Good night.” She gave him nothing. No wink, no smile.

“Okay, then. See you.”

Jason moved away from her desk. His feet acted like they didn’t belong in his shoes. His movements felt as clumsy as a toddler’s. At the elevator, he held his briefcase in both hands, then shifted it to his left and pulled his jacket over onto his other arm. Finally he draped the jacket over his shoulder.

The elevator let out a chime. The door was about to open.

“Jason.”

No. Not now.

“Hey, Jason.” Vince stood in his doorway. The Pillsbury Doughboy in a Brooks Brothers suit.

The elevator doors opened. Jason put out the hand with his jacket to hold the door open. “Yeah?”

Vince waved him toward his office and turned his back to him, his round bulk moving out of sight.

Jason sighed and shook his head. He let his hand drop, and the elevator doors slid closed. The whir of the car descended away.

He went to Vince’s office. “What’s up? I have a five o’clock appointment.”

“Who with?”

Vince hadn’t met the Northfield guys yet. It would be as safe as any other lie. “Ed Monroe.”

“We need to go over a few things. I’ll be here for a while. You can see me when you get back.”

“I’ll be late. We’re going to dinner after. It’ll have to be in the morning.” Jason turned to go.

“You know, I still need to meet Ed. Why don’t I clear my calendar—”

“Not this meeting. Next time.” He walked out.

“Jason!”

He cursed under his breath and went back.

Vince met him at his office door. “Why not this meeting?”

“We’re just going to go over third-quarter performance and grab a quick dinner. I’d rather do it later. You know, make a special appointment to introduce you.”

“No, let’s do it today. I’ll clear my calendar. Be with you in a couple minutes.” Vince went to his computer.

“All right. I’ll call him and let him know you’re coming.” Jason marched across the lobby.

Brenda was away.

He picked up his phone and held it to his ear. Listening for anything that would signal Brenda’s return to her desk, he tried to think through his options.

He dialed Ed Monroe’s office. Ed’s assistant picked up. The CEO was in New York meeting with investors.

Brenda still hadn’t returned. He would have heard her, sensed her, even while talking with Ed’s assistant.

Vince was waiting. With no Northfield appointment, any other excuse would be transparent. Jason’s frustration mounted.

He could simply leave. Find Brenda. She’d said, “Anything you want.” The words and the expression in her eyes took his frustration with Vince and wadded it into a ball of fury.

His fist pounded into his desktop. Outside, the sounds of the office paused momentarily, and then returned to their ordinary pattern. Jason stalked out of the office and across the lobby to Vince’s lair.

“A meeting with investors is going long. He had to cancel.”

Vince looked up, his usual expression of irritation in Jason’s presence taking on the sneer of a man smelling rotten fruit.

Jason went on. “I’ll reschedule for sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’ll let you know.”

Vince held his gaze for a minute, his mouth drawn tight, before turning to his computer and clicking his mouse a couple of times. “I’m pretty booked, but I’ll see if I can move some things around. Sit.” His fingers were like little sausages, pounding on the keyboard with a precision they had no business possessing. Another mouse click, and he leaned back in his chair. “Go ahead. Sit down.”

The spot opposite Vince’s desk felt too much like a visit to the principal’s office. Jason took the seat at the table across the room. Vince had to rotate his chair to face him.

“Let’s go through your September numbers. I didn’t see much growth.”

Not this conversation again. It was bad enough with Mark, but Jason heard every word out of Vince’s mouth as if it were a bullet being loaded.

Jason stared at him. Vince’s white hair was shorn like a sheep’s. The scalp glistened through it. He’d started wearing it short after he moved his office here. Jason couldn’t imagine why.

Vince spread his hands. “Well?”

“What do you want me to say that you don’t hear in your pipeline meetings every Monday morning?”

“I want you to say you’re working on a strategy to turn things around.”

“Yeah, me and the president are working on turning around the economy.”

“I don’t want smart—”

“We’re in the worst economy in seventy years, Vince. What kind of miracles do you expect?”

“The branches are still growing.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen some of their deals. They look really solid.”

Vince snorted. “They’re new business. Approved by committee and booked. Nobody but you is making excuses.”

It was about to come out. All of it. Jason’s fury over everything Vince had done over the past six months was perched at the base of his throat.

Jason swallowed hard. “You’re running every deal process. Every pipeline meeting. How am I supposed to get anything done? You tighten up everything we try to do until we lose it.”

“Now who’s not paying attention to the economy?”

“Your branches get deals done that are so loose you could drive a bus through the holes in the structure. Why is that, Vince? Why do you fight so hard for branch deals, but the ones this office pitches, you’re down on? Let’s hear it.”

“Always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it, Jason? Never yours.”

Jason beat a rhythm on the tabletop. “Are we about done here?”

“No.” Vince slid a piece of paper across his desk. “Read that and sign it.”

Jason would have to get up and walk to Vince’s desk. He stayed put. “What is it?”

“A memo. For your file.”

“My file.”

Vince slapped a pen down on top of the piece of paper. “That’s right. You need to sign it, evidence that we talked about it.”

So this was what it was coming to. Vince was papering Jason’s personnel file so he could fire him for cause.

Jason stood. He turned and walked out without saying another word.