Author's note: This gift is for klarolinedrabbles, who runs one of my absolute favorite blogs ever! And FYI, there is a Part 2 to this!
In other writing news, I posted the first chapter of a new AU Klaroline multi-chap called The Price of Ambition. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Fed up with her job, Caroline wanders into a charity to volunteer. But as much as she enjoys the new challenge, she can't help but notice something is a bit...off. And no sexy accent is going to distract her from finding out what's really going on.
"Be good for something while you live and it is in your power."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
I've witnessed more intelligence when my cat nearly strangled himself in my underwear drawer, Caroline thought to herself, marching angrily down the street, only a block from the office, where, until fifteen minutes ago, she was employed as lead web designer. She cringed when she thought back to the marketing meeting she just fled, where the executive team unveiled their latest marketing campaign for a weight loss shake called Salvatore Shot.
She watched in utter disbelief as the owner's idiot son, Stefan, gave his presentation. An insipid mix of what looked like The Bachelor contestants appeared on the screen, while a sensual-but-hollow voiceover proclaimed, "Just because you're a strong, independent woman doesn't mean you stop caring about your appearance. Shed those unwanted pounds with the Salvatore Shot." As applause broke out in the room, the cheery tagline, "Feminism doesn't equal fat," flashed across the screen before it faded to black.
It was the wakeup call Caroline needed to finally quit the corporate job that was slowly draining her soul. Of course, now that the adrenaline had worn off (and several blisters had formed from stomping around in her Rene Caovilla heels), she was starting to panic as she realized for the first time in her highly organized life, she didn't have a plan. As she stubbornly kept marching, she noticed that the once-empty storefront across from a coffee shop she liked appeared to be suddenly bustling with activity.
A statuesque blonde with fierce blue eyes was loudly directing two impossibly attractive men who were carrying multiple boxes. Curious, Caroline moved closer, reading the plain black lettering in the glass window that proclaimed the new business was called Pies for Charity. Despite the lackluster name, she was intrigued by the idea of volunteering. "Excuse me," she called out to the blonde, who immediately snapped to attention and looked at her in an oddly suspicious manner, "How do I sign up?"
The two men stopped unloading boxes to appraise her; the one with dirty blonde curls smirked as he asked, "Sign up for what, sweetheart?"
She refused to be thrown off by that unexpected sexy accent. "It's Caroline, not sweetheart." She gestured toward the storefront and explained, "To volunteer." At the group's confused glances, she asked, "This is a charity, right?"
The woman hurriedly answered, "Of course! Um...yes, we would be happy to accept volunteers." She smiled and said, "I'm Rebekah and this is Klaus and Enzo."
"Do much baking sweetheart," Klaus asked teasingly, flashing an unexpected pair of dimples as he studied her more closely.
Feeling her temper flare up, Caroline crossed her arms and said snidely, "Owning a vagina doesn't magically give me baking skills. I'm the lead web designer at Silas & Salvatore Inc." Scowling slightly, she added in annoyance, "Or, at least I was until 15 minutes ago."
Softening slightly at her unexpected revelation, Klaus replied gently, "Look, I don't think it's a good idea, love. It's too...unpredictable at the moment. We're just getting organized and aren't sure what...uh...skill set we'll need in the future."
"Come on, mate. I think Gorgeous would be good for us. Give our little enterprise some legitimacy and professional polish," Enzo cheerfully disagreed, nodding his dark head at her with a grin.
She rolled her eyes. Apparently, if she was planning on doing this, she'd need to get used to the stupid nicknames. "For the past eight years, I've been working in web, mobile and application design — from creating responsive page layouts to managing multiple project and marketing teams. I am well-versed in UX design practices along with frontend development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with a bit of coding on the side." She eyed the plain lettering of the storefront sign once more and added confidently, "If your digital presence looks anything like your storefront advertising, you definitely need me."
Rebekah let out a bark of laughter, elbowing Enzo as they traded amused glances. "I like her."
Klaus sighed, glaring at his coworkers even as he shook Caroline's hand, telling her, "Welcome to the team, sweetheart."
Caroline had experienced her fair share of unorthodox employee orientations during her career; when she started at Silas & Salvatore Inc., they expected all the new hires to submit daily journal entries about their feelings, but her initial foray into volunteer work still struck her as odd. Her first indication that Pies for Charity was unconventional was when she began quizzing the trio about their organization so that she could get a feel for the culture and create a winning web design that would maximize their fundraising.
