Uncommon Romance

The conference room was empty when June Phillips walked in. Her friend and colleague, Robert, entered as she settled into her chair. She selected a seat that was halfway down on the far side. It gave her a perfect view of others as they entered the room, without positioning her too close to either end. She wasn’t sure where her boss would sit, so had no clear idea which end was the head of the table.

The last thing she wanted was to sit at his right hand as he worked through the presentation. She was thankful to have been included in the meeting but had no idea what it was actually about.

“What are you doing in here?” Robert asked the question with his usual eloquence.

“Simmons told me to come.” June felt self conscious about the answer. Simmons was their boss’s boss’s boss. It was either a really good thing that he’d singled her out or a really bad thing. She had yet to decide which.

Robert nodded his appreciation. “Nice. Do you know what it’s about?”

“No clue.” She straightened her tablet and aligned it perfectly with her pen.

“We have a new client. Or a potential new client. This is a wooing meeting.”

That didn’t explain why June was there. She made a non-committal noise but didn’t comment further. Robert sat across from her and two spaces to the left. Did he know which end would be the head of the table?

A woman June had never seen before walked past the conference room. Her custom tailored suit hugged her body and showed off her form. Rather than a skirt, she wore pants that draped dramatically over her heels. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She caught June’s gaze and held it as she crossed the doorway.

“Damn, she’s hot. Do you know her?” Robert watched the woman until she left their field of vision, no doubt staring at her perfect ass as she walked. June had no room to judge him since she did the exact same thing.

“No.” June mentally refocused herself. The last thing she needed was to be distracted by thoughts of chasing tail when she needed to focus on the meeting about to take place. The invitation from Simmons could prove to be career changing. “But I’d like to.”

She wouldn’t say something so blatantly lustful in front of anyone else, but she’d gone to school with Robert. He’d proved more than once that he had her back.

“Don’t let your wife hear you say something like that. She’ll kick your ass.”

June’s wife, Ashlyn, was terribly jealous, but equally adventurous sexually. They’d participated in threesomes more than once and been just fine. It would only turn into a problem if June flat-out cheated on her. “Ash wouldn’t care as long as I shared.”

Of course Simmons chose that exact moment to enter the conference room from the side door. The woman they’d been staring at entered with him.

“Shared what?” Simmons asked.

June stumbled over herself trying to answer. That Simmons had asked her anything at all was flustering. The man issued orders. He did not initiate conversations. For him to do so now was doubly disconcerting.

“Ummm…”

“She was just saying how her wife appreciates it when June brings home that fabulous chocolate cake from the deli in the lobby.” Robert came up with the impromptu story smoothly enough to make June wonder how often he covered for other people’s awkward social faux pas. She made a note on her tablet to pick him up a piece of the chocolate cake he referenced. It was heavenly, and he definitely deserved the treat for bailing her ass out.

The woman arched her brow and regarded June with a sultry smile that was better suited for the bedroom than a conference room. “Chocolate cake, hmm? That’s what you share with your wife?”

“Right.” June’s face flushed red hot. “She loves chocolate cake. She can’t get enough of it.” June babbled like an idiot and internally chastised herself. Ash would kill her for making her sound like a four-hundred-pound, cake-snarfing troll. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen her eat dessert of any kind.

“Of course.” The woman’s smile deepened, but she still didn’t look amused. Any time June had been on the receiving end of a smile like that while out in a club, the night always ended in orgasms.

“Well, you’ll have to take a piece home to her tonight then. Hopefully they have one left by the time we finish up here.” Simmons smiled and straightened his tie. “And now that the pressing matter of dessert has been addressed, let me make introductions. This is Katerina VanderVort. Katerina, meet Robert Bladen and June Phillips, two of our most promising junior associates.”

At the conclusion of his introduction, he selected the end of the table closest to Robert, gesturing at the open seat to his left for Katerina. She smiled and circled the table, ignoring the seat he indicated in favor of the one next to June.

“It’s very nice to meet you, June.” Katerina rolled June’s name around in her mouth in a way that made it sound far too sexy for the situation.

June sucked in a breath and tried not to pass out. She’d been married for a couple of years, and the ring kept most would-be suitors at bay. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of such blatant flirting. When she trusted herself to speak, she said, “It’s nice to meet you, too, Katerina.” Instead of sexy and in control like Katerina, she sounded flustered and out of breath.

