ROMANCE: Romantic Comedy: Love in 30 Days - The Best Plans Don't Always Work! (Plus 19 FREE Books Book 13) (65 page)

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DEMON LOVER

By Jane Keeler

There was something about the way people were acting about Sasha's new job that made her know that she had made the right choice. Sasha had decided to work for Dale Houser, the up-and-coming local politician in the New York. It was her party for her graduation and people were crowding around him, shaking hands and smiling for pictures. He had a chiseled jaw with a bluish tint to his skin and creamy white hair that he held back from his face, but mostly let fall to the side of his cyan eyes. He was running for Mayor and was sure to win the docket.

She watched him from across the room at times and would look over to him, seeing the man for what he was to her, a new opportunity. Her career was about to take off when she worked for him as a speech writer. She had all the trainings and summer internships under her belt, it was time for her first actual job in politics. She knew this was the best place to start. Working with a man like Dale Houser sounded like just what she needed. And it sounded like he needed her to work for him, too. She was brilliant, the top of her class and highly recommended by all of her former internships and teachers. She knew how to write a speech and knew she would help him win by doing so.

He approached her at the party and she broke away from conversation to see him.

"I'm sorry I haven't come to seen you, yet."

Sasha tilted her head and smiled, "Oh, that. I would expect that. Everybody wants to treat you like you've got their vote."

"I believe in them if they believe in me."

They started walking onto the patio, closing the door to the party behind them.

"Oh, I like that," she told him. "I might have to use that in one of the next speeches."

"Please do, I want to reveal my true self to the entire world."

She smiled, then nodded and said, "I think we can."

He smiled back at her and she caught herself looking into his pale blue eyes for a moment too long.

"Oh, by the way-"

His face was close to hers when he cut her off by saying softly, "What is it?"

"Oh, just that I think we'll really enjoy it."

"What?"

She corrected herself, "Enjoy working together."

They had grown closer and closer and couldn't stop looking at one another. The lights twinkled all around them as their vision blurred. They both leaned in to touch lips. She parted his and she put her tongue onto his, then pulled away.

"Oh, that was wrong of me," he said, wiping his lip, then he looked back at her. Sasha looked back at his beautiful eyes and the way his face looked dashingly handsome in this lighting. She moved forward. He pushed his hand past his lips and moved forward to hold her in his arms. They locked lips and kissed again, then parted once more.

"We should not have done that, right?"

"I really felt something did you?"

Sasha asked, "Should we have really felt something just then?"

He shrugged, "Should we have kissed at all?"

"Shouldn't we have?"

"I don't know," he said with a sigh.

They stood apart and awkwardly shuffled about the patio, what seemed to be a small space to them, now.

"Let's go?" she said with a lilt in her voice.

He opened the door and asked, "You want to?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm sorry, I guess?"

They left the patio and Dale said, "No, don't worry about it. I think we were both--uh, I don't quite know."

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

"You will."

The next morning Sasha had the urge to clear her mind, to look out and see nothing. Nothing in front of her and no obstacles to leap over, anymore. But the mistake of last night, the stain on her life were making it difficult. So difficult that her mind was only on it when she went to catch the 7 o'clock train to the office. She was hurried and exhausted from the night before and hated the way the kiss was weighing on her mind. Despite that, she got her ticket and got on to the train without much problem.

There she ran into Dale. He was on the train she walked onto and said to her, "Don't worry, I'm just here to make sure that you can know last night was something that I want to look past."

"Me, too," she said, off-guard at the sudden conversation.

"And that I want you to be ready for a pre-work work talk. I wanted to go over some plans with you before we were in the office. Want to join me?"

They talked mostly about the latest project that expanded the departments to save on taxes and make the voters. It was exactly the kind of talk she would have expected at the office, but that day she realized he was too swamped to take much time out of his already packed schedule. It was nice of him to have done it at all, albeit on her train ride. It was nice, though, to have someone just as dedicated as she hoped most politicians were.

At two o'clock he swung by her office and said, "I want you to get off early today, so that we can make up for the time on the train today. That work?"

"That works," she said.

"If you want to grab a lunch today, we could. Unless you already have eaten," he said with a question to his voice.

"I have," she said regretfully.

"The another day," he said.

"Another day," she agreed.

She left, cursing herself for not taking the opportunity to be around him more. But it was smart to not go on being too close with somebody that she had such an attraction to. She did, after all, really want to be able to work for him without feeling this way, but she couldn't help it at all.

It went on like that for weeks until she came into work and had a realization halfway through the day.  She had't seen much of him during that time and going into his office felt like a privilege to be doing so. She showed him the work she had done and the documents and polling numbers she had to reference the ingenuity of what she had done. There was something about what she had put onto paper that was unlike what she had seen done before, but something that could help them majorly. She knew that she had done something great and showed him.

"This is fantastic, I can't believe what I'm looking at. Nice job, really."

He turned to her and she caught a glimmer in his navy blue eyes. She could have sworn they looked lighter before, but now they were more dark. She smiled back at him and pretended not to notice.

