Boss Undercover: Part 1 (Boss Undercover Series) Page 7

“Zack?” she said, confused as she got to her feet and threw the controller down onto the sofa. It appeared the figure who had struggled to cross that road moments ago had been him. She hurried over, instantly absorbed in the slap of alcohol reeking off him. “Have you been drinking?” she complained, huffing as she felt the weight of his right arm slump over her shoulder.

  “Fuck, I have,” he croaked, wriggling his finger about briefly before dropping it to his side. “I swear…I only…” he hiccupped, “…had a…few.”

  “You sure smell like you’ve had plenty,” she replied, leading him steadily to the sofa and gently helping him down. “You’re gonna catch a cold if we don’t take these wet clothes off you.” She hurried to the bathroom to fetch a towel.

  He groaned; she could hear him shuffling, clearly struggling with something.

  “Ay, ay,” she nagged as she returned, putting the dark blue towel on the arm of the single chair. “Don’t go falling asleep on me yet. We need to take these clothes off,” she groaned as she struggled to lift him up forward. “C’mon,” she urged, huffing and puffing. For a man of his size, he sure weighed a ton. Eventually, she got him to sit forward with effort as he kept wanting to lunge back.

  She stripped off his leather jacket, then his shirt, unbuttoning each individual white button until Mr. Mean Pecs made another show. How convenient, she thought. A terrible habit not to want to stare. Even a graze of her fingertips against his skin sent her into overload. Ridiculous!

  “Okay, nearly done,” she muttered, mainly to reassure herself.

  “Hey, Claire,” he managed to say after another series of hiccups.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re…not g-gonna…really cho-opp off my dick, are you?” he slurred.

  She rolled her eyes. “No, Zack.” She grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his shoulders; thankful it hid most of the glorious naked canvas. “Now, lie back. We need to take these trousers off. You can sort your…boxers, yourself,” she told him. He gently sat back, his eyes still sealed shut as she attempted to slide the ends off. This was so, so, so, not good, she thought as she realised with much thought that they weren’t gonna budge without undoing the button. Really. She looked up to the ceiling. Someone was doing this on purpose. She could have left him in the trousers and sent him to bed, but they were wet, not exactly comfortable to sleep in, or he could catch a cold.

  She breathed in. You got this, she encouraged, quick scoop in.

  Slowly, she leaned her fingers in. Bloody hell, she scolded herself. This isn’t like rocket science or building a car. Hurry up with it. Then she met the icy, cold kiss of the trouser button and with haste undid it. The band of his boxers peeked and only grew taller and taller as she pulled down the trousers. Mother O’ Mercy. She swallowed. Big or what?

  Claire stood up, diverting her eyes elsewhere as she took the discarded trousers into her arms. “Right,” she coughed. “Erm, we gotta get you up to bed now, Zack.” He was awkwardly sound asleep, unaware, the near-enough treacherous boundary that she had to cross to prevent him from catching a cold. It didn’t appear he was even going to lift a finger. Would Claire even manage to pick him up and take him to his bed? She decided to leave him there. Claire guided him to lie down before propping the red blanket over him and positioning the grey mop bucket beneath him on the floor, in case. Then she returned with a glass of water, placing it on the coffee table.

  She sighed as she picked up his leather jacket, startled at the sight of a fifty-pound note fleeting from the inner pocket. Gee, she thought, someone’s doing well. She slid it back in and took it into the kitchen. It was dawning eleven, so she left them on the side, deciding she had enough drama for one day. He’d also better have a goddamn good excuse in the morning. She sighed inwardly, turning off the lamp light.

  ***

  CLAIRE

  Ah, blissful. There it is again. That groaning alarm clock. She hit the snooze button, instantly killing its urgent call. Exhaling, Claire spread out her arms, confused as her right hand met a hard-ish but soft surface. What? Her fingertips traced the outline, wondering what on earth she was following. Huh? Hang on. Now, it felt fleshy.

