Love Like a Man

Chapter 25 - Going Down?

Although Claire had spent the remainder of the weekend mulling over what to do about Gabe, she hadn't come any closer to deciding if she should cut him loose or use him for sex for as long as the fun lasted.

The only conclusion she'd reached was that she was spending far too much time thinking about the man and not enough time focusing on her other goals. Over the past three weeks, she'd managed to devolve from ambitious business woman to horny teenager.

Determined to (at the very least) feel like her old self, Claire wore her Girl Power Suit to work on Monday morning.  With its form-fitting, shin-length black dress and matching fitted blazer, the Girl Power Suit was the epitome of banker-chic. More importantly, it made her feel like she was qualified to run the entire multi-billion dollar bank she worked for. Claire hoped that wearing the suit would act as a reminder throughout the day to keep her eye on the prize rather than Gabe's unreasonably gorgeous ass.

Claire's sense of determination followed her all the way to work that morning.  Unfortunately, her can-do attitude was quickly derailed when she arrived at work - It's hard to work when you can't find your desk -  A construction zone was where her work space was supposed to be.  

All at once, Claire remembered that her side of the office was scheduled to undergo renovations over the upcoming two weeks. Claire was momentarily annoyed, but then realized that as inconvenient as it would be to work from the temporary office that was set up a few stories down, her being on a different floor than Gabe was probably a good thing. She couldn't help but feel a little relieved she wouldn't have the constant distraction of trying to catch glimpses of Gabe throughout the work day. 

Claire turned to make her way back to the elevators and ended up nose-planting into a firm, fleshy wall.  

"Easy there, Beautiful." said the wall. 

Claire looked up and locked eyes with Gabe.   Her body instantly responded to his closeness; her stomach was suddenly swarmed with butterflies. Claire took a step back in an attempt to keep things decent at the office. Not keeping it together at work simply wasn't an option.  

For what seemed like the millionth time since meeting Gabe, Claire wondered how this man, in his dirty work jeans and plaid work shirt, had the ability to turn her insides to mush when her body completely ignored the guys in designer suits that she was usually surrounded by.

"Yeah, I totally forgot that construction on our half the floor was starting this week." Claire said with a flustered laugh. "I guess that's pretty obvious."

"I'll walk you to the elevator." Gabe said.  For a moment it looked like he was about to offer Claire his arm, but he seemed to think better of it and maintained the distance Claire had put between them.  

When they arrived at the elevators, Claire noticed Gabe quickly glance over her shoulder before he leaned towards and and pressed his lips onto hers.  

If she'd been kissing anyone else, Claire would've considered the kiss to be fairly chaste - But it was Gabe on the other end of the kiss.  The gentle brush of his lips against hers caused heat to radiate through her body.  

Claire leaned forward to deepen the kiss, while doing her best to avoid drawing attention to them. She sucked Gabe's bottom lip into her mouth and rewarded with a muffled groan. 

Had it not been for the 'ding' signaling the elevator they were standing directly in front of was opening, Claire probably would've become even bolder and slid her tongue into Gabe's mouth.  When Claire turned to see who was about to step off of the elevator,  she immediately regretted the kiss altogether.

Damnit!  It was Brent.  Claire would've sworn she'd backed away from Gabe in time to prevent him from seeing anything if it weren't for the shit-eating  grin plastered on his face.

"Morning Brent." Claire said, doing her best to stop her voice from betraying the embarrassment she felt. "The office is on the 16th floor for the next couple of weeks."

"So I guess you're going down?" Brent said, his words full of innuendo. 

Gabe was not impressed; his mouth was pulled into a hard line and his muscles were tense.  It was obvious to Claire he was holding himself back from clobbering Brent.  Intent on stopping the situation between the two men from escalating any further, Claire stepped onto the elevator and smashed her finger into the 'Close Door' button. 

***

Despite the fact that Claire had started her day off on the wrong foot, once she got down to work she was able to get a lot accomplished.  It felt good to focus on her work; Claire loved the feeling she got when she was on a roll and she had the mounds of paperwork she was surrounded by under control. 

By 2:30 in the afternoon, Claire had gotten so much done that she decided it was time to reward herself with a coffee.  

Two men, who regularly worked on the 16th floor, wandered into the kitchenette while Claire was fiddling with the Keurig machine.  Claire politely smiled in their direction while her coffee brewed.

"So did you hear that Jeff quit on Friday?" one man said to the other.

"No shit man. If you'd asked me to peg anyone in M&A as a lifer, it would've been him. Do you know why he quit?" the second man asked.

"No idea. I'm going to stalk him on Linked-In until I figure it out. My guess is that he found an opportunity somewhere else. Who knows? Either way it was a crap time for him to abandon us, we're swamped."

"When do you think they're going to hire a replacement?"

"I think human resources set some sort of record. Believe it or not they had the job posting up an hour ago."

Hearing this, Claire took her mug of coffee from the machine and rushed out of the room to go and see the job posting for herself.   Jobs in mergers and acquisitions didn't come up often, and usually when they did there was already a line of candidates vying for the gig.  Claire was hopeful that the suddenness of this job becoming available would be her opportunity to take her career to the next level.