After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed) Read online

  After checking her reflection back and front in the full length mirror to ensure no evidence remained of their encounter except her kiss-swollen lips and over-bright eyes, Natalie left the bathroom.

  The office was empty and though it was exactly what she’d desperately wanted, embarrassment flooded her from head to toe.

  Slam, bam! she thought angrily as she marched to her desk and grabbed her purse. He hadn’t even had the decency to at least say, Thank you, Ma’am!

  “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” Stephano’s voice startled her as she reached for her thick winter coat.

  “No, I’ve just came back to the office myself,” she admitted, turning to face him with a smile of relief.

  He held her coat open and she slid her arms quickly into the sleeves so she didn’t delay him further. As he reached for his, she noticed that he had fully repaired himself in the bathroom. He looked ready for a night on the town with the boys…or innocent enough to fool another woman into thinking all he’d done at the office today was work.

  Natalie wondered a little resentfully if he had used the luxury handwash the agency supplied to wash away all traces of their earlier activity.

  Quickly shrugging into his coat, Stephano took her into his arms and kissed her hungrily.

  “Have a good weekend, cara.”

  Weekend? It was only then that Natalie admitted to herself she’d hoped he’d suggest that they do something over the weekend. She hadn’t expected him to change the plans he’d made with his friends for the evening at the last minute, but surely he could find time for her no matter how busy his weekend was…unless he was spending it with another woman?

  Quickly glancing around the office to ensure that all appliances had been switched off, Stephano indicated with his left hand that Natalie should precede him out of the office.

  Head held high, she sashayed in front of him, deliberately moving her hips in a manner that overemphasized the slenderness of her waist in contrast to her hips.

  This is what you could have been getting all night tonight! Her hips taunted. Your loss, buster!

  As if he had received the message, Stephano groaned and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing himself against her.

  “You have such a sexy bottom!”

  Natalie smiled in triumph as she felt the imprint of his erection through their clothing.

  Mission accomplished, she thought with a mean sense of satisfaction. I hope you’re thinking of me when you’re with someone else this weekend.

  “I must go.” Slipping free she ran to the curb and hailed a conveniently-empty passing taxi.

  Stephano stood at the unlocked office door, a look of surprise on his face, as she waved goodbye, but the feeling of triumph lasted only until the vehicle moved away from the curb. Perhaps he would have kissed her one last time before they parted. And as lame as it made her sound, knowing that he was probably on his way to meet another woman and not friends from university as he’d said, she would have still welcomed that kiss.

  WHSmiths, here I come!

  Natalie she sighed as she settled into a more comfortable position on the backseat of the taxi. Usually, she looked forward to the excitement of browsing the bookstore’s shelves, finding the most exciting romance novels and then spending the weekend reading. Occasionally she watched her favorite romance movies—old classics such as Splendor in the Grass and Breakfast at Tiffany’s or newer ones, Sleepless in Seattle, Love Actually and Never Been Kissed, which was the one she related to the most even though she had been kissed and wasn’t a virgin.

  But nothing watched or read this weekend—no classic movie or interesting book—would eclipse what she’d shared with Stephano this evening.

  ***

  Damn! Stephano swore as he hailed an empty taxi. Why did you have to choose to get married this weekend of all bloody weekends, Harry?

  He and Natalie usually caught the Tube together from the nearby station, Knightsbridge. She then changed at Earl’s Court for the District Line to Fulham Broadway, while he continued on to Barons Court. Pressed for time this evening, he’d planned on taking a taxi with her to Earl’s Court, explaining why he was in such a rush as well as swapping mobile phone numbers on the way. She’d completely surprised him by jumping into the taxi. Needing to secure the building, he had been powerless to do anything but watch it drive away.

  He had to get home, quickly have a shower and be ready with his overnight case and his ‘best man’ tuxedo when the Hummer limo arrived to collect him. He would have blown the guys and the stag night off, and traveled to Sheffield with his mother and father for the wedding tomorrow, if Harry’s bride-to-be Cheryl Jones had promised to ‘gut him like a chicken’ if he didn’t get her man to the church on time for the wedding. Having grown up with her and her two younger sisters, first in a shared house and then as a close family friend, Stephano knew how crazy the Jones sisters were. How the British-born Jamaican woman had fallen for Harry, a quiet Englishman and his best friend since university was beyond Stephano’s comprehension. Yet strangely, they complemented each other. Stephano knew firsthand that Cheryl wasn’t as ‘fierce’ as she liked to describe herself, but he didn’t want to run the risk of letting her down to see whether or not she meant her threat.

  He had eagerly looked forward to Harry’s stag night and all the activities he and the guys had planned to pack into their weekend away from the capital. He had booked a room for himself for two nights and another for his parents for the night of the wedding only as his mother was keen to come back to London and her self-named restaurant, Antonietta’s, to cater for her regular Sunday diners. He had even contemplated paying for a third night’s stay at the hotel knowing that once he’d performed his duty to the groom he’d intended to have a great time, which may have necessitated an extra night’s stay at the hotel. He could have traveled from there straight to work on Monday morning.

