Click - A Novella Read online

  Click

  by

  Valerie Douglas

  Published by the author as a member of the

  Alexandria Publishing Group

  Click - Copyright 2013 by Valerie Douglasr

  Kindle Edition

  Cover art by Renee Barrett of The Cover Counts

  Formatting by RikHall.com

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from author.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction, and as a work of fiction any resemblance to people, places or things is entirely accidental. The creation of certain buildings and locations is entirely the work of the author to avoid conflict and comparison with existing structures

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the site where it was purchased and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Discover other titles by Valerie Douglas

  Fantasy

  The Coming Storm

  A Convocation of Kings

  Not Magic Enough

  Setting Boundaries

  Song of the Fairy Queen

  Heart of the Gods

  Servant of the Gods

  Romance

  Dirty Politics

  Directors Cut

  Irish Fling

  Two Up

  Nike’s Wings

  The Last Resort

  As V. J. Devereaux

  Cooking Class

  Blood Bound

  Demon’s Kiss

  Demon’s Embrace

  Chapter One

  The journey home had been a litany of flight delays and racing through an airport so she didn’t miss connections, complicated by the weather. A gust of wind burst past Emily’s trench coat as she got out of the taxi at the office, sending the sides flapping. Cold rain spattered her dress, hose, and inside the sensible flats she wore when travelling. Emily was just glad she’d pinned up her unruly hair.

  “Thanks Tony,” she said to the building doorman as he took her luggage and computer case from the taxi driver. She handed the taxi driver his fare.

  With a slight lift of his eyebrows at the size of the tip, the taxi driver returned her smile and gave her a quick salute. She smiled back wearily.

  Emily had working a lot of jobs through college before landing an internship. She knew what it was like to rely on tips, so she always gave that little bit more.

  “How did your trip go?” Tony asked, as she took over her computer case and held the door for her.

  “Pretty good…landed a new client,” she said with satisfaction, and then saw that a limo had pulled up in the place of her taxi.

  She knew who the passenger of the limo probably was; Robert Halloran, the venture capitalist who had the penthouse offices. Not only was he model gorgeous – with his brilliant blue eyes and strong features, he was handsome enough with his brilliant blue eyes to grace the covers of a few fashion magazines – but despite his reputation as a tough negotiator, he was also genuinely nice. Then again she didn’t have to face him across a conference room table.

  The first time she’d said hello to him in the elevator she hadn’t known who he was, but he’d been more than polite saying hello back. Since then they’d chatted a few times in the elevator and at charity functions they’d both attended. He always talked to her as an equal, never treating her as inferior, but then he’d come up the hard way, too. Knowing he was so far out of her league – rich as well as handsome – made it a lot easier to talk to him in return without getting rattled.

  “You’d better go get that, Tony.”

  “Yeah, you have a good day, Emily.”

  “What’s left of it,” she said, and then grinned as she added, “but I’ll try. We’ll just see if the rest of the world cooperates.”

  It was nice to be back home, she thought as she walked into the building.

  The elevators in the old, renovated building weren’t the quickest, but they gave her a little time to gather herself before she faced the office. She gave her hair a quick finger-comb and then clipped it back up until she got the chance to brush it out properly.

  She stepped out of the elevator into the office foyer, walking around the table in the center with its massive display of dried flowers and pushed past the glass doors with their gold leaf etching of the company name – Quartermain Enterprises – across them to enter reception.

  Matching sofas in an elegant patterned fabric flanked the room. Cherry wood tables separated them from a pair of leather wing chairs. Few people ever sat in either, or the receptionist or staffer responsible would have been fired. They were there for show, like the enormous paintings on the walls.

  “Hey, Emily,” the receptionist said, clearly startled by her unexpected arrival.

  With a smile, Emily said in explanation as she went by, “I finished early, so I decided to come home.”

  “Emily!” Jane from Accounting called as Emily tucked her luggage into a closet, slinging her computer bag over her shoulder. “Congratulations on the promotion! Come here, come here!”

  Dutifully, Emily went, trying not to grin. She liked most of the people in Jane’s department; they were pretty straightforward, unlike some of her colleagues in Sales.

  The women all clustered around, but she could see Andrew – the head of the department – sitting in his office. He gave her a wave.

  “Here,” Veronica said, thrusting a wrapped package at Emily.

  Embarrassed, Emily shook her head, “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Someone had to,” Jane said, with just a touch of anger to her voice.

  Emily wasn’t in the mood to argue, not so soon. To be fair there just hadn’t been time before she left for her and Dan to celebrate her promotion properly. Or so she told herself.

  Instead she opened her present, and laughed.

