The Proposition Read online

  The way he talked could irritate her nerves something awful sometimes. But she couldn’t ignore the warm sensation that coursed through her body when she heard his name.

  Janeshia shook her head, “Talk about annoying,” she thought. “Walker Edmond-Perreault wrote the best seller on being annoying.”

  The day had started out too perfect, Janeshia thought. It had seemed so, except for the possibility that the air conditioner might be going on the blink. She let the thought pass.

  Her position as director of Silicon Valley Making a Difference Foundation meant she worked for Walker and his family. And if there was one thing she didn’t do. She didn’t date men she worked with. She made it a point to keep her distance from Walker from the first time she saw him.

  Her mind wondered, remembering his deep green haunting eyes. Even now she thought of the way his eyes fit perfectly with his high lean cheekbones and strong nose. Under his uniformed geeky dark colored suit, he radiated a primitive sensual quality that Janeshia couldn’t always ignore.

  Quick rapid knocking interrupted her thoughts.

  “Ms. James, Mr. Edmond-Perreault would like to see you now, are you available? Tamara’s voice boomed through the doorway.

  Then Tamara moved a few steps aside.

  Walker Edmond-Perreault stood at the threshold of her door.

  “Good morning Janeshia!” came Walkers excited voice. “How are you this morning?” He stood with one hand in his pocket. The other hand he ran through his hair smoothing a loose curl back in place. The rest of his jet black rakish looking shoulder length hair was neatly tapered at the nape of his neck. His deep green eyes looked flawless against his olive complexion.

  “Janeshia, I’m so glad you have time to see me.”

  Janeshia breathed out slowly at the sound of his saying her name.

  “Hello Mr. Perreault. It’s so good to see you again.” “Now Janeshia, you know I asked you to call me Walker,” he said slowly closing her office door behind himself. He quickly walked over closing the distance between them.

  Janeshia found herself tensing up at the sound of his voice. She knew how critical Walker could be. She glanced up at him. “Sorry Walker, I forgot. Now what is this about?”

  “Oh, you know. I was just checking on the Gala expense report.”

  Janeshia glanced up in surprise. “Yes, of course. Walker did you want the Gala expense report?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said.

  “Oh, then that’s Adam St. Charles’ report. He is handling that expense report. I believe it’s at his desk.”

  Janeshia gazed absent mindedly out of the window.

  “Oh, I know. I just remembered.” His voice rasped out sternly. He walked over to her desk with a formal air. He put his black leather portfolio case down on her desk and unzipped it. “I have the report.”

  Janeshia looked back at the report. The report could take hours to go over.

  Walker Edmond Perreault pulled a chair up and sat it right beside her. “My goodness it’s hot in here. Did you turn off the air conditioner?” He asked without waiting for her to respond. “I need to speak with you because there’s a very delicate matter that I need to talk with you about,” he said leaning over and whispering. “But not here in the office.”

  Janeshia sighed. She felt Walker was sitting too close for comfort. They’d never sat that close before. She looked up and caught him staring back at her with those vivid deep green mesmerizing eyes of his. They were the strangest shade of green she’d ever seen before. She could have sworn she saw flecks of amber and bronze in his eyes. A shiver ran down her spine. “What are you talking about?”

  Walker’s handsome face was marred with a frown. He lowered his voice. “Look Janeshia we have a problem and since I know you’ve worked hard on this report I want to speak with you privately about it. The walls have ears you know.”

  Janeshia’s brows shot up. “What, are you saying we have spies in my office? Come on Walker these are my employees. I trust them,” she said.

  “We shouldn’t speak here on that topic. Not in your office. We should talk about this somewhere outside of the office,” he said quietly.

  Just then his cell phone rang.

  “Hello! Mother is everything okay?” He asked. “Good. Look mother I have to put you on hold for a minute.”

  Janeshia sat in silence watching Walker. She reached for the file he had in his leather portfolio.