  Now the weekend had lost some of its appeal. Even though he wouldn’t have been able to see her over the weekend, it would have been good to have Natalie’s number to call her and ensure that she hadn’t suffered any ill-effects from their unrestrained sexual encounter.

  He chuckled as he remembered her ‘Italian Stallion’ comment. It was flattering, but he knew he was no larger than average. What had become immediately apparent to him was the fact that although she wasn’t a virgin, she hadn’t been penetrated for some time. He should have aroused her more, he berated himself, used his fingers and his tongue to prepare her. Instead, as soon as he’d touched her slippery warmth he’d snapped and acted like a horny teenager. After months of waiting patiently for a sign, her nearness and her scent had intoxicated him. The only thing stopping him from pulling his hair out was the knowledge she hadn’t disguised the fact she’d enjoyed every minute as much as he had.

  He couldn’t wait to get back to London and the office on Monday. He knew that he would be hard all day seeing her sitting just meters away from him. Many evenings as they shared the office by themselves he’d fantasized about bending her over her desk and taking her from behind, her firm backside pressed up against him. He’d often had to banish his lecherous thoughts and bring himself firmly back under control before being able to rise from his seat.

  Having had a dip in her honey pot, he knew that it would be nigh impossible to get any serious work done on Monday. All he would be thinking of is her baby-soft skin, her tantalizing perfume and her sweet, wet, near-virginal tightness.

  He couldn’t wait to get her into bed, to explore her fully and taste her nectar.

  Damn you and your bloody wedding, Harry!

  ***

  Natalie gave herself a good talking to on the weekend. She wouldn’t let a past relationship poison the start of a new one. Although Stephano had previously mentioned a girlfriend in conversation with her and their colleagues, he hadn’t done so in recent months. She’d even overheard the guys teasing him about living with his mother only a few weeks ago. Instead of being embarrasse
d at the good-natured ribbing, he’d told the guys they were just jealous that he had a mamma who was the best cook in the world, who ensured that his clothes were taken for dry cleaning when needed and that the maid changed his sheets and cleaned his room for him. The guys had tasted the food at his mother’s rustic restaurant and after a few minutes’ consideration, most of them had agreed that there were much worst things than living at home with your parents at the age of twenty-eight.

  And in all the months she’d worked with him, nothing in Stephano’s behavior indicated he was a liar. In fact, not long after joining the agency she had been stunned when Paul had wrongly praised Stephano in their monthly meeting for a successful project she had spent weeks working on tirelessly. Stephano had promptly corrected the misconception. Natalie had still been on her six-month probation and though she’d done enough to impress her immediate line manager, Alan Woods, Stephano giving her the credit she was due for the publicly successful project had cemented her position in the agency. Her permanent status was confirmed less than a week later and more than seven weeks before confirmation was due.

  Stephano was the hottest looking guy in the office. Morgan Wells, another colleague, was perhaps better looking, but since he was openly and very proudly gay that gave Stephano the crown as far as Natalie was concerned. She had been a little in love with him from the day she’d started, but from the moment Stephano had raised his hand, interrupting the director’s speech to correct his facts, she’d gone from mildly interested to fully-blown infatuated. Most of her other colleagues would have wallowed in the man’s praise and given Natalie a perfunctory apology for stealing her thunder later, or perhaps not at all.

  Stephano had probably been honest about going out with his friends, she decided as she took a seat at her desk the next Monday morning.

  Except for the fact that her keyboard was pushed too far forward on her desk for her to use it comfortably and the empty tissue dispenser that she hastily refilled, there was nothing to indicate that she and Stephano had had sex on her desk.

  I had sex on my desk!

  Natalie still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She didn’t believe in office romances, especially since she loved her job and wouldn’t want to leave when the relationship went sour. Staying in a job and seeing an ex-lover every day would be hard thing to endure—seeing that lover with someone new in the same office would be even harder. Thankfully, she wouldn’t have that problem as she was the only woman in the team of ten.

  Unless he starts batting for the same team as Morgan, she thought with a smile.

  She sobered as she checked the time on her computer and realized that it was after ten o’clock. Stephano should have been in the office by now.

  The agency allowed flexible working and each of them did their required thirty-five hours around the ten-to-four core hours. An early bird by nature she had switched to a later working pattern when she’d realized that Stephano came in later in the morning and was usually the last to leave the office in the evening. But although he was often the last to arrive, he always arrived by ten, unless the Tube experienced severe delays.

  Worried, she positioned her monitor so that she had a view of the road and the passengers exiting the Tube station while appearing to be focused on her computer screen. Her desk was in prime position in the office—most of her colleagues would swap desks in a heartbeat. She had inherited it from Mary O’Brien, her successor, a woman who had been the longest-serving member of staff before retiring early to go sailing around the world with her husband. Morgan had complained bitterly when Natalie had been given the best desk in the office, but Alan had insisted that as Mary’s replacement she was entitled to it. Morgan had ranted and raved for weeks, but Alan had remained unbending.

