CHAPTER TWO

         Mary slowly walked down the hall and practically floated into the elevator pressing the button that would take her from the thirty-third floor down to her workstation located on twelfth floor.

         Alec Mercer was even more handsome than his magazine photos. She had seen him from afar on occasions, but this had been the first time she actually was close enough to really get a good look at him. 

   Tall, dark, and handsome he is, but that wasn't a surprise, she could see how gorgeous he was even from a distance. The one thing she hadn't expected from a man in is position, was his kindness and the ease in which he laughed and smiled.

   He had a smile that made her stomach tingle and her breathing labor intensive. She liked him, and she was going to enjoy working with him more. Mary stepped off the elevator into the private parking garage of Mercer Advertising Incorporated. Security was there as usual.

   “Merry Christmas, Ms. Mary Christmas,” he called out with a wave of familiarity. 

   Mary stopped as usual, placing her briefcase on the ground beside her, she leaned over the security station desk and reached for a mint out of the candy jar she kept filled up for the guys. “Hello George, you got the night shift this week?”

   “Nah, I volunteered to do the holiday stretch, since the building is practically empty for the next two weeks, I figured it would be an easy go of it. Not to mention Mr. Mercer gives us a nice size bonus,” he confided.

   “Wow, I didn't know he did that, and I'm sure the money will come in handy with the new baby and all.” Mary smiled, wondering what else she didn't know about Alec Mercer. 

   Before meeting him in person, he barely had time to speak with anyone, passing by barely glancing to the right or left as people stepped out of his way. His voice carried a tone of influential authority and allowed for no debates as he waltzed through issuing orders while holding a mobile phone to his ear.

   “Definitely,” he nodded. “Having another mouth to feed, not to mention my brother was laid off his job this close to Christmas. I would like to help him and his family also.”

   “I'm surprised with you being the new guy in security you didn't get bumped for the holiday shift.” Mary picked up her briefcase preparing to leave, she had some packing to do, not to mention calling her parents and tell them they were going to be going out of town for the holiday, that is if they wanted to go with her.

   She hoped so, she didn't want to face the Mercer family and friends with out reinforcements. What if they didn't like her for one reason or the other; did she want to spend her holiday with no one to talk to?

   Did rich folks like the Mercer's sing Christmas carols and drink eggnog? Oh God, she needed to go to find some extra gifts. Mary wondered how many people were going to be there? She supposed, she could bring along some extra non-tagged items that can be given to a male or female, and some extra hand towels with her stitching basket; she could always give monogrammed hand-towels in a clench.

   Mary shook her head to clear her thoughts of Alec Mercer and his demand that she deviate from her usual holiday plans. No sooner had she decided to not think about Alec, his name was being brought up once again.

   “Mr. Mercer, found out about the new baby, and he asked me would I like to do it and I said yes, of course. Even the highest sonority is not going to argue with him, but he gave those who would have had first dibs a bonus to, or so I heard.” George smiled broadened. “He's some kind of guy, huh. Who knew?”

   “Yes, so it seems.” Mary smiled thoughtfully. “Have a safe Christmas and I will see you in a couple of weeks.”

   “Take care, Mary and thanks again for the monogrammed gloves, now when I lose one, someone always bring it back to me.” 

   She turned briefly. “No problem, handsome. Take care of that family of yours and tell your wife, Trish, hello.”

   “Will do,” he nodded picking up the ringing phone.

   On the drive home, Mary tried once more to put Alec from her mind as she took the expressway home. In spite of her good intentions, she found herself reliving each moment of their conversation in his office, wondering why she agreed to join him during the holidays with his family and friends in a cabin hideaway.

   She thought about the way his eyes twinkled as he smiled, feeling disturbed by her train of thought, she shivered again. “Don't even start thinking about him, that way, Mary,” she told herself as she pulled her car into her townhouse driveway. “I have to keep this in proper perspective because there is just too many things wrong with me thinking about my boss this way.”

   Mary let herself into the house and dropped her keys on the oblong table beside the door in the entrance. Without hesitation, she unconsciously followed her usual routine of kicking off her pumps. Mary strongly hated wearing shoes more than anything. She was all for the custom of no shoes in the house and she required it of everyone that visited her. It immediately gave people a sense of comfort, as if they were in their own homes. How serious can a person get when they're standing vulnerable in their shoeless feet

   Next, came the briefcase on the upholstered bench against the structured wall next to the stairs, and her coat over the briefcase. She refused to look at the contents ever again until she went into her home office or the workplace the next day. Every other part of her home was her safe haven from the stress of the day and work did not enter this part of her home, ever, until today.

