Monday and Tuesday at Crealite were uneventful. Sean started coming in at 8:30am, which was earlier than he usually did, so that he could have some extra time with Elana. Monday morning he had asked her if she wanted to go across the street to Starbucks and get some tea together. He remembered that she liked tea in the morning instead of coffee and that she actually only drank coffee at casual dinners or at home. In any event, Elana declined the tea invitation Monday morning because she had already stopped and bought her own to bring it to the office. Tuesday morning Elana did go to see Sean to ask if he had informed the Administrative Staff that she would be conducting their interviews starting that morning...
Sean heard his phone buzz so he turned on the speaker.
"Yes, Charlotte?"
"Mr. Logan, Ms. Powers would like to see you."
Sean turned off the speaker and chuckled to himself because Elana felt she had to go through the secretary to see him. She just didn't know that everyday as he worked he also be hoped she would come to see him. The last thing he wanted was any more barriers to their being able to interact with each other. He turned the speaker back on. "Send her in Charlotte and from now on if she needs to see me just tell her to come right over, no matter who I have in here or if I'm on the phone. O.k."
"O.k. Mr. Logan." Charlotte scowled. She was still trying to figure out exactly what was going on between them and she wondered why he was now giving Elana exclusive access to him, Sheridan Winthrop didn't even have those privileges she thought to herself. She put down her receiver and addressed Elana. "Ms. Powers you can go on in."
"Thanks, Charlotte." Elana had been examining Charlotte and wondered if the woman had ever succeeded in trying to seduce Sean. This was obviously the reason she dressed as she did and Elana knew it. The woman had a sort of sly look about her and Elana had decided the first time she saw her that Charlotte could not be trusted, so she elected to keep as much distance between herself and Charlotte as necessary. After Charlotte told her to go into Sean's office Elana made her way over. When she got to the door Sean was standing inside waiting for her.
"Hi!" Sean said almost a little too anxiously.
"Hi again Sean. We already spoke to each other an hour ago when you got in."
"I know. I just didn't know what else to say." He responded, smiling.
Elana tried to hide her own smile as she noticed the boyish look on his face while he escorted her into his office and closed the door behind him. "I came to ask if you had let the administrative staff know I was starting today?"
"Yeah, I did. Are those your questions?" He asked nodding toward the paperwork she had in her hand.
"Yes. I worked on them all weekend. I already had a skeleton, but each set of questions has to be modified with each new company."
"Can I see them?" He asked holding out his hand.
"Sure, come over here." Elana moved over toward Sean's desk and sat her paperwork down to show Sean her work. He stood observantly next to her taking in all that she explained to him about how the process works and what the answers would determine. He enjoyed working with her and reasoned that he could get used to it very quickly. In fact he already had. He loved the faint smell of her perfume whenever he was near her. He loved the way her silk blouses caressed her upper body and he loved the way she explained her work in a manner that made it easy for everyone to understand and not feel threatened. He made sure not to make any sudden moves because he did not want to scare her away. He had listened to his grandfather's advice and planned on having Elana come to him, even though he did not know how long he could keep from taking her in his arms and repeating the kiss they shared last Friday.
"So after you evaluate the answers you'll be able to determine who's working and who's not." Sean stated.
"Yeah, basically, but I rather say that I'll be able to assess who may have too many steps in the process of accomplishing their work and who may not have enough tasks. You may be able to eliminate certain steps that are arbitrarily repeated while at the same time shift work to those who may not carry a heavy load. That way the work can get done more efficiently, which will equalize everyone's workload. This will ultimately allow your employees to work on even more projects. If you say it the way you did, people will get the impression that I'm here to eliminate their job or something."
"I see what you mean." Sean said as he rubbed his chin between his fingers taking in all that she had said. "Well whenever you want to get started, you can go ahead and do so. If there's anything you might need just ask me and I'll make sure it's taken care of."
"I can just ask Charlotte instead of bothering you. I know you're busy."
"I'm never too busy for you Elana." He said softly turning away from the paperwork and toward her. "I don't want you to feel unnecessarily attached to Charlotte whenever you need to speak with me or whenever you need me to do something right away for you. Just come to me and let me know. I'd prefer if you did it that way."