  Claire turned her head.

  “Ow!” someone moaned. “Knock it off!”

  “What are you doing in my bed?” she exclaimed, jumping up to her feet as if she’d just seen a mouse crawling along the carpet.

  Zack groaned into the pillow he was desperately hugging. “Stop yelling! I need sleep. You’re in…my bed, anyway. So, stop complaining.”

  “No, no, no,” she objected, grabbing her pillow and slapping it on his back. “Get up! Get up!”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, defending himself as he held his arm to cover his face. He sat up gently, rubbing his forehead and still very much in the element of sleep. “What do you want? Can’t you give a man some time to himself?”

  “Not if he so happens to have waltzed right into my room. How did you get in? I left you in the living room,” she replied, shaking her head as she dropped to her knees and glanced at her door, wondering if she’d locked her door last night.

  He squinted. “I don’t…know. I can’t remember,” he grumbled. “Now, can I go back to sleep, or do you need to take my fingerprints or something?”

  “No, you certainly cannot. You’re not going back to sleep in my bed, nor can you—you have work. Meaning, get your ass up, go sort yourself out, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” she ordered as she got up off her bed.

  “Fine.”

  ***

  ZACK

  A hot cloud of steam hugged his naked body as he stood in the bathtub, scrubbing his face.

  He hadn’t had time to reminisce. Yesterday was a blur. He remembered kissing Claire, then heading to some local bar in town called Ozone and ordering three dozen or so dry liquors. He’d drowned himself. Listened to some fella’s story about his cheating wife, then completely hammered himself into oblivion. Zack knew not why he got drunk, he’d thought of many excuses, but none seemed adequate.

  Zack found Claire in the kitchen. Her hands cupped a mug as she read from a newspaper spread out on the white marble counter.

  He cleared his throat.

  “So, apologies. I had no intention of—”

  “Getting drunk? Sleeping in my bed?” she interrupted, raising her right brow.

  “Y-Yeah,” he agreed, scratching the top of his head. “I mean, I wasn’t exactly sober.”

  “Not that it’s my business, but were you drunk for a reason?” she asked, knocking off the crumbs of toast that had fallen onto her red pencil skirt.

  “No idea,” he said truthfully.

  “Genius.”

  There was silence as she turned back to the newspaper and he aimlessly looked around.

  “Erm…so, I didn’t say anything strange to you last night?” he queried, wondering if he had implied anything towards his real position, AKA real identification.

  “No, you went asleep pretty quickly,” she replied, passing him a mug of coffee.

  A look of relief swept his face.

  ***

  Zack was heavily fixated on the computer screen, scanning through the last year’s spreadsheet.

  Project 34 was his initial attempt to introduce the construction of renewable homes that would include recyclable water and waste, solar panels, mini wind turbines, insulation, and car sharing schemes. He was so passionate to see it as a reality that he had hired designers to sketch the plans, had the finance team estimate profits, and yet the corporation’s board only managed under three percent investment. It said it there, clear as day.

  “I don’t understand,” he muttered to himself, squinting at the figures on the screen.

  “What don’t you understand?” Claire asked. She had returned from the photocopier holding a fresh batch of printed paper in her arms. She placed them on the edge of the desk as she leaned forward, looking at the screen.

  “I swear you’ve been looking at that all morning,” she stated,
ushering him to scoot his chair aside.

  “Clive Graves looks over these, doesn’t he?” he said, ignoring her previous comment.

  “Yes, he has the final look before we archive them and have them sent down to the accounting and finance department,” she replied as she reached for the stapler from his side of the desk.

  “And the board only invested three percent?” Zack persisted.

  “If that’s what the figure said, then yes.”

  Zack was completely baffled. Surely, this was a mistake?

  “Besides,” she added, stapling several pieces of paper together. “Why are you so drummed up about some old project? Do I need to be suspicious or something? Are you some company spy?”

