AllFreeNovel
Share Us
GARETH
Leaning back against my chair, I regard the dark haired beauty before me with critical eyes. I wonder if Henshaw hired her for her supposed brains or for her looks. My head of HR is known for his meticulousness and only employs the best of the best. So, I don’t understand how this clumsy, disorganized lady is seated in front of me.
I should fire her on the spot for the sake of the all-important project, but I hesitate. And I don’t know why.
You know why. You fancy her!
I shift uncomfortably in my chair at the voice in my head. I was completely blown away when Miss Graham gracefully walked into my office a few minutes ago. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of her flawless beauty. I’d reprimanded her for staring at me as if I wasn’t real, but I’d also been ogling her shamelessly while she wasn’t looking. While she’d worn her feelings on her sleeve, I’d hidden mine with anger and exasperation.
Even now, as she’s sitting only a few paces from me, I catch a whiff of her peachy scent, and my body tightens. I’ve seen beautiful women before, so I don’t understand why I’m so affected by my new employee. Her dark brown hair, tied in a stylish bun, can be mistaken for black. The tendrils look so soft that I itch to run my fingers through them. As she talks animatedly, my scrutiny is drawn to her expressive honey-brown eyes and full lips. The pouting redness brings to mind crushed roses and strawberries. All I can think of at that moment is sending everyone away, dragging her sexy body into my arms, and devouring her lips with mine.
I catch myself. What the heck am I thinking? What is wrong with me? I’ve always appreciated stunningly beautiful women, but I’ve never reacted to one like this, especially as she’s my employee. How can I be thinking of having scalding, passionate sex with her? Proposing a sexual relationship to a subordinate will surely get me slammed with a sexual harassment suit.
She seems like someone who would blabber to anyone willing to listen that I came on to her. I must avoid that at all costs. She would be a perfect target for Sam Hunter too. The blasted journalist has been working on digging up dirt on me for years. If he gets wind that I’m involved with an employee, he will sing like a bird in his New York Magazine gossip column. All my hard work to keep my name from the press would be in vain.
Aside from Hunter, not only is Hailey my employee, but she also appears to be in her early twenties, which will put me about twenty years older than her. Dating younger women isn’t something I engage in.
With a start, I realize she has been talking about the project and I haven’t been listening. She’d said why she was chosen for the job and was now explaining cyber-security terms.
It will be unfair to ask her to start all over. There’s no way in hell I’ll admit that instead of listening, I’d been secretly ogling her and thinking of sheets and…
Focus, Gareth!
“In every election, voters expect that their votes will count and not be manipulated by outside, or sometimes inside, forces. It’s, therefore, my—well, our duty—to ensure that their votes are protected. We’ll have to work closely with the providers of the electronic voting machines because if the machines are not secured from attacks, hackers could reprogram them, which would affect the results. Various means must be adopted to thwart the plans of hackers. For instance, software acting like a digital burglar alarm could be triggered when there is an attempt.”
My eyes narrow as she continues talking about the different processes hackers could use to influence election results. I begin to understand why Henshaw chose her for this project. How a lady who had acted clumsily and unsettled earlier could be this composed and speak authoritatively amazes me. Clearly, I was wrong when I wondered if she was nothing but an airhead who charmed my HR manager into hiring her because of her looks.
Maybe it’s because of your incredibly good looks. I grimace inwardly at the jab one of my schoolmates had thrown at me some years ago as the reason I often got favored in our department at MIT. Women often get flustered around me, so maybe I should cut her some slack. After all, it’s her first day.
Again, I lose the train of her speech, and I curse myself inwardly. Is anyone noticing how distracted I am? My gaze swings from her face to my other employees. Thankfully, they’re all listening to her intently. Except for Brad. Is he hiding a smile behind his hand, or did he really cough? Am I going nuts thinking he noticed how caught up I am with her?
I must seize back control of the meeting, or I’ll be left hanging. As soon as she pauses to catch her breath, I cut in.
“Thank you for this comprehensive overview, Miss Graham.”
Her oval face turns into a rosy hue. Will she blush every time I speak to her?
Mentally pulling myself together, I carry on with the meeting. By the time we are done, I can’t help my admiration for my new cyber security engineer. Adam, the previous holder of the position, who had moved to Australia to take care of his parents, was brilliant, but Ms. Graham is something else. She knows her stuff, even if she is disorganized.
“Hold on a minute.” I stop her when she rises to leave with the others at the end of the meeting. Even though she’d impressed me, I must lay down some ground rules. Her eyes widen and her pen slips to the ground. Again. A grimace crosses my face. What’s with her and her inability to hold on to things? When the meeting was going on, I’d sent a message to Henshaw to send me her resume. So, while I give her time to pick up her pen and pull herself together, I skim through the file.
Not bad. She completed her graduate program in Cyber Security with outstanding grades from Carnegie Mellon. She worked for Google as a vulnerability researcher, and she lives in Brooklyn.
I lift my eyes from the computer screen to see if she has collected herself. My eyes lock with hers before she hastily looks away.
Not liking the feelings she evokes in me, I snap, “Your references are excellent, and I believe you’ll successfully handle the project, but if you keep acting like a shy teenager at her first prom, I’ll have to let you go.”
Her lips part as she returns her eyes to my face. She clamps her mouth shut and then opens it again, but she doesn’t say anything.
“You were ten minutes late to the meeting, which doesn’t speak well of you on your first day working here.”
“The L train was running late this morning.”
“That’s not an acceptable excuse. You should have taken a taxi.”
“Taxis cost a lot and….” She stops talking and bows her head with a reddened face.
“This is a very important project that you shouldn’t take lightly. It could open doors to more contracts, and I don’t intend it to be botched because of your tardiness. You’ll be advanced a transportation allowance today.”