"O.k. then, I will." She said hesitantly and looking away from him.
"Good. Now I need to get back to some things, but I'm free for lunch if you'd care to join me."
"Um, I can't I have to go over to my office and verify some audits that one of our new people is working on. I'm trying to follow up with her to make sure she gets everything right."
He looked at her profile while she gathered her work, and all he wanted to do was pull her close to him and tell her that he was still in love with her. However, he knew this would be too sudden and from their shaky reunion he figured she would not respond favorably. Therefore, he straightened himself up and walked away from her around to the other side of his desk near his chair while he spoke. "Well, that's always been one of your strong points, your knack for being meticulous about details and your determination to keep your integrity."
"Is that a fact?" Elana asked picking up her work and remembering how much Sean actually did know about her.
"Yes, those are the facts Elana." He said looking directly at her.
Elana returned his glance for a few seconds then placed the paperwork in her folder and turned to walk out of his office. "I'll let you know how things are going throughout the week." She said with her back to him while she was leaving.
As he watched her leaving Sean saw James cut off her path. He stopped her in the hallway and they spoke for a few minutes. Sean noticed that Elana seemed detached, but he could tell she was trying to be pleasant. After a few minutes they parted. Elana went into her office and James was heading to see Sean.
"Hey, there boss! It's a wonderful day isn't it?"
"Yeah I guess. What do you need James?"
"I need a new strategy for Elana."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean my usually irresistible charm is not working fast enough on her. I've been pulling out all the stops, Sean. Fancy restaurants, compliments, I even took her to my beach house in Cape May last weekend."
"You two spent the weekend together?" Sean asked in disbelief.
"Well, it was only Saturday night, but it was worthwhile. I could have gone all the way with her, but she had a few too many drinks and I didn't want her waking up the next morning yelling rape or anything, so I left it alone."
"So she was willing to sleep with you?" Sean asked trying to disguise his shock.
"No, not exactly. She told me that we couldn't go any further because she didn't love me and would probably end up hating me if we did anything. Can you believe that? I see that she's the old-fashioned type, feeling that you have to be in love to have sex with somebody. It's all based on attraction to me. She can be so old fashioned in some ways, but in others she's definitely not."
"How's that?"
"Well you should see some of the dresses she wears, Sean. The first one she wore made her look even ten times more stunning than she already is. I couldn't even look at her too long or else I would have jumped out of my pants and the one she had on Saturday night kept most of the men's eyes glued to her including me. It was a sheer number and hid her more intimate parts with these large sequined circles. I swear she didn't have anything on under it. It was all I could do at that beach house to keep from ripping her clothes off and having my way with her, which would have been easy, but I kept it together. It's like she makes a total transformation when she leaves the work scene. Here she's a no nonsense businesswoman with her hair all pinned up and when you take her out she's just a great person to be around. She's funny and attentive and so many other things." James continued on for a few minutes complimenting Elana's qualities of which Sean knew all too well. After a few minutes Sean seemed irritated that James was getting so familiar with her.
"James do you really think it's a good idea to be seeing the person that's evaluating and restructuring the company? Do you think she can have an intimate relationship with you and still maintain a professional assessment of your division?"
"I think my dating her will be good for the company because as long as I'm pouring on the charm, she's gonna be processing positive responses for Crealite."
"We don't want just a positive assessment, we want an unbiased professional opinion about what is causing our stock prices to plummet. I'd advise you to try not to get too intimate with her until after we've received that info. We can't afford for her emotions to get in the way of reason where this company is concerned." Sean was hoping that James was listening to him and would back off of Elana a little. This would give him time to take care of his affair with Sheridan and begin pursuing her without James being in the way.
"You're probably right Sean about that. But I do know that she does take her work seriously and is not easily swayed emotionally. I'm sure she could even be married to you and still give a fair evaluation of what's going on here."
