CH. 2: TEAMWORK — REBEKAH

“He looked even hotter in a suit!” Rebekah thought as she swallowed and stared at the stranger before her.

"Ma Cherie, meet..."

"Brown Burton" he cut in, extending his hand for a handshake. "I could take it from here Sir, if you don't mind"

"Oh. Go ahead" Jean Pierre agreed almost too easily. He sank into his chair and flashed a mischievous smile at Rebekah. He – Brown Burton took what could have been a step forward and stretched his hand for a handshake.

"And you are?"

"Rebekah. Rebekah Palmer." she didn't stutter. She didn’t take his hand either.

Thank you, Biology.

"Rebekah, quite a name." he dropped his hand slowly. If he was embarrassed, he did a good job hiding it.

"Is that for me, milady?" He motioned towards the coffee in her hand.

That wonderfully sexy name he called her in that wonderfully sexy voice. She felt her heart race and then slowly run out of fuel. Why does he keep calling her that?

"Oh, this...” she turned to Jean Pierre.

"Oh, don't look at me. Let the young man have it."

The old man was having the time of his life right now. He must have noticed how uncomfortable she was before this Brown, a complete irony from the Rebekah that had claimed not to care for men in this very office. Defeated, she stretched the cup towards the stranger, err Brown.

“Yeah, you can have it”

“Thank you, Rebekah. I thought...”

"So um, is he to be my assistant?" she cut him off, firing the question at Jean Pierre. If it took being rude to conceal her naiveté, then so be it.

"Technically he is. But as you do know, here at BB and B, secretaries are not allowed to have their own assistants, so it's a bit complicated"

"So, he is my technical assistant then?"

"More like MY technical assistant, in the books"

"But off record?"

"Off record, he's all yours"

Rebekah found it funny how Jean Pierre's last words made her heart beat a millisecond faster. He wasn't hers, at least not yet.

Quiet Rebekah, quiet!

She cleared her throat quietly; it did nothing to clear her head.

"So, we're done here?"

"Sure, you could show him around a bit, if you're not too busy" Jean Pierre replied.

"I think I could avail myself, milord" she directed her reply at Brown. "If you can decide where you'd like to begin"

He laughed.

His laughter, just like his voice caused her skin to ripple in excitement. It rippled in her ears causing tightness in her belly she couldn't explain. The same kind she had felt at the café earlier that morning. Could this be what they mean in the movies when they say someone feels butterflies?

Jean Pierre cleared his throat and they both turned to face him at once.

"Have err you both met somewhere before?"

"No" "Yes" they both replied at once.

Oh God!

"We may have met accidentally over coffee, this morning, Sir" Brown offered.

“Not together”

“Not exactly a date”

"Definitely not a date Sir"

Jean Pierre raised both hands in mock defense.

“I accused you of nothing, Ma Cherie” he said, but his eyes screamed another thing entirely. Brown had a smirk on his face; such annoying, beautiful face.

“May we?” he offered.

She finally exhaled rather loudly and walked out the door. Today couldn’t get any worse.

------------

“Are you stalking me?” she asked the moment Brown shut the door behind them.

“I wish I was” he said. The smile on his lips seemed etched to his very face. She tore her eyes away from his lips and headed down her right, towards the elevator.

Wait, what did he mean by that reply? Was he stalking her?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s what supposed to mean?” he fired back at her, coolly.

“I wish I was.” She tried imitating him.

They were at the elevator now, with BB AND B CORPORATION designed in large gold characters above the elevator.

“I wish I were stalking you. You’re one swell American, milady”

“So, you’re stalking me then?”

“I wasn’t, if that helps. How long have you been working with BB and B?”

He was smart; she would give him that, changing the topic when it got uncomfortable.

“Three years”

“And you’ve been Jean Pierre's Secretary all along?”

“You’re not on first name basis with him just yet, Mr. Brown”

“My sincere apologies, milady. Permit me to rephrase."

She shook her head finding no words to reply this perfect English gentleman. The last time she felt this blank was when Stewart had made fun of her warts in from of the entire class. But that was the bad kind of speechless. This time, it was a sweet kind of speechless. Her insides feel on fire, like a furnace was burning inside of her.

Yet here she was, freezing at his every word.

“Never mind, I ask the questions here for now” she said the moment they were inside the elevator. He smiled, and nodded.

“So where are you from, Brown?”

She bit her lip as soon as the question kept her lips. His accent already screamed England.

“England” he replied. Obviously.

“And you came here because...?”

“I needed a place where the dogs don’t bite, milady"

What’s that supposed to mean? But she didn’t ask. It didn’t really matter. This was business space, not an animal shelter.

“Did Jean Pierre hint you the exact nature of your job?”

