Read Online Decorate My Palm Tree by M. Garnet - Free Book Online Page B

worked directly with the customers either by the Internet, telephone, or the rare person who actually came into the small front office. Also, if any of the processors ran into a snag, they threw the snag on her desk. She was supposed to unravel all snags and she did it well while sitting in isolation in her small cubbyhole.
    Gigi made it a practice to commit to memory everyone’s name so that she only had to greet them once in the morning and then say goodbye as she left. She ate lunch at her desk as she worked, or went out for fast food. She spoke only a word or two to whoever was in the break room when she got refills on her coffee. Other than that, it was an email correction to both the idiot and the corporate office. If too many email corrections, a processor was replaced and looking at filling in the unemployment forms.
    Most of the people in the office were pretty much not in her circle of friends. Well, she no longer had a circle of friends. She kept all people at a distance since sorrow and anger was what she lived with. Her desk was the only one in the office without any Thanksgiving turkey candles or fall leaves. But the one person that raised her attention and got her to talk to herself was now propped against her door opening.
    Doug Henderson was in charge of this branch office. Theoretically, she was next in line directly under him. That thought gave her a twitch that she immediately suppressed. Doug was the entire conversation of the women in the break room. At thirty-five or there about and single, he would fit the bill for the cover of Muscle and Fitness or Men Magazine.
    She looked at him filling her doorway with her usual frown without speaking. She took in the six-foot build of muscle topped by the tight short black hair cut. Striking blue eyes over the constant five o’clock shadow on the square chin made him a combination of handsome and bad boy. Too bad she had given up on men, especially a heart breaker like Doug.
    Gigi took a breath, careful not to let him see that his presence disturbed her. She slowly sat back, waiting for him to talk first. His body seemed to fill her little office and she resented it. She liked the fact that she had a small private room, but she didn’t like the fact that when someone came in they blocked her exit, especially Doug.
    She finally had to say something since she couldn’t stand his stare. “Can I help you?”
    His smile made her shift in her chair. She felt he was always on the verge of flirting or innuendos, but was just not quite over the line. She had a feeling that he was pushing her, but she wasn’t sure why.
    Finally, without moving, he spoke in that deep voice of his. “No holiday trimmings in your office?”
    She glanced at her clean desk with all the papers stacked in neat rows. “I don’t do holidays.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “That is unusual, but PC says we can’t question such things so I will let that statement sit for a while. Speaking of holidays, we have the company Christmas party coming up. We invite everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs, because we don’t make it anything more than a company party. But guess what—it falls on your shoulders to plan it. Find somewhere that all thirty of us can go for the evening with food and drinks.”
    With that, he turned and was gone.
     
    * * * *
     
    Doug wondered what drew him to this woman. He needed an entanglement in his life right now as much as he needed a broken leg. Still, she drew him to her in a sexual way that surprised him. As he walked away, he reached and adjusted his boner to make walking easier. He didn’t mind if she saw what he was doing. It seemed to be interesting to find that she was not embarrassed, but was fighting something inside herself.
    He was careful not to cross over that political problem that was facing everyone in offices at the moment called sexual harassment. He was smart and knew a whole lot of ways to get what he wanted without getting his hand caught