  Walker studied her and reached out closing his portfolio. He looked up at Janeshia.

  Janeshia drew her hand back and looked back at him.

  “Look Janeshia, I really need to take this call. It’s my mother. She was ill recently.”

  Janeshia remembered Walker’s mother Mrs. Claire Marie Edmond-Perreault as a charming elderly lady. She was always flawlessly dressed whenever she saw her at the Gala Events. “How is she?”

  “She’s fine,” he said seeing her reaction. “It’s just that she’s under the impression… Oh never mind,” he hesitated. “Look there’s a huge discrepancy in that report. As director of this nonprofit it’s your responsibility.

  Janeshia shot him a questionable glance. Then tilted her head slightly to look past Walker and stared out of the window again. She pretended to pay attention to him.

  Walker remained firmly planted in his seat. He cleared his throat. “You know Janeshia what I need to go over with you is a lot more involved than I thought. I think perhaps we should discuss this report more in depth over dinner tonight. What time do you think I could pick you up?”

  Janeshia’s attention returned. “I’m sorry Walker, what was that you said?”

  “What time should I pick you up?”

  Janeshia breathed out heavily caught off guard. “No, I can’t go out with you. It’s Friday night. I have to do laundry.” She regretted the lie as soon as she told it.

  Suddenly the phone in her office rang.

  Walker took advantage of the situation. “Go ahead and take that call Janeshia it might be important,” he said. “Besides I’ve got mother on hold.”

  Janeshia’s eyes looked down and checked the caller ID. The name flashed Emergency Services. The call could be important.

  Her telephone rang again.

  Walker interrupted her thoughts. “So, you’re saying Saturday night would be better? You really should take that call. It might be important,” he repeated.

  “You’re right Walker, I should get this. Hold on a minute,” she said flustered reaching for the phone. “Hello˗”

  Quietly Walker rose quickly and walked to the door. “Oh, Janeshia,” his voice called across the room. “Since its Friday and your laundry night. I guess our date will have to be tomorrow night then,” he quickly said. “Don’t worry, I have your address. I’ll pick you up at 6:00. See you then,” he said abruptly closing her door shut behind him.

  Janeshia looked up stunned and frustrated as she cradled the phone to her chest. “Walker hang on a minute, Walker... I…” Suddenly she realized Walker had already closed her office door.

  Chapter 2

  Once upon a time I called you friend…

  Apprehensively Janeshia put the phone back to her ear. “Hello, this is Janeshia James speaking.”

  “Hello Ms. James, this is Harry Billings with the Systems Branch Incident Command Center.”

  “Yes, hello Mr. Billings is there something going on?”

  “Yes, Ms. James. We note that it seems to be some sort of electrical surge occurring on the infrastructure. The electrical company states a transformer maybe out. They are aware of the power. And their crews are hard at work trying to isolate the problem. This is just a standard alert to let you know that if we have a power surge on our back up energy power, your computer systems may go out. But we have all your data files back-up in place. No data will be lost. I’ll be monitoring and let you know if there are any problems.”

  “Okay Harry…”

  “Look Ms. James, I’m getting a call on my other line. Let
me call you back,” Harry interrupted.

  “Sure,” she said hanging up the line. This morning was proving to be challenging in more ways than one. First Walker, now this, Janeshia was amazed at the morning she’d been having. She took a big gulp of her coffee. It had grown cold, but it still tasted good. She was eager for a little diversion. She sipped it slowly.

  Her phone rang out loudly again. She didn’t hesitate to pick it up.

  “Hello Harry?” she said softly.

  “Hello Janeshia, how are you doing?”

  Janeshia’s spine stiffened in surprise. She recognized the voice. It was Alice Couvertier-Trudeau, a voice from her past. She grew up with Alice. Once upon a time she thought Alice was as good a best friend as being friends with Jesus. One thing was sure; Jesus was a good child who grew up to be a good person, and Alice? Well Alice was a child once. That was one thing she knew was true. But Alice was a bully then. And she is a bully now. Bullies never change.

