Friends Or Lovers Part 27

"Yeah. Comes across as such a 'nice guy but underneath beats a heart of appalling meanness," he said with considerable force.

"Ive always liked him," I remarked, not absolutely sure how I felt about him now.

"Yeah! He behaves great to his favourites or women he fancies. Get on the wrong side of him and youll discover just what a b.a.s.t.a.r.d he can be."

I recalled how Dave had been suspicious of Mike. Clearly the feelings were reciprocated.

"He asked me to find out about you."

"Did he really?" said Mike with a sarcastic knowing laugh.

"Did pretty well, didnt I?" I quipped.

"Very well indeed," he answered seductively as his hand moved under my blouse, around my waist and started to caress the small of my back.

"Hmmm. Nice. Do that some more," I said.

Mike obliged but kept talking at the same time.

"Dave and I go back a long way," he continued. "We joined IC at roughly the same time. I was his boss back then."

"What happened?" I asked.

"We fell out over Sally," he said.

"Sally?" I responded with some surprise.

"Oh yes. Whenever there is s.h.i.+t in the workplace, there is usually a man and woman involved!"

"Cynic!" I joked.

"Only half the time..." he answered.

I began to realise that his wit was considerably drier than Johns.

"What about the other half?"

"Optimist!" he said without missing a beat, smiling or wavering for an instant.

"Youre teasing me!" I answered.

"You like being teased," he a.s.serted.

Where did he get these insights from, I wondered.

"Get on with your story," I said with mock impatience.

"Sally used to be related to Dave."

He paused, as if waiting for me to ask a question.

"Are you going to ask how?" he continued.

"Okay. How?"

"She was Daves sister-in-law."

I suddenly pretended to be stupid.

"Oh, Mike. You know how dim women can be. Please explain it for me."

"Doesnt work!" he suddenly said.

"What?"

"Doesnt work!" he said again.

"What doesnt work?"

"The 'can you explain it to me coz Im a stupid woman routine," he replied.

He did not play the way that John played so I tried another approach.

"Just get on with the b.l.o.o.d.y story, will you?" I said briskly.

"That works!" he said with a laugh.

It was beginning to dawn on me that Mike liked to play things straight. He might not make me laugh as much as John, but his a.s.sertive and commanding manner turned me on. With only a moments hesitation, he continued and finished the story.

"Sally used to be married to Daves brother. Daves brother used to beat her. Youve had this story from John so Im not sure what else to tell you."

I sat up straight and suddenly the pieces dropped into place.

"Say again?" I asked.

"Sally used to....."

"Its okay I was being rhetorical!" I said.

There was just a hint of smile on his face.

"What?" I asked.

He gave a gesture to indicate that he did not understand.

"What are you smiling for?" I asked.

"You are so s.e.xy when you raise your voice," he answered.

"You like it, do you?" I queried.

"Oh, yes. I like strong direct women," he replied.

"Well, my lad," I said, gathering words together in my head. "You are going to like me a lot!"

He relaxed a bit and laughed. I could feel my confidence and ardour beginning to build.

"So now you know why he and I are not best buddies," Mike concluded.

I still did not get it completely. He had helped Sally. So what? Then the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place and I instinctively covered my mouth in shock.

"He thinks....," I started. "He thinks that you.....and Sally."

"Yes, he thinks I f.u.c.ked Sally and broke up his brothers marriage."

"Did you?" I asked. The words came out so fast I had no time to retract them.

"You dont need me to answer that," he responded.

"No. I dont." I said.

No wonder Dave had a grudge against Mike! Suddenly my need to tell Mike about Daves e-mail became more urgent. If Mike and Dave had fallen out once before, there could be more unpleasantness.

"I want to tell you more," I said.

"Okay."

"You may not like it," I added.

"Still want to hear," he replied.

And out it all came. I told Mike of Daves wife, her illness, my fondness for him, that Dave had invited me out after the CIPD event in Birmingham and that we would be staying in the hotel together. When I told him the details of the recent e-mail exchanges, I began to wonder whether I had been completely blind. Whatever Dave felt when he recruited me, I thought he was getting ready to make a move on me. What would Dave do if he found that I was sleeping with Mike?

"Maybe we should deny our relations.h.i.+p?" I suggested.

"He has to know sometime," Mike replied.

"Just try to look at this from his perspective," I insisted. "You and I are at loggerheads. You leave your wife after a big row with me in the workplace. I find you a company flat to move into. Then it comes out that we are sleeping together. How does that look to you? Dave behaved strangely at the pub the other night. The following morning he didnt want to sign the contract for this flat. Later he and I had our first angry words. I dont want to take the risk, Mike!"

Having felt a bit dim a moment before, I suddenly felt quite clever.

"What did he say, again?" asked Mike.

I repeated the recent e-mail exchanges with Dave.

"He must have taken your message as encouragement...." Mike pointed out.

"I didnt mean it like that. I was just being polite after the hasty exit the night before."

"You? Polite?" he teased again.

