Love Of Lust

Chapter One

Becky's POV

When your billionaire boss's attorney contacts you out of the blue, your first instinct is to assume something is horribly wrong and that you're about to pay the price.

I still remember the way my throat tightened, the sweat on my palms - what was it about? I was sure I'd done nothing wrong, but if Mr. Thorne decided I had, there wasn't much recourse. My boss was notoriously difficult to work for. Thankfully, I rarely saw him. At most he was a vaguely menacing presence in the corner of my eye; a whiff of expensive cologne as he passed by my desk. To him I was surely no more than a line on the payroll sheets that he blindly signed every quarter; I wasn't even confident that he knew my name. And I liked it that way. I'd had overinvolved, micromanaging bosses before, and I much preferred a cold distant figure that I didn't even have to speak to. I worked hard - I didn't need someone hanging over my shoulder to make sure I was doing everything right.

As one of the graphic designers, I reported directly to Lisa, the head of Creative. She was pleasant enough, but I'd never gotten any feedback from her other than a nod of acknowledgement when I showed her my mockups and designs. Quite a few of them made it onto marketing and training materials, so I assumed Mr. Thorne liked my work.

So when a man approached me in the hallway and introduced himself as Mr. Thorne's attorney, the only thought that popped into my head was that I had somehow unwittingly committed copyright or trademark infringement, costing the company millions of dollars, and I would be fired on the spot. Or perhaps I'd accidentally incorporated something obscene into one of my designs...

"Mr. Thorne would like to see you about a special project." I snapped out of my panic mode. "A...project?" I must have sounded skeptical, because he went on: "It's very important. A logo redesign for the company. He wants to keep it quiet for the meantime, but he asked to speak to you specifically."

I was torn between flattery, and a curious sense of foreboding. I was proud of myself, of course, for attracting his attention. Then again, the attention of a man like that might be something I'd regret having in the very near future.

"Right now?" was all I could muster, for all the thoughts swirling in my brain. "Yes," said the attorney. "Right now." I followed him down the long hallway that led to Mr. Thorne's office.

It was separated from the rest of us by enough distance to make him seem untouchable. I wondered if he'd learned about that in one of his many management conferences. I hesitated at the door. I'd never been inside his office before. Aside from Lisa, I didn't know anyone here who had. I felt like the attorney would soon ask me to take off my shoes, or perform some act of contrition. Instead, he simply pushed the door open and walked in, gesturing for me to follow.

The office was not at all what I expected. I would have imagined it as something Spartan and cold, with a lot of empty space, no human touch whatsoever. Instead, the first thing that caught my eye when I walked in was the variety of tropical plants thriving around Mr. Thorne. Some were clustered by the window, some featured in a small alcove against the back wall, and a few small ones even lived on his massive mahogany desk. The multitude of grow lights gave the office a soft, welcoming glow. The ceiling, too, was just the right height - not so tall that the space was forbidding, but not so low that it felt stuffy and cramped.

Mr. Thorne himself stood in the center of the room, by a grouping of lounge chairs and a small coffee table. He was smiling guardedly. Or maybe that was just his normal smile. I didn't think I'd ever looked at him fully in the face before, and I'd certainly never seen him smile. It made him look younger. Not that he'd looked old before, but the difference was marked. I actually had no idea about his age, but I'd always guessed him to be in his early thirties.