  Zack swallowed. “No, I’m just curious. I suppose…you could say I’m passionate about renewability. It just doesn’t seem to add up, though. It’s noted here.” He pointed to the screen that held a text box detailing comments. “That there are potential clienteles within the market, and so it’s recommended at a ten percent investment starting point. All follows until here, it’s clearly calculated at three percent.”

  Claire leaned over to glance at the screen. “That’s strange,” she suggested, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Yeah, but surely an accountant would have picked up on the miscalculation. Where’s the seven percent gone?” he argued, vexed as he looked from the screen to Claire. He hadn’t seen this copy. His was overtly different, plainly suggesting to him there was not enough interest in the housing crisis to go forth with these plans. So how did ten percent go to three percent? It wasn’t like he could admit to Claire he had a copy that didn’t mention the ten percent suggestion at all. Clearly, someone had manipulated this intentionally.

  “Do you remember looking over this?” he asked, vaguely watching Claire as she stapled another handful of paper together before placing it on top of the neat stack.

  “Erm, yeah, I suppose. I mean, marketing and sales did work alongside accounting. Like, I remember researching it, and I had recommended ten percent, but that’s just one opinion out of the dozen in this department,” she replied as she scratched the end of her nose. “Look, it’s done and dusted now, so you might as well…” she paused as she leaned over to reach for the mouse, “…stop looking…over it.” Then she clicked to exit the file.

  Zack opened his mouth to say something but decided not to. He could see his behaviour was becoming rather obsessive, something that could question his behaviour. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t stop looking into Project 34. He was of the mind to head up to his office later and check his database to see if it matched what he suspected.

  “Sorry,” he muttered quietly, drumming his fingers anxiously upon the desk. “I was just curious. Anyway…pass us over that sheet then. I’ll help you speed things up.”

  Lunch hour soon arrived; things between Claire and Zack hadn’t been awkward at all. Work consumed their time together. He was also distracted. And Claire was desperately trying to finish Monica’s work from the other day that Graves had kindly assigned her to do. So, she wasn’t at all hot-headed, irritated, or wishing she had a butcher’s knife and going all psycho on him, no—instead, Claire was calm and collected as she headed down to the café on the ground floor.

  ***

  CLAIRE

  Darren was scooping a handful of potato salad as she placed her tray down next to his on the bar. His pink tongue was peeking from the right corner of his lip as he scooped some more—anyone would have thought he was meticulously etching serial numbers on a pair of diamonds.

  “I’m starving,” she complained, grabbing the large plastic spoon and shovelling it into the tomato pasta.

  “For dick?” he teased.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “You know how to wind me up, don’t you?”

  Darren chuckled as he slid his own tray down, following the queue of people heading for the cashiers. “You love me. Anyway, we need to talk.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why?”

  “Yesterday. You, the stockroom, and that deliciously handsome roommate of yours,” he said. He tucked his fingers into his trouser pocket as he clawed his brown wallet out.

  “Nothing happened,” she lied. “He was…just getting paper. And I was showing him where it was.” As if that sounded better, she thought.

  “Er, hm, whatever you say. Anyway, we could be discussing that date of yours this weekend,” he insisted, handing over ten pounds to the cashier, who looked like she needed a hell of holiday somewhere in sunny Spain.

  “It’s not a date,” Claire disagreed. “It’s just—”

  “You can’t tell me it’s not. I told you that Jason has always had something for you,” he argued as they headed towards a four-seater table in the dead centre of the café. “Oh, and look!” He pointed. “There he is now. Let’s invite him, shall we?” He placed his tray down, then hurried across the space towards Jason, who appeared to be making up his mind over which sandwich to eat.

  Claire could only roll her eyes. As if two people, female and male, equated automatically to a date. It is not a date at all. It’s just going to be a friendly gathering, two people just going to see a movie. No funny business.

