Rustling papers and low mutters. ”Where do you need the information sent?” the voice stiffly answered. ”We can pass along our usual information, but you have to understand that the composition will vary depending on local water quality, and the types of pipes, and—”
”Just send it,” Dar interrupted him, and repeated the fax number at their insurance company’s branch office in North Carolina. She looked up as Kerry entered, suppressing a smile. ”And I’d like to know why that system discharged.”
Kerry circled her and picked up a pastry, nibbling it as she perched on the corner of Dar’s desk, listening to the agitated muttering coming from the phone. ”Everyone’s screaming,” she mouthed.
Dar lifted her hands and let them drop. ”Bite me,” she mouthed back. ”I didn’t set off the goddamned sprinklers.”
Kerry obligingly put her pastry down and captured Dar’s fingers, lifting them and nibbling on a thumb instead. ”Okay.”
”Ms. Roberts, we just don’t know what caused it yet,” the hapless voice came through the phone. ”It could have been a false heat reading, it could have been a mechanical error. There’s no sense in speculating since we don’t really have any data. My team is on their way there. As soon as they get there and figure out what happened, believe me, I’ll call you.”
Dar felt an enjoyable tickle as the neat white teeth scraped lightly across the sensitive skin on the side of her finger. ”All right,” she agreed. ”But I have an entire data center down, and they can’t even get in there to start cleaning up. So they’d better move their asses.” She hung up, then noticed the other line was still lit. She punched it.
”Mari?”
A loud argument filtered through. ”Oh, what? Dar, yes.” Mari cleared her throat. ”Listen, you said you were going to handle a certain situation...well, I think...” Steven's loud voice was heard in the background, demanding something.
”Send him up here,” Dar spoke quietly, but forcefully into the phone.
”What?” Mariana asked.
”I'll take care of it. Send him up here,” Dar repeated, a slow, dangerous smile crossing her face. ”After this morning, I’ll enjoy it.”
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A hesitation. ”All right,” the Personnel VP agreed, reluctantly.
”But— ”
”Dar.” Kerry regarded her quietly. ”What are you going to do?”
Pale blue eyes lanced into her. ”Fire him,” Dar answered, coolly.
”And watch him squirm his little ass right out of this office between two nice, big security guards.”
Kerry exhaled, as she studied her lover in silence for a moment.
”Dar listen to me a minute.” She slipped off the desk and knelt, resting her hand on Dar's thigh for balance. ”He still holds a grudge from ten years ago, right?” she asked. ”That’s what started this whole stupid thing.”
Dar’s brows knit. ”Yeah, so?” She leaned closer to the phone.
“Mari, hang on a minute, okay?”
“Sure,” the Personnal VP sighed as she was put on hold.
Kerry gently traced an idle pattern against the cotton fabric. ”Isn’t there some way you could do this so it didn’t perpetuate the hatefulness?”
”What?” Dar stared at her.
A sigh. ”He hates you because of a thing that happened half a lifetime ago, that’s a long time to keep that anger inside. Now this. It’s just more anger, and more hate, and more need for revenge.”
”Who cares?” Dar asked. ”Kerry, there’s no way we’re going to ever not hate each other, and frankly, I don’t give a damn if he does. I just want him out of here,” she told Kerry. ”You’d better scoot before he shows up. No sense in getting you involved in it.”
Kerry took a breath. ”Dar, I am involved in it,” she told her lover firmly. ”If he hates you, then he hates me.” She looked right up into Dar’s eyes. ”And I don’t like being hated.” A pause. ”Even by someone like him. My family’s enough for me to handle right now.”
Dar blinked at her.
”You’re so smart, can’t you find a way to get him out without escalating this?” The green eyes gazed sadly at her, reading the stunned look on Dar’s face. ”So it doesn’t come back at us someday?”
“Kerry, that’s how business works,” Dar said. “You can’t be everyone’s friend.”
Kerry rubbed her temples. “I know that,” she said. “But what’s he going to do if you fire him, Dar? He’s going to do his best to get back at you, and at us. Do you really want those pictures in the Miami Herald because you know he’s going to do it.”
Dar crossed her arms over her chest and frowned.
“Besides, didn’t Alastair say he wanted it done so he couldn’t sue us, at least?” Kerry went on, gently. “Dar, I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just want things not to get worse here.”
