Mid Life Love (6 page)

––––––––

F
rom: Statham,
Jonathan

To: Gracen,
Claire

Subject:
Employee Relations

Date: January 8,
2013 2:30 PM

Miss Gracen,

I know you
rejected my earlier proposal, but there are a few things I would like to
discuss with you. Would you happen to have any free time this Friday evening?

Statham
Industries CEO,

Jonathan Statham

––––––––

F
rom Gracen,
Claire

To: Statham,
Jonathan

Subject: Re:
Employee Relations

Date: January 8,
2013 2:35 PM

Mr. Statham,

Once 5:00 pm
arrives on Friday, I will have no desire to discuss anything related to Statham
Industries, especially since I am paid by the hour and overtime is strictly
forbidden. The next hour that I will be available to discuss these so called
“employee relations” will be Monday morning. At 8:00.

Please make an
appointment with my secretary,

Executive
Marketing Director,

Claire Gracen

––––––––

I
hit send and
shut down my computer. I walked over to my wall calendar, sighing at the date
that was circled, and crossed off yesterday’s date with a red marker.

Four more days
‘til the big 4-0...

“Miss Gracen!”
Mr. Barnes rushed into my office. “Is there any chance you could run our latest
board up to the art department? The other directors and I have just been called
into an emergency strategy meeting with Mr. Statham.”

What! Why wasn’t
I called? Is he going to blackball my career because I turned him down? How
immature...

As if he’d read
my mind, he gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sure they’re not letting you
go...I’d put up a hell of a fight to get you to stay.”

“Thanks.” I
stood up and took the board from his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! We can’t use
this!”

“What? Why not?”

“Are you kidding
me? This is
racist
!”

“How so?”

I sighed. This
was yet another reason why I hated working here.

We were supposed
to be coming up with ways to market the new “
s
Phone Blue” but my
department had missed the mark, once again: On the board was a picture of a
cotton field, but instead of cotton blooms growing atop the plants, there were
s
Phones.
There were slaves with baskets at their hips, smiling widely as they “picked”
the crop. At the bottom of the picture were the words: “Bring back the good old
days, the new
s
Phone Blue.”

“With all due
respect, Mr. Barnes, I’m not taking this shit up there. We need to come up with
something else.”

“Fine.” He
snatched the board back. “Well, at least go get the boards back from yesterday.
I’ll come get them from you after the emergency meeting.” He definitely
stressed the word ‘meeting’ to irk me since I wasn’t invited.

As soon as he
left my office, I headed for the elevators. I told myself that after I picked
up the artwork, I would take a second lunch break since the other directors
were more important than I was.

Five more years
and I can quit....Only five more years...

I boarded an
empty elevator and hit thirty, but it went down to the basement. Then it went
to level two. Then it went to level four.

I was about to
step off and try another elevator, but Jonathan Statham stepped on.

Every nerve in
my body ran wild. My heart started fluttering against my chest—I could
literally
hear
it, and tingles started crawling up and down my spine.

He turned around
and smiled at me, and like a teenage girl with a high school crush, I turned
away from him. I didn’t want him to know that he was affecting me.

I kept my eyes
focused on the golden buttons that lit up as we passed every floor:
Ten...Eleven...Twelve...

The elevator
came to a sudden halt.

I looked over
and realized he’d hit the stop button.

“Your reason for
not going out with me doesn’t make any sense.” He turned around to face me.
“Tell me the truth.”

“Please do
yourself a favor and move on with your life, Mr. Statham. I’m sure you have far
more important things to do than harass a mid-level employee. I told you that
I’m not attracted to you.”

“And I think
you’re lying.” He stepped closer. “You
are
attracted to me.”

I’m well aware...

“Are you
normally this cocky? Surely you can accept the fact that I’m just not attracted
to boys.”

“
Boys
?”
His eyes hardened.

“Yes...” My breath
hitched. “That would make me a pedophile.”

“Going out with
me would make you a
pedophile
?”

“Going out with
you would make my life a little more complicated than I need it to be. You
clearly can’t handle rejection, probably lack emotional maturity, and are
definitely more compatible with some vapid twenty year old who still doesn’t
know the difference between emotions and—”

He pushed me
against the wall and kissed me—forcing my lips apart, trying to control my
tongue with his.

I tried to push
him away, tried to shut my lips back together and act like this wasn’t turning
me on, but once I felt his arms slipping around my waist, I slowly gave in and
kissed him back.

I pressed myself
back against him, stifling a moan as he bit my bottom lip, as he pinned me
against the wall with his hips.

“Wait...Stop...” I
pulled away from him. “I should get back to work.”