Sean wanted to change the subject. Hearing that Elana had spent the night at James' house was almost too much for him to conceive of. She wouldn't even go across the street to get a cup of coffee with him, whom she had known almost all her life, but she would travel to another state to stay with a man she's only known for a short while.
"So what are you here for James?" Sean asked ready to get rid of him.
"Oh, I just wanted to talk to you about some of the problems we're having down in research & development."
The two talked about business matters concerning James' department and then he left. Sean was grateful that their time was over because he was getting more and more agitated with the thought of James and Elana spending the night together even though James said they did not do anything. Sean wondered if they had slept in the same bed and if James had held her as he had nine years ago in Georgia. He did not want to torment himself over this because Elana was a grown woman, so he went back to his desk to do some work and make a few phone calls to keep from thinking about it. He only hoped that somehow he would be able to get through to Elana before she did anything stupid with James, who seemed to really like her, but Sean knew he still was after only one thing. He really did not want to see her get hurt and decided that he would pay a little more attention to the developing relationship between Elana and James.
_______
Wednesday morning it was bright and sunny in New York, Sean came in at 8 o'clock because he knew he would be having lunch with Sheridan today and he figured he would probably have to take the rest of the day off to talk to her about ending their courtship. He had thought about it all weekend up to this point so he was sure that he would be able to tell her in a manner that she wouldn't be hurt too much. Sean felt that there would not be too much sadness over the affair because their relationship did not rest on very much emotion, but he realized that as a woman Sheridan would initially feel a sense of rejection and probably disbelief, but he was ready for it. When he got off the elevator he noticed that neither Charlotte nor Elana were in yet. After he had settled himself, he saw Elana come in and he quickly got up and went to see her. When he reached her door, Elana was removing her light coat and hanging it in the closet. When she saw him, she couldn't help but smile.
"Sean you don't even give me time to get myself together. You are in here every morning talking about nothing. What are you trying to do?"
Sean walked into her office and stood before her with his hands in his pockets. "I was thinking one day about you and I remembered how you liked to just call me early in the morning in Boston before class and just shoot the breeze. Usually I was half awake, but I remembered enjoying that time with you, so I guess once you came here I just automatically went back to doing that."
"Sean you're not fooling me. You have never just fell into doing something. Everything you do is usually pretty calculated even though you try not to make it look that way. All this week you've been coming in earlier than you did last week. In fact I think Charlotte said that you're usually not here until 9:30 or 10am and now you're in my office every morning by 8:30 or so."
"Do you really wanna know what I'm trying to do?"
Elana thought about it for a few seconds and decided to decline hearing his explanation because she knew it would drift into a conversation about their past life together. Sean saw that she was thinking and surmised that she did not want to go there right now and decided to change the subject. "So how did the interviewing go yesterday?" He asked.
Elana moved away from Sean and went to open her attach case that sat on the side of her desk. "It went o.k. Many of the employees were thinking it was some kind of interrogation and I could see how they chose their answers carefully."
"Will that make a difference in the outcome of your analysis?"
"Not really because generally they were all willing to tell me what the other person was or was not doing so if I didn't get the whole story from someone then another person would fill in the blanks."
"You have to be pretty perceptive to figure all that out."
"Yeah, I guess so." She said closing her case and sitting down in the chair behind her desk.
Sean walked closer to the desk and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of her. "You know what I can't figure out?"
"What's that?" Elana said putting on her reading glasses.
"If you're so perceptive why are you spending the night with James Payton, but you won't even walk to the parking lot with me if I invite you?" He now was looking directly at her waiting for an honest response.
Elana was surprised by Sean's sudden shift of subject, but she was not going to let him intimidate her. "Well first of all Mr. Logan, Mr. Payton happens to be unattached as I am, so whatever we do together after work should stay between us and not involve anyone else. You on the other hand are attached, so I don't see any reason why I should be accepting invitations to go anywhere with you that's not business related, especially considering our past together. I'm not in the habit of moving in on another woman's man and I don't intend to start now. I don't have to do that."
"Yeah, you don't." Sean acknowledged. He decided to pursue the conversation to see where it would lead, so he moved up closer to the desk and put his arms on it and wove his fingers together and with a serious look and tone he continued. "So, Ms. Powers are you saying that if I was not attached, you would consider some of my invitations?"