"This is great work, phenomenal. You really are great at this, Sasha. I can't wait to see more work like this. Not just you, but everybody could step up their game."

He was charismatic and brought her into the hall, then gathered everybody working on his campaign over to him.

"Look over this once Joanna has copied it. Study it, because this is the kind of stuff I need everybody to be dishing out. If you have to use the same format, do that. If you have to use the same wording, do that. Just get this across multiple platforms for me. I want this work recognized for what it is and what it can do for this campaign."

"Thank you," she told him.

He put a hand over hers once everyone had dispersed back to their desks.

"No, thank you, Sasha."

Their eyes stayed on one another's for a half a second and then they looked away.

"I have to go back," he said.

"Me, too."

They both went back to their respective office and desk. But, the next day held more of the same when she caught a flaw in the next write up.

"I even looked over that myself," he said.

"I only caught it because I was referencing it. Without you, though, we wouldn't have been able to see that. Thank you, again."

"Of course, Mr. Houser."

"Of course," he said with a chuckle. He then added, "You should call me Dale."

"Dale," she said, feeling the weight of the name.

"You should call me that," he said. "We haven't gotten close after your party, have we?"

"We haven't," she agreed.

Dale said, "Well, I want to fix that. Dinner on me tonight?"

"Dinner sounds fantastic," she said.

"Well then it's settled."

"Settled," she said before nodding and asking, "anything else?"

"Other than to know what it is you would like to eat."

"I can never pass up a great steak," she said.

Dale said hungrily, "Red meat. Sounds perfect."

"Perfect," she said before leaving the room.

Outside of the office she could feel her heart pounding from the interaction. There was something about him that really made her feel like she was going through a crush for the first time. He was so charismatic and in such a seat of power that she felt like she was getting in over her head if she wanted to stay platonic with him.

That night they met outside of the restaurant and were seated inside. They talked about everything, ranging from her childhood in upstate New York and his seemingly insatiable addiction to fast cars. He had come from a wealthy family and was the last of his line, which was well known. He had old money because of that. Given that, she tried to stay away from the topic of his family, but he was willing to talk about them.

"No mystery there," he said. "My parents were great people that died all too soon."

"That is tragic."

He agreed, "Yes. I suppose it is tragic. I try not to think of it as tragic or traumatizing. It happened and I moved past it."

She was slightly stunned by the blasé way in which he treated the event, but she knew everybody grieved in their own ways.

"Do you feel like there's anything in your life that you do to cope with it?"

"Work," he said with a laugh. "Work and cars."

"So, with work-?"

"With work, huh?"

"You don't want to talk about it?"

"No, ask away."

"What happened with Mr. Rudenbacker? He had some very serious accusations towards you and I never got to hear how you managed it."

"Mr. Rudenbacker," he said with a chuckle, "has never been more sick in his life."

"Oh, that's terrible to hear," she said, aghast.

"It's good for me," he said with a revealing smile.

"Yes, I suppose it is. But shouldn't you try to show remorse over his illness?"

"For the cameras and public, of course. But in front of you, why not?"

"Why not is right," she said, sipping her drink.

He said lightly, "I want to not talk about work, actually. I want to know more about you, instead. Favorite color?"

"Blue," she said, looking into his eyes. They were a stormy slate blue tonight in the lighting of the steakhouse.

"Blue, huh? I like it, too. Favorite animal?" Dale asked.

Sasha replied, "Oh, what is this game all about?"

Dale laughed heartily and then said, "It says a lot about you, is all."

"Fine, hummingbirds."

"You like the fast ones?"

"Not fast men, though," she said without thinking.

"Oh, you think I'm a fast man."

Thinking back on all of the months she had known him and seen no women with him, she said, "I know you're not."

"You're right. I am not. I'm a slow man if we're talking about women."

"We're talking about women, huh?" she asked.

"I hope not," he said.

"We don't have to."

Dale said, "No, we can. What do you want to know?"

"Well, nothing really. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"None to speak of."

"Do you think you've ever been in love?"

A look of gloom came over his face, "Once, but it left me in heartbreak, if you can call it that."

She was shaken, but said, "I think heartbreak is a great way to describe that loss. Now, another question. Favorite sport?"

"Sport? Well, that's a subject change. I've played all of them. Baseball, football, basketball, swimming, water polo. All of them."

"How did you have time for anything in high school?"

"I didn't."

She laughed and he followed suit, then raised his glass to her and drank from it. She followed suit with hers and then they sat back, enjoying one another's mere presence.

"Now, what is your favorite attribute about yourself?" he asked.

"Mine?" she asked. "I am very kind-hearted, to be completely truthful."

"We are nothing tonight if not truthful," he said with a scratchy, almost growl-like voice.

The rest of the night went accordingly and the two of them continued to bond over some trivial and some deeper topics. The two seemed capable of having fun with one another and knew somehow that there was a bond that was forming that was unmatched before in their lives.

Outside of the restaurant they hugged and said goodbye, but ended up talking more than they had in the restaurant.