“Tell me the
truth.” He stepped back. “Tell me that you
do
want to go out with me.”

“Maybe I do,
but...”

“Pick the
place.”

“I’m not sure if
that would be very appropri—”

He pulled me
back into his arms and kissed me harder than before, leaving me utterly
breathless. “
Pick
.
The
.
Place
.”

“I...” I sucked in
a breath. “I can’t go on Friday...What about Saturday?”

“Why can’t you
go out on Friday?” He tightened his arms around me.

“It’s my
birthday...My friends have a table reserved for me at Havana.”

“Interesting.
Can I come?”

What? Why?

“If you want
to...Sure...”

“Okay.” He
released me and hit the start button. “I’ll see you Friday. We can discuss our
date for Saturday then.” He kept his eyes on me as he moved to the other side
of the elevator.

I leaned against
the wall and inhaled several times to bring my breathing back to normal. “I
know you don’t work in HR or anything, but I was the only director who wasn’t
invited to the mock-up meeting this afternoon. You said no one was losing their
job but...Am I being let go? Are you trying to soften the blow by being nice to
me during my
last week
here?”

“What? Why would
you even think—Of course not.” He laughed. “How else was I supposed to get you
alone?”

The doors opened
on twenty four and he stepped off. 

“Oh, and Miss
Gracen?” He turned around and held the doors open. “Before I forget...When you
were thirty and expanding your marketing career, I
was
nineteen, but I
wasn’t picking out my major. I was dropping out and starting my own software
company, the very company you
hate
working for today.” He moved his
hands from the doors and they closed on his seductive smile.

I went back down
to my office and changed my panties in the bathroom for the second time this
week. I knew my stash of emergency panties would come in handy at some point,
but I was thinking more along the lines of wasting coffee on my pants, not
getting aroused as soon as I looked at Jonathan Statham.

This is not
good...This is not good...

J
onathan

I walked into
human resources and pulled Claire’s file. Her resume was impeccable. She had a
Business degree from the University of Pittsburgh, a master’s in marketing from
Carnegie Mellon, and she’d worked on several high profile ad campaigns—Ralph
Lauren, Versace, Microsoft, Google. Before coming to work for me, she’d spent
four years directing projects at Cole and Hillman Associates in Pittsburgh, the
largest advertising firm on the East Coast.

Why would she
ever leave there to come here? Her position here is a major downgrade from
that...She’s probably only being paid half of what she used to make...

I took the
elevator to my floor and sighed. Even though her birthdate was clearly marked
on all her files, I couldn’t believe she was about to turn forty. She didn’t
look forty. At all.

Not that I gave
a damn; I actually found it quite funny that she thought her age would be a
problem.

“Mr. Statham?”
My secretary looked up as soon as I walked by her desk. “I have something for
you.” She handed me a card:

Jonathan,

I’m sure you
noticed that I wasn’t at the board meeting today and I’m sorry I didn’t tell
you sooner. I’m going to Paris for a while to do some serious wedding planning
with my best friend, Joanna—remember her? She’s the one who said you and I
would make a cute couple at last year’s charity ball :-) Anyway, I was doing
some thinking, and if I need to vacate my seat on the board for you to give us
a chance, I will definitely consider it.

I’ll be thinking
about you while I’m away.

Hope you’ll be
thinking of me,

Vanessa.

I hadn’t noticed
she was absent from the meeting and I was pretty sure I
never
alluded to
the possibility of she and I having a chance to be together. I’d lost count of
how many times I told her that I only saw her as a friend, nothing more.

I unlocked the
door to my office and hit the lights. Tossing my jacket on the couch, I lay
down and prepared to take a nap, but I saw my ex-girlfriend sitting at my desk.

“Audrey?” I sat up.
“What are you doing? How did you get in here?”

I thought I had
you banned for life...

“I wanted to
talk to you.”

“About?”

“Us...”

“There is no
us
.
There hasn’t been an ‘us’ in over a year.”

“Just hear me
out please.” She motioned for me to sit in front of my desk.

I sighed. I
pushed a panel in my wall and took out a bottle of bourbon. I poured myself a
tall glass and offered her a bottle of water before sitting down.

“Go ahead.” I
tried not to sound annoyed. “I’m listening.”

“Well, I was
doing some thinking the other day. Do you remember how we talked about marriage
a few times?”

“We broke up
a year
ago. I don’t keep a listed file about every conversation we had.”

She leaned
forward in the chair and bit her lip. “It was going to work out perfectly
because our careers were set, neither of us wanted children, and we wanted to
travel the world every year once we tied the knot...” She started unbuttoning her
jacket. “You don’t remember any of that?”

