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Richard Martin always hated Holmes somehow seeming even more uncomfortable than him amongst the revellers.

Nearby, he saw Mark McClaine, his office colleague and friend, and his wife Rachael deep in conversation with another couple he didn’t recognise. And deepest amidst the denizens, the firm’s MD, Derik Holmes, was conversing with the heads of departments and grinning broadly as he took long swigs from a monogrammed silver and crocodile-leather hip flask.

Silver-haired, rosy-faced, and with the frame of a barrel wrapped in Armani, Derik was the very embodiment of opulent living and Richard could only hope the man didn’t notice him for he was awfully fond of mocking and belittling anyone whom he considered beneath him.

Fortunately, the four department heads seemed to be commanding the full wrath of the Director’s humour and he failed to notice the lowly bookkeeper standing beside the refreshments.

Alas, there was no sign of Alice amidst the sea of faces, but neither, thankfully, could he see…

“Well, well, well, look who we have here?” an all too familiar voice said silkily.

Fuck. Throwing his head back, Richard drained the cup in a single swig before placing it back on the table and turning, slowly, around to be confronted by the vision of his supervisor, Scarlet Holmes, standing before him.

Strikingly beautiful with soft features and sun-kissed skin, her hair was long, wavy tresses of honey blonde that reached down to her shoulders.

Clad in a dark blue pencil dress that went well with her almost unnaturally bright baby blue eyes and clung to her slender figure, the low-cut V-neckline offering a tantalising glimpse of her ample cleavage, she would have seemed utterly radiant if he hadn’t known the beauty was only skin deep.

“Hi Scarlet,” he said nervously before flashing her a smile he was certain Stevie Wonder would have seen through; “enjoying the party?”

“Mmm…” she purred, watching him with a wicked amusement that Richard wasn’t sure he liked. Then again, he rarely knew how to feel around Scarlet Holmes.

Though she’d only been twenty-three and barely out of University when she joined the firm, she was also the CEO’s daughter and had leapt over the heads of a dozen more highly qualified employees to get the Accounting Supervisor’s position.

What made it all the worse was, unlike the stereotypical cliché of a ditzy boss’s daughter, Scarlet actually knew her trade. Despite having an attitude that constantly swung from aggressive to flirtatious, she had a genuine business acumen as well as a knack for people and figures.

She was ambitious and worked tirelessly to ensure that she and her people regularly went above and beyond.

Thanks largely to her efforts, they were now the top performing team in the firm and rumour had it, she was about to be promoted to the Head of the Accounts Department. However, there were also whispers. Rumour had it that she’d had numerous affairs with more than half the firm’s employees, many of whom were happily married.

For his part, Richard preferred not to put stock in the storm of office gossip that followed where ever she went, but in one thing, at least, the rumours were true. She was a real tight arse.

“Where’s your wife? I haven’t seen her. Is everything alright between you two?”

“Oh…” His eyes flickered towards the door leading out of the hall to the building’s main foyer, hoping against hope to see his wife sashaying towards them. “Alice just stepped out for a minute. She had to take a call but couldn’t hear herself over the music.”

His tongue darted out to moisten his dry lips. “She should be back any minute now.” And he hoped that was true.

The words sounded hollow to his ears, sounding foreign and unfamiliar and he suddenly had the feeling of being trapped as he realised just how close they were, her curvaceous body all but pinning him against the table.

“So-so, how’s your father? He looks like he’s…enjoying himself.”

He gestured with a nod over her shoulder and Scarlet twisted to a look back across the hall to where her father was telling a very animated story.

At the sight of a short and portly man with thinning red-grey hair Richard had seen around the office a few times but had never been introduced to, standing a few paces away, she made only a token effort to cover her laugh with a cough. With a face such a deep shade of red it was almost purple and watching the inside of his cup so intently, clearly determined to look anywhere but at his immediate superior, the tomfoolery could only have been at his expense.

“Well, you know Daddy, always happy so long as there is a drink in his glass and minions to torment.” It was meant as a joke and Richard tried to match her gleeful chuckle, but his heart just wasn’t in it and he could tell she saw through the facade.

Suddenly, her playfulness evaporated.

When she turned back, the stern mask that so often watched him like a hawk whenever he handed in his reports suddenly glared up at him with eyes as cold and hard as diamonds.

The shift was so abrupt it almost gave him vertigo. “He has his eye on you.”

“Me?” Swallowing the knot suddenly rising in his throat, he forced himself to hold her gaze, fighting the impulse to glance towards the Director. The urge was like burning fishing lures hooked into his eyes, tugging insistently, and he fully expected to spy the Managing Director shooting him a glare, the mirror image of his daughter’s.

But why? What the hell would walrus face want with him?

“The Prometheus Account.” Scarlet supplied by way of explanation, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow. Full pink lips pulled tight into an almost indefinable line.

Prometheus was a London based construction and land developments company that had several branches throughout the continent and, according to their books, also had contracts in parts of Central America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Though it was not exactly an uncommon practice for big organisations to outsource their accounts, indeed Holmes a trained chimp would have been up to the task.

