I yank my trousers all the way up, race over to the door and kick it shut, which in hindsight is a really stupid move, because now I’m trapped inside my office.
I lean back against the door, my heart thumping its way up into my throat. What the hell is he doing here? Did he see? Of course he saw. How much did he see? Oh god, oh god. I’ve never been prone to panic attacks, but I think I might be about to have my first one. Fantasising about him catching me is one thing. Having it actually happen is something else entirely.
I let myself have a mini meltdown for a minute or so, and then I force myself to calm down. I force myself to think logically, to think it through. Denial is going to be key here. I straighten up, fasten my trousers, tuck my blouse back in place. My fingers are sticky, but I can’t do anything about that, so I ignore it. Why did it have to be Ethan? Why couldn’t it have been Cal?
I turn, press my ear against the door, but the pounding of my pulse is so loud that I can’t hear anything over it. Crap. I can’t stay in here all night, though I’m thinking about it. I press my hands to my face, my shame burning my palms. Why didn’t I resist? Why didn’t I go home and let my favourite vibrator Mr Big have his way with me?
Why did it have to be Ethan?
I run through a million ways out of this, most of which involve variations of me staying in my office until they find my desiccated corpse on the floor, and realise that I’ve got only one option.
I’m going to have to bullshit my way out of it.
I set my fingers to the door handle, take a deep breath, steeling myself to greet him with a quick hello and act as if nothing happened. After all, I don’t really know what he saw. Maybe the desk hid everything. Maybe he turned up the second after I’d done, and all he saw was me slumped in his chair with my eyes closed, and I can pretend I felt a bit faint, that’s all. Maybe he didn’t in fact see me frigging myself senseless behind the desk, with my legs spread wide and my fingers in my pussy and a look of ecstasy on my face.
Yes. And maybe my orgasm face is attractive and not completely demented.
I open the door.
He isn’t there. The place is empty, silent except for the whirr of the air conditioning. For a second, I think that I imagined it, then I catch the faintest trace of his aftershave in the air. It hits me like a cricket bat to the stomach.
Ethan Hall just caught me masturbating. Mr Uptight, Mr Don’t-use-ten-words-when-one-will-do just caught me getting myself off right there on the swivel chair in my office. The door at the far side of our floor opens and the cleaners clatter in. I dash back to my desk, grab my handbag, flick off my computer screen and lock my desk drawer. I have to get out of here. I can’t breathe.
I push past the cleaners, barely hearing their hellos, and make my way down the stairs. By the time I make it outside I am utterly convinced that I’ve just killed my career and ruined my entire life. I walk to the train station in a complete daze, and how I get on the right tube and get off at the right stop is beyond me.
I stagger into my house and collapse on the sofa in the dark. I sit there like that for long, too long, staring mindlessly into space, trying to figure out what the hell to do now.
By the next morning, I still haven’t figured it out. I spent most of the night lying awake in bed, trying not to think about it. At best, I’ll have to change my name and leave the country. At worst…well, the worst doesn’t even bear thinking about.
I pull on a suit, a blouse, fix my hair and makeup and catch the train to work. When I get inside, everything seems normal. No-one says anything. When I sneak a glance in the direction of Ethan’s office, the door is closed. I drink coffee and work and drink more coffee and buy a pair of shoes on my phone, and by half eleven, I’m beginning to think that maybe this is going to be okay. Maybe he didn’t see. Maybe he did see, but he’s going to act like he didn’t. Maybe if we never speak of it, it didn’t happen.
And then a little box pops up on the corner of my computer screen. You have new email! I automatically click through to my inbox. It’s probably Mr Donovan, changing his mind for the fiftieth time.
It’s not from Mr Donovan.
It’s from Ethan.
I don’t want to read it. I can’t read it. I’m not going to read it. I click delete and go back to the plans I was working on, only I can’t focus and basically I’m just drawing Lego houses. Twenty minutes later, my email pings again. I click delete again. Denial, denial.
Denial doesn’t really work when he rings my office phone and I answer it. ‘Tasha,’ he says. ‘Can I have a quick word?’
‘I’m a little busy,’ I say.
‘It’s important,’ he says. His tone is sharp, and through the open door of my office, I hear fingers stop tapping away at keyboards as the admin staff out on the main floor pause and listen in to our conversation.
Damn it. My cheeks flame. ‘Fine,’ I say. I slam down the phone far harder than I intend to, then put some steel in my spine, walk through into his office and carefully close the door. He’s sat behind his desk, a vast expanse of polished oak, in a dark swivel chair the same as mine. My stomach drops to my knees. I pick at my cuticle then remember that I don’t do that any more, and stop myself.
He clears his throat. ‘About yesterday,’ he says.
Dear god, this is awkward. I know that everyone outside is wondering what’s happening in here. Wondering what we’re doing. Thomas Associates isn’t a place where a lot happens. When we swapped from digestives to custard creams, everyone talked about it for a week. This little confrontation will be gossip fodder for a month. If not longer. ‘What about it?’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘We need to talk about what happened.’
‘Which was?’ I can’t stand this. I can’t listen to him talk in that cut-glass accent. I’m tired and anxious and being in here with him must be messing with my head, because I’m looking at him and I’m remembering the way he looked when I caught that glimpse of him through the half-open door last night.
‘Tasha,’ he says quietly. ‘We both know what you were doing.’ He sits there, watching me with those pale blue eyes, his arms folded, and I’m suddenly struck by how attractive he is. It’s not the loud, brash sexiness of Cal Bailey, but something quiet and dignified, with cheekbones that could cut glass, and that accent that definitely does.
I bet he’s really filthy. Why did I not see that before?
And now I’ve got that thought in my head, I can’t get rid of it.
‘I’m not trying to make this difficult,’ he says. ‘I simply want to make sure we can move forward from it.’
‘What do you want from me?’ I hiss out the words, because I really want to shout them, but I can’t. ‘I did it, you caught me. Now you’re either going to make an issue of it, or you’re not. Which is it?’
‘That depends.’
‘Depends on what?’ I can feel my anxiety growing inside me, a black, oily thing, only it’s less like anxiety and more like rage, now. I’m tired of having to work myself into the ground in order to get ahead. I’m tired of not only having to work the same as the men, but having to outwork them.
‘On