“Goddamn it,” Dar muttered. “Alastair was right.” She relaxed her posture and leaned an elbow on her desk, resting her head on her hand.
“I should have taken a few days off and let this defuse.” She reached
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over and punched the hold button. “Mari?”
“I’m here,” Mariana answered.
“It’s going to have to wait. I’ve got an operational crisis here. That takes precedence,” Dar told her. “Just tell the stupid bastard to go do what we pay him to do and leave you alone for right now.”
“Right.” Surprisingly, Mariana sounded more relieved than upset.
“I stonewalled him and told him if he had an issue with personnel policies he could go talk to Alastair,” she said. “And I warned him he should walk softly, since it was very obviously Alastair who was involved yesterday.” She hesitated. “But I thought you—”
“Has to be done right,” Dar cut her off. “That needs some time to arrange, and right now I don’t have any.”
“Gotcha,” Mariana’s voice turned brisk. “I’ll get off your line now.
Thanks, Dar.”
“Yeah.” Dar cut the phone off and turned to regard Kerry.
Kerry gently brushed the side of Dar’s head, where a slight bump could still be felt, then she got up off the desk and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I love you,” she whispered in the perfect, curved ear, then turned and left quietly.
Dar sat in a puddle of filtered sunlight, the slanted rays dusting her cotton pants in warm ochre panels as she stared at the empty place where Kerry had knelt mere moments before. Her cheek tingled with the soft pressure, and she could still smell Kerry’s distinctive scent lingering in the air that surrounded her.
Her savage resolve of just five minutes prior was gone, dissipated into a somber confusion that knitted her brow as she slowly turned in her chair, resting her elbows on her desk and surrounding her coffee cup with a pair of loosely interlaced sets of fingers. It had been so easy.
So cut and dried. What did she care what he thought about it?
She didn’t, Dar sighed and shook her head. She didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought or what he’d do about it. “But I do care what she thinks,” she spoke aloud to the sunlight. “And I do have better things to do.” The phone lit up again and she put aside the issue to deal with this far more urgent one. “Probably easier to solve anyway.”
KERRY FOUND HER way out to the back balcony, around the back behind the copier room where there was a tiny patio that overlooked the water. She liked to come out here sometimes and just think in the quiet peace the altitude afforded.
It was a beautiful day out, and she
wistfully realized that the current crisis was probably going to take precedence over leaving early, which was kind of depressing.
She’d been looking forward to some quiet time out on the water, where they could just watch the sunset together, and get in some twilight diving in the shallow, warm waters.
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Only a few minutes, she promised, knowing she had to go back inside and resume dealing with the problem. Just a few minutes to lean against the heated metal of the railing, and feel the warm, fresh sea air against her face, and drink in the sunlight.
She wished Dar was beside her, and she wondered what her lover had thought about her request. The stunned look hadn’t really indicated if she’d considered it, or if the idea was palatable or not, but Kerry had the feeling she’d at least gotten her to think about it.
That had to be
good, right?
With a sigh, she closed her eyes, and turned her face up to the sun, feeling the brightness against her eyelids.
The door opened behind her, and she turned, blinking in surprise as she recognized Steven’s slim figure sauntering out towards her.
Warily, she leaned against the railing and watched him approach.
”So.” He studied her. ”Here we have the Queen bitch’s little collared pet. Is this your private space?” He walked to the railing and leaned on it.
Kerry regarded him thoughtfully. ”Sorry about your nose,” she remarked.
He stared at her. ”So, what’s it like screwing the boss?”
She felt a deep jolt of anger erupt in her gut. ”Wouldn’t you like to know?” she responded. ”But she wouldn’t give your ugly butt a second glance.” Inwardly, she sighed.
What was that you were saying to Dar,
about not liking being hated? Smooth, Kerry, very smooth. What is it
about this dork that brings out the hyperbitch from hell in you anyway?
”And I take that back; I’m not sorry at all,” she added. ”Excuse me.” She turned and headed for the door.
”I should have guessed it before,” he yelled after her. ”But Dick McMasters is a buddy of mine. He told me you didn’t put out.”
Kerry turned, with her hand on the doorknob, and looked back at him, the ugly memories flooding over her.
”Ah, I see you remember him,” Steven’s voice took on a savage satisfaction. ”Yeah, he told me all about you, the straight laced, stuck up aristocrat. He’s gonna laugh his ass off when I tell him what a pathetic little loser you turned out to be.”
