For the life of her, Fiona Barrymore could not imagine why she kept attending these things.
She had been with Spicer Industries for longer than she cared to remember, working her way up from receptionist to senior vice-president, and yet she could not remember a single Christmas party that was anything more than a wonderful cure for insomnia.
The one and only time anything even vaguely interesting had happened was when somebody stumbled onto that delightfully busty marketing executive getting screwed in her office by three young men from the mail room! There had been quite a fuss, as Fiona remembered it, and the executive's husband had been quite perturbed. That had been almost ten years ago though and nothing so interesting seemed likely to happen tonight.
Sipping at her drink and wishing it were something a little stronger, Fiona found herself standing at the back of a small group of men and women as Arnold Kravitz, the company's aging CEO, told the same stories he told at every one of these parties. She pretended interest to be polite, but knew most of the others did so simply to suck up to him.
Two of the biggest brown-nosers she had ever seen were even now sitting to either side of the CEO and oohing and aahing over everything he said. One was Angelique, his gorgeous young trophy wife who was just waiting for the old man to drop dead so that she could get her hands on his money. The other was Douglas Woodson, a young executive who owed his rapid advance up the corporate ladder entirely to sucking up and stealing credit for other people's work.
For someone like Fiona who owed her position to a lifetime of hard work, people like Douglas were endlessly irritating. Had it been up to her, he would have been fired long ago, but he had Arnold's ear now and the CEO was blind to his failings.
Fiona let her eyes drift slowly around the room, willing herself not to get into a foul mood over this now, only to stop suddenly when she spied the vision standing by the Christmas tree. The woman was young and beautiful, but not the plastic sort of beauty of someone like Angelique. She had a natural, wholesome beauty that was hard to find these days. This was just the sort of woman that Fiona had always had a weakness for and she didn't even realize that she was staring at her.
The woman was standing with two men, she belatedly noticed. Nick Davis and Oscar Cook. She was keeping close to Nick, wearing a forced smile and looking as bored as Fiona felt as the two men laughed over something they were remembering, and so she guessed that she was his wife. Another young up and comer, Nick was the complete opposite of Douglas and was advancing rapidly up the corporate ladder through hard work alone and Fiona respected him for that.
It seemed there were fewer and fewer men and women like that every year.
It was common knowledge in the company that one of the executives directly under Fiona was planning to retire shortly. Only two candidates had any real hope of being promoted to replace him - Douglas and Nick. Nick had certainly more than earned the position and Fiona had let Arnold knew how highly she thought of him, but unfortunately the CEO was convinced that Douglas could walk on water.
The thought of having to work so closely to someone like that made Fiona's skin crawl, but right now all she was focused on was the beautiful woman standing just behind Nick. Almost before she knew what she was doing, Fiona found herself strolling over. She knew that nothing could ever happen between her and this woman, knew that her career could never survive the scandal of being caught hitting on the wife of one of her subordinates, but she would have kicked herself forever if she did not seize this opportunity to at least meet this woman.
Meanwhile, as her husband and his best friend reminisced over some supposedly hilarious incident, Janine just kept smiling and hoped that they wouldn't notice just how bored she was with it all. Holding a drink in both hands as she stood just behind the two animatedly talking men, she wondered idly if either of them even remembered she was there. Certainly, neither had so much as looked at her much less spoken to her for quite a while.
Janine adored her husband and had almost since the day they met way back in high school, but ever since he went to work here at Spicer his work seemed to consume him. He put in long hours at the office and even brought work home with him and so they hardly ever had a chance to just spend a little quality time together anymore. He never failed to apologize when she complained, but he also insisted that it was necessary if he was going to be able to give her the life of comfort he had promised her when he asked her to marry him.
It did seem to be working. Nick had been rising steadily through the ranks of Spicer Industries ever since he started working here. Still, she couldn't help but miss how close they used to be.
As she gave up on trying to keep up with Nick and Oscar's conversation, Janine let her eyes wander around the room until they came to rest on a woman who seemed to be headed in their direction. She was a tall, middle-aged woman who carried herself with an air of authority and confidence the young housewife couldn't help but admire, but what really made her stop and stare was how beautiful she was.
"Good evening, my name is Fiona Barrymore."
Janine shook the hand the woman offered, not really minding when she held on a little longer than was really necessary. "Janine Davis. I'm Nick's wife," she answered, finding it hard to look anywhere but into her eyes.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," the woman purred.
"Oh, sweetheart, this is my boss, Fiona ... "
Both ladies started in surprise at the sound of Nick's voice, but didn't look away from each other for a moment more. "Yes, we just met." they said at the same time.
If Fiona had thought this woman was beautiful before, she thought she was absolutely perfect now. What incredible big, blue eyes, Fiona marveled to herself. And who could possibly find anything wrong that wonderful smile! She couldn't imagine why everyone in the room wasn't swarming around this lady begging for her attention.