   The front doorbell shrieked causing her to jump. She rarely got visitors and when she did they knew to call first. Mary groaned, turned around and padded in stocking feet back to her ringing front door. “Get off the bell why don't cha,” she muttered peeping through the door peephole. A gasped of surprise touched her lips, and she gulped deeply. “Oh damn,” she whispered. 

   The bell shrilled again throughout her house and she smoothed her suddenly damp palms over her skirt before opening the door. “Mr. Mercer.”

   “Alec.” He entered and his powerful presence seemed to take all the air out of the room. 

   “Mr. Mercer, don't take another step!” Mary called out.

   “I'm sorry, I know I should have called first, but I was on my way home, and I forgot that I needed to give you copies of the outdated portfolios that are rush important. I hope you don't mind; of course you don't. These needs to roll out by New Year’s Day and--”

   “I do mind.”

   “Huh?”

   “I said I do mind, you charging up in here without being invited,” Mary stated plainly.

   “I see.” 

   From the look on his face, she could tell he didn’t see is intrusion as being rude at all. Mary took a deep sigh and said, “Since you’re here, you may come inside, but first, I need you to remove your shoes and give them to me.” 

   He looked down at his feet and back up at her.

   “Pardon me?” he asked, his black eyebrows arching in question. “Did you ask me for my shoes?”

   “If you're staying, hand over the shoes otherwise you can give me the documents and leave. I will look at the files, after I pour me a glass of wine and order Chinese food for dinner. Not a minute before. When I come to work in the morning I will have the documents with me.”

   “You’re serious?”

   “Mr. Mercer, my home is my sanctuary and my sanctuary has been blessed and purified of all stress and negativity,” she explained, yet he appeared to still be clueless regardless of her explanation. 

   “Excuse me, is this the way you treated Mr. Owens when he was your boss?” Alec asked abruptly.

   Mary placed her hands on her hips and stated, “Mr. Owens wouldn't dare intrude on my home time, no more than I his. Also, I'm the boss in this house, and I'm still waiting on the shoes.”

   “So for your time I have to give you my fifteen hundred dollar, A. Testoni,” he quibbled.

   She could swear his strait nose went up in the air a notch. She shook her head and closed the front door and turned her attention back to her unexpected guess.

   Crossing her arms over her ample breast she dismissed his argument and added with equal bluntness, “I paid three hundred and seventy dollars per square feet of hard earned money for this two-bedroom two-bath townhouse just because a professional Feng shui consultant told me this was a harmonious living space. Right now, you're slowly eating up my harmony, Mr. Mercer. So, lose the shoes and the paperwork, or I'll see you in the morning.”

   He suddenly didn’t look like his cocky self-assured self as he reached down and removed his shoes. “You aren’t keeping the shoes, you just don’t want me wearing shoes in your house, right?”

   “Now, what would I do with a pair of men’s shoes?” Mary smiled looking at his socked feet. “Fifteen hundred dollar shoes and you have a hole in your socks?” She quirked a brow taking the proffered shoes from his hands and placing them beside her pumps, feeling a brief disturbance from seeing his size thirteen’s next to her size eight and a half. There was something intimate about this picture.

   “First, maybe you have a boyfriend that is my shoes sizes,” he grinned sheepishly. When she turned around again he was removing his overcoat. “Secondly, I had a big meeting earlier today for a multi-million dollar account and these are my lucky socks.”

   “I don’t have a boyfriend so your shoes are safe, Mr. Mercer.” Mary cocked her head to the side adding, “You know, I wouldn’t have pictured you as the superstitious type, that would need luck of any kind.”

   He cocked his head to the side looking at her from her head to her stocking feet that wiggled from his accessing stare. “That’s makes us even because I never pictured you being the Feng shui type.”

   “I have so few devices, so allow me the couple I do have.” She giggled and hung up his coat and her own that she placed over her briefcase earlier in the entryway closet, once more feeling a fluttering in the pit of her stomach seeing their coats side by side.

   “May I take off my jacket and tie too? For some reason I now feel ridiculously over dressed standing here in my socks.” He pursed his lips in deep thought. “I have no idea why.”

   “Please, you can lay them over on the chaise by the bay windows.” Mary smiled walking over to the lacquer flat box she kept on the dark Elmwood Qing Coffee Table and removed one of the many restaurant menus.

   “You order in a lot, I see.” He commented from over her shoulder, she gasped and turned to quickly finding herself nose to chest with him holding her by the shoulders to keep her from toppling back against the table. “Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”

   Mary licked her lips and saw his eyes follow the movement. He dropped his hands from her shoulders licking his own lips.

   “Uh, if you don't mind, it's been a long day, and I would like to get comfortable.” She stepped aside. “How about you look at the menu, and order something. I'd like a number seventeen and number five, with hot and sour soup.”