  She was the gadget queen, and they knew that.

  They’d gotten her a travel alarm that would wake her with light as well as sound – something she’d talked about getting for a while. She hated trying to learn how to set every hotel alarm and then being startled awake by some of them.

  “Perfect!” she said. Veronica had been paying attention…but then, she was a good office friend. “Thanks.”

  Hugs went all around. Emily knew they’d each chipped in to buy the clock, it wasn’t cheap.

  She tucked the box under one arm and continued toward Sales and her office. People called greetings, and she called back. All she wanted at the moment, though, was enough time to pull herself together before she saw Dan.

  Lately their relationship had been strained, but she didn’t know why. She’d hoped to surprise him, to have one more chance to straighten things out between them.

  Then she entered the sanctum sanctorum of the Sal
es department, and there he was sitting in his office with his door open. He was focused on the papers in front of him. At first her heart lifted at the sight of him, as it always had always done. He was a good-looking man with his thick dark brown hair and even features. Maybe he wasn’t as drop-dead gorgeous as Robert Halloran, but he was handsome enough. Beneath his business attire he was just as attractive, lean, firmly muscled, his body showing the hours he put in at the gym. As always, he was also almost impeccably dressed in a designer suit, although his tie had been loosened. His suit jacket hung over the back of his chair to keep it from getting wrinkled. She knew that hidden beneath the desk he wore expensive shoes, although few saw them.

  Emily’s heart sank at the thought of his first sight of her with her rain-spattered hose and windblown hair. With luck he wouldn’t see until her until she’d had a chance to clean up and run a brush through her hair. She hadn’t called to let him know she was coming home early, that would have killed the surprise.

  He still made her heart twist, but now not just because she’d once thought he loved her. She wondered if he still did.

  Dan looked up, then, his amber eyes clearly startled. His expression was oddly guilty. She would have asked him about it, but she wanted to straighten herself up first, so she wouldn’t feel disheveled. So she’d be on equal footing.

  “Em,” he said. “You’re back early.”

  There was one steadfast rule between them, no signs of affection in the office – although they’d broken that one behind the closed doors of either his or her office fairly frequently in the early days.

  The memory pained her. It had been a long while since they’d done that.

  “I had a chance to come home early,” she said.

  In the face of his expression she couldn’t bring herself to tell him she’d done it just to surprise him. Pleasantly, she’d hoped at the time. He’d clearly been surprised, but not the way she’d wished. They needed to talk, and soon. Even the thought of that conversation, though, made her heart drop.

  “Just let me get settled,” she said, escaping into her office.

  Her office wasn’t the oasis of quiet she’d hoped it would be though. She no sooner reached her desk than Cathy hurried in through the connecting doors from Cathy’s office next door, even as Dan trailed Emily.

  A woman followed Cathy, one Emily didn’t know.

  The woman clearly knew Dan, sidling up beside him to slide her hand into his and go up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. It was clear that there was something more than just family or friends going on between them.

  “Annalise,” Dan said, clearly caught between affection and dismay.

  All Emily could only stare, the color draining out of her face in embarrassment.

  Eyes widening, Cathy had the decency to look disconcerted before she fled back to her office. It was clear Cathy had been giving Annalise the ‘grand tour’ of the office. Even Emily’s.

  Dan couldn’t seem to make up his mind what to do. He gave Emily a defensive glance – as if the awkwardness of the situation was her fault.

  The other woman took in Emily’s disheveled state, glanced dismissively at Emily’s hair and clothing, and only just managing to keep her expression from being rude.

  Almost involuntarily, Emily lifted a hand to her hair, to the clip in it. She’d never been quite so humiliated.

  Whatever she was to Dan, the woman was immaculate from her perfectly styled blonde hair to the makeup she wore like a mask, her designer suit, all the way down to the high priced shoes on her feet. Rain hadn’t dared leave its mark on her stockings or shoes, nor would she have worn the plain flats that Emily had chosen as a concession to airport security.

  Emily knew she looked at wreck in comparison, even as she unclipped her hair and added to it, as the mass of her hair tumbled over her shoulders. She pulled the brush she’d intended to use before anyone saw her, and ran it quickly through her hair.

  It wasn’t hard for Emily to see where some of the attraction between Dan and this woman lay.

  If there had been one bone of contention between Emily and Dan it had been her sophistication – or lack thereof. He’d pushed her to buy more expensive designer clothing and shoes, but she had a hard time laying out the equivalent of a week’s pay for something she’d only wear for a season. It wasn’t that Emily didn’t wear the style of the season in the right situations, but she preferred more classic looks instead. She was also too honest, too opinionated, in the wrong circumstances. Unlike some of the other women at various events they attended on behalf of the company, Emily was more likely to be found among the men debating politics or policy, not designers or shoes. As much as she’d tried Emily simply wouldn’t change who she was. Not for any man, not even for Dan, she’d seen too many women do that.