  A sporty red car pulled up just outside her window and blocked her view of the station. Wanting to scream abuse at the driver, Natalie glanced angrily at the occupants instead, hoping that a dirty look would send them on their way. With a shock she recognized the back of Stephano’s head as he leaned over to kiss the female driver. It was a brief kiss, but Natalie was certain it had been on the lips. As he unfolded his length from the passenger seat with some difficulty, Natalie caught a glimpse of the beautiful, young black woman who smiled as she waved at him, then gunned the engine and drove off before the loitering parking attendant could issue her a ticket for stopping in the no-parking zone.

  Numb with shock, Natalie quickly re-positioned her monitor and adjusted the blinds covering the window so that he wouldn’t know she had been looking out for him like a love-sick fool.

  She should have known better than to doubt her first instincts. Alarm bells had immediately gone off when Stephano hadn’t as much as extended an invitation for a walk in the park over the weekend. She had gone home thinking that she’d been ‘laid and played’, but after reading the first of the three romance novels she’d finished over the weekend she’d been once again convinced that good men did exist and Stephano was one of them.

  She’d come to work this morning eager to see him, to find out if he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him, hoping that he would admit that not one waking hour had passed without thoughts of her and the scorching sex they’d had.

  She should have known that it was all too good to be true.

  “Sorry, I’m late, guys,” Stephano apologized as he burst into the office. “Crazy weekend and then my father complained of chest pains last night and had to be rushed to hospital. Turns out he had a nap too soon after eating a large portion of my mum’s lasagna and had a bad case of heartburn.”

  Yeah, right! She wanted to snort in derision but instead asked politely, “How’s he feeling now?”

  “Much better, thanks,” Stephano replied, giving her a secret wink that she didn’t acknowledge. “They ran tests on him and finally released him this morning.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Their colleagues seemed to miss the sarcasm in her voice, but Stephano’s eyes narrowed as he took a seat behind his desk and looked across at her.

  She ignored him, dipping her head and pretending to be engrossed in her work.

  At lunch rather than go late with Stephano and two of their other colleagues as usual, she went early to a local wine bar with Morgan and grabbed a sandwich on her way back.

  That evening, Morgan who usually left early had a project that was due the next morning. He stayed late to finish it and at half past five the office was empty except for the three of them. Several times Natalie saw Stephano glance in Morgan’s direction with ill-concealed annoyance. Normally she would have been annoyed too; she’d always thought of this time of the day as their special time. Just the thought of sitting close enough to see him, even if not touch him, had thrilled her. Often when she had gone to the bathroom to ready herself for the journey home by Tube, she’d found herself wet with longing.

  Not today, though!

  Morgan finally shut down his computer, grabbed his coat and threw them a hasty goodbye, saying that he had a blind date with a hot new guy.

  Natalie felt both exhilarated and apprehensive being alone with Stephano again. Her heartbeat quickened and she wondered for a moment if she would have a heart attack as he quickly rounded his desk and stalked over to her.

  “Natalia?”

  It’s Natalie, she wanted to scream at him. The arrogance of the man thinking that he could come over and say her name with his sexy Italian voice in the same way he had called her ‘darling’.

  “Yes,” she responded coolly, lifting her head and looking calmly into his eyes.

  “Natalie?” he repeated. This time he got it right she noted—the ice dripping from her voice must have chilled him. He could have no idea how much money it had cost her in therapy and finally hypnosis to be able to call up her Ice Queen persona when she needed it. “Are you okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be,” she responded innocently, widening her eyes in surprise at his question. She held the puzzled look just long enough for effect and then gas
ped as though all thoughts of the events three evenings previous had completely slipped her mind, “Oh, you mean about Friday evening?”

  Words, she had discovered far too late in her physically abusive relationship with Michael, can sometimes hurt more than blows to the body. And worst than words, indifference.

  “Stephano, it was fun,” she said airily as if sleeping with hunky work colleagues was something she did on a regular basis. “But let’s not repeat it.”

  He stood silently looking down at her for long moments, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Her stomach fluttered nervously as she held his gaze, but strangely she didn’t feel fearful that he would resort to physical violence. Finally he reached out and cupped her jaw, running his thumb along the surface for a few bone-melting seconds before bending his head and kissing her softly.

  “If that’s your decision, cara, I respect it,” he whispered as he straightened.

  Yes, that’s my decision!, she wanted to scream at him. I deserve more than to always play second fiddle to another woman.

  Instead she nodded, knowing if she opened her mouth she would tell him that she was willing to share him. Willing to once again become the secret lover she had been in Michael’s life because she’d been too tall, too dark, her hair too short to be seen on his arm. All she had been good for was sex when he’d needed it and to be a punching bag when he needed to let some steam off.

  Stephano nodded in return, then turned abruptly and walked back to his desk.

  Natalie kept her head bent, willing the tears not to fall as she heard him shut down his computer and grab his coat.

  “I didn’t get any sleep last night. I need to go home and rest.” His voice was husky and he sounded suddenly exhausted. Even knowing that he’d worn himself out in another woman’s bed, she couldn’t stop her heart going out to him as he swayed slightly, looking about to collapse.