I gave him a playful shove and he shoved me back with a deadpan face. When I did not respond, he gave me another shove and I realised he wanted to play. So I shoved him off the sofa, got up and ran away. For the next 10 minutes he chased me all over the flat until he managed to corner me in the bathroom. As I backed up against the wall, his strong frame moved towards me and my screams gave way to giggles, then my giggles gave way to a low pitched moaning as I suddenly felt his hand between my legs and his hot breath on my neck.

That was the first of many times we made love there. The next day Elona decided she wanted to move in, so Mike and I had to make the most of the few days of freedom we had left. After she moved in, we used my flat as a new base. Never in my life had I enjoyed such pa.s.sion and intimacy with a man. Within a month neither of us had any secrets left to tell.

Despite the generation gap, we started to talk extensively about politics (office and otherwise). I listened to his experiences as a father, he listened to my memories of childhood. I learnt of his dreams and fantasies, he learnt of mine. Many joint dreams were born. The threads of our lives intertwined and bonds were woven into a fabric so strong that I could not imagine them ever breaking. If our first night together was the most special moment of my life, our first month felt like a honeymoon that would never end. I savoured every second.

Carole and my parents thought I had disappeared off the face of the earth. John and Sally occasionally dropped in and we would all go out for a meal. When, towards the end of June, I turned up at my parents house for Sunday lunch with Mike in tow, we announced that he would be moving into my flat. Even as they expressed surprise, they accepted and welcomed this development and all quietly congratulated me. Privately Mike and I had discussed that if we enjoyed living together, he might file for divorce so we could marry. But publicly n.o.body, not even John and Sally, knew of our plans.

To call this a "whirlwind romance" does not do it justice. For sure our relations.h.i.+p took off at quite a pace, but we were never a lovely-dovey couple. Our conversations were realistic and grounded, our plans firm and concrete, and our love-making was varied and pa.s.sionate. But throughout all this, for all the intense times we spent together, for all the future plans we mapped out, for all the commitments we made, the words "I love you" never pa.s.sed our lips.

Carole phoned me daily after Mike and I had appeared for lunch at my parents. I talked to her of the things we had done together, but never of our future aspirations. At the end of each phone call she would say "Im really happy for you" and gradually I began to see what it was that bound she and Chris together. We talked about her forthcoming wedding and the preparations. I apologised for not getting more involved but she a.s.sured me that mum was on top of everything. All I needed to do was to turn up, speech in hand, make everybody laugh and be beautiful. I broke the news to her that I would have to pa.s.s up the opportunity of s.h.a.gging the best man.

To my surprise, the rumours at work died quickly and did not spread further. Dave, fortunately, did not learn of our relations.h.i.+p and Mike and I managed to keep our contact low-key and light-hearted. If people knew, there was a conspiracy of silence. The only person I updated from time to time was Phil. He, in turn, told me about people that he fancied. Like true professionals, we remained the very souls of discretion.

Chapter 41.

The prospect of going to the CIPD event with Dave was something that I came to dread. While we still worked together well on a professional level, our personal relations.h.i.+p had cooled. Neither of us spoke about the situation with his wife or his admission that he fantasised about me. Even if he had said it as a joke, I felt that raising it with him was too risky. In the back of my mind I wondered whether it was wise to say nothing. I was conscious that my probationary period was coming to an end and Dave would decide my future. So far as I could tell, confirmation was a formality but this new situation meant that I could no longer take my appointment for granted.

Following the launch of the SHARE experience, I met Sam and Elaine again (with Dave) to organise the recruitment of more support staff. Mike, as sales manager for the domestic market, also met Sam and Elaine regularly to develop marketing strategies. I would join them for drinks and found that I particularly enjoyed Elaines company. Her background in sociology and international business was different to mine, but there was sufficient common ground to compare perspectives.

As a group, we developed too. John knew Elaine from academic conferences so all six of us started going out weekly for meals. The story of how Mike and I got together became something of a party piece. After much drinking we playfully acted out the battle-axe and gentle man confronting each other angrily while an unspoken mutual pa.s.sion was developing. We exaggerated, of course, and many side-stories and alternative plot lines were elaborated.

Elaine became the first person to learn of my private aspiration to marry Mike. We would take lunch together and have girly chats. She had also been a human resources manager before advancing her education. After obtaining an MBA she took up a senior management post at the engineering company where Sam had been working. It was her interest in his engineering, and the companys ignorance of its potential, that spurred their close relations.h.i.+p. Their close working relations.h.i.+p evolved into a personal one.

They married secretly and this triggered a hostile reaction from some board members. They decided to establish a new company for Sam to continue working on his ideas. For the last 5 years they had developed their product line. It had been a struggle but the relations.h.i.+p with IC was a breakthrough. This enabled them to expand their market and leverage in considerable financial investment. After all their hard work, they were beginning to achieve security both for themselves and the company.

On the day of the CIPD conference, I arranged to go with her to Birmingham beforehand to buy an evening dress. She picked me up about 10am and we made our way up the motorway.

"So what you going to get?" Elaine asked.

"Not sure. I love s.e.xy outfits, but as Im going with Dave I dont want to send out the wrong signals."

"Get something you can wear for other occasions as well!" said Elaine.

"I guess. I look good in tight black dresses but perhaps that would be too risque."

"Is there such a thing?" she asked.

"Depends, surely. I could hardly wear something like that to work!"