Erin listened as Cade snapped at another employee. His temper was definitely not of the best lately, but usually it was
her
on the receiving line of his bad moods.
He had not confronted her with the Christmas-picture yet, so hopefully he hadn't figured out who had pulled the prank on him. Still he was as sour as ever and even a couple of days had not managed to cool down his temper.
She heard him curse again in a very inventive vocabulary. She would never have thought he had it in him, but that only showed how little one really knew about other people. Erin chuckled. In fact, she did prefer this grumpy fellow to the iceberg any time of day. At least these days he did show
some
feelings and she had not heard him use that upper-class and haughty tone at all lately. No, he was definitely improving, she thought.
So who was the latest victim. Oh, Sam, of course, he was one of the few that tolerated the boss's bad mood swings. The others had the good sense to stay away from him altogether. Still, he was quite entertaining once you saw the humour in it, she thought.
She entered the office. Cade was still working on his tirade, while Sam was sitting calmly in a chair, just smiling.
"Look, Cade," Sam intervened as soon as Cade stopped to take a short breath in his tirade. "Why don't you go for a long walk and work off that temper of yours? Right now you're not thinking too clearly."
"Oh, I'm not to sure a walk will help at the present stage," Erin intervened laughingly. "I would rather suggest a small trip to the nearest whorehouse for some oiling and service, or perhaps a cold bath. There's nothing better for solving that problem of your sexual frustrations, boss."
As soon as the sentence was finished she looked into Cade's face, and the strange look on his face made her freeze on the spot. Oops, maybe she shouldn't have said that. He was probably still angry, she thought, and prepared herself for a hasty retreat. Maybe he
had
discovered who was responsible for his new fame among the female staff. Instead, he seemed to calm down and got an even stranger look in his face. He was actually smiling. This didn't bode well at all.
"That sounds like a good idea, wouldn't you agree, Sam?"
Sam looked at them both in complete ignorance. "Huh?" was all he managed to say.
"Sam, why don't you take Mrs. Anderson for an extended lunch?" Sam finally seemed to grasp a hold of reality, and his smile broke out as if he finally understood what was going on.
"My pleasure," Sam answered while exiting the room. Erin suddenly got a premonition of something not being entirely right. Their grumpy and ill-tempered boss was smiling just like a cat when getting sight of a juicy meal. That was definitely a bad sign, she thought, and started retreating as casually as she could.
"In that case I'm also heading for lunch," she said and walked quickly toward the door. But just before she could reach it, the door closed right in front of her. Confused, she glanced up to see a large hand was holding it closed and a warm body was felt against her backside. He moved closer and she could feel his warm breath down her neck. She shivered while trying to grab a hold of herself.
"What, I'm not allowed to have lunch either?" she asked with more calm than she felt.
"Oh, don't worry, you will have lunch, but not the way you thought," Cade answered calmly with a voice several octaves below his usual yelling. This voice was deep and dangerously seductive and much too close to her ear.
"I suggest you open the door right now," she started a little angrier now as she tried to conceal her worry with anger. "Otherwise I might charge you with sexual harassment."
His answer was quick and not to her liking as his other hand came forward and before she could prevent it he turned the lock in the door and rested his hand on the other side of her head -- crowding her in.
"Now," he said calmly. "Finally we can have a small conversation about some pictures floating around."
She turned around and pretended a calmness she didn't feel, and asked, "what pictures?"
"Don't play the ignorant with me," he answered. "I know you were responsible. Only, I want the names of your associates as well." She didn't respond. "No? Are you protecting them? That's fine with me. Then I'll just stick to punishing you. You can have their share as well."