Learning to Soar (7 page)

‘Dear Chloe,

I’m hopeful that you’ll come on board at Volare, at least for the short term. I really need someone with your skills and experience, and I think you would enjoy the work environment. I’d love for you to get my financial books in order and assist with the growth of my restaurant, Razzo, and I’m interested to see if you’ll feel comfortable helping with my therapy practice.

Respectfully,

Damien’

After she’d cleaned her plate and had had two coffee refills, Chloe paid her cheque and headed home. She was curious, flattered and intimidated, no doubt. She was also very, very interested.

He answered his phone on the third ring. “Yes,” she informed him calmly. “I’d like to take you up on your offer.”

“Excellent,” he replied. “Can you come prepared to work Monday morning at nine?”

“Absolutely,” Chloe answered. After she had hung up, she looked around her tidy, spare kitchen. Everything was in its place. Orderly, clean and predictable. Just like her life. Perhaps her neat, tidy kitchen would survive this career move, but Chloe had a feeling that the rest of her life was about to change dramatically.

* * * *

Damien led her to the assistant manager’s office. It was across the hall from his own. Like Damien’s, Chloe’s new office was stylishly decorated with sleek mid-century modern decor and accessories. “Don’t hesitate to let me know about anything you need,” he informed her as he switched on the black enamelled ‘eyeball’ desk lamp. Chloe traced her fingers over the silky top of the boxy yet elegant, burl maple desk. Together they walked to the back of the office and stood in front of an ominous wooden door. “Here goes,” Damien muttered.

Chloe’s jaw dropped when Damien opened the closet door. He ran his fingers through his tousled brown hair and turned to her. “Well, it’s not that I don’t keep records,” he said defensively, “it’s just that they’re not organised in any way whatsoever.” As if to underscore his point, a receipt fluttered down from the top shelf of the closet like a dainty little feather and landed at his feet. Chloe and Damien reached for the receipt simultaneously. As in an old Three Stooges cartoon, their heads bonked together like coconuts and both gripped the slip of paper.

“Owie!” Chloe winced. She released the receipt and rubbed her forehead. “Don’t damage the talent, Damien! Sheesh,” she grumbled.

Damien looked unsteady on his feet. He took a step backwards with eyes squeezed tightly shut and one hand on his forehead.

“Oh, man, are you okay?” Chloe asked with concern. “I’m sorry I laughed. Come sit down.” She took Damien by the elbow to lead him to a chair, but he yanked his arm away from her grip.

“I’m fine,” he stated firmly. “Completely fine.” He stood up straight and lowered his hand to his side. “Just felt a little funny for a second or two. No worries, Chloe.”

Chloe shook her head in bewilderment. Damien evidently had more hang-ups than the local 9-1-1 service, but whatever, she decided. The gig was a good one, and she could forgive a guy who looked like Damien and had fixed her big O dilemma just about anything.

She turned back to the open closet door. It was stuffed to the gills with a scrambled mess of papers and notes.

* * * *

Chloe was awestruck. Volare had been a thriving concern for three years owing to Damien’s business acumen. Thanks to savvy investments and careful purchasing, combined with a sizable initial investment from Damien, the club was a solid money-maker.

However, Damien confessed that he was sure he’d wildly overpaid his federal taxes each year, just because his records were so difficult to access. The tax preparer had given it his best shot, bless him, but it was hard to find deductions in a jungle of snarled paper. Damien wasn’t entirely sure exactly how profitable Volare was, only that he was paying all the bills and had plenty of money in the bank. In short, he was a terrific manager and instigator. When it came to enacting ideas and providing professional assistance, Damien was a force of nature.

When it came to accounting, though, he totally sucked.

Chloe slogged through the mass of receipts, inventory lists, and invoices for an entire week. The previous year’s tax preparer had left her a bare skeleton of facts and figures to work with, but she had to toil unrelentingly to flesh out the whole massive beast that was Volare’s financial status. She arrived at nine sharp and closeted herself in her office until noon each day. At lunchtime, Damien knocked softly on the door to present her with a sandwich, tossed salad and fruit tea made to order from the gourmet sandwich place across the street. Chloe accepted the lunches gratefully, but insisted on working through her lunch hours. “You’re paying me premium prices,” she explained, “and I insist on giving you premium service. It’s imperative that all this”—she gestured at the snowfall of paperwork that surrounded her desk—“gets organised and accounted for. I am making progress, but I don’t want to take a real break until I’m done.” She had steeled herself to work all day,
every day
, until Volare’s books were perfectly in order.

