The VIP Room(22)

It happened gradually, and at the same time, all at once. I’m a guy, so I knew that she was pretty. But oddly, I noticed her body last. Mostly because she dresses like she thinks she’s ninety. Or she hates her body. She always looks neat and presentable, but her clothes aren’t designed to get you to notice them, so I didn’t.

What I did notice was her personality. How sweet she is, always remembering who’s sick or who’s having a birthday. She figured out that I skip a lot of meals when I’m on the go and then end up eating crap. Suddenly I was finding home-made granola bars in my briefcase, or a plate of pot roast she’d brought form home would appear on my desk in the middle of a conference call. She was always there. Always thinking of me. Not just taking care of my business, but taking care of me.

I was a little on guard at first, but she wasn’t playing an angle. It didn’t take me long to learn that this was just who Chloe was. She took care of people. After a few months, we were eating lunch together every day. Ostensibly for the purpose of going over work, but most of the time we’d end up talking. In the past few years Chloe had become one of my best friends. I loved her quiet sense of humor. The way she’d tell tiny fibs about unimportant things like what she thought of Alice in accounting, or if she was on another diet. Then she’d look to the side with such obvious guilt over her white lie I couldn’t help but call her out.

That was the gradual part, the way she went from being my assistant to my partner in everything. My girlfriends gave me shit about not being able to commit, but why would I want to? I spent all day with Chloe, who was pretty much the perfect woman. The only reason I even bothered with other women was for sex. Honestly, I hadn’t thought it all through that clearly. I was just living my life and enjoying myself.

Then it happened. Chloe and I were on site for a meeting. We’d gone out to look into some problems with a plumbing contractor. It was something I’d normally handle on my own, but she was setting up an event at the clubhouse on site and she needed to check the kitchen. We’d been crossing the site, headed from one of the spec homes, when a sudden spring rain shower had hit. Both of us took off for cover, but the water came down in sheets and we were soaked to the skin before we got to the clubhouse.

I’ll never forget what happened to Chloe’s boxy yellow shirt-dress under all that rain. Her hair was plastered to her face, and she was trying to pin it back up, but all I could see was her body. Holy Jesus, where the f*ck had she been hiding that body?

Soaking wet yellow cotton was plastered to every inch of the curviest, most luscious shape I’d ever seen. Her tits alone were worth a portrait. Lush, round, and full, they almost overflowed what was probably a plain, serviceable bra. Her waist curved in, not tiny, but an hourglass compared to the flare of her hips. And her thighs, full but firm, her calves a smooth handful tapering down to her ankles.

My cock had hit full throttle after one look and it refused to go down. I had to drive back to the office with my jacket in my lap and made some excuse to get out of there for the rest of the day. My brain felt like it was going to explode.

Chloe was a goddess. A f*cking goddess. I spent the rest of the day and the night planning how I was going to seduce her. Then I walked in the next morning to see her in another of her dull, boxy suits, all trace of that magnificent body gone, and realized that if I touched her I risked losing the best thing that had ever happened to me.

I’m not usually a * with women. To the contrary, getting a woman’s attention has always been easy for me. I’m good looking, charming most of the time, and usually not an *. It doesn’t hurt that I own my own company and do well financially. I’d had an active social life since I was fifteen and the neighbor’s daughter decided to take me under her sexual wing during her summer off from college. Since then, I’d had no problems getting any woman I wanted. And thanks to that same neighbor’s daughter, I knew what to do with them once I had them.

But Chloe was something else entirely. She wasn’t some random lay. I couldn’t f*ck her and then forget to call her. She’d become more than just a friend. She was my touchstone. The one thing in my life that I could always depend on. She knew me inside and out. When she heard me start to get annoyed in a meeting she could just look up from her notebook and slant me a look, or send me a wink, and I’d calm down. I had no idea what I’d do without her. And no clue if she was even interested.

She’d never given me the slightest hint she might think of me as more than her boss and her friend. After the incident with the wet yellow dress, I’d watched her carefully, trying to read more into every move and gesture. But she was always proper, always correct. I got nothing more than the same easy affection combined with professionalism that Chloe had always given me.

In the end, I’d decided it wasn’t worth the risk. If I came on to her, or made her uncomfortable, she might leave. Then what would I do? I thought about telling her how I felt, but I wasn’t even sure what to say. I want you? You’re my best friend? It all sounded so inadequate. Was it love? Was that what I’d been dancing around? Who the f*ck knew? I kept my mouth shut and tried to pretend I had no idea what she looked like under those unattractive clothes.

For six months I’d been playing this game with myself. Pretending I didn’t want Chloe while secretly spinning dreams of being with her in the back of my mind. I didn’t do it on purpose. But I’d find myself thinking about her in random moments. Wondering what she’d think of the sofa I was buying, or if she’d want a pasta maker in the kitchen. Now I was at a crossroads. I had to make a decision one way or another.