  “Emily, this is Annalise,” Dan said, his amber eyes on Emily.

  It seemed Dan had found a more sophisticated girlfriend.

  The glance Annalise gave Emily was brief and ended at Emily’s head before Annalise turned back to Dan. She’d been dismissed.

  Emily wondered what had happened to the things she’d left in Dan’s apartment. Were they still there, or had he boxed them up? She hoped this woman hadn’t done it. She was mortified at the idea that Annalise would have touched the few items she’d left at Dan’s apartment.

  “Dan, darling, we have to go,” Annalise said. She glanced at the others in the room with a slight air of smugness. “We have prime seats at one of the hottest shows on Broadway – the revival of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

  Tickets – good ones – were hard to get, or so Dan had told Emily just a few weeks before. It was a very popular show, with two major movie stars in the lead roles.

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby, Annalise,” Dan said, “I just want to talk to Emily for a minute. Just business.”

  Emily wondered if Annalise even knew of her relationship to Dan. It would have been like him to not mention it. It was also clear by Annalise’s behavior that her relationship with Dan wasn’t new.

  “She seems nice,” Emily said. She felt numb.

  “You weren’t supposed to be due back until later,” Dan said, his voice defensive.

  That had been the original plan.

  How long had it been going on? Emily wondered.

  Longer than the week Emily had been gone, that seemed certain.

  The thought of coming back into the office Monday to face her coworkers after Dan had paraded his new girlfriend through the office made her cringe internally. How many had known? And now everyone did. Now she understood Veronica’s anger. She hadn’t just been mad that Dan hadn’t celebrated Emily’s promotion before she’d left, but because he’d brought his new girlfriend into the office.

  “You could have had the decency to break up with me first, before bringing her to the office,” Emily said, trying not to cry. Tears stung. She wouldn’t cry here, but neither could she deny the humiliation that burned in her cheeks.

  “I was going to this weekend,” he said.

  “A little late. Welcome home, Emily,” she said tightly. “I’ve got a new girlfriend, I need your things out this weekend?”

  “Let’s not make things awkward, Em,” he said. “Let’s be professional. And let’s not forget, I am your boss.”

  She couldn’t believe he was pulling rank on her as well.

  He was her boss. Thanks to her. She’d convinced the company to hire him.

  The clients loved her. The honesty that drove had driven Dan so crazy was appreciated by them. They were accustomed to being lied to, over-sold, or otherwise deceived. As one or two had said, she was a breath of fresh air. The company trusted her judgment, and they would have done anything for her, given her numbers. Dan had a good reputation. Now she knew why. Talk about sleeping your way to the top.

  “Oh, definitely,” she said. “I wouldn’t make a scene anyway. Not here.”

  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Good,” he sai
d. “We’ll talk Monday.”

  “Where are my things?”

  He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “At my apartment. Please have them out this weekend. We’ll be away in the Hamptons.”

  The reality of it suddenly washed over her and her breath caught. Dan wouldn’t be a part of her life anymore. She wouldn’t wake up with her arms around him. But then it had been a while since that had happened. Instead there’d been excuse after excuse as to why he couldn’t stay, or she couldn’t. He was tired. He needed to stay at the office to get some paperwork done. An old friend was in town.

  Now she knew why. And it gave her a rough idea for how long she’d been fooling herself. She couldn’t help feeling a rush of shame at that.

  To be honest, though, he’d always blown hot and cold. She’d never known for certain where she stood with him, although he said he loved her. The uncertainty had driven her crazy sometimes.

  In a way, the breakup wasn’t that much of a surprise – it was the manner of it that hurt so much. Yet, in an odd way, it was a relief, too. At least the wondering was over.

  Not that it hurt any less.

  She nodded. “I’ll leave the key on the sofa table.”

  The relief on his face was unmistakable. Fury rushed through her at that look, but she kept her behavior professional as he walked out of her office.

  From where she stood, she could see the lobby, could see Dan hold Annalise’s raincoat for her.

  Walking out, she reached up to catch the string to the bell hung between the doors and rang it loudly.

  It startled Dan and Annalise, the rest were accustomed to it. There was satisfaction in seeing the flash of alarm in Dan’s eyes – fearing a last minute scene – and she smiled to see him disconcerted.

  “I brought in the Grissom account,” she announced, knowing he’d expected – even feared – something else.