I leaned over him to guide the mouse where I needed it. “Okay, so here’s the path to the shared drive. All documents have to be saved out on this drive for backup purposes.”
“You know, you don’t have to climb all over me to get my attention. Lifting your skirt works very well,” he said.
My blood was on fire, even more so than it had already been due to annoyance. “Sorry, I didn’t realize there were any voyeurs around. Next time, I’ll lock myself up in an empty room to spare you.” I rolled my eyes before getting back to the task at hand; ready to show him the next step.
“Spare me?” His eyebrow was cocked, a curious look on his face as he took me in.
“Yes, temptation is the road to Hell, or at least that’s what I hear.” I once again tried to draw his attention back to the computer screen.
He smirked, something I was already beginning to loathe. “You think I’m tempted by you?”
I thought about the answer, though I knew it already, but decided to string him along. “No, but I don’t want to give you the opportunity to be tempted by me.”
“Why so hostile?”
“Look, Nathan,” I huffed. “I’m here to do a job, not to flaunt my breasts around to catch your eye. I like my job, I like doing my job, and I want to keep it. Plus, I know you do not, and will not, be interested in a woman like me, so why even try? Now, can we get back to your tutorial?”
“How do you know?”
My jaw locked, eyes closed before I turned to look at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he replied. His voice had dropped, now hard and cold, no hint of flirtation. “How. Do. You. Know?”
He was demanding, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My fa?ade was slipping, so much that the words came out as nothing more than a whisper. “Just drop it.”
“How?”
“Why would anyone?” I sneered at him before taking off to the restroom.
Shit, shit, shit!
I paced the length of the bathroom, taking deep breaths to relax and regain my composure. He’d made me slip, probing me with questions that were best left alone. The answers to those questions brought up emotions best left buried in the past.
After about ten minutes, it seemed safe to exit. When I entered our office, he was staring at me with a perplexed look on his face. He didn’t speak, for which I was thankful. I walked back to my desk, bringing my chair around to his, resuming our tutorial.
“Email and contact lists. Then we can see if you have access to the programs IT was supposed to set up over the weekend.”
“You’re very peculiar, Delilah.”
“I’m just a woman, Nathan. Nothing special,” I replied before focusing back on his computer.
“Do you have to do that?” My teeth were grinding after almost five minutes of pen clicking from my new office mate. The sound was so loud it was echoing off the walls, distracting me from the contract in front of me.
Nathan continued his assault on the pen’s button. “It’s my thinking tool.”
I glared at him. “Well, your thinking tool has me thinking about all the ways I could harm you with it.”
He stared back at me, defying my request and clicking it again. “That time of the month, Palmer?”
“You’re an asshole. Get back to work.” I forced my attention back down to the papers in front of me.
“Which leads me to the question: what have you been doing for the past four months?”
Death wish. He had one.
I knew the blood vessel on my forehead had to be protruding from the annoyance and anger he was eliciting. It had been three days since he began, and Vivian was looking like a ray of sunshine compared to him. I swear he was trying to get under my skin, provoking me. I just wanted to know why.
“Hi, guys!” A feminine voice called from the door.
I wanted to scream.