When she asked what cause they represented, they looked slightly alarmed before Rebekah hurriedly answered, "Oh, it's for the starving children in...Africa."
Nodding, Caroline then asked if there was a specific country they were focusing on, and all three of them immediately responded with the name of a country. Three different names. Flashing her a dimpled smile, Klaus clearly tried to diffuse the awkwardness by telling her, "It's probably best that we don't limit our focus at the beginning. We can start with the entire continent and then re-evaluate later on, right, love?"
Despite the first few bizarre meetings with the trio, she'd ignored that nagging voice in her head that something wasn't right and continued to work with them as she was determined to create a winning design for their charity. She'd also never felt so relaxed while working and she enjoyed getting to know her coworkers a bit more. Not to mention the way her heart did that fluttery thing whenever she caught Klaus staring at her. She thought she'd been sending him all the right signals, letting him know she was into him, but so far, he'd either failed to notice or he wasn't interested. She couldn't decide which was worse.
Which is why she was determined to take a more direct approach today. She'd arranged a quick meeting with Klaus under the guise of needing to review the color scheme and typography, and in between discussing the benefits of pre-installed fonts, she kept getting distracted by his dimples and seductive smirk. Clearing her throat, she said in an overly casual tone, "So, my friend Bonnie is a local sculptor and has a couple of pieces displayed at the Expression Gallery. I couldn't help but notice that you sometimes draw on the edges of our receipts, so I thought you might like to go with me sometime?"
His gray eyes widened, but the look of surprise that flitted across his handsome face was replaced quickly with something akin to interest as he leaned over the counter and his voice dropped to a sexy growl, "Well, sweetheart, as it so happens..."
Unfortunately, he was cut off by Enzo barging into the kitchen, carrying a large box in front of him as he asked, "Klaus, this is the package of..." noticing Caroline was in the room, he paused briefly and then continued with, "The ingredients we requested have arrived. Where did you want them?"
Standing a bit straighter, Klaus quickly directed Enzo toward some shelves in a back office. After their coworker left, Klaus was quiet for a moment, as though contemplating something. He finally sighed and said, "Sweetheart, I appreciate the offer, but unfortunately this isn't the right time for me to be...distracted at the moment."
Feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment and indignation at being referred to as a 'distraction', she hated how she thought she heard a hint of regret in his tone. Squaring her shoulders, she flashed him an overly bright smile and replied, "It's fine, really. I normally keep my professional and social lives separate anyway. If you get a chance, you should go check out the gallery though. We have some really talented local artists."
"Love, it not that I don't —" he started in a gentle tone, reaching out to grasp her hand.
Caroline quickly moved away, gathering her laptop and purse as she gave him another fake smile. As she fiddled with the silver buckle on her purse, she said reassuringly, "Klaus, really, it's fine. I'm fine. It's all — fine. I think I have enough for this phase of the project, so I should get going. I'll see you later." She managed to get out the door without further mortification, and decided to sulk across the street at her favorite coffee shop, Malcontent Coffee.
She used to stop by a few times a week because she enjoyed their cutely named 'pseudo dark side lattes', plus the two pretty-boy owners, Marcel and Lucien, were always nice to look at. She hadn't been by since she'd started volunteering across from them, partly because she'd gotten the impression from watching her new coworkers that there was some sort of rivalry going on between the two shops and she had no interest in whatever was going on. The odd glances, the awkward silences and whispered conversations convinced her to stay out of it.
As she stood in front of the register, Marcel brightened as he recognized her. "Caroline, haven't seen you in a bit. Everything going ok?"
She nodded politely and explained, "I started volunteering across the street; their web pages were a bit more complicated to redesign and have been taking up quite a bit of my time."
Lucien poked his head out of the back office and said with a charming lilt to his voice, "Did I hear correctly that you're donating invaluable computer skills to the degenerates who run that questionable pie shop?"
"Seriously? Look, I don't know what bizarre pissing contest you guys have going on, but leave me out of it," she said, rolling her eyes as she inhaled the heavenly aroma of vanilla and caramel with a hint of garam masala.
