Tangent Romance

By Monica Goertzen Hertlein

I caught myself staring again. Damn.

From the corner of my eye, I scanned the other executives ranged around the long cherry wood boardroom table. None had noticed.

He never noticed. Tristan’s black leather chair was rocked back so far it looked close to tipping, but he sprawled comfortably, doodling on a yellow legal pad.

From across the expanse of glass-topped wood, I smelled his spicy cologne. Black hair curled around his ears, dangled over his brow, and brushed the stubble lining his strong jaw. I loved wavy hair. Thick, soft hair. My fingers twitched.

I pulled my attention back to the head of the table. Our Chief Corporate Counsel was talking about a new compliance initiative. Beside me, Kenneth, the Director of Information Technology, was the only one convincingly taking notes. Then his gaze darted across the table to the redhead from Human Resources sitting much too close to Tristan. The skinny one with inky eyelashes, neon pink nails, and a head taller than me.

Kenneth’s brown eyes were wide behind his thick lenses, his longing as thick in the air as his drugstore cologne. His coffee mug with graphs of tangent lines, asymptotes, and parallel lines made me grin. Which of those tragic math romances was he? Which would I be? Meet once and part forever? Never meet? Never even come close?

Shaking off both my inappropriate humour and melancholy, I sat taller, tugging down the hem of my navy suit jacket. Double-damn. I was Chief Financial Officer, not a doe-eyed damsel in a bodice-ripper.

And Tristan was no romantic hero. My daughter told me I have bad taste in men. She was right. In the past six months three different assistants had cycled through the desk outside his corner office. Two left the company. One hunched through the halls with her head down. Twice I found her in the ladies’ room, red-eyed, fixing smudged mascara. I knew precisely how that heartache felt. Had been in that ladies’ room, crying over similarly gorgeous, self-absorbed pricks.

My attention was pulled back to Tristan. Did he learn that trust-me grin in law school or was it after years of corporate practice? One finger tapped his writing pad. I imagined those fingers caressing my face, my neck, my breasts.

A drop of sweat trickled down my collar bone. The buttons of my ivory silk blouse strained with my laboured breaths. This room was too bright, too hot, too small, rank with moist human breath. Not enough oxygen. I bit hard on the inside of my lip.

Corporate Counsel finished speaking and looked around the room for assent. I bobbed my head with the rest.

Chairs scritched, papers rustled, and voices raised as people got to their feet, leaving in groups.

Tristan rocked forward in his chair, clicking his pen with one thumb while chatting with the ginger from Human Resources. She leaned into him, her cleavage practically under his nose. He laughed at whatever she said. A deep laugh that sent a shiver through me.

With a toss of his head, he flicked a wavy black lock from his eye. It was longer than the other executives, perpetually messy as if he just rolled out of bed.

A jolt of heat caught me in the midsection.

The red-haired executive trilled, tucking that lock of hair behind his ear with a neon pink-tipped nail. My hands curled into fists. That must be against company policy. Sexual harassment.

As he grinned back at her, he caught my eye and winked. I pretended not to notice.

Tristan and the Director of HR left the room, arms linked, laughing together. My heart ached.

I jerked my gaze away. Kenneth caught my eye. Sympathy flashed in his expression. Then his gaze swept down, a quick reflexive reaction, moving back up more slowly.

My spine tingled. It had been too long since a man looked at me that way.

He was shorter than Tristan and black-framed glasses dominated his face. But he was always polite to the admin assistants. Greeted the janitor with the same cheery smile he gave company executives.

And his dark-blond hair was wavy and rumpled. My fingers twitched.

I nodded at his coffee mug. “Which is your story?”

Blond eyebrows raised above his glasses. “Most people don’t get the reference.”

“I like obscure math refences.” But maybe it was time to choose a different ending. I stood and smiled at him. “Care to get a drink?”

He blinked. Then his full lips quirked upward. He straightened his red-striped tie. Long fingers. I swallowed.

“Sure.” He had a sweet smile.

My heart sped in response.

🩷🩷🩷

Monica always wanted to write, but never thought it was a real job. After career and family, she returned to her passion of fiction writing. She has been published in Impulse, Embark, Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 8, AnotherRealm, and The Lorelei Signal and her flash fiction has been published by Every Day Fiction, AntipodeanSF, and Cafe Lit. She grew up, resides, and writes in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on Treaty 6 Territory and the homeland of the Métis.