Insatiable (14 page)

Finally, she stood up. She was a bit shorter than me, a bit slighter.

“You’re familiar with the term ‘opportunity cost,’ correct? The idea that by choosing one course of action you do so at the cost of other courses you might have taken?”

“Yes,” I said, trying not to frown. It was a concept that had come up a fair amount while I was getting my undergraduate degree. By choosing one thing, you take away your ability to choose certain other things. Pretty simple, pretty obvious.

But why is she bringing this up now? Am I in trouble or aren’t I in trouble?

“I don’t normally get this personal with coworkers, so please forgive me,” Ms. Spencer said. She walked over to a bookcase against one wall of her office and looked at the spines of the books sitting on it without really seeing them.

I still didn’t know what to say, how to react, or even what was going on, so I stayed silent.

“As I said, you remind me a lot of myself at your age. Though I also have to say, and not without some jealousy, that I think you’re ahead of where I was,” she said as she ran her fingers along the spines of the books. “I wanted to be the top person in my field. And I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way. Nothing at all, you understand? A one-track mind.”

“I understand,” I said. Some of the things she said sounded like compliments, but I got the impression that she didn’t mean them as compliments. Not in this context, at least.

“Taking that particular path cost me many opportunities that, now that I’m not so far from retirement as I would like, I wish I’d reconsidered. Because I have to say, I’ve had more success than many other people. But I find myself asking one question more and more often. At what cost? Can you tell me, Quinn?”

She looked back over her shoulder at me, so I didn’t think it was a rhetorical question. “You have to make sacrifices, I suppose.”

“You name it and I sacrificed it,” she said. “I couldn’t come home for either of my parents’ funerals. Important business meetings with important clients, you see. I haven’t even received cards for Christmas or anything like that from my sister in a good ten years. There was a young man I used to know. He told me he loved me and I loved him, too. I really did. But I let him slip through my fingers, too. Opportunity cost, you see.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say to her.

“You and me both,” she replied, “A career like this costs so much. Too much, for some. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, but so often lately I find myself regretting what those accomplishments took away from me.”

She moved away from the bookshelf and stood in front of me. I could pick out the grey strands in her hair from this close, see the fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. “Some might look and say that I’ve made no mistakes, simply choices that took me down on life path rather than another.”

“What do you say?” I asked. The question sounded a little too impertinent to me, but I asked it anyway.

Ms. Spencer nodded, “Sometimes I think one way, sometimes I think the other. But by now I figure you’re probably wondering what all my rambling has to do with you.”

It would definitely have been impertinent to answer that question, so I choose discretion. She looked at me, and I felt something like a fresh recruit being dressed down by the grizzled sergeant.

“Well, here it is,” she said. “I wished I’d had someone to lay this out to me when I was as young as you are. So I decided I’d lay it out for you. Since you started on the Ward account, I’ve noticed how much time you spend outside of regular office hours on work. Email access logs and the like, you see. Don’t worry, I just see the access and usage reports, not your actual emails or anything like that.”

I struggled to find some sort of excuse. “I want to make sure the job’s done right. Like you told me before, doing well could really give me career a boost.”

She gave me a sharp look and I quieted.

“I’ve also made certain other inquiries. I got curious when Mr. Callaghan described how... vehement Vaughn Ward was that you handle the account.”

“I’m not being removed from the account?” I said, my nerves jagged inside of me.

“What? No, of course not. I wanted to share my own experiences with you and make sure you understood the opportunity cost of being totally professional, totally career-oriented.”

She raised her eyebrow, and I got the sense that she’d inferred quite a bit of the tension between Ward and me, much like Anne. However, unlike Anne, Ms. Spencer decided to be more tactful about it.

“What are you suggesting?” I said.

She shrugged her slight shoulders. “I’m not suggesting anything, Quinn. You’re in charge of your life, not me. I’m merely hoping that you take into consideration the experiences of others who have already walked the path you’re on.” She reached out and touched my elbow for a moment, then let her hand drop.

