Page 14 of Empowered
Sarah always ate a light breakfast of a bagel and hummus. Good thing she ate light. Because she was liable to be as sick as Mrs. Monroe when she looked into the brilliantly blue eyes of Lucas.
Oh. My. God.
Frozen where she stood, Sarah had to check her opening mouth and default to her most detached mode available in her arsenal. “You… uh, thank you.”
Don’t let him know you recognize him!Sarah did her makeup in such a way that few people would know she was Angel. That was part of the point of not only taking up a new persona, but avoiding the detection of people who worked with her boss.
Apparently, she had not done a very good job avoiding those men.
“Least I could do after my bodyguard lost all of his manners.” Lucas shot the other man a sour look.Detach! Detach!Sarah had the poker face of the century when she gazed upon Lucas in his suited glory in broad daylight.Holy shit. He’s even more beautiful during the day.His freshly shaven face was as pristine as the dark hair on his head. but nothing compared to those broad shoulders contained within a bristling suit and a royal purple power tie. Aftershave as pleasant as it was intense smacked Sarah across the cheek. It was the amplified version of what she smelled Saturday night in New York.
If he recognized her… well, then his poker face was as strong as Sarah’s.
“Lucas Blackbourne.” He gave her hand a small shake. “You must be Ms. Clayborn, come to save my first meeting.”
“Uh, yeah…” Of course. Of course! “Excuse me.” Sarah blew by him and toward the conference room, her breath clogging her throat and probably turning her face blue.
“Ms. Clayborn!” Mr. Monroe leaped up from the head of the conference table. The way he looked over her head implied Blackbourne and Co. were coming up behind her. “Please, for the love of God, tell me you have that USB stick.”
She shuffled the disarrayed folders and shoved her hand into her pocket.
Then her other pocket.
Where the fuck was it!
Her paling face did not inspire confidence in the CEO of the company. He shared her panicked look before another heroic voice entered the room.
“Is this it, Damon?” Lucas reached over Sarah’s shoulder. His close proximity forced her to touch him again.
That surge of power passing from his chest to her back almost knocked her off her feet.
“Thank God.” Mr. Monroe plucked it from Lucas’s fingers and tossed it to the man taking care of the backup audio and visual. “The shareholders are already arriving. Welcome to hell. Let’s get started.”
Lucas put a gentle hand on Sarah’s shoulder to move her out of his way. “Excuse me, would you? You should probably go get him some coffee, while you’re up. If he yells at me like that, I can only imagine how he yells at you.”
Their eyes met. Sarah’s widened, slightly.
Lucas winked at her.
A knowing wink? A wink of recognition? Winking for the sake of fucking winking?
Coffee. Yes, coffee. Mr. Monroe would want coffee before starting the meeting. Mrs. Monroe would want her red tea. First, Sarah needed to take the security files to Mr. Monroe’s office and leave them on his desk.
She was one of few people allowed access to his most private business domain. The greenery hanging from the ceiling and planted upon the coffee tables were the only signs of life when she entered, folders shaking in her hand.
Mr. Monroe’s desk was usually impeccable, especially on Monday morning, but today it contained a stack of photographs awaiting new frames so they could be hung up behind his desk. There was one of his pregnant wife in white linen, enjoying a recent excursion to a Caribbean. One of his mother when she was younger, holding a baby Damon.
And one of him and Lucas Blackbourne clinking beer bottles together. They were uncharacteristically in T-shirts and jeans, their young visages dating them at least a decade. Sure enough, a banner above their heads saidYoung Men’s Social, ‘07.Must have been Princeton.
There was a note on top of it. An old note, based on the stain lining the edge. Not to mention, Mr. Monroe had changed his handwriting two years ago. Just up and decided to make it more legible for the sake of good business. Yet Sarah still knew how to read his old, sloppy cursive handwriting.
“Congrats on the marriage, Luke. Can’t wait to be your best man. Maybe that will be me one day, eh?”
Sarah hurried to stack the security folders as neatly as possible, although some were certainly out of place. If she had to, she would blame the supervisor downstairs. She didn’t have time to fix them herself, not with shareholders arriving and a huge meeting about to get underway. Nor did she have time to think about the married man she fucked Saturday night. The one standing only a few rooms away.
Angel wouldn’t have given a shit if he were married, separated, or chronically single. Sarah, however, had half a mind to drive her $500 executive pen into his jugular and hope his wife had an excellent life insurance policy on the cheating bastard. God, she was tired of rich men getting away with whatever the hell they wanted, the women in their way be damned.
She already hated the Blackbournes almost as much as she hated most of the Monroes.
