"Good morning Sarah." I said as I strode through her office on my way to my own. Even as I passed her she was on her feet, note book in hand following me.
It was five past nine on Monday morning, and I had just returned this morning on an overnight flight from London and was dog tired. The meetings had gone on much longer than I had needed or anticipated but finally the matter was sorted and we could move on to the next phase.
I sat in the leather chair behind my desk and Sarah, my ever efficient Sarah, sat opposite me. "How was London?"
"It was hard work and I only just made my flight." I took a memory card from my briefcase and passed it over to her, "Could you transcribe this for me, I have a meeting with the Old Man in an hour. Then could you call Kate and let her know that I'll be home later on this morning, and could you arrange for some flowers to be delivered as soon as. I rang her from the airport to wish her a happy birthday but I need to be there."
A strange look crossed Sarah's face that I didn't understand. She stood to leave a little more quickly than normal.
"Sarah."
"Yes Sir."
"Is something wrong?"
"It's nothing Sir, I'm fine." She left to put the memory card through the 'voice to text' transcription thing on her computer. I looked through the glass partition at her going about her work and, just to prove that I'm not an insensitive slob, I noticed something about her demeanor that wasn't right.
Sarah was always so bright and chatty, especially on Monday mornings, regaling me with tales of her weekend, usually of her looking after her mother and the things the she, the mother, had managed to get up to in her slightly dotty state. I enjoyed these chats because they made me realize that there were some 'normal' people working in this corporate production line.
I noticed, not for the first time, that she, as she walked back into my office with the completed transcriptions, was an extremely attractive young woman and the thought crossed my mind that nowhere in her Monday morning chats was there ever any mention of her having been on a date. Given her looks and personality I thought that odd.
"The flowers are on there way Sir. Is there anything else?"
"You can tell me what the matter is for starters."
"It can wait, you look so tired. Why don't you postpone the meeting with Sir Thomas and go home and get some sleep." She had walked around my desk and was gently massaging my shoulders. "You are far too tense to be going upstairs just now." She reached over to my phone and dialed Sir Thomas' PA. "Jane, would it be at all possible to reschedule this mornings meeting, Geoff is just about dead on his feet and needs the rest. I'll send up the transcripts and Sir Thomas can read them before the meeting. When would be a convenient time? At three, yes he'll be there, thank you."
Sarah then dialed my home number. "Kate? Hi, it's Sarah. I just called to say that I'm bringing Geoff home, he's really tired and needs some sleep before his meeting with Sir Thomas. Sure, I'll use his keys." She turned to me and caught me admiring her black stocking encased legs. "Kate has to go out for an hour or so but will be home as soon as she can. Come on, let's be getting you home."
The journey home in her little blue Mazda MX5 was quiet, neither of us saying much, me because I was tired, she because something was definitely bothering her but nothing I tried could get her to open up.
Sarah almost had to help me into the house. I leaned on her for support as she opened the front door and led me to the Master Bedroom. I pulled back the covers and started to get into bed clothes and all. "Oh no you don't, just stand there like a good boy while I undress you." There was nothing clinical about the way that she undressed me, it was an extension of the way we flirted at the office when no-one was around and several times she smacked my hand away from her enticing body. "Down boy or I'll have to shove you into a cold shower."
I eventually fell into bed and was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. My last conscious recollection was her lips on mine and her voice, so soft and sensuous, whispering to my face, "Sleep tight my Darling."
I woke at one o'clock to the smell of food and found Kate in the kitchen preparing lunch for us. "Sarah will be here at two to take you back to work." She said as she placed the plate in front of me. "Thank you for the flowers by the way, and this." She looked at her hand admiring the ring that I had bought her in London. Sarah must have gone through my bags and retrieved it.
We chatted about the events of the past week while I was away, she told me of her meetings with her friends and the lunches that they had and how she had spoken to Tom at Duntroon (Military Academy), he was doing really well, his grades were up across the board and he was chosen in the college tennis team, and he was seeing a new girl who sounded really nice, "oh, and by the way Mother called, she wants me to go out to visit her, I'll be leaving this afternoon and will be away for at least a week." This news came as something of a surprise because Kate was never that close to her mother.
Kate was the boss's daughter. Her mother was from a wealthy Pastoral family that owned a grazing property of some several hundred square Kilometres in Western New South Wales and had met and married Thomas Sinclair, the son and heir of a wealthy business family in corporate Sydney.
Kate never really understood the reason that her parents divorced, just that her mother had gone home to the family farm leaving her father to raise her as best he could, with the help of boarding school and Nannies. Neither of her parents would discuss the divorce and the animosity between her parents continued until this day, so it seemed strange that Kate should choose this time to visit her mother.
I showered and dressed for this afternoon's meeting and could hear Kate packing for her trip. The front door bell rang and I went to let Sarah in. "Is she still here?"
"Yes, why?"