Exchanging an amused glance with Marcel, Lucien said in a placating tone, "Easy there, we're just wondering if you'd extend us the same courtesy, Caroline." Frowning slightly, he explained, "Our site's been glitching and it's beyond our paltry IT skills to fix it. Any chance you could help us out?"
Rattling an empty coffee cup, Marcel said in a pleading tone, "Free lattes for the next century...or until the Tampa Bay Bucs win the Super Bowl."
Giggling, she agreed, "Fine. But they better come with some of those saffron sweet potato muffins." She glanced at the clock and realized the edits to the landing page that Rebekah requested still needed to be done, so she told them both, "I'll come around in the next couple of days and take a look."
Waving good-bye, she headed out, feeling a bit lighter as she realized that just because Klaus wasn't interested in her didn't mean that others wouldn't be. She could have sworn that both Marcel and Lucien seemed to have perked up considerably when they noticed her walk in...
The next day, Caroline had planned to avoid Klaus by working with Rebekah on the revisions she requested, but when she arrived at the shop, the demanding blonde was nowhere to be found. She had just finished telling Enzo to have Rebekah call her when she was ready to review the new layout when Klaus intercepted her at the door.
His gray eyes seemed to light up when he saw her, but his voice was uncharacteristically soft and hesitant. "Caroline, I'm pleased you stopped by. How goes the website redesign?"
Why did he have to look even better today than he did yesterday when he rejected her? She tried to ignore the way his dimples cut into his cheeks when he smiled at her, and she told herself that the collection of necklaces he always seemed to wear was clichéd and off-putting rather than immensely appealing. Putting on her best professional tone, she answered reassuringly, "The project deliverables are on schedule. Rebekah has agreed to the fixed-width layout for consistency across platforms and I've input her latest edits to the focal point design along with the navigation features we discussed. The menus and links are functioning properly and I just need someone on your staff to do a final review before we re-launch."
He nodded, the slightly glazed look in his gray eyes familiar to her whenever she discussed web design with anyone outside of the industry. Shaking his head slightly, he replied, "That sounds...complicated, but I trust our business venture in your capable hands, sweetheart." He paused, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he seemed to search for the right words to say. "And um...how are you doing? We didn't get a chance to talk again yesterday..."
Blue eyes widening in alarm at the thought of having to revisit her humiliation with the object of her crush so soon, she quickly said in a brisk tone, "There's no need. We're friends and that's great. Everything is...great." Giving him what she hoped was a convincing smile, she hurriedly placed her laptop back in its red leather case, tucking a few blonde strands behind her ear as she hastily told him, "I should be heading out anyway. I've uploaded the latest draft of the site to your company's shared drive, so if you could take a look at it this morning, I'd appreciate it."
A frown marred his handsome face, but he nodded in agreement and told her, "I'll do that after I discuss a few business items with Enzo." He turned to head toward the kitchen, but stopped suddenly to look at her once more. Her questioning brow seemed to throw off his normally confident demeanor and he awkwardly added, "Caroline...you look...I mean to say that I think...um..."
His bizarre words were mercifully cut short by Enzo shouting through the kitchen door, "Klaus! On a bit of a timetable, mate!"
Klaus told her abruptly, "You look pretty today. Every day, actually. That's all," and then stomped toward the kitchen until he was out of sight.
What the hell was that? Shaking her head in confusion, she walked out the door, only managing to get a few feet before she realized that she left her phone on the counter. Groaning at the likelihood of another awkward-yet-confusing encounter with Klaus, she decided to quietly sneak back in the store, hoping that he and Enzo were still in the kitchen and wouldn't hear her come in.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she managed to tuck her phone into her laptop case without incident, turning to quietly walk out of the store again when she couldn't help but overhear Enzo telling Klaus, "It's gone up in price and the supplier is getting nervous. We may have to take him out of the equation."
"Not yet," Klaus said in an authoritative voice. "Not until he's given us everything. Then we can talk about moving the kilos to a neutral location. Soon, we'll be ready to make our move."
Caroline managed not to gasp as she stood frozen in place, Enzo and Klaus' damning words playing over and over in her mind. Supplier. Kilos. Take him out. Heart pounding, she realized that it sounded like her coworkers were talking about drugs. As ridiculous as it seemed to her, based on her late-night crime drama marathons, they likely were coke dealers. Holy shit. Pies for Charity was a front for smuggling coke.