Elana thought he was being funny and never thought he had any intentions of breaking up with Sheridan, so she played along. "Well, I guess if you didn't have anyone in your life and if I was available and if I was interested, I guess I would accept an invitation. Why not?" She said shrugging her shoulders.
"So I guess that since you spent the night with James that means you are attached now. Am I correct?"
"I did not spend the night with James." She said with an emphasis on 'spend'. "He went to a hotel and I stayed in his house overnight. I'm sure he left that out when you were getting all into his business."
Leaning into the desk and trying to look even more serious Sean asked. "Oh, I see, so you're not attached?"
Elana couldn't hide the smile that was forming on her face. "No, Sean, I'm not, now can we get off this subject. James & I are just friends. He's a nice guy but we're not anywhere near seriously dating. Didn't I tell you that already? Why do you care anyway?"
"I care Elana for many reasons, but I won't tell you now because as you say I'm attached, but I'm going to hold you to what you said about accepting my invitations. Will you go to dinner with me next week?"
"Sean! What did I just tell you?"
"I heard you and because I know you're a woman of your word that's why I'm asking if you'll go next week. I'll won't have any unnecessary attachments then."
"What are you talking about? You're not just gonna go break up with Sheridan just because of what I said?"
Sean stood up displaying a wicked grin. "A man's gotta do what he has to and you know I'll do anything for you Elana. I'll wait until Friday to hear what night you have free next week. If I don't hear from you by then. I'll come and ask you again." He turned to walk out the door as Elana called out to him.
"Sean! Sean!" She called, but he did not answer and closed the door behind him as he left. She couldn't believe that he would just break up with his girlfriend of 2 years just to get her to go out with him. After pondering over it for a little while Elana realized that Sean was just trying to be dramatic. If he were going to break up with Sheridan it would not be just because of her, it would be because he wanted to do it anyway. It just so happened that she gave him the perfect opportunity to pin her down to a pending date when they could talk and it had worked.
She thought about her luncheon with Sheridan that afternoon and wondered what kind of business proposition the woman had in mind. She was hoping that Sheridan had grown up a little because what she did remember about her was that she basically rattled her nerves all the time because she never really talked about anything serious. It was always very superficial.
Sean heard his phone buzz so he turned on the speaker.
"Yes, Charlotte?"
"Mr. Logan, Ms. Powers would like to see you."
Sean turned off the speaker and chuckled to himself because Elana felt she had to go through the secretary to see him. She just didn't know that everyday as he worked he also be hoped she would come to see him. The last thing he wanted was any more barriers to their being able to interact with each other. He turned the speaker back on. "Send her in Charlotte and from now on if she needs to see me just tell her to come right over, no matter who I have in here or if I'm on the phone. O.k."
"O.k. Mr. Logan." Charlotte scowled. She was still trying to figure out exactly what was going on between them and she wondered why he was now giving Elana exclusive access to him, Sheridan Winthrop didn't even have those privileges she thought to herself. She put down her receiver and addressed Elana. "Ms. Powers you can go on in."
"Thanks, Charlotte." Elana had been examining Charlotte and wondered if the woman had ever succeeded in trying to seduce Sean. This was obviously the reason she dressed as she did and Elana knew it. The woman had a sort of sly look about her and Elana had decided the first time she saw her that Charlotte could not be trusted, so she elected to keep as much distance between herself and Charlotte as necessary. After Charlotte told her to go into Sean's office Elana made her way over. When she got to the door Sean was standing inside waiting for her.
"Hi!" Sean said almost a little too anxiously.
"Hi again Sean. We already spoke to each other an hour ago when you got in."
"I know. I just didn't know what else to say." He responded, smiling.
Elana tried to hide her own smile as she noticed the boyish look on his face while he escorted her into his office and closed the door behind him. "I came to ask if you had let the administrative staff know I was starting today?"
"Yeah, I did. Are those your questions?" He asked nodding toward the paperwork she had in her hand.