* * * *

After an entire week of enduring paper cuts and squinting to read Damien’s neat yet minuscule handwriting, Chloe leant back in her desk chair and sighed contentedly. Damien had supplied her with a lovely set of sleek, teak file cabinets, and his paperwork was now perfectly organised within them. He’d also provided her with a powerful new laptop and an external flat screen monitor. She’d painstakingly entered all Volare’s financial information into computer files then had backed them up with an online storage site. Gone were the piles of crumpled receipts and folded notes. That once-overflowing closet now held only her jacket, her purse and a spare nightclub outfit. Chloe had Monica to thank for that stroke of genius. As the assistant manager of Volare, Chloe needed to be prepared to move from work-wear to club-wear at a moment’s notice, although, so far, she’d been working on the firmly buttoned-up side of the business.

She grinned when she heard Damien’s gentle rap on the door. He’d treated her like a princess this week, albeit a princess with a tape calculator and a spreadsheet.
Wonder how Disney could spin my fairy tale,
she thought.
Princess Numberina in her sparkling coke-bottle glasses and holding her plucky HP calculator sidekick, perhaps?

“Mind if I come in?” Damien asked.

“Sure thing, Boss,” Chloe called out.

Damien entered and chuckled at the sight of Chloe. Her bare feet were propped on her desk and her hands folded behind her head. Damien looked every bit the hot, refined professional in his herringbone blazer, windowpane-patterned blue shirt and slim khakis. “I just finished up,” Chloe announced, “and was putting my feet up. I feel like I finally earned my place here, if you don’t mind me saying so. You, Damien Walters, are now a financially organised small business owner. And I’d like to offer my congratulations on a hugely successful nightclub and therapy practice. You are solidly in the black.”

“Excellent.” He nodded. “You’re a fast, dedicated worker, Chloe. I knew it was a smart move hiring you. You’ll find a project bonus in your next pay cheque in appreciation for your efforts. Hang on just a sec, I’ll be right back.”

Chloe heard his footsteps enter his own office across the hall, pause a few moments as he rustled around, then return to her office.

He held a chilled bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. “I know it’s only three thirty,” he said, grinning wickedly, “but this seems like a good reason to celebrate, don’t you think?” He popped the cork with a practised hand. “Besides, I know the owner here. He’ll let it slide this time.” He poured two glasses and handed one to Chloe.

She sipped and let her head fall back against the cushioned headrest of her chair.

Damien moved a chair beside her and placed his flute on the table after taking a sip. “I really am grateful for your hard work, Chloe,” he told her. Chloe wondered if he felt, as she did, the strong, invisible magnet that pulled them together. Even gravity worked against her—she felt the room tilt so that the only direction she could move in was towards the inviting warmth of his chest. Chloe’s mouth went dry and her nipples tightened. She leaned towards him, breathless with hope that he felt a reciprocal pull towards her.

Damien’s face darkened in colour and his breath quickened. Chloe wanted to do a fist pump and a victory lap.
He feels it, too! I know he does!

He licked his lips and opened his mouth to speak, then dropped his gaze down to Chloe’s full lips. The corners of her mouth curved up. Damien looked away sharply towards the desktop, where Chloe’s feet were propped.

“Something about you, Chloe, is making me want to bend my rules about mixing business with pleasure.” He swallowed, eyes fixed on Chloe’s delicately boned ankles. “And about, ah, touching.”

“The boss makes the rules, you know,” Chloe whispered. “And you’re the boss.” She rubbed her bare feet together, letting her toes trace a seductive trail down her other foot’s arch.

Damien cleared his throat and shook his head. He picked up her right foot and gave it a soft squeeze. “Can I reward you with a foot massage?” he asked.

Chapter Eight

Chloe’s lips—and every other part of her—screamed silently in disappointment, but the delicate skin of her foot gave a resounding ‘Hell, yes!’