Their records were meticulous and immaculate. The numbers perfect.

And, what with the pressure to finish the job, the importance of the contract to the company and the fact his performance review was upcoming; withholding the data was more trouble than his job’s worth. Withholding it had been very stupid, but Richard couldn’t help himself.

In his twelve years in accounting, he had never seen anything like it, and that irked him. He couldn’t put his finger on what, the numbers were just…too perfect.

Or too perfect to be genuine.

Of course, it wasn’t any concern of his. He wasn’t an analyst. It wasn’t his job to sort out conundrums. He just kept the client’s books. When he was done, he sent reports to Scarlet with notes about his concerns and recommendations, if any; but in this, he couldn’t help himself.

It almost felt like there was a challenge hidden amidst the sheer mass of paper and data, of piles of receipts, invoices and spreadsheets. Something secret only he could see.

Hidden, waiting, daring him to find it.

So, he’d begun to dig, looking deeper, trying to solve a mystery that common sense screamed didn’t exist, but that the small voice in the back of his mind refused to let go, like some naughty schoolboy playing truant to go on a great adventure in the land of Narnia.

Sooner or later though, the boy needed to go back through the wardrobe, and if the Managing Director had his eye on Richard...

So far, every money trail had turned up empty and by itself, mere professional curiosity wasn’t worth losing a job over. Or, worse still, becoming the next punchline in one of walrus face’s jokes.

Baleful blue eyes glared up at him, chunks of blue ice burning bright against a sea of soft beauty. Richard forced a small, reassuring smile. “I’ll have them on your desk Monday.

“Good”

That single word was like a storm passing to unveil sunbursts. She beamed with the radiance, her golden skin lighting up with a warmth that chased any hint of chill away as those luscious pink lips curled into a smile.

“See that you do, or else I might just have to give you a spanking.” She winked.

Richard gawped, not sure whether to believe his own ears. Had she really just said that?

To anyone who might have glanced their way, the gesture would have appeared innocent. Yet her eyes lost none of their intensity as she watched him, and her playful tone sent a warm, involuntary shiver coursing up his spine. What the fuck?

He remembered all the stories he’d heard people at work gossiping about the people who’d told them and the wide range of vague, outlandish details that seemed to grow more and more extraordinary with each retelling.

It was all hearsay. Mostly just the petty vindictiveness of someone who’d been put out, or thought her job should have been theirs, or just the usual rambling talk that always seemed to blossom around a famous name.

There had never been any proof, and until now, Richard had barely given them much thought. But that look in her eyes made him ready to believe every word.

He’d seen it on the cats he sometimes saw stalking city streets on his morning drive to work. There was the same confidence, the same purpose and… hunger.

She watched him the way a stalking cat would observe a bird pecking in the mud, utterly fixed in its own world and ripe for the plucking, and the thought had him instinctively averting his gaze. Whatever this game was, he didn’t want a part of it.

However, knowing she was waiting for him to say something, he opened his mouth to agree but the words that should have come caught in his throat and all he could do was nod in acknowledgement.

Heat blossoming across his cheeks, he swallowed, his mouth so dry it felt like forcing down a lemon. Goddamnit, he needed a drink.

Her eyes flashed, victorious fire dancing over cool blue ice. Then, as if only just realising she was making him uncomfortable, her smile faltered for a moment and turned apologetic.

“Awww don’t worry, Dick. I was only kidding,” she cooed like he was a small child or pet dog. “I think you better have another drink. If your face gets any redder, they might mistake you for Rudolph and hang you on the wall.” She giggled, the sound all girlish and mocking. “It’s already a rather striking likeness. Maybe with a pair of antlers-”

More relieved than embarrassed by her dismissal, Richard turned back to the refreshments before Scarlet had finished speaking.

With the Styrofoam cup still in hand and grateful for some much-needed space between him and the teasing wench, he reached out for the jug of squash. To his horror, the hand was shaking.

No! God, get a grip man. Don’t let her get to you.

As if she knew his thoughts, Scarlet stepped in close enough for him to inhale her perfume. Something sharp and expensive.

“Here, let me,” she offered. Brushing his hand aside, she seized the handle and, despite it being almost full, raised the jug one-handed.

With a slight pivot of her hips to face him, she filled his cup almost all the way to the top, her gaze unwavering, boring into his with that look of predatory glee, seeing through him, into him. It was unnervingly similar to the look Alice shot him whenever she suspected he was up to something.

“There.” She put the jug down before finally breaking the contact to give the drink a quizzical look. “Just orange? You don’t want to mix it with something a little stronger?”

“N-no thanks. I’m driving.” Barely able to get his tongue around the words, Richard had to fight the urge to immediately knock the drink back.

Fuck, where the hell was Alice? What could Samantha have to say that couldn’t wait for tomorrow?