"Yes. I worked on them all weekend. I already had a skeleton, but each set of questions has to be modified with each new company."
"Can I see them?" He asked holding out his hand.
"Sure, come over here." Elana moved over toward Sean's desk and sat her paperwork down to show Sean her work. He stood observantly next to her taking in all that she explained to him about how the process works and what the answers would determine. He enjoyed working with her and reasoned that he could get used to it very quickly. In fact he already had. He loved the faint smell of her perfume whenever he was near her. He loved the way her silk blouses caressed her upper body and he loved the way she explained her work in a manner that made it easy for everyone to understand and not feel threatened. He made sure not to make any sudden moves because he did not want to scare her away. He had listened to his grandfather's advice and planned on having Elana come to him, even though he did not know how long he could keep from taking her in his arms and repeating the kiss they shared last Friday.
"So after you evaluate the answers you'll be able to determine who's working and who's not." Sean stated.
"Yeah, basically, but I rather say that I'll be able to assess who may have too many steps in the process of accomplishing their work and who may not have enough tasks. You may be able to eliminate certain steps that are arbitrarily repeated while at the same time shift work to those who may not carry a heavy load. That way the work can get done more efficiently, which will equalize everyone's workload. This will ultimately allow your employees to work on even more projects. If you say it the way you did, people will get the impression that I'm here to eliminate their job or something."
"I see what you mean." Sean said as he rubbed his chin between his fingers taking in all that she had said. "Well whenever you want to get started, you can go ahead and do so. If there's anything you might need just ask me and I'll make sure it's taken care of."
"I can just ask Charlotte instead of bothering you. I know you're busy."
"I'm never too busy for you Elana." He said softly turning away from the paperwork and toward her. "I don't want you to feel unnecessarily attached to Charlotte whenever you need to speak with me or whenever you need me to do something right away for you. Just come to me and let me know. I'd prefer if you did it that way."
"O.k. then, I will." She said hesitantly and looking away from him.
"Good. Now I need to get back to some things, but I'm free for lunch if you'd care to join me."
"Um, I can't I have to go over to my office and verify some audits that one of our new people is working on. I'm trying to follow up with her to make sure she gets everything right."
He looked at her profile while she gathered her work, and all he wanted to do was pull her close to him and tell her that he was still in love with her. However, he knew this would be too sudden and from their shaky reunion he figured she would not respond favorably. Therefore, he straightened himself up and walked away from her around to the other side of his desk near his chair while he spoke. "Well, that's always been one of your strong points, your knack for being meticulous about details and your determination to keep your integrity."
"Is that a fact?" Elana asked picking up her work and remembering how much Sean actually did know about her.
"Yes, those are the facts Elana." He said looking directly at her.
Elana returned his glance for a few seconds then placed the paperwork in her folder and turned to walk out of his office. "I'll let you know how things are going throughout the week." She said with her back to him while she was leaving.
As he watched her leaving Sean saw James cut off her path. He stopped her in the hallway and they spoke for a few minutes. Sean noticed that Elana seemed detached, but he could tell she was trying to be pleasant. After a few minutes they parted. Elana went into her office and James was heading to see Sean.
"Hey, there boss! It's a wonderful day isn't it?"
"Yeah I guess. What do you need James?"
"I need a new strategy for Elana."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean my usually irresistible charm is not working fast enough on her. I've been pulling out all the stops, Sean. Fancy restaurants, compliments, I even took her to my beach house in Cape May last weekend."
"You two spent the weekend together?" Sean asked in disbelief.
"Well, it was only Saturday night, but it was worthwhile. I could have gone all the way with her, but she had a few too many drinks and I didn't want her waking up the next morning yelling rape or anything, so I left it alone."
"So she was willing to sleep with you?" Sean asked trying to disguise his shock.
"No, not exactly. She told me that we couldn't go any further because she didn't love me and would probably end up hating me if we did anything. Can you believe that? I see that she's the old-fashioned type, feeling that you have to be in love to have sex with somebody. It's all based on attraction to me. She can be so old fashioned in some ways, but in others she's definitely not."