“Please, call me Kat.”

The others shuffled through the door before June could do much more than swallow and nod. She opened her tablet to a fresh sheet of paper and tried to pay attention to the presentation. Kat’s perfume, a light, breezy fragrance that reminded June of summertime, made it very difficult for her to concentrate.

At one point, Kat shifted in her seat until her foot bumped up against June’s and their legs were touching. June held perfectly still and waited for Kat to move again. She didn’t. June spent the rest of the meeting inhaling summertime and trying to ignore the current flowing through her body that originated from the press of Kat’s leg against hers.

After the meeting concluded, June sat there for several moments after everyone else, including Kat, had stood. She collected her tablet, suspiciously blank for such a long meeting, and tried to exit without drawing attention to herself. Robert had several pages of scrawled notes on his, she noticed.

“June, please wait.” Simmons called her over. He stood with a small group of executives. And Kat.

She turned her tablet toward her body and hoped no one noticed the empty pages. Kat repositioned herself in the group until she stood next to June. She smiled like she knew something. Everything about the woman was just unnerving.

“Yes, sir?” June tried to ignore the brush of Kat’s arm against hers.

“Good news, June.” Simmons clapped his hand on her shoulder. “Kat was impressed but would like to schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss further options. She’d like you to join us. I’ll have my assistant loop you in on the details.”

June squeaked and turned red. It was not the response Simmons was hoping for, she was sure, considering he had just publicly announced a massive professional coup. She could practically hear Robert turning green from across the room.

“That sounds fabulous, sir. Looking forward to it.” She shifted her smile from Simmons to Kat, determined to not show how flustered she was. Kat smiled back at her in a way that confirmed she knew exactly how she was impacting June.

June smiled and nodded and shook hands, but the entire time she questioned the integrity of the situation. Yes, she’d worked hard and by all rights was ready for and deserved a promotion, but on the other hand, she’d done nothing special in this particular case. In fact, she’d done less than nothing. She hadn’t even paid attention. It felt unfair. Thank God they’d handed out a prospectus at the beginning of the meeting. She could review it and be prepared for the next time.

“It was very nice meeting you, June.” Kat held her hand a few seconds too long, and June let her. She was married, at work, and incredibly turned on nonetheless. “I look forward to our next meeting.”

“Thank you. I promise I won’t let you down.” At that, June made her escape. She wasn’t sure if it was a breach in etiquette for her to leave without seeing the client out, but she desperately needed to take a moment and collect herself.

She’d just cleared the conference room door when Kat called out, “June, wait.” She caught up to June and placed her hand on her forearm. She held it there as she spoke. “Why don’t you see me out? I don’t want to take any more of Mr. Simmons’s time.”

June nodded slowly. There was no gracious way to decline. “Let me just collect my things.”

While she collected her files and other belongings, Kat scanned her office. She picked up a picture of June and Ash embracing on the bow of her father-in-law’s boat. Ash’s hair was sun bleached and blew out slightly in the wind. She had her arms around June and a beautiful, carefree smile on her face. Her focus was on June, not the camera. It was one of June’s favorite photos of the two of them.

“Is this your wife?”

“Yes.” June took the picture from Kat and smiled as she placed it back on the shelf. “This is from last summer.”

“She’s very beautiful.” Kat looked at her intensely.

“Yes, I’m very lucky.” June had said those exact words more times than she could count. She genuinely had no idea how she’d managed to convince Ash to love her, let alone agree to spend the rest of their lives together. It was an absolute mystery to her and she readily admitted it.

She felt guilty looking at the picture of her wife with the tingle of Kat’s attention still travelling through her body. She took a careful step back and repeated herself. “Very lucky.”

Kat nodded but said nothing further about Ash’s beauty or June’s luck. June collected her things and led Kat out of the building.

As they passed the deli she laughed and asked, “Didn’t you want to stop for cake?”

June’s face flushed with heat. “No, not tonight.”

“Perhaps another time then.” Kat stared into her eyes like she was offering more than just dessert. June thought fleetingly about what would happen if she invited Kat home with her, then let the thought drift away. Kat lowered her gaze and the mood was broken.

June said good night and left Kat on the sidewalk. It was time to go home to her wife.