Weekends Required (Danvers #1)(33)
“Oh that’s where you’re wrong Claire; it is indeed my business when it reflects on Danvers. Now have a seat and let’s have this long-overdue discussion shall we?”
~~~
What the hell am I doing? I had no intention of having this conversation today. She’d reduced him to an aching, obsessing mess in the last week. That night in her apartment, with her wrapped around him, still haunted him so much he could barely concentrate on what was the biggest deal this company had ever been involved in. This was about the worst time possible to go crazy over a woman. That never happened; he enjoyed women but always on his own terms. Never had someone so completely confused and intrigued him.
The one piece to the puzzle that he couldn’t figure out was the side job. Sure, people worked two jobs all the time, hell he felt like he worked three most of the time so that wasn’t the confusing part, it was the second job that she’d obviously chosen that floored him. Claire was about as far from a stripper as he could imagine. Ok, so she didn’t actually take all her clothes off, but she was damn near naked when she popped out of that cake. She was beautiful, and no doubt men loved looking at her; he hated to admit that. He had never noticed exactly how beautiful she was until the weekend with Liz and Harold.
She presented a whole different person daily in the office, and even though he was sure he had to have noticed she was attractive, he had never been tempted to cross the line with her. Now he was practically running and clawing his way across that line. She’d become an ache that he couldn’t get past. He needed to have her, be inside her, but more than that, he needed to know what was going on with her because none of it made any sense to him.
He rarely thought or cared what was going on in any woman’s life he was seeing. His life was this company, and that left very little to give to anyone else. With Claire though, it was fast becoming her first and the company second. It had to just be the mystery there. Once he had his questions answered then life could return to normal.
Claire seated herself stiffly in the chair in front of Jason, and the silence stretched as he seemed to be lost in thought. “Jason?”
His name seemed to jerk him back to the present, and he said, “Um… yes, where were we?”
Confused Claire said, “you wanted to tell me why my private life was your business I believe.”
“Oh yes, let’s see….Why don’t we just start at the beginning? How long have you been working your er… second job?”
Stiffly, Claire replied, “About a year.”
Jason looked at her in surprise. “You have been stripping for a year, and I never knew it?”
“It’s not stripping and you know that,” defended Claire hotly.
“Ok, ok, I mean cake jumping or whatever you call it. Claire, truthfully I’m a little baffled here. No offense to her but Suzy, I could easily see doing that; you not so much. Suzy is a very secure person who wants and enjoys the attention of men, and it shows. That’s her personality, it’s who she is and that’s great. You, however, obviously don’t want or seek that type of attention. If you did, your main wardrobe color wouldn’t be tan or brown, and I’m quite sure I would have seen a hint of cle**age before. Well other than the last week. I know you didn’t just decide you needed some excitement so what gives Claire?”
~~~
As she studied Jason, Claire’s first reaction was to tell him to go to hell and that it was none of his business. If anything that he had said had held one hint of sarcasm, she would have done just that. He seemed genuinely concerned and confused. With a deep breath, Claire started all the way back with the death of her father and sister and continued on to her mother’s health problems and the financial strain of maintaining her house, buying her medication and the reason why she couldn’t live with her.
Once the words started pouring out of her, Claire didn’t even realize that she had tears running down her face until she felt one drop on her hand. Jason leaned quietly over the desk and handed her some tissue. Claire turned to the side to dry her face before looking at Jason. Terrified that he would be looking at her with disgust or pity, she was surprised to see admiration in his eyes. “Claire, I’d no idea,” began Jason quietly, “why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”
“Why would I?” said Claire. “You’re my employer; it’s not your job to handle the personal problems of your employees.”
“Claire, I would think you’d know me well enough by now to see that I’m not a bottom line employer. I do care about every single person who works here. This company wouldn’t be where it is without you and everyone; I would never turn my back on anyone in trouble.”
Her eyes started to well up again as tears threatened. Claire said quietly, “I do know that Jason, but I’ve never had anyone to depend on and truthfully this is more than a little embarrassing for me. I’ve managed to get by, and if I need to work five jobs to make ends meet then I will; I have to,” she finished.
Jason settled back in his chair and said, “Claire, let me help you. Danvers does extensive work in this community, and I would be happy to know some of that work would benefit someone whom I… er… Danvers values so highly. If you furnish me with the cost of all of your mother’s medication, I’ll see that you have a check by Monday. Furthermore, we have a construction crew on our payroll as well. They’ll be sent to your mother’s home on Monday to make all the repairs that are needed.”