"How's that?"
"Well you should see some of the dresses she wears, Sean. The first one she wore made her look even ten times more stunning than she already is. I couldn't even look at her too long or else I would have jumped out of my pants and the one she had on Saturday night kept most of the men's eyes glued to her including me. It was a sheer number and hid her more intimate parts with these large sequined circles. I swear she didn't have anything on under it. It was all I could do at that beach house to keep from ripping her clothes off and having my way with her, which would have been easy, but I kept it together. It's like she makes a total transformation when she leaves the work scene. Here she's a no nonsense businesswoman with her hair all pinned up and when you take her out she's just a great person to be around. She's funny and attentive and so many other things." James continued on for a few minutes complimenting Elana's qualities of which Sean knew all too well. After a few minutes Sean seemed irritated that James was getting so familiar with her.
"James do you really think it's a good idea to be seeing the person that's evaluating and restructuring the company? Do you think she can have an intimate relationship with you and still maintain a professional assessment of your division?"
"I think my dating her will be good for the company because as long as I'm pouring on the charm, she's gonna be processing positive responses for Crealite."
"We don't want just a positive assessment, we want an unbiased professional opinion about what is causing our stock prices to plummet. I'd advise you to try not to get too intimate with her until after we've received that info. We can't afford for her emotions to get in the way of reason where this company is concerned." Sean was hoping that James was listening to him and would back off of Elana a little. This would give him time to take care of his affair with Sheridan and begin pursuing her without James being in the way.
"You're probably right Sean about that. But I do know that she does take her work seriously and is not easily swayed emotionally. I'm sure she could even be married to you and still give a fair evaluation of what's going on here."
Sean wanted to change the subject. Hearing that Elana had spent the night at James' house was almost too much for him to conceive of. She wouldn't even go across the street to get a cup of coffee with him, whom she had known almost all her life, but she would travel to another state to stay with a man she's only known for a short while.
"So what are you here for James?" Sean asked ready to get rid of him.
"Oh, I just wanted to talk to you about some of the problems we're having down in research & development."
The two talked about business matters concerning James' department and then he left. Sean was grateful that their time was over because he was getting more and more agitated with the thought of James and Elana spending the night together even though James said they did not do anything. Sean wondered if they had slept in the same bed and if James had held her as he had nine years ago in Georgia. He did not want to torment himself over this because Elana was a grown woman, so he went back to his desk to do some work and make a few phone calls to keep from thinking about it. He only hoped that somehow he would be able to get through to Elana before she did anything stupid with James, who seemed to really like her, but Sean knew he still was after only one thing. He really did not want to see her get hurt and decided that he would pay a little more attention to the developing relationship between Elana and James.
_______
Wednesday morning it was bright and sunny in New York, Sean came in at 8 o'clock because he knew he would be having lunch with Sheridan today and he figured he would probably have to take the rest of the day off to talk to her about ending their courtship. He had thought about it all weekend up to this point so he was sure that he would be able to tell her in a manner that she wouldn't be hurt too much. Sean felt that there would not be too much sadness over the affair because their relationship did not rest on very much emotion, but he realized that as a woman Sheridan would initially feel a sense of rejection and probably disbelief, but he was ready for it. When he got off the elevator he noticed that neither Charlotte nor Elana were in yet. After he had settled himself, he saw Elana come in and he quickly got up and went to see her. When he reached her door, Elana was removing her light coat and hanging it in the closet. When she saw him, she couldn't help but smile.
"Sean you don't even give me time to get myself together. You are in here every morning talking about nothing. What are you trying to do?"
Sean walked into her office and stood before her with his hands in his pockets. "I was thinking one day about you and I remembered how you liked to just call me early in the morning in Boston before class and just shoot the breeze. Usually I was half awake, but I remembered enjoying that time with you, so I guess once you came here I just automatically went back to doing that."
"Sean you're not fooling me. You have never just fell into doing something. Everything you do is usually pretty calculated even though you try not to make it look that way. All this week you've been coming in earlier than you did last week. In fact I think Charlotte said that you're usually not here until 9:30 or 10am and now you're in my office every morning by 8:30 or so."
