Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [68]
Katherine sat down, switched on her computer and opened a file. Then closed it and opened another. Then closed it again. She couldn’t decide where to start. Momentarily, she didn’t care. Then, as she watched Joe walk over to her desk, she realized she’d been waiting for him. He looked extremely good today. That made four days in a row. He wore a beautiful navy suit, with a turquoise weave, and the pale, pale green of his shirt made his dark eyes and hair look even darker. The clothes maketh the man, she told herself, firmly. It was the cut of the suit that made him look so elegant and graceful. It was the soft texture of his jacket that made her want to touch his arm.
He stood in front of her. She looked at a button midway down his shirt and, to her surprise, thought, I could just open that and slide my hand in. In the split second that she imagined the touch of his skin – taut, silky beneath his chest hair – she had a hot flare of sensation. He sat on the edge of her desk, and she found she was watching the way the front of his trousers bunched and gathered. What would happen if she inched down his zip and slipped her hand in…? Once more her nerve endings prickled with heat. Mesmerized, she forced her eyes from his flies to his face. She felt frightened. Then angry. He smiled at her as he’d done every morning, but today it was different. All the intensity had moved from his mouth to his eyes. Less sweetness, more tension. Less sunniness, more breath-holding anticipation.
‘Morning, Katherine.’
‘Morning,’ she said, shortly.
He paused and managed to make eye-contact before saying, ‘Thank you for coming to work today. You’ve made an old man very happy.’
Katherine coldly quirked an eyebrow. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, it is. As a very wise man once said.’ Joe paused, rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, ‘What was it exactly? Oh, right! “You are the sunshine of my life.” ’
‘That’s interesting,’ Katherine replied slowly, ‘because another very wise man – he’s a judge, actually – once said, “Sexual harassment in the workplace is a crime.” ’
There was a split second of stillness, then Joe twitched as if she’d hit him. As his face flooded with colour, he was already moving off her desk, sickened by shock and sudden self-loathing.
Sexual harassment! She said he was sexually harassing her. Him! Joe Roth. He’d always thought that sexual harassment was done by older men, who held a position of power and abused it for sexual favours. Like Fred Franklin. It had never occurred to Joe that his enthusiastic wooing of Katherine might be viewed in such a light. He’d just thought he’d been flirting with her. He felt dirty and disgusting – and rejected.
‘Sorry,’ Joe said, his face aghast as he backed away. ‘I didn’t mean to… it wasn’t my intention to… I’m terribly sorry.’
Savouring her sour triumph, Katherine turned her attention to the figures on her desk. To be fair, she thought, it wasn’t exactly harassment, as such. He hadn’t ever accidentally-on-purpose grazed her nipples under the guise of passing her an expenses claim. Or suggested she sleep with him if she wanted a pay rise. Or while she was photocopying in the eight-foot-wide corridor, he hadn’t rubbed up behind her, making sure she felt the full benefit of his erection, saying, ‘Whoops, excuse me, just trying to squeeze past you. Tight fit, this eight-foot-wide corridor,’ the way Fred Franklin did to some of the other girls.
But he had bullied her into going to lunch with him. Even if it was work-related. And he had smiled at her a lot, an awful lot, and that wasn’t work-related. Not to mention all that irritating stuff about wise men saying things. It’d get on your nerves!
She stuffed down the unpleasant feeling that true victims of sexual harassment wouldn’t have been one bit impressed with her accusations. But at least she’d managed to get rid of him. Right, then. Opening balances!