“Not exactly”

“You'd need to take decisions seriously if you’re to work with me, Mr. Brown”

“Okay. I guess”

“As you might know already, BB and B Corporation is a real estate firm. Jean Pierre is the CEO of the Corporation. Our job is directly to Jean Pierre. Fix meetings, paperwork, and more paperwork.”

“By our, you mean us, right?”

“There’s no us"

“Could there be a ‘we’, at least?”

He chuckled again. He should stop doing that.

“Isn’t it too late to be making advances, Mr. Brown?”

“Advances?”

“Never mind. There’s no us, Brown”

“I meant as a team”

Oh. Maybe she was guilty of reading meaning into an innocent question? The elevator door dinged and the doors slid open.

“But we’re a team, right?” Brown asked again, stepping out after her, but Rebekah was no longer paying attention to him.

Before them was a man in a white shirt and a blue suit, with gold studded buttons that matched the rims of his glasses. He wore a lazy frown – the kind that rich spoilt children always flaunted at the mall.

“And what are you doing here?” he directed his question as Brown.

“Good Morning, Sir” Rebekah offered.

He raised a finger in her direction, shutting her up his eyes still plastered on Brown. Brown didn’t lose his smile. His beautiful blue eyes danced from Rebekah’s face and back to the man in front of them yet he didn’t say a word.

“I still expect an answer, young man” the man said again.

Brown glanced at her face and offered a quick wink.

“Good Morning. I’m Brown Burton, recently employed technical secretary to Mr. Jean Pierre Blanc” he stretched his hand for a handshake.

Technical secretary! What was he saying?

“And you are?” The man in the gold studded shirt fired the next question at Rebekah, totally ignoring Brown’s outstretched hand.

“Rebekah Palmer, Sir. I’ve been working here for a year now, Sir”. She peered downwards, her usual uncomfortable reflex.

“Right, the Palmer Junior, you look so less tardy than usual, I nearly didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s Rebekah Sir”

Again, he ignored her protest with a casual wave of his hand. “Do well to keep your boyfriend on a leash. I wouldn’t want any strays running around my premises.”

“Yes Sir”

Rebekah waited until the elevator doors dinged shut before she muttered a quiet curse and walked off, Brown keeping up behind her.

“And that was...” Brown left his sentence open ended for her to complete.

“Jon Burne. He owns the place.”

“Is that his excuse for being a complete douche bag?”

They were walking down an office corridor with doors on either side of them.

“You haven’t even seen the worst of him yet”

“Oh really, sounds like a sore loser.”

“Yeah, a loser with a million-dollar company to his name.”

“Whatever you say, P.J”

A simple smile crept up her lips at his joke.

“Oh no, you don’t say, stray”

They both laughed.

Laughing with him was refreshing, she realized. Maybe she should do this more. She pictured herself strolling down a beach with him, laughing and kicking sand. Damn! Her biology had beaten her to it again.

“You know you’ve barely done any showing around at all” he broke into her thoughts of him.

“I didn’t plan on it, Leigh”

She was now using a shortened version of his name. Rebekah felt her insides squirm.

“You know the company has no provision for your job description, so there’s no office for that purpose”

“There is always a spare”

“Yes, but it's not on the same floor with Jean Pierre. You can’t assist his secretary if you’re three floors down.”

Lie. There was another office where Jane-Anne had been on that same floor, her brain reminded her. In her defense, she had forgotten.

Period.

She stopped I front of a door with a sign that read JJ and JAMES

“So, what are my options?”

“Just one, you shack with me in my office. I think there is enough room for two in there.”

“And what are we doing here?”

“You sure ask lots of questions, don’t you?” She chuckled. “JJ is the guy you go to if you need any extra tables and what not”

“So, team?” he stretched his hand for a handshake.

This guy sure loved handshakes. Was it an English thing? He took his hand in hers and immediately all the butterflies in her stomach came to life.

“Team”

“Finally,” he said.

“Finally, what?” she replied, although she guessed he was referring to the handshake. He didn’t reply, merely glancing briefly at her hands in his and smiling.

“Oh, that? What’s with you and handshakes”

“It’s like our fingers are hugging you know. Like five little hugs all at once”

Did he just imply that he wanted to hug her? Or was her mind already spinning crazy theories again. She ordered her eyes to stop staring at his eyes. But biology had taken over once more. She was already losing this fixture a million nil.

“You know there’s no us in team, right?

“Well, there’s a me”

“I’d rather settle for tea”

Someone cleared his throat close by. JJ and James stood at the door, munching a doughnut that was as round as he was with a cup in his other hand.

“Tea?” he asked with a rather naughty smile, tilting his cup of tea to them. “Hello lovebirds.”

Shit!