  Darren was grinning ear to ear as he ushered Jason to their table. He didn’t sit down. Instead, he picked up his red tray, gave her a wink, and then swung off in the other direction. Claire blinked, but she didn’t exactly have enough time to digest what on earth Darren was scheming, considering Jason was sitting exactly opposite her, sheepishly smiling.

  “Er, hi. Where did he go?” she asked, digging her fork into her pasta.

  “Oh, he needed to finish off some work. He said you might need the company. So, here I am,” he muttered, anxiously rubbing the palms of his hands together.

  Of course he did, Claire thought.

  Claire offered a polite smile and dug her fork back into the lettuce, hesitant, not knowing what to say next. He sat there aimlessly looking around, tapping his shoe incessantly against the floor.

  “So, I’m just gonna come out with it. Is this weekend some sort of date?” she blurted, scanning every inch of his face to deduce what she needed to know.

  “Erm—”

  “Claire, there you are,” someone interrupted.

  She turned towards the voice, instantly sighing inside as Zack approached the table.

  ***

  ZACK

  He didn’t feel the need to ask as he sat down on the chair and folded his arms loosely across the table.

  “And you are?”

  “Jason. We actually met—”

  “So, anyway,” Zack rudely interrupted once again. “I thought I’d be a pain and come pester my flatmate. The food looks a bit shit, don’t you think?” He made a grimace at Claire’s pasta.

  “Flatmate?” Jason meekly muttered. He seemed to go pale in the face.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Did you know she snores? I mean, bloody hell, it’s like I’m listening to a lawn mower twenty-four seven,” Zack interrupted, again. He was irritating her beyond belief. She had a right mind to kick him under the table, but she refrained, opting to remain calm and collected.

  Jason never said a word.

  “She’s terrible for space as well. She takes all the quilt.”

  Claire choked on air. “Oh, would you look at the time. I’m just going to er, yeah, go do some work. I’ll see you later,” she stuttered, standing hastily to her feet as she went for the escape.

  As if by magic, he, out of all the people she had hoped would stop pestering her, was right hot on her trail, leaving poor, probably, confused Jason sitting on his own. It’s not like she was given the chance to be made aware if Jason’s intentions were romantic or just friendly—even if she wanted the latter to be true.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she snapped, harshly stopping in her tracks as she jabbed her finger at him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shrugged his shoul
ders.

  “She snores? She takes up the space? As if it already wasn’t bad enough living with a pain, are you trying to make me sound as if I slept with you?” she replied angrily.

  “What’s the problem?” Zack said. “I was doing you a favour by getting rid of the guy.”

  “No, you weren’t doing me a favour.”

  “I was.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  “I was.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah!” she snapped, throwing her hands in the air and trying her best to subtly contain her anger. “Will you quit it? How old are you? Ten? Why is it our conversations can go from a high to ultimate off the scales annoying? I preferred it when you were bloody nagging over some project this morning than this.” She shook her head. “Just because I need you for rent doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

  “Now, I think that’s a lie. A kiss isn’t just a kiss, darling,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  ZACK

  So he had snooped about. Turned out Project 34 had been deliberately fiddled with. His information didn’t correspond to what he read downstairs. And there was just no way an accountant could mess up math. No way.

  Zack sighed as he slouched back in his chair. He looked at his watch. He had about ten minutes until Claire would be howling his name, wondering where the bloody hell he’d run off to.

  His phone began to ring.

  “Hello, Kyle,” he answered as he slid the caller button. “What do you want?”

  “I’m just checking in, that’s all. Can a friend not be concerned with his friend’s interests?” Kyle replied sarcastically.

  “How sweet of you,” Zack said, spinning his chair side to side gently.

  “So, how is it going?” he hinted.

  “Well, it’s only been three days, pal. I’d hardly call it a challenge at the moment. Besides, I’m more concerned that someone has deliberately sabotaged a datasheet for that renewable trial I had tested. Not that it would grasp your attention, would it? But you asked.” Zack rolled his eyes. He soon looked at the computer screen, acknowledging the flashing notification begging for his attention.