He looked down at the orange in his cup, wished, though he’d never been much of a drinker, that it could be something fermented, and added under his breath without thinking, “Alice would kick my arse if she found out I’d been drinking.”

The moment he’d said them, he regretted the words. Beaten, he surrendered and chucked the juice back in almost one big gulp. It was deliciously refreshing and eased the knots in his gut in a single rush of watered citrus.

“Ohhh…” Mirth lit up Scarlet’s eyes. “Well, isn’t someone a slave driver. Come on, Dick, I promise I won’t tell…” she teased, playfully reaching for the Honeyed Jack Daniel’s.

Richard struggled not to grin at the impish mischief on her face.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t really like mixing drinks anyway.”

She feigned a pout that had no doubt melted her daddy’s heart more than once. It had the effect of making her look so serenely demure and girlish. He might have been convinced she was sincere if not for that wild glint in her eyes.

It was a sinful look on her, the perfect melding of innocent and wicked. All that was missing was an Anne Summers costume, probably a nurse or cheerleader’s uniform.

A shiver coursed up at his spine at the thought of Scarlet in such a skimpy ensemble. Her long legs encased in knee socks and vanishing into a miniskirt that seemed to promise a glimpse of whatever she had on, or not, underneath with every movement.

A tight-fitting crop top stretched tight over her full breasts but cut just short enough to show off her flat stomach. Golden hair bouncing in pigtails as she played with a set of pom-poms…

Richard mentally shook himself, trying to clear the image. He wasn’t a horny teen anymore. Those sorts of thoughts were trouble. He was married. And she was his boss. Off limits didn’t even begin to cover it.

However, his body apparently disagreed and, to his horror, the image roused a very vital part of his anatomy into life.

Registering the stirring, he instinctively glanced down to see an already visible bulge rising against his left trouser leg. He shifted, trying to cover his visibly straining erection before glancing back up. But Scarlet must have already noticed because the pouting girl was gone.

Instead, she was grinning toothily, her eyes bright. Pink tongue darting out to slowly moisten her full kissable lips, she mouthed “busted.”

Time held its breath. Somewhere in the hall, a guffaw rang out. The timing was purely coincidental, but even still the humiliation hit him like a bucket of ice water. Dammit, what the fuck was going on?

He couldn’t believe this was happening. He needed to think, to get some air before this got any worse and his boss decided to whip out her phone to immortalise the moment.

Contrary to being impeded, however, the realisation he’d been caught only had Richard’s cock stiffening to full mast against its confinement. To his enormous relief, no one else appeared to notice.

Scarlet’s eyes widened, her smile faltering to form a perfect ‘O’. “Oh… my!”

Well-aware of what had caught her attention, Richard turned his eyes up to the hall’s plain white ceiling and ornamental brass chandelier-style lights draped with tinsel, desperate to look at something, anything, but the woman eyeing his dick.

To his enormous relief, no one else appeared to have noticed. He felt like a little Robin red breast that had spotted a cat stalking it in the grass and taken flight, rising high on a wing of elation and the adrenaline of escaping death.

Only to be swatted from the sky and brought crashing back down, its last moment consumed by the image of the sleek feline body arching into the sky, hooked claws reaching out and fangs bared.

I tawt I taw a puddy tat, indeed.

“Have you heard anything about your promotion?” he asked without thinking, studying the interlaced webs of gold, red and green tinsel that enveloped the nearest light.

“Y-yes…” For all her customary swagger, the silky soft voice sounded breathless and the shaky timbre drew his gaze irresistibly back to her.

Scarlet glared back at him. Her eyes narrowed and cheeks tinged a faint shade of pink.

She seemed to be musing about whether to say more, searching for a trap behind the question, and the uncertainty reflected in those bright blue irises had him blowing out a slow breath that released all the tension from his body.

Scarlet obviously sensed, or noticed, the change in him, however, because the gleam of predatory amusement returned to her eyes. She’d play whatever game he had in mind, and she’d play to win.

“Daddy says the job’s mine if I want it, but first I need to get my house in order. He’s starting to think we might have a loose cannon on deck.”

She leant casually back against the refreshments table with her hands gripping the edges to distribute her weight and back, curving just enough to emphasise her breasts.

It was a pose that would have put many magazine centrefolds to shame.

“But let’s not talk shop. This is a party, after all. How is your son, Alex, isn’t it? I saw the pictures on your desk. He must be nearly two now?”

Richard held her gaze, refusing to take the bait even as his eyes were instinctively drawn to the slopes of her breasts.

“Almost sixteen months, yes.” He swallowed, a bitter taste rising in the back of his throat, not liking the way this conversation was turning. “And he’s fine, hasn’t quite got the hang of walking yet. Can’t quite find his feet, so he’s always losing his balance mid-step. We’ve had a lot of scuffs and tears, but he keeps getting back up.”

He couldn’t quite keep the pride from his voice. So many kids would burst into a fit of tears whenever they fell over and refuse to move until their parents picked them up, but Alex never stopped. Even in tears, he would push himself up and keep crawling to where he wanted to go.