It took several breaths, to force the nausea down, and shove aside the familiar sensation of sickening dread she’d felt for those long, dark months. ”You’re the one without a life, morals, or integrity, ”she told him finally. ”So which one of us is the loser?”
“Listen, you—”
Kerry cut him off, ”I hope someday you start taking responsibility for what happens to you, and not just blame everyone else. Maybe you’ll end up a happier person.” She opened the door and got through it, closing it behind her and moving away from it as quickly as she could, blindly finding her way towards the break room. She ducked inside, and leaned against the counter, looking up as a hand touched her arm. ”Wh— oh, hi Duks.”
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The gentle brown eyes regarded her. ”Hello there, Kerry. Are you doing all right?”
Kerry sucked in a breath and released it. ”Yeah, yeah. ” She put a hand over her stomach. ”I think that meat pastalito I had didn’t agree with me.” She forced herself to settle down. ”Hey, you got a sunburn.”
Duk’s face creased into a wry smile. ”Yes, yes, I put on my bathing suit and went down to the pool for the first time since I moved into that damned place,” he told her, releasing her arm and walking over to the coffee pot. He poured a cup, then glanced over his shoulder. ”And how are you after all the excitement of yesterday?”
Kerry regarded the floor for a moment. ”Doing a lot better today,”
she admitted. ”I’ve, got to get back to work.” She gave Duks a brief smile. ”See you later.”
The hall seemed wider than normal, and she was glad to get inside her office with the door shut. She stood for a long moment, leaning back against the cool wood, then she shoved away from it and crossed to her desk, settling into the cool leather of her chair and folding her hands on the wooden surface. A soft knock came on the inner door, and she sighed. ”Come on in.”
Dar entered, her blue eyes holding a touch of concern. ”Hey.”
Kerry gathered herself together and half turned to gaze up at the taller woman. ”Hey.” She pursed her lips. ”How goes it?”
”Mmph.” Dar slid a hand over hers. ”You’re cold, you feeling okay?” she asked hesitantly, seeing the pallor under her lover’s normally golden skin tone. ”Ker?” she added softly, when Kerry didn’t answer.
”Yeah, I’m fine. I—” Kerry suddenly had to resist the almost overwhelming urge to simply put her head down on Dar’s thigh and let Dar pet her like a cat. “Last couple of days catching up to me, I think.”
She gave her lover a wry look. “And I just bumped into our friend out on the balcony.”
Dar’s brows lifted and she tilted her head a trifle. “And?”
“Turns out we had a mutual acquaintance and he...” Kerry hesitated. “Anyway, he was just being a jerk.”
“A jerk how?” Dar persisted.
Kerry’s phone rang and both of their pagers went off simultaneously. ”We can talk later.” Kerry gave her a wry grimace.
”This is going to hell in a handbasket.” She reached for the phone.
”Operations, Stuart.”
A harried voice answered her. ”Kerry, this is John Collins. I've got the New York office breathing down my neck, and I can’t get hold of Dar. You gotta give me something to tell them.”
”John?” Dar interrupted smoothly. ”Hold on a minute.” She put the call on hold, then faced her assistant, placing two fingers on her chin and lifting it up so their eyes met. ”We can talk now, if you need to,”
she said. “What did the stupid bastard say to you?”
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A peaceful silence settled over them, as they merely sat and looked at one another. Kerry’s lashes finally fluttered closed, and a faint smile twitched the corners of her mouth. ”When I first joined Associated, I had a supervisor named Richard McMasters,” she stated. ”And he didn’t quite subscribe to EEOC.”
”Ah.” Dar's brows contracted, and a gray tone entered her eyes.
”Did he mouth off to you?”
Kerry exhaled. ”Oh yes, and he took every opportunity to touch me, and to comment on my appearance, until I couldn’t look at him without my hands shaking, wondering what was coming out of his mouth next.” She stopped momentarily. ”And then one night he bumped into me at the library, and told me he wanted to...get to know me better, and if I didn’t cooperate, he’d fire me.”
The hum of the computer was very loud in the silence, a soft blooping noise coming from the screen saver which had sprung into life. ”Did...” Dar hesitated. ”I...I mean, did he...” She was honestly shocked, and a little hurt that Kerry hadn’t confided in her before.