“
No
.”

“Well, I do. You
and I were pretty serious at one point and then we just fell apart...”

“Was this before
or after you called all my ex-girlfriends? Before or after you lied about being
pregnant and dragged me to a fake doctor?”

She slid her
jacket off, revealing that she was wearing nothing underneath it but a lacy
pink bra. Before I could stand up, she’d walked around the desk, showing off
the matching panties.

“Audrey...” I felt
no attraction whatsoever. “Please get dressed. I don’t have time for this.”

“You know you
don’t want me to put on any clothes, Jonathan...Make love to me. Right here.
Right now. We never did get the chance to have sex in your office.”

A year ago, I
would’ve gladly given in and fucked her in front of my floor to ceiling
windows, but I was over her and her silly little games. She’d been the source
of way too much drama in my life and I didn’t want that anymore.

“Put your
clothes on or I’ll have security come and take you away in what you’re wearing
right now.”

She slid her
panties off. “But you told me to show up here wearing this! You said you wanted
to talk about us getting back together!”

“What? What are
you talking about?”
And what is that red dot blinking on my bookshelf? Is
she RECORDING this?

“I know you want
me back, Jonathan, but you have to change.” She suddenly sounded hurt. “Just
admit to your mistakes, apologize, and we can get back together...I’ve finally
forgiven you for hitting me on Christmas Day and giving me a black eye...and
bruising my ribs...And I know you didn’t want me to go to the press about it so
if you’d rather pay for me to— ”

“Okay.” I walked
over to the red blinking thing—a miniature pen recorder, and tossed it out the
window. “I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull, but you know damn
well I never hit you.
Ever
. Whatever we had was fun while it lasted, but
that’s pretty much all it was before you turned into a
psycho
. Please
get out of my office.”

She started
crying. “I said I was sorry! I thought you were cheating on me when I set your
Aston Martin on fire!”

I can’t believe
I almost forgot about that...

I walked behind
my desk and moved her crumpled clothes off my chair.

“And I
apologized for calling all your exes! I needed to know if you were still
talking to them! I needed to know that you were really
mine
!”

I handed her the
clothes and sat down. “You’ve got one minute, Audrey. Get dressed before I call
security.”

“I still think
you and I could work out! I know you still want me!”

I picked up my
phone. “Greg, I need security to come and escort someone out of my office as
soon as possible.”

“The sex was
incredible! Remember? We could go on for hours and hours!” She slid into her
jeans and put on her jacket. “You can’t say you don’t miss that! Why don’t you
want me back?”

There was a
knock at my door.

“Come in!” I
called.

Two security
guards walked in and looked at me, then at Audrey.

She immediately
stopped crying, like she always did whenever there was an unexpected audience.

“I don’t need
any assistance walking down the steps!” She laughed. “Thanks for calling for
back up though. My knees are fine, Jonathan!”

“You really
should pursue acting Audrey.” I shook my head. “You would be great at it. Could
you two please escort Miss Greene out to the parking lot and make sure to take
her name
off
the approved visitors list?”

“Yes sir.” They
motioned for her to leave the room first.

Audrey looked
back at me and scowled. “I don’t want you back anyway, you
sucked
in
bed! You couldn’t keep your dick up for more than a minute!”

Jesus...

The door slammed
shut and I leaned back in my chair.

Maybe I need to
date someone older...Someone more mature...

––––––––

O
n Thursday, I
stayed late working on the marketing department’s reconstruction plan. I wasn’t
sure why Claire hated her job so much, but if the ideas her department
submitted for the
s
Phone blue were any indication, I would probably hate
working here too.

Their
submissions were awful, god awful: “The new
s
Phone blue: Just blue it,”
“The new
s
Phone blue. Yeah, it’s blue,” and “The new
s
Phone blue:
Buy it. Ask questions later.” 

There is no way
“adults” came up with this nonsense...

I shut the
folder and decided to call it a day. We were definitely going to have to hire
new talent. Soon.

I took the
elevator down to the executive lot and slid into my Bugatti. Shifting gears, I
prepared to speed all the way home, but I saw Claire arguing with a tow truck
driver on the other side of the lot.

Just as I pulled
over, he drove off with what I assumed was her SUV.

“Claire?” I
stepped out of my car, eyeing the way her black skirt hugged her hips, the way
her emerald green blouse exposed just the right amount of cleavage.

She looked at me
and shook her head. “This is a perfect example of why I
hate
working
here. Is it really necessary to tow your own employees’ cars if they stay over
late? Is that really the best way to discourage over-time? How about just
shutting off the damn time clock at the end of the day?”