“Now I have a few matters of my own to attend to. So unless you have anything you’d like to say...?” Ms. Spencer said.

“No. I think I understand. Thank you,” I replied.

She went and opened the door for me, then closed it when I left. I took a few steps down the hall and stopped, my mind still trying to process our conversation.

She knows what’s been going on,
I thought. Well, not everything that happened, of course. But apparently more than enough to figure things out on her own. For the first time since I finished college, I felt uncertain of what I wanted.

Or who I wanted, for that matter.

V
AUGHN

Is this a good idea?
I wondered while I watched the dial count off the elevator floors.

I’d stayed clear of Quinn like she wanted for as long as I could. But I’d never been good at impulse control, especially not after becoming so successful.

And for the past three days I could think of nothing but her, and the way her lips tasted, the way her body fit against mine. Her resistance was maddening.

I tried not to think about her, I really did. I tried not to want her, well. However, both of those became cruel inversions. The more I pushed her from my thoughts, the more she entered them. The more I tried to forget about how she smelled, tasted, felt, the more I need to feel those things again.

How one woman could have such effects on me, I didn’t know. All I knew was that she did.

I needed relief. I needed it so bad I ached. It hurt so much I came close to falling back on my old standby ways of dealing with my buried feelings. It would have been so easy to find someone to share a night with.

I hadn’t, though. Somehow, I resisted. Barely. I couldn’t much longer, though. I knew that.

So that was how I found myself back in downtown Boston, riding the elevator up to the floor she worked on.

“Are you...?” a young woman in business attire asked. She’d gotten on five floors ago, and I’d felt her staring at me from the corner. It was something I was used to, so it didn’t bother me so much.

“Yes,” I said, turning more towards her. She was a pretty thing. Petite. Unable to help myself, my mouth started tugging into one of those crooked grins women liked so much on me.

“Wow! Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked.

Do you have any idea what you’re doing?
I asked myself. Her question knocked me out of autopilot. “I’m meeting someone.”

“I’m someone,” she replied right away, grinning at her own joke. She had freckles, I saw.
Quinn has freckles. I love her freckles
.

“Yes,” I said, letting my wolf’s grin relax into something warmer, something friendly rather than hungry. “But not the someone I’m here to see.”

“Lucky them,” she replied.

I nodded and turned back towards the doors, suddenly uncomfortable in my own skin. I could trace clearly the course I took in becoming who I was. Or rather, who other people thought I should be.

When the door opened to Quinn’s floor my heart lurched and my breathing quickened.
Is she at her desk?
The elevators opened onto a small lobby. I knew I had to take the hall to the right down a bit and then make a left before I could see her workspace.

I may not have looked it, but I felt like a wreck inside. All this twisting turmoil in my stomach, my mind hazy. I was glad that the new app launch was still a bit away, and that I’d managed to find someone as confident as Quinn to handle it. Because I sure couldn’t, not in that state.

I took a deep breath of the air-conditioned air and started down the hall. I kept trying to think of what I might say to her. Nothing seemed good enough, though.

It all sounded so petty and empty in my head. But I knew I had to say something, anything.

I turned the corner and saw Quinn’s corner desk.

There was someone seated in her chair, but it wasn’t Quinn. She was blonde, and she leaned forward in the chair, squinting at the monitor.

Hot anger jetted in my stomach.
Who does she think she is?
I marched up to the desk, getting a better look at her. She was pretty hot, and I could tell she knew that, too. Blouse unbuttoned to show just a little too much cleavage, a beautiful face with her already high cheekbones brought out with more makeup.

Pretty much the kind of woman I usually found myself with.

“What are you doing?” I said. I sounded angry.
What is she doing at Quinn’s desk?
I felt outraged.

She didn’t look up from the monitor right away. “Go away or I’ll make sure you get fired.”

That made me grin. “Really? Let me lay this out for you. One, I don’t work here. Two, even though I don’t work here, one word from me and you’ll be out on your ass before lunch.”

