Dear Readers,
Thank you for your votes and feedback. I'm happy some of you are enjoying it. Sorry if the pace feels slow, but there's so much for Denny to do in order to convince Alessa to give him a chance. Poor girl has issues, but in the meantime, I hope the wait is an enjoyable torture! And of course, another big thanks to alreadytaken for her stellar editing skills and legal insight.
Enjoy,
Titania
*******
CHAPTER THREE
"We were caught up and lost in all our vices
In your pose as the dust settled around us."
"Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?
Oh, oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?"
-"Pompeii" Bastille
The sun was just turning the morning sky from dark blue to warm orange when a very sweaty and tired Denton Ashbury walked with Keith Marcus to the lobby entrance of his apartment building. The two had been, since five that morning, in the basement gym of Denny's building. Since standing alone on the dark sidewalk, spying her run in her sexy little running shorts on that treadmill, Denny had re-evaluated his own fitness. Though he was athletic and strong by nature and had been active in sports from the time he was young, he had admittedly allowed his time at the firm to overtake any he had dedicated to cultivating a healthy physique. But with her amazing legs serving as his inspiration, he called up his old trainer who happily made house calls, even at that ungodly hour. So, for the past three weeks, Denny had risen at four-thirty, four days a week and allowed Keith to push him to the extreme in his building's state-of-the-art gym.
Once Keith was gone, Denny headed up to his twenty-eighth-floor condo and took a hot shower, the best part of his morning. As he went about getting ready for work, he checked on the world of business, perused his email from clients and colleagues on the east coast, and read the Wall Street Journal on his iPad. He still managed to make it to the office by seven, not surprised to find Alessa already there, her hair pulled up in a sexy bun, little silver earrings dangling and catching his eyes, drawing them to the long, graceful lines of her neck.
The office was slowly beginning to fill, and Denny took one last lingering look at her before heading to his office. Clare had brought him his coffee just the way he liked, and he was now finalizing a draft of an addendum to one of his smaller client's charter. The morning went by as any other, with only minor distractions here or there by the various workings of an office. He worked during his lunch, his slightly improved diet-another addition to his rejuvenated healthy lifestyle-required he eat less take out. He was nearly voracious as he ate, eager for the hour to pass and get on to the one o'clock meeting his Mingo team was having in one of the smaller conference rooms.
In the three weeks since he had recruited members and divvied out roles and tasks, Denny had met with them in part or in whole to begin the initial brainstorming and drafting of their strategic plans for the Mingo Corporation. He invariably made Alessa a member of the majority of those meetings, his covert observations serving to appease him enough to allow him to curtail his outward display of interest in her.
Occasionally, though business remained the greater focus during those meetings, conversation would digress into the personal, each sharing some part of their lives, their unique personalities surfacing. Except, Alessa, Denny noted, as she continued to maintain an emotionally-distant front. She was pleasant and was receptive to the conversations, but he recognized her stealthy ability to avert an answer about herself and remain noncontributory. She was quite adept at it, and he concluded the skill must have come from years of practice.
Eventually, as others failed to break past her veneer of smooth, calculating civility, Denny decided it was getting him nowhere. If he truly wanted to peel back her layers and find what was beneath, he would have to do it himself.
At the appropriate time, people began arriving to the designated conference room, the culture being such at Wiles, Mayer, and Schecter that meeting start times were strictly upheld. As Denny approached the glass room, seeing the members already seated with Alessa being in the middle on one side, he walked in smiling pleasantly and sat at the end seat.
The meeting was a discussion of the focus of time, energy and money that would be best spent to expand the Mingo label over the next eighteen months. It culminated in a conversation about expansion into the Asian markets, which turned a large portion of the discussion into Alessa's hands. Denny was a little irritated that she had chosen to sit to the other side of Lou, effectively blocking her from his eye sight when she was not the one speaking. And though he could
feel
her hiding from him, she wasn't a wallflower; she was clearly competent and exude confidence in the skills she brought to the team, leading the topic with polished diplomacy, insight, and optimism. When it came time to assign the new tasks identified, Denny noted Alessa took on a giant's portion of the workload, calm as she continued to say, "I can do that," or "Leave that to me."
At the end of the hour, Denny assessed this newest project as on target and felt good about the direction they were headed. After he dismissed everyone, he called to Alessa and asked her to stay back. Lou passed Alessa an excited smile, cheering her on to shine for the boss, before leaving. Alessa felt those flittering butterflies in her stomach, but stomped on them, squashing them under her heel of indifference. She stayed in her seat, her hands folded in her lap as she maintained a passive expression. When the room was cleared, she spoke from where she sat.
"Yes?"
He was leaning back in his chair, one long leg crossed in the repose of relaxed confidence. "How are things going?" he asked casually, as if they had met at the water cooler and were about to segue into sports.
