Finding Katie

Epilogue

Liam

The sudden sound of a knock on the door to my office started me so much I jumped in my chair. I quickly looked up.

"Hi, Liam," my boss, Robert Darnell, said from the doorway. "We're ready for Ben in the conference room, but his door is closed."

My lips parted as I slowly straightened. I'd been so deep in the contract Ben had asked me to read through that I hadn't heard our über boss approach and so didn't have an alibi at the ready. My eyes flickered to the wall to the neighbouring office, and heat rose in my cheeks. "Uhm, yes," was my brilliant reply.

"Is he with a client?" Robert asked, twisting his upper body out into the corridor to look at the next door down.

Again, my mouth opened with no reply coming. I'd closed the door to Ben's office myself, but not because Ben was with a client. If he had been, I'd most likely have been in there with him as part of my training. This was most definitely a meeting Ben wanted to take alone. "Uhm, no."

Smiling, my boss nodded and then left the doorway.

I scrambled after him, almost tripping over my bag by the wall as I tried to remove my reading glasses. I had no time to thump on the wall to Ben's office, our warning of incoming traffic.

"Robert, wait! You might want to knock–"

He did, but only once and in the same motion as he swept open the door. Then came to an abrupt halt with a startled huff two steps inside just as I reached him.

The two people inside hurriedly straightened away from each other with much the same surprised sounds.

Thankfully, they were both still fully clothed. Only the top three buttons on Ben's shirt were undone and Katie's skirt still covered most of her thighs.

Ben's cheeks took on the same colour as mine, and Katie bit her lip as she smoothed down the fabric of her skirt, but her eyes were dancing when she looked at me.

A few too many of these encounters with undone buttons and too much bared skin, and my cheeks flushing, had taught me to knock when Ben's door was closed. Especially around lunchtime.

I glanced at Robert and tried to think of something that would deflect the awkward silence, but the boss was grinning.

"Hi, Katie. Good to see you."

Leaning her cheek on Ben's shoulder, the beautiful woman sitting on the edge of the desk smiled back. There had at first been some confusion as to what we should call her, until she'd simply declared that Vanessa was who she had been, that was what the rest of the world knew her as, but that she much preferred that those who truly knew her called her Katie, as that was who she was now.

"Hello, Robert," she calmly greeted him back. "I was just taking Ben his lunch."

"Sorry about that," Ben muttered as he quickly buttoned his shirt and righted his tie. "I forgot the time."

Our boss flapped his hands and winked at him. "Don't worry about it. We've all been here."

He even winked at me, but I only blinked back, too stunned to tell our boss that I had yet to be lucky enough to be where Ben was. The closest I had come to office sex was banging Tess on the sofa in the living room in my parents' house while my mum was at the shop.

"My husband worked as my secretary before we married," Robert explained with a reminiscent sigh. His eyes grew slightly unfocused.

I glanced at Ben. Searched for words, but all I could think of to say was, "Of course."