“I think you’re breaking your rule here and not just bending it,” Chloe teased. “I’m pretty sure that champagne plus a foot massage will involve some pleasure, in addition to some serious touching.”

Damien stroked the arch of her foot with the practiced pad of his thumb. “But it will be me giving pleasure to you, right? I’m okay with delivering some pleasure for a job well done, if you’re game. I want it to be all about you.” Chloe blushed and nodded her assent. Obviously, it was wildly inappropriate for her boss to give her a foot rub. Emily Post would be aghast. But then, Emily Post would be aghast at so
many
things that happened there at Volare…

Damien immersed two hand towels in hot water from her bar and squeezed them to remove excess water. He then wrapped her bare feet in their steamy, almost-too-hot folds. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small, blue glass bottle.

“Hey, that reminds me of something I’ve seen before,” Chloe quipped as he poured a generous dollop onto his hands.

“Mm-hmm,” Damien answered. “Same company, different product. Organic and mild—edible, even. It’s infused with peppermint oil and raw sugar.” He warmed the lotion between his palms and took one of her feet between them. Chloe rolled her eyes back in pleasure as he squeezed and kneaded her foot, finding her pressure points with his deft fingers. She felt twinges of mild pain as he probed—they swiftly melted into pockets of sheer bliss. “Don’t forget your Veuve Cliquot,” he reminded her. “It goes well with a nice foot rub.”

Indeed. Chloe sipped the cold bubbly and let her eyelids fall to half-mast. It was perfection—Damien’s hands on her feet and the taste of fine champagne in her mouth. Only one thing might possibly make it better, but she squelched that greedy thought immediately. It was like asking for Publishers Clearing House to knock on the door after you’d won the Powerball lottery. Ridiculous.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Damien said suddenly. He slipped a hand inside his blazer and pulled out a smooth brown box tied with a sky blue ribbon.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Chloe whispered when she read the ‘Godiva’ name in gold print. Apparently, one really could win a sweepstake and a lottery in the same day. Who knew?

“May I suggest the roasted almond truffle?” Damien said as he took her foot back between his hands. “I’m guessing it would be magnificent with the champagne.”

“Mm-hm”—Chloe nodded—“I’m guessing you’d be right, boss.” She slipped the blue ribbon from the box and opened it. Eight succulent orbs of truffled perfection smiled out at her. Consulting the key, she selected the almond truffle, elegantly swirled with milk chocolate scrollwork, and took a nibble.

Heaven.

Chloe alternated sips of chilled champagne—silently refilled by Damien—with decadent bites of chocolate. She moved on to a delectable coconut truffle next—the rich, vibrant flavour of the confection made her curl her toes. When Damien began to bend her instep over his hardened knuckles, she groaned.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Chloe said thickly, “but this is quite an unusual working relationship we seem to be developing. I’ve never had a boss even look at my feet, let alone offer to rub them for me.”

“Well, Volare is a pretty unusual working environment,” Damien replied, “and besides, I find it impossible to believe that your previous employers failed to notice feet as lovely as yours.” He lifted her scented, slippery foot to his lips and placed a tender kiss on her pinky toe.

“Eeeep!” Chloe squeaked. Her foot shot out reflexively and kicked Damien in the nose, hard. He bent over with a grunt and cupped his nose between his hands.

“Oh my gosh!” Chloe sputtered. “I am so sorry! I’m a little bit ticklish, and I just didn’t expect…” Damien sat up and held his nose between his fingers. She could see his eyes crinkle with merriment behind his hands. “You know. I didn’t expect
that,”
she concluded
.

He took his hands from his affronted nose and gave her a quizzical look. “All in one piece?” he asked.

Chloe nodded. She refreshed his champagne flute and offered it to him. “Here,” she said meekly. “Maybe a little bubbly will help.” Damien downed half of the glass and replaced it on the table.

 “Now,” Damien said. “I want you to be prepared. No more kicking, okay?”

He took her foot in his hands again. “I’m going to kiss your toes now, if that’s all right with you. Do you think you’d like that? Do you approve?”

Chloe nodded, feeling her cheeks flame with embarrassment and eagerness.