MR SENSUAL, MISS SASSY

JEALOUSY IN DEATH (EXCERPT)

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1. Desiree

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Desiree had never failed at anything. But as she sat in her office that Monday morning, she knew she was about to start. Personally, she couldn't stop thinking about it, but she was sure her boss would make things easier. It was a proposition she couldn't take and he would know that, he would likely advise her not to anyway. It was too much to give.

Desiree dropped her head in her hands and closed her eyes. It was hard, but she wasn't in the least tempted to take him up his offer. She wouldn't go that low and would never be that desperate. She stood from her chair and prepared to go into her boss' office. Her hands smoothened the few wrinkles on her brown pants, and she tucked in all the excess material from the white shirt she was wearing. It was either now or never.

As she strode to the side of her boss' office, she saw her colleagues in theirs all buried in work. She should be working also, but she was worrying about how to get a new client to replace the nasty old man. Her boss smiled as he saw her knock on his opened glass door, he hardly ever smiled and this meant he was expecting good news. She immediately started sweating, there was no good news from her side.

"Sit." He smiled again as she took the offered seat. "Heard you're almost done concluding the transaction, congratulations. This came at the right time because of your pending promotion, you can start packing your things from your office, because you'll be getting one as huge as mine."

It was the most important time of her life and everything that could go wrong already did. That didn't stop her from smiling along with her boss, he watched her closely as the smile became a grimace.

"Is there a problem Desiree Ajayi?" he asked and folded his hands on his desk.

The desk caught her attention and she got distracted by its wooded, curved and gleaming surface. It held a flat screen monitor and a sleek looking white keyboard, a vase holding some plant she couldn't identify, framed pictures of his kids and extended family. And behind the desk was the man who was going to save her from the sneer of an entitled man.

Her boss was called Mr. John by most girls in the office and they drawled the 'n' at the ending, making it sound somewhat sexual. They often talked about how much they fancied him, and some of them went ahead to call him 'Sugar daddy material' behind his back. The description behooved him to a tee as he had a handsome face, salt and pepper beard and a bald head. You could see from his physique that he was a vain man, he had the right amount of muscle to tell you that he didn't train because he loved it but because he needed to keep in shape.

"Yes, we have a problem," she finally said.

"We do?" Mr. John asked with an air of impatience.

"The CEO of Apex construction company wants to have an affair with me before signing the contract," Desiree said quickly, her eyes avoiding his gaze.

He gave a laugh that made her skin crawl before saying, "Is that all?"

She looked at him sharply and blinked. That wasn't the reaction she had hoped for, she had imagined his baritone voice cursing her client and threatening hell or a lawsuit. Never in her wildest imagination would she had anticipated this reaction, he was as cool as cucumber and totally unfazed.

"I can't defile myself in such manner."

He laughed again then cleared his throat. "Defile? That's such a strong word. It's just an exchange, how do you think others got up the ladder? I'm not suggesting you actually sleep with him, I'm just saying sometimes we do whatever it takes to get what we want, like your pending promotion if we get this deal."

He was clearly gaslighting her, if he wasn't saying she should sleep with a client in exchange for favors, then what exactly was he saying? From where she was sitting, her choices were clearly spelt out for her. She looked at the desk again and stared at the picture of his two teenage daughters smiling into their father's eyes as he wrapped his arms around them. Couldn't he put them in her shoes?

"If that's all you can go." She was too startled to voice all her thoughts, so she walked toward the door. "I don't care what you do in the end, just get the job done," he added before she walked out of his office.

She walked on autopilot to her office, shut the glass door and sunk into her chair. She had been waiting for the promotion for three solid years, and it was so close she could smell the sea salt of the vacation spots she could finally afford when her salary doubled. Everything was tied to her getting the deal done.

Desiree worked as a Marketing Executive for XYZ SUPPLY CO. which sole aim was distributing and supplying building and constructing materials to construction companies and sites. It was a great firm, and they paid handsomely with some added bonuses. As a Marketing Executive, her job basically was to promote the company by using several strategies to gain customers. She had some marketers under her and she managed and monitored their marketing activities and progress.

When APEX CONSTRUCTION COMPANY had popped under the company's radar, her boss had been hell bent on sending the best in his team, so she went. Desiree had come up with creative ideas to convince the construction company to get its materials from her firm, and she had finally been put through to the CEO after so many weeks of talking to middle men. He turned out to be the founder of the company and he'd explained to her as they sat in his private office how he had moved from the North of Nigeria to the South-West sixty years ago to start a company. His story was inspiring and her mind was instantly put at ease because she knew she was going to get him to sign the deal, he knew the struggles so he wouldn't be too hard on her.

When he'd left his desk to come to her chair, she smiled in anticipation until he laid his hands on her shoulders and his fingers almost touched her bust. She had bolted from the chair and ran to the door before going back to her seat when he begged her to. He'd given her a cunning smile and explained that in order for him to help her, she had to help him.

Thinking about the experience again made her skin crawl. She heard cases of sexual harassment every day, but it was still shocking when it happened to her. There was no way out, either she had sex with an eighty-year old man or possibly lose her source of joy and income. She would give her last dying breath for her job but not in this manner, not with her violating herself.

She failed as never before. Her mother used to call her 'Lucky girl' while growing up. She had schooled with scholarships from primary school to her Masters level. It seemed the only unlucky thing about her was growing up without a father, he had died in a milling accident when she could barely crawl. Even at that, it was as if God was bent on compensating her for the absence of a father because he'd given her a memory so rare, she could stare at a page for few seconds and memorize everything on it.

In the brain department, she was a ten out of ten, then puberty came along and stacked her up. At thirteen, she was already wearing a C-cup much to the envy of her boarding school mates. Her hips also filled out, matching her bust and making her waist look tiny, Desiree was a perfect hourglass figure. It had been difficult living with a body that curvy at that sort of early age, boys had sought her attention through catcalls and other gimmicks, older men couldn't keep their eyes off her chest and nobody believed she was using her brains to make straight A's.

She'd lived past that and learned to love her body despite the unwanted attention it brought her. She couldn't go on blaming herself for other people's lack of control. When she'd done a pie chart earlier in her life and found out every girl was likely to be assaulted irrespective of their body size, age or shape, she'd known then that her body wasn't the problem, disgusting people were.

Desiree rubbed her head as headache formed behind her contact lenses. She wanted to go home and relax so badly. There wasn't going to be any major decision making that day. She checked the time on her wrist and found out it was still twelve, she sighed and leaned back into her chair. She straightened then plastered a smile on her face when she heard a knock at the door, one of the marketers, Jamal poked his head through the door.

"Boss, I need you to go through this contract."

She motioned for him to come in and when he dropped the contract on her desk, she flipped to the last page and signed on the space left for the Marketing Executive. She closed the file and handed it back to him.

"Aren't you going to glance through?" he asked in disbelief when he got the contract.

"I trust you, Jamal."

He nodded and smiled. "Alright, boss."

She went back to thinking when he shut the door.

Author's Note:

If you love this Chapter of my latest book JEALOUSLY IN DEATH, go to my profile to find the book. Happy reading.

Tito.