   He reached out and took the menu from her hand. Their fingers touched briefly and their eyes locked. Alec cleared his throat and walked around the sofa table to sit on the informal cozy overstuffed gray sofa. “I like the way you have that dividing screen over near the window. The soft lighting of the setting sun coming through the windows shadows the silhouetted prints embedded in the screen. It seems to bring life to the corner behind it.”

   “Wow, no one has ever noticed that before, and I put a lot of thought into it.” Mary pointed out. “I wanted to direct the energy from the window over to that corner because it’s too dark and basically useless to place a plant over there. How did you know?”

   A slow lazy grin widened his mouth. “I had a girlfriend that decorated on a few of my investment suites abroad.”

   “I see.” Mary spoke softly, chewing on the corner of her mouth. “Huh, I'm going on upstairs to change, do you suppose you can handle placing the order? Just tell them my name, they know me, and they can put it on my account.”

   “You have an account with a Chinese takeout place.”

   “Well it's not like having an account at Crush; but, Mr. Wu has my charge card number in his files.”

   Alec's eyes narrowed on her face. “Have you've eaten at Crush?”

   “Are you kidding, on what I'm paid?” Mary caught herself and blushed. “I didn't mean that the way it sounded.”

   “Of course you did. Nevertheless, you no longer have to worry about it. I assure you working for me, your salary will be more than satisfactory, and you will have an open account at Crush, so, if there are any clients I need you to meet in a more social setting…”

   “Will that be happening often?” 

   “Possibly. I'm a busy man and my appointments sometimes overlap. There will be times I'll need you to be in one of those places until I arrive. So not only will you have an open first class all the way accounting at Crush, but several other places. I will get the index to you, of course.”

   “Are we discussing business,” Mary asked. “Do you ever just relax and not think about anything in particular?”

   “Is that a possibility?” He smiled softly. “I don't know how to relax anymore. Insane, I know, but I've been going none-stop in one form of the other, since I graduated from Dartmouth College.” As if on cue, his cell-phone in his jacket pocket penetrating the soothing quietness of the room loudly. “Excuse me, while I get that.”

   Mary moistened her lips and allowed her eyes to feast. The tailored navy pants and baby blue silk button-down shirt revealed a body that made her mind race and her heart beat faster. In addition, his buttocks were tightly muscled and their appealing shape cried out for her hands to mold them. 

   He went to Dartmouth, an Ivy Leaguer, why was she not surprised. Alec’s probably walked around with a silver spoon shoved up that perfect ass, since birth. She wondered what he’d do if she reached out and she playfully goosed his bottom.

   In her family, a butt didn't stand a chance. Around every corner a good-humored pa waited. Along with teasing pinches of affection, between her parents, mixed with a raunchy grip with bellies touching and lips kissing. She envied their ability to love so openly. It was something she has spent her adult life searching for and yet to find. Deep respect and love were something you assume would be easy to find in a world full of so many men. 

   A few times, she genuinely believed she had found the elusive love of her life. It was amazing how easily words of love came from a man's lips when he believes he's going to get sex afterwards. Yet, when she told them she was waiting for marriage before she went all the way, they would stop calling.

   Mary was in no way completely ignorant, there was plenty a body could do without penis penetration, but that was never enough to keep any of them loyal. She couldn't count how many times they charged her of using her virginity as a bartering tool to trap a man! Now, how crazy was that? 

   What happen to a woman wanting to wait, just because it was her right to do so? Didn't it used to be something that was valued and appreciated? At the very least, respected? Well, she would live alone, before she compromised on her dreams of having the love and security her parents have.

   “Okay, where were we?" Alec turned his attention back to her and his cell phone rang again. He cursed softly. “Hello, uh…hold on a moment.” He looked at Mary. “Do you have somewhere I can take this call? It’s private”

   Mary rolled her eyes releasing a deep sigh. It was going to be a long night. “You can take the call right here.”

   “Were will you be?”

   “I'm going to be upstairs getting of these work clothes.” She looked into his eyes and pointed to the menu. “Make better use of that phone of yours and call for some food. You won't like me when my sugar gets low from hunger,” she teased, amazed at how easy it was to do so with him. “I would also appreciate you turning off that cell phone until after dinner.”

   “Mary, are you giving me orders?” 

   Mary hesitated from the seriousness of his tone before lifting her chin a notch and placing her hands on her hips. This was her home. “Why, yes I am. Do you have a problem with that?”

   Alec’s eyebrows arched in surprise and his wide mouth spread into a grin. “If I did, I sure don’t now, Mary,” he said her name as if he knew her intimately.

   Mary steadied herself when she turned on trembling legs to saunter up the steps. When she turned and caught his green eyes gazing at her ass, she felt heat steal across her face. 

   Caught. He turned his attention back to his phone call.

   She smiled as she continued up the stairs.

CHAPTER THREE