She walked past
me and sat on a bench. She pulled out her phone and groaned. “Yes...I need a cab
at Statham Industries. 130 Jennifer Drive...I’m going to Joe’s Car Tow on
Jefferson Street. Yes...No...Yes, I’ll hold.”

“Hey.” I sat
down next to her. “I’m sorry about your car. Let me take you to get it.”

“No thanks. I
can handle this by myself. I’m pretty sure this was a sign for me to start
looking for a new job.”

“No, I’m pretty
sure it was a sign for you
not
to park your car in the ‘nine to five
only’ zone.”

Her jaw dropped
and she narrowed her eyes at me.

“It was a joke.”
I smiled. “Lighten up. I’ll take you there. It’ll save you money and the forty
minute wait.”

“Thank you once
again, but I’ll be fine. Have a great Thursday, Mr. Statham.” She turned away
from me and spoke into her phone. “Yes...By credit card. Yes. I’m ready now.” She
pulled out her credit card. “It’s a VISA and the number is three, zero, one,
seven, eight, one—”

I took the card
out of her hand and walked to my car. I fastened my seat belt and heard her
tapping on my window seconds later.

I rolled it down
and raised my eyebrow.

“I know it may
be difficult for you,” she said, crossing her arms, “but could you please act
like a mature adult and give me my credit card back? They won’t pick me up
unless they have the full number.”

“The quicker you
get in, the quicker we can get your car.”

She took a deep
breath and glared at me. “I’m going to ask you one more time to give me my
credit card...Please give me my credit card back, Mr. Statham.
Now
.”

“Get in the car,
Claire.”

“I told you no.”
She held her hand out. “Please be a gentleman.”

“You’re right.
Where are my manners?”

I stepped out of
the car and walked around to the passenger’s side, opening the door for her.
When she didn’t make a move, I lifted her into my arms and carried her over to
her seat, ignoring her exaggerated sighs.

I let my fingers
linger against her body for a few seconds longer than necessary, reveling in
the feel of her soft skin. I shut her door and walked back over to my side of
the car, revving it up before she could decide to get out.

“Put your
seatbelt on.” I clicked mine into place. “Claire?”

I reached over
her shoulder and buckled her strap for her, resisting the urge to snap off her
shirt. Ignoring the intense glare she was giving me, I sped off towards the
highway.

“Thank you for
the ride, Mr. Statham.” She cleared her throat twenty minutes into the ride.

“Thank you for
accepting it. Am I
de-invited
to your birthday party now?”

“No.” She looked
out her window. “You can still come if you want.”

I was coming
regardless...

“Good. How was
your day at work?”

“Wonderful. As
it
always
is, Mr. Statham.”

I turned off at
the next exit. “Please call me Jonathan.”

“I prefer Mr.
Statham. It helps me keep in mind why I will never go out with you.”

I laughed. “I
love a woman with a sense of humor.”

I pulled into
the towing lot and parked right outside the holding office. Claire hastily
unbuckled her seat-belt, but I reached over and put my hand over hers.

“Wait here. I’ll
have them pull it out front for you. It’s the least I can do.”

I walked inside
the small building and the receptionist blushed. “How can I help you today,
sir?”

“I’m here to
retrieve a car that was towed about a half hour ago from Jennifer Drive. It’s a
light gray—”

“Audi Q7?” She
pulled a folder from the shelf above her desk. “My records say it was parked in
a zone without a proper parking pass. Statham Industries must be an awful place
to work, huh? We tow at least ten cars a day from there.”

“Yes, it’s a
horrible
place. How much to get the car out?”

“Three hundred
and fifty dollars.”

That’s
ridiculous...Do my employees really have to pay that much every time?

I handed her my
credit card and she had me fill out a few pages of paperwork.

“I’ll have it
brought out in a second.” She disappeared.

When I walked
back outside, Claire was leaning against the hood of my car with her arms
folded above her head. Images of her lying like that in my bed, on my shower
bench, and on my yacht quickly flashed through my mind.

The things I
would do to her...

“How much do I
owe you?” She sat up, frowning.

“Nothing, except
our date that we’ll be discussing at your birthday party.”

“I don’t think
so. I’m fine with you coming to my birthday party, but after what happened
today, I’m
not
going out with you.” She suppressed a smile. “I mean it.”

“We’ll discuss
it on Friday.”

Out the corner
of my eye, I saw her car rolling through the lot. As it moved closer, I heard a
strange popping sound and then I saw the problem: Both of her back tires were
shredded; they looked like rubber shingles.