I was right about the senior associates, because when the elevator spat me out, the entire place was deserted. Even Beverly, the secretary I’d bribed with pastry, had abandoned her post.
I took full advantage of their absence to make a beeline for Robert’s office, walking briskly but calmly, just in case anyone might pop out and interrogate me about my presence there. For good measure, I’d brought a hastily compiled printout of the work my team had done that morning. That way, if anyone did ask what I was doing, I could fib and tell them I had to show Robert a copy.
Madison was quite the locksmith, because the key worked beautiful, and I slipped into the office just a few seconds later. After a quick glance around, I headed away from the desk and straight for the closet on the far side of the room. The door was slightly ajar, so I quietly pulled it all the way open. I audibly gasped when I saw an amazing collection of clothing there, row after row of designer blazers and jackets and even entire suits, just spare things he kept for a rainy or sticky crème day. His closet was almost as impressive as Madison’s, and I was sure his wardrobe cost more than my entire apartment building.
Focus, Della. You don’t have a lot of time.
Without a second’s pause, I started rifling through the coats, sticking my hands into each pair of pockets. In true manly form, a random collection of trinkets and trash bits awaited my every exploration. I found a plethora of neglected and forgotten things: receipts, ticket stubs, and even a cellphone he’d given up looking for. What I didn’t find was that wristband, the Exhibit A I so desperately needed.
“Come on!” I complained as I finished the first row of jackets and moved on to the second. “It has to be here somewhere. How can a guy even own this many coats?”
At that moment, I heard movement on the other side of the door. My heart froze in my chest as a pair of fast-paced footsteps raced down the hall. They paused a moment on the other side of the door before the air echoed with the metallic jingling of keys.
Shit!
I had no time to run, no way to really explain why I was nosing around in the boss’s closet. I couldn’t fight, so my flight reflex kicked in, and all I could think to do was jump deeper into the closet.
I had only just pulled the door shut when the office door opened and two people came stumbling inside, wrapped so tightly around each other that it was hard to tell who I was even looking at. Finally, as they crashed into the desk, I recognized Robert’s face somewhere in the clumsy entanglement.
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe this is happening.
I had no idea who he was with, but I knew the blonde was from Marketing; I’d forgotten her name the second we were introduced, but that really didn’t matter. He obviously knew her, and from the looks of it, he knew her quite well.
She let out a giggling shriek as he spun her around and slammed her over the desk. One hand came up to rip off her panties as the other fumbled with his own zipper.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” she whispered, bending over lower as he positioned himself behind her. “Robbie, anyone could see!”
Robbie?
“They’re all out at lunch,” he panted, driving himself inside her with a single thrust. “They’re at someplace across town. I cleared the whole place out. We have a few minutes.”
She let out a sharp cry as he rammed into her fiercely, with absolutely no finesse. He anchored himself with one hand on the desk while the other curled through her blonde hair and yanked her head back as he continued his incessant rhythm.
I shrank back into the closet, feeling a little sick. My eyes snapped shut, but I couldn’t do anything to stave off the assault on my ears, the sounds of their rough lovemaking. I cowered beneath his coats, envisioning every pounding thrust and hearing every shriek of laughter and groan of animalistic lust.
It wasn’t long before they reached their quick and sudden climax. I knew because I heard a deep voice crying out, followed by the loud thudding of a paperweight being knocked violently to the floor. When I saw the shadow as it rolled toward the closet, I leaned my head back and stifled a groan of my own, only mine was a groan of disgust.
Well, this settles it. I am officially trapped in the world’s worst day.
Even as the thought occurred to me, I stopped it. After all, the day wasn’t over yet, and things always, always had the potential to get much, much worse.
Chapter 18
I walked in the pouring rain trying to hail a cab. Truth be told, I hardly noticed. In spite of the mini-tsunami around me, I really didn’t see how anything could rain on my parade and make the day any worse. Besides, after spending two whole hours hiding in Robert’s closet, it felt good to stretch my legs.
Two whole hours? Did he have to sit at his stupid desk that long? Couldn’t he have taken a coffee break or something after his minute-man performance with the office mattress?
At first, I thought it was some kind of joke. I was sure he saw me peering through the crack in the door or that he overheard one of my many quiet sighs. I was certain he was some sort of sadist, intent on punishing me for spying and eavesdropping. I even considered that he was playing yet another game with me. The only trouble was that my bad luck didn’t stop there.
Not long after the blonde sashayed out of the office with nothing more than a slap on her ass to bid her goodbye, Peter Mallet, a senior sales associate, arrived for a meeting, officially trapping me. I slid to the closet floor and hid myself among his coattails as I settled in to wait.
“Pete! Good to see you. Thanks for coming,” Robert greeted, giving the man a warm embrace before he quickly closed the door behind him.
The second the door snapped shut, Peter glanced back toward the hall, wearing a sly smile. “I would have come sooner, but Bev informed me that you were already in an, um...important meeting with Harmony.” His lips twisted up in a grin the way
a seventh-grade boy’s would when a dirty joke was told in the locker room after gym class. “I do hope your time together was productive.”
Robert flashed a similarly boyish grin back at him as he scooped the fallen paperweight off the floor. “Always,” he said, gesturing for the man to take a seat. “You’d be surprised how much the two of us can accomplish in just a few short minutes.”