  “What do you want Alice? I’m busy. And why are you calling me at work?”

  Alice cleared her throat. “Hear me out Janeshia, it’s important. We need to talk. I’m out of town right now. But I’m flying back home tomorrow night. Sunday is bad for me. Can we meet for lunch next week? Any day of the week is fine. We can go meet at El Burro’s at the PruneYard. It’s still your favorite right? I’m buying.”

  “How dare you...”

  Quickly Alice interrupted. “Look Janeshia, calm down. I swear I’m on the up and up. I’ve changed. You should want to see it for yourself. In fact, I want you to see that. Please, just think about it. You have my number? It hasn’t changed,” Alice pleaded.

  “Look Alice why should I want to see that you’ve changed? You should respect that I don’t give a damn if you did change anyway?”

  “You’re right, you shouldn’t care. But I do. That’s why I want you to see that I’ve changed.” Alice said softly.

  “It’s not like the two of us are great friends,” Janeshia replied. “Anyway, how did you get my work number?”

  “I called though the main number. Look, that doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that you should have lunch with me. We are friends…” Alice pleaded.

  “That’s a preposterous notice Alice and you know it,” She abruptly interrupted. “We are not friends. I don’t know where you got that.”

  Alice interrupted her. “Look we’re not kids anymore. Why can’t you get over stuff we did as kids?”

  Janeshia blurted. “Look Alice, did you forget about bullying me?”

  “Oh, for Christ sake Janeshia, you need to grow up!”

  “I am grown up. I’m over it. I’m an adult now,” Janeshia said tersely. “I think you are just an adult bully who wants to hurt other people!”

  “Bullying…No…I mean. Look, I apologized about all that stupid kids’ stuff. I swear,” Alice said apologetically. “Meet me for lunch, you’ll see I’ve changed.”

  “Sorry Alice, but I’m not a gullible stupid kid any longer. Goodbye!” She hung up the phone abruptly. Just like Harry had done to her earlier. She hoped that sensation would make her feel better. But it didn’t.

  The loud whiny death of the air conditioner seemed uncanny. It gurgled loudly before going silent. Maybe they shut it down to save energy. Sure, that had to be the reason. It would allow the backup generated energy to last longer.

  Chapter 3

  Once upon a time and that Eavesdropper …

  An hour later Janeshia pushed back the wayward strands of her hair and sighed softly. The air in her office was becoming unbearable. She knew her makeup must be suffering. She checked her compact and quickly wiped the shine from her nose and forehead.

  Normally she was always in control. But the heat of the room increased her tension. This had certainly been a strange morning, first with her encounter with Walker Perreault and then dealing with the worst person from her childhood, Alice Couvertier-Trudeau.

  The lights flickered and then went out. They quickly came back on. Then the lights flickered again several times before the whole office went dark.

  “What?” She exclaimed.

  Her office door opened quickly.

  “Tamara, what happened?”

  “It’s a total power outage. The whole building is out now. Even our backup generator has died. My computer died.”

  Janeshia swerved her chair over to the light by the window. “Harry Billings called earlier and said that he’d bring the computers down if we had a power surge, I guess he did.”

  Tamara walked over and stood by her boss. “Yeah, well one of the building maintenance technicians just called. He said another transformer blew out somewhere. Apparently, this is going to take a while to fix, from what the Tech says. It could be hours.”

  Janeshia glanced up at Tamara. “I can tell what you are thinking. You want to leave right?”

  Tamara smiled shyly, “Yes, I have a few personal things I really need to take care of.”

  “No problem, tell you what, let everyone know it’s okay to leave early. Then stop by Adams’s desk and tell him I’ll need the section report on the financials for the last quarter. He can just leave it on his desk. I’ll pick it up later. Be sure to tell Adam he can leave early as well.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Tamara said. “You have a good weekend Janeshia. See you on Monday.”