First, she blanched, then she went red in the face. Clearly someone used to getting her own way, never getting spoken to for anything. Her looks let her do whatever she wanted.

It was something I was familiar with. Probably more than she was.

“If you think I’m going to take this sort of thing from...” she said, looking up from the screen. The anger in her face melted instantly, her big, blue eyes becoming the size of saucers. She swallowed, “...Vaughn Ward.”

I couldn’t help feeling satisfied with her discomfort. I let her squirm a little, her eyes glancing around for some escape, some excuse.

“Yes, that’s my name. You recognize me, and while I don’t recognize you, I know this isn’t your desk.”

She got control of herself and smiled at me, full, red lips parting to reveal beautifully straight white teeth. I had to hand it to her, she had some game. I had more, though.

“Mr. Ward! I’m so happy to finally meet you. I have to say, you’re even more handsome in person than in your pictures.” She stood up from Quinn’s desk, her body sinuous and lithe, curvy and toned in all the places I usually liked women curvy and toned.

Yet I didn’t feel anything. Not a single tingle of arousal.

She strutted in front of the desk and then sat on the edge of it, letting her posture push her chest out while she crossed her legs as slowly as she could.

“You’re right, this isn’t my desk. It’s Quinn’s... I mean, Quinn Windsor. I don’t mean to talk behind other people’s backs, but she really hasn’t been up to the task...” she leaned forward conspiratorially, her chest thrusting out even more, “She’s needed a lot of help.”

I crossed my arms. “And you’ve been helping her, I take it?”

She smiled and I knew she bought it. “Yes! That’s why I’m at her computer; I was looking over some stuff for her before she sent it on to you. She’s
so
incompetent.”

I nodded, playing along, a hot ball of anger expanding in my stomach, “And you think you could do better? Eliminate the middleman?”

Her pretty eyes sparkled with greed. My stomach twisted at the sight.
Beauty really is only skin deep for some people, I guess
.

I wondered if that statement included me.

“Actually, yes! I know you’d be happier with me. All you have to do is talk to Mr. Callaghan. I’m sure he’ll make the change right away for you. We’ll do
anything
for you, here. We want to make sure you’re satisfied. Fully.”

She reached out and put her hand on my bicep. My stomach turned again. She looked up into my eyes, blinking slowly so that I might better see her long lashes. She even let the tip of her tongue slide out along her lips to leave them glossy and plump.

Then she looked to her right and smiled, “Quinn!”

Hearing her name, I turned as well. Quinn stood just down the hall. I saw that she’d let her hair down and I smiled.

“I was just explaining to Mr. Ward here how it would be in his best interest for him to let me take over his account,” the woman said. She still had her hand on my arm.

Quinn didn’t respond. She looked frozen, her eyes the only thing moving. And they moved between the woman and me.

“You haven’t told me your name,” I said.

She gave me another of those slow smiles, and she kept shooting triumphant looks over in Quinn’s direction. I was boiling inside. I could barely contain it. “You can call me Trish if I can call you Vaughn.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said, “But I’m going to tell you what
is
going to happen. First, you’re going to get your hand off me. Then you’re going to get out of my sight and pray that I never see you again.”

Trish sucked a breath in through her teeth, her eyes widening with shock. Her fingers stiff, she pulled her hand off my arm. Her anger and shock rendered her inflexible, and she lurched up from Quinn’s desk.

She decided to give it one more shot, smiling at me again, her cheeks coloring. “Vaughn, Mr. Ward, you’re not going to be happy with her! Me, on the other hand...”

I shook my head, silencing her. I spoke slowly so that I knew she understood. “Did anything I just said suggest that you could speak? I know what you are. I can see right through you. Now get out of here, unless you’d like to see me angry.”

I left out the part about how I knew what she was because I used to be something similar.
Used to be
, I thought, looking over at Quinn.
Not anymore. Never again.