The CEO’s Quadruplets

Chapter 7

            Even though it was a sunny afternoon, Amory Blake was locked up in his luxurious office. The finery was a help, but Isabella knew she could never spend so much time in the same four walls. He had work to catch up on since he had been away from the office acting as a somewhat honorary producer as well as assisting his sister at some benefits to ensure they met their quarterly quotas. It seemed to Isabella that her husband was always playing catch up with paperwork, but he never passed it off to someone else. Other executives would have a team of people doing this work for him, but he had been doing some of the same time since his arrival to the office as a teenager working for his father. There was no taking him from his work, but she could at the very least distract him for a moment with something much more appeal than paperwork.

            Isabella made sure to arrive looking particularly good. She knew her husband always became much more malleable when she wasn’t in sweaty yoga clothes. Actually, he would bend to her will fairly easily regardless, but Isabella wanted him to be like putty in her hands. After leaving Anne’s place, Isabella ran home and threw on a snowy white eyelet lace dress she picked up in Italy. The lace had been handmade, and the flowing skirt gave some growing space for her widening midsection. Isabella even put on her summer wedge heels, but did so mostly because the warm season was meeting its end soon. She felt confident as she rose upward into the sky and towards the level where her husband would be without a doubt.

            It had been months since she stepped through the foyer of the top floor, but it seemed all the same faces smiled back at her. Isabella had never confirmed it, but she once heard rumor that she was now part of the employee training packet. An intern slipped this tidbit of information to Isabella after having too much wine at the holiday party she attended. At that point, their romantic relationship was still very new. If the girl had not lied then, what was she to these company workers now?

            The same young woman sat behind the secretary’s desk outside of Amory’s office. She waved warmly to Isabella before dialing up the man inside.

            “Mr. Blake, your wife is here to see you,” she said in a sing-song tone.

            “Thank you,” Isabella whispered to the chipper woman as the locked door unlatched, and Isabella set herself to pushing the heavy door out of the way.

            Stepping inside, the room was about the same as Amory remembered. There was a wall of windows overlooking Vine Street with the famous record company building in the near distance. The room was given depth by the black wood paneled walls that brought a serious tone to the space. The same light leather sofa and glass coffee table sat under the window glass. The same dark wooden desk and green velvet chairs sat in the center of the back wall, which was then flanked by a door to a closet and a bathroom door. However, Isabella had her eyes focused on where Amory sat in his luxurious desk chair. Typing away at his laptop’s keyboard, he scanned the screen one more time before shutting the computer. He looked up at her with a smile as he pressed the button to re-lock his door on the desk.

            “Hello, dear. It’s such a surprise to see you here. I thought you hated coming to the corporate office.”

            “That’s a new feature,” Isabella noted calmly. “Is there a reason that you installed such a thing?”

            Amory shrugged. “I am lazy. Sue me.”

            Isabella did not really care about the button. She was only leading into her real reason for being there. Amory looked at her, waiting for the charade to end. Fishing through her bag, the magazine appeared, and Isabella handed it to him across the desk.

            “Speaking of new features, this was featured in the gossip rags in the checkout line. There I was, all queued up to buy fruits and meats and things when I saw your face in a tabloid. Have you ever been in a tabloid?”

            “I think this may be a first…” Amory’s voice trailed off as he quickly skimmed the reference to him before tossing it the trash bin under his desk. “Are you jealous, Bella?”

            Isabella tossed her bag aside as she replied, “No, but it does have me worried, Amory. This kind of thing doesn’t happen without someone provoking it. You are not exactly a hot topic for publications such as this one, and it was not the only one. There were three.”

            Isabella came around the desk and leaned against the shining lacquered wood. With little effort, she hopped up on the desk, and pushed back memos and other trivial papers in the process. She crossed her legs, knowing that doing so would let Amory see up her skirt to the pink lace underwear that she pulled out just for the occasion.

            Amory looked down, and then met her eyes smiling wickedly. “I think the only one trying to seduce me is you, Mrs. Blake.”

“I know,” Isabella replied with a matter of fact tone. “But I don’t want to see things like this when I go get groceries, Amory. It’s unsettling.”

Amory looked away to the windows. “Do you want me to talk with Miss St. Clair?”

“Yes.” Isabella smiled without reservation as she stared him down.

“Shall I send out my own press team to counter these claims?”

“That sounds good to me.”

Amory stood from his chair, letting his hands rest on the bare skin of her thighs. His hands were warm against the coolness of her own body. “Should I buy a private island for you? Or would you prefer the moon? I’m sure somebody is selling that rock for the right price.”

“Would you do that for me?” Isabella whispered, drawing him closer.

“Right now, I would do anything for you, my Bella Donna.”

Finally, their lips met. Isabella could taste the salt of the potato chips he hid in his desk there on his tongue. In the back of her mind, she knew that her whole plot had been to satiate the thirst of her pregnancy hormones. This touch only made that primal part of her hungrier. At the same time, she had become so accustomed to the often-ness of their intimacy when they began trying to conceive that their dry spell of several days left her wanting more.