  Janeshia quickly got up and pulled the blinds up to let in more light. She sat down at her desk, determined to go over the ledger and files in front of her. She concentrated.

  Adam St. Charles was a tall man who knew he had a mesmerizing effect on women. His eyes were brilliantly dark and cool. His hair jet black and wavy with curls that lightly tapered at the nape of his neck. He was gorgeous. But he appeared not to register that fact.

  He stood silently in the doorway and studied Janeshia.

  Finally, he spoke. “Excuse me Janeshia. I see you’re off the telephone.”

  She turned at the sound of Adam St. Charles’ voice.

  “Boy it gets stuffy in here when the powers out,” he said. “I hear you wanted the section report on the financials for the last quarter. Oh, and are you done reviewing the Gala Report?”

  Janeshia glanced up at him. Men like Adam could sometimes be impossible to deal with. His eyes smiled back at her. The sun’s rays flickered bright sparks off the gold rimmed spectacles he wore. She studied him. There was something about his smile. He wore it like it was a disguise.

  “Oh darn, no I haven’t finished reviewing the Gala report. But I do need the section report on the financials for the last quarter. Do you have it with you?”

  He handed her the report. “Yes, here it is. But if you don’t mind I was hoping to speak with you about the Gala report. There are a few things I’d like to point out to you.”

  She glanced at her watch. “I can spare a few minutes.”

  She watched his eyes. His dark eyes watched her like a hawk.

  Janeshia found the Gala report. “What did you want to show me?”

  Adam sat down. He briskly got down to business. Flipping the pages of the report and pointing out facts. He spent the next fifteen minutes going over it.

  Finally, Janeshia checked her watch. Being around Adam too long alone made her nervous. “Look Adam, I don’t want to waste your time. Is there anything specific you want to bring to my attention?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, yes of course. You need details for the foundation board meeting.”

  His expression was hidden from her by the long lashes guarding his eyes. He felt sorry for her. She held the leadership position. A position that he felt was best suited for a man.

  Adam flipped the pages and pointed. “Here are the signatures. I even have Bob Green’s signature. He’s the most popular news anchor in San Jose, California. I’m sure,” he said warmly. “Even from an accountant’s or banker’s point of view, his presence will have positive effects on the foundations cash donations. Every part of this report is in order. The board
of directors will be impressed.”

  “It sounds like you really have taken care of everything Adam,” She smiled glancing up at him quickly. She caught him staring back at her with a crooked smile.

  “As you know I’m fully capable, when I see what needs to be done. I get it done,” he said with a bit of hostility in his voice.

  Janeshia looked in his eyes. She tried not to stare at the small scar just below his left eye. She knew Adam St. Charles was self-conscious of it sometimes. But she also knew he was capable of handling every situation. He could be bluntly rude, a bit arrogant and scornful at times she thought. But he was smart, hardworking and very intelligent. His insensitivity to the feelings of others could be annoying sometimes. And she also knew that Adam was the sort of man who had a slight bit of trouble in taking direction from a woman. But normally he made an effort to keep this part of himself in check.

  “Well, I do trust the decisions you’ve made so far,” she said forcing a smile.

  “Was there any doubt?” Adam condescendingly asked. He removed his glasses and wiped away some non-existing dust.

  “No… I Ahhhh” she nervously grimaced. She was irked by his cool aloof manner. “It’s just that I’m the boss Adam and sometimes I just need to check on things. That’s all.”

  “You’re right. You are the boss,” he said. “You know what’s best. Do you mind if I admire the view from your window?”

  “Sure,” she laughed to cover her annoyance. She didn’t want him thinking she was staring and turned away to stare back at the report on her desk.

  Adam walked to the window and stood there. The deep blue of the sky held him. “I hope I didn’t upset you Ms. James, you know my confident manner was one of the things you liked most about me when I interviewed for this position. I really do admire you. In fact, you could say I’m your greatest fan.”