Desire & Blood - The Thorne Siblings

1. Whatta Guy

"Whatta guy!" my colleague Camille said. She inched closer to my computer's monitor to get a better look at the celebrity photograph it displayed. I grasped the edge of my work desk to prevent her from pushing me from my chair.

The man smiling from the screen was all dark, shiny hair, midnight suit, bronze tan, dazzling teeth, a roguish grin. Unreal. And not my type.

Our CEO's son was a perfect fake. I preferred them authentic.

"Come on." I pushed back against Camille to regain control of my office space and to prove her wrong. "Thierry Thorne isn't real. He's just his father's money."

"Oh, Anne... His father may be rich, true. But Thierry's so sizzling hot." Camille put a finger on his face, leaving a misty smudge on the glass of the display.

His father being rich probably made him even hotter—in her eyes, but not in mine.

"Look at his smile; it's intoxicating." Camille sighed. "And his ice-blue eyes."

She had a point about his eyes. They weren't cold—but not warm, either. Squinting, like a predator eying its prey, they were inconsistent with his smile.

But I didn't agree with Camille's description of their color. "Ice-blue? Ice is white, not blue... most of the time. And Thierry's just a pampered brat, just like his sis, Theresa." I pointed at the woman standing next to him. The girl shared his dark hair and smooth tan, though her black, wavy hair was way longer. Each of the siblings displayed a row of perfect, bleached teeth and held a glass of champagne.

On Thierry's other side was a girl with blond hair bordering on white, its color clearly fake. She had a smile plastered to her mouth, one that didn't reach her half-closed eyes.

I gestured at her. "That must be his current girlfriend. She looks as if he has drugged her. And he probably has." I felt sorry for the girl. She was prey partying with predators.

"Naw," Camille said. "She was probably just blinking when the photographer took the shot. Anyway, she's blonde, and that's good news for you."

"Why's that good?"

"Because that's your color." She twisted a strand of her red hair between her fingers and sighed.

"Now that gives me a reason to dye my hair black."

I felt a hand on my left shoulder. It couldn't be Camille's for she stood on my right side.

I turned my head.

It was Sandra, the senior member of our team—our mothership. "You really don't like the Thorne kids, do you?" she said.

Seeing her made me feel guilty for browsing a gossip site on my work computer even if we were on lunch break, lazing at our generous desks in the open office space.

"What is there to like about these two?" I shrugged. "They may be rich kids, but they've achieved nothing in their lives." It was their father who had built TCorp, not them, and he was still the one running the place.

"That's not true," Camille said. "Thierry's got talent of his own. Aren't you reading the news? He won second place in a regatta last month, with that awesome yacht of his."

"Sure." This irrelevant bit of news had failed to reach me yet, but I wasn't impressed. "Again, that's just money. Have your dad buy you an expensive yacht and hire a good captain to run it. Anyone can do that if they're a rich kid."

"Girl, you should really change your attitude." Sandra squeezed my shoulder with bony fingers. "As you know, sooner or later Thierry Thorne will take his father's desk. He'll be your big boss then... Even though his old man seems to cling to his chair right now."

My big boss—I was painfully aware of that. One day soon, that broad-shouldered, glossy-haired, small-brained vacancy of a man would run this place. He would probably ruin it—ruin the one stable, friendly, and safe place destiny had ever granted me since I dropped out of college a few years ago.

The idea of Thierry Thorne as our CEO made me shudder. "Yes, you're so right, one day he'll be the big boss. And that'll be the day when I quit and go back to school to finally get my degree in accounting."

The words left a bitter, harsh taste on my tongue. How serious was I about that? 

I swallowed.

"That's up to you, girl," Sandra said. "With or without a degree, you're an excellent accountant, and you know it. And don't you worry, the Thornes will stay on Top Floor, and they'll never venture down here."

Good. I didn't want to quit. Even though I was nothing but one of several clerks in the accounting department, I felt comfortable here. It was safe, and I was good at what I did. And the prospect of going back to school at the age of 26 was scary.

I hit ctrl-W on my keyboard to close the window on my screen. Obediently, Thierry and Theresa popped away, replaced by the endless rows of the executive expenses account, and Camille deflated beside me. "I've got work to do," I said. "If you want to salivate at celebrity porn, do it on your own screens, please."

"Right, girl." Sandra let go of my shoulder. "We should get back to what we're paid for."

"But that was work, what we've been doing here." Camille crossed her arms. "We have to know what to wear at TCorp party next weekend. So we've checked out what they wore last year. It's time to get ready for it, isn't it?"

TCorp party. I hated the thought of the upcoming yearly company event, and my mind kept pushing it further and further into oblivion.

"You're right... So, what will you be wearing?" Sandra asked.

"The invitation has a dress code. It says..." Camille picked up the card I'd half-hidden behind my telephone. "It says 'creative black tie'."

"Whatever that's supposed to mean," I said.

"I've looked it up," Camille said. "It means you dress well, but with a twist."

I huffed again, tilting my head to give it a twist.

Camille didn't react to my scorn. "And, really, this has me torn... I have a couple of ankle-length dresses, but I'm not sure if one of them is... creative."

"Don't worry, child." Sandra was twice as old as Camille, so she was entitled to call her a child. "I've only got one long dress, and I'll wear it... just like last year, and the year before that. No one will notice."

"Yes, but you are..." Camille hesitated, and then she waved at my screen even though it showed nothing but accounting data. "You're settled... married. I'm not. When people like the Thornes are around, I want to shine."

"You'll have to shine real hard for them to notice," I said. "There will be more than a thousand people there, most of them shining as hard as they can."

Camille pursed her lips and gazed out of the window, which showed a vista of the city's new shopping district infesting a once peaceful countryside. "I may have to go shopping." Her wistful look turned into a smile.

I glowered at the jumble of malls and shops, which all catered to the vain and the unsatisfied.

"And you, Anne, what are you going to wear next Friday?" Sandra asked me.

This was the question that had haunted me for weeks now. If anyone should go shopping, it was me. But I so hated the thought of spending a fortune on such nonsense—these useless, fancy costumes were ridiculously expensive. And you couldn't even wash them properly.

"It'll be a surprise," I said.

That summed it up nicely. A surprise—for me, too.

But did it matter? Probably not, who'd notice a boring, stiff-backed accountant anyway?