"Do you really wanna know what I'm trying to do?"
Elana thought about it for a few seconds and decided to decline hearing his explanation because she knew it would drift into a conversation about their past life together. Sean saw that she was thinking and surmised that she did not want to go there right now and decided to change the subject. "So how did the interviewing go yesterday?" He asked.
Elana moved away from Sean and went to open her attach case that sat on the side of her desk. "It went o.k. Many of the employees were thinking it was some kind of interrogation and I could see how they chose their answers carefully."
"Will that make a difference in the outcome of your analysis?"
"Not really because generally they were all willing to tell me what the other person was or was not doing so if I didn't get the whole story from someone then another person would fill in the blanks."
"You have to be pretty perceptive to figure all that out."
"Yeah, I guess so." She said closing her case and sitting down in the chair behind her desk.
Sean walked closer to the desk and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of her. "You know what I can't figure out?"
"What's that?" Elana said putting on her reading glasses.
"If you're so perceptive why are you spending the night with James Payton, but you won't even walk to the parking lot with me if I invite you?" He now was looking directly at her waiting for an honest response.
Elana was surprised by Sean's sudden shift of subject, but she was not going to let him intimidate her. "Well first of all Mr. Logan, Mr. Payton happens to be unattached as I am, so whatever we do together after work should stay between us and not involve anyone else. You on the other hand are attached, so I don't see any reason why I should be accepting invitations to go anywhere with you that's not business related, especially considering our past together. I'm not in the habit of moving in on another woman's man and I don't intend to start now. I don't have to do that."
"Yeah, you don't." Sean acknowledged. He decided to pursue the conversation to see where it would lead, so he moved up closer to the desk and put his arms on it and wove his fingers together and with a serious look and tone he continued. "So, Ms. Powers are you saying that if I was not attached, you would consider some of my invitations?"
Elana thought he was being funny and never thought he had any intentions of breaking up with Sheridan, so she played along. "Well, I guess if you didn't have anyone in your life and if I was available and if I was interested, I guess I would accept an invitation. Why not?" She said shrugging her shoulders.
"So I guess that since you spent the night with James that means you are attached now. Am I correct?"
"I did not spend the night with James." She said with an emphasis on 'spend'. "He went to a hotel and I stayed in his house overnight. I'm sure he left that out when you were getting all into his business."
Leaning into the desk and trying to look even more serious Sean asked. "Oh, I see, so you're not attached?"
Elana couldn't hide the smile that was forming on her face. "No, Sean, I'm not, now can we get off this subject. James & I are just friends. He's a nice guy but we're not anywhere near seriously dating. Didn't I tell you that already? Why do you care anyway?"
"I care Elana for many reasons, but I won't tell you now because as you say I'm attached, but I'm going to hold you to what you said about accepting my invitations. Will you go to dinner with me next week?"
"Sean! What did I just tell you?"
"I heard you and because I know you're a woman of your word that's why I'm asking if you'll go next week. I'll won't have any unnecessary attachments then."
"What are you talking about? You're not just gonna go break up with Sheridan just because of what I said?"
Sean stood up displaying a wicked grin. "A man's gotta do what he has to and you know I'll do anything for you Elana. I'll wait until Friday to hear what night you have free next week. If I don't hear from you by then. I'll come and ask you again." He turned to walk out the door as Elana called out to him.
"Sean! Sean!" She called, but he did not answer and closed the door behind him as he left. She couldn't believe that he would just break up with his girlfriend of 2 years just to get her to go out with him. After pondering over it for a little while Elana realized that Sean was just trying to be dramatic. If he were going to break up with Sheridan it would not be just because of her, it would be because he wanted to do it anyway. It just so happened that she gave him the perfect opportunity to pin her down to a pending date when they could talk and it had worked.
She thought about her luncheon with Sheridan that afternoon and wondered what kind of business proposition the woman had in mind. She was hoping that Sheridan had grown up a little because what she did remember about her was that she basically rattled her nerves all the time because she never really talked about anything serious. It was always very superficial.