he thought it was more like ensuring that she wasn’t worried.
So why was she not letting him help her in this instance? What had happened this time that was so personal she couldn’t tell him about it? Did she not trust him for some reason? He immediately dismissed that idea. Helen trusted him more than she trusted herself. “Why don’t you come out to lunch with me and fill me in on what’s going on? I don’t have any plans, do I?”
“Except me,” a sultry, female voice said from the left.
Helen gritted her teeth when the painfully lovely blond sauntered toward Dimitri, draping herself against him as she reached up and kissed him. She resisted the urge to slap the woman’s sexy smile or to scratch her eyes out. She didn’t think Dimitri would appreciate his girlfriend being mauled by his mousy secretary.
Dimitri immediately pulled away but Helen noted that he maintained his hand on her back. “Barbara, what are you doing here?” he asked.
The beautiful, blond Barbara laughed her sexy laugh and winked at him. “You’ve been a naughty boy lately! I told you to let me know when you came back to town but you snuck in. Fortunately, I found out and am here to kidnap you for lunch.”
“I already have plans to take Helen out today,” Dimitri said.
Barbara smiled victoriously. “Don’t be silly dear. She already has her lunch and I’m starving. Besides,” she started off, only to finish with a whisper in Dimitri’s ear.
Dimitri smiled broadly and laughed. “Good enough,” he said to Barbara. Turning to Helen, he said, “Do you mind if I give you a rain check on that lunch?”
Before Helen had a chance to even open her mouth, Barbara spoke up for her. “Of course she doesn’t mind. She’d probably feel uncomfortable in the places you like to eat for lunch.” Without another word, Barbara pulled Dimitri along behind her, talking in a low voice and laughing seductively.
Helen watched them leave, her eyes boring holes into the back of the awful monster parading as a female human being. She was simply beastly! How dare she say that Helen wouldn’t enjoy a gourmet meal?
She wished she’d had the courage to have told Barbara off. Perhaps something assertive or witty, something that would put the awful woman in her place. Unfortunately, nothing had come out of her mouth but surprise.
Helen looked down at her sandwich that had been mashed by a file at some point in the day and cringed. The turkey on rye just didn’t seem very appetizing right at the moment. Sighing, she stuck the sandwich back in her drawer and turned to her computer, finishing up the report she’d been working on before Dimitri had approached her desk.
She worked through lunch, not even remembering to take out her sandwich and eat it. She was picking up the files to be brought to marketing when the two of them came back to the office an hour and a half later.
“Hello again,” Barbara sing-songed as Helen passed by.
“Good afternoon,” Helen said crisply, ducking her head as she left the room, not wanting to be subjected to the inevitable goodbye kiss between the two love birds.
Ten minutes later, she walked back to the office. Thinking ten minutes was more than enough time to say goodbye, she cursed her luck. Barbara was just coming out of the executive suite and smiled victoriously at Helen.
Helen tried to walk politely by the woman to her desk but her luck was really in the gutter today. “You’re out of your league,” Barbara said, standing in front of Helen’s path so she had to stop or walk around the taller woman. Helen chose to simply stand in place, eyebrows rising in polite inquiry but she held the thick file folder in front of her chest defensively.
Helen debated long and hard as to whether to respond but in the end, she couldn’t get rid of the voice inside her head telling her that manners were important. “I’m sorry?” she asked, hugging the file folder to her chest as if it would ward off the other woman’s evil comments.
Barbara sneered and seemed to roll her eyes at Helen’s response but she wasn’t going to lose this confrontation. “Dimitri,” she snapped as if the name clarified everything.
“What about Mr. Theopolis?” Helen asked, wanting to escape the woman’s cloying perfume and irritating manner. She figured the best way was to let Barbara say whatever she needed to say so they could both get on