Her Unexpected Admirer Page 0,5

her father probably expected her to stay here and work on whatever else he’d assigned to her.

But she couldn’t do it! She had to leave! She felt like the walls were closing in on her. Getting out of this closet-sized room was imperative.

Grabbing her purse and her coat, she rushed out of her office. Keeping her head low, she raced down the hallway, determined to get out of the office as quickly as possible. She wasn’t going to stop for anything.

Thankfully, her father’s office was to the left in the corner. She had the office at the end of the hallway, the smallest office on the floor without any windows. She was at the bottom of the totem pole, her father had told her when he’d assigned her to this office. No perks just for being related to the owner of the accounting firm.

Well, she didn’t care what perks or responsibilities she had right now. She needed to get out, to feel alive! She needed to breathe in air that wasn’t surrounded by the chronically bored! Escape was imperative.

Rushing through the glass entrance doors, she almost burst into the outside hallway. She was just about to press the call button for the elevator but thought better of that action. Someone might come out, find her trying to leave before all of her work was done and report it to her father. Then she’d be here for the rest of the night because in an accounting firm, the work was never really done. It could go on forever!

Perhaps she was exaggerating a little, but she didn’t care. Diving for the staircase, she slammed through the door way and ran down the stairs. When she’d reached the tenth floor, she took off her heels, wanting to get out of the building faster.

She finally reached the street level and rushed through the door, taking in deep gulps of air as she leaned against the side of the building. She didn’t even care that the air was filled with exhaust from the cars racing past as they hurried home to their families. The air particles weren’t filled with numbers; that was all that mattered.

She walked down the street, intending to walk the ten blocks to her tiny apartment. But more importantly, she was just going to revel in her escape and feel the air around her that wasn’t closed in by walls or re-circulated air.

It was cold outside, with winter just around the corner. She’d forgotten her coat but it didn’t matter. She was outside and not staring at a computer screen. Kate took several more deep breaths, letting the other pedestrians move around her as they hurried to their homes or next destination.

As she passed by one of the hotels, she heard soft jazz playing from a piano. The sound didn’t actually strike her so much as wrap around her, slow her down and soothe the frayed nerves that had become frazzled by her father’s rant.

Stopping in front of the hotel, she looked inside, trying to find the source of the music. But all she saw was the elegant lobby and people milling about efficiently. It was one of the best hotels in Boston and she stared up at the sophisticated logo, wondering what it was like inside. While her mind sifted through images, her body almost swayed to the jazzy music, humming along and letting the stress of the day flow out of her. Softly, ever so slowly, the moody music released the tension from her father’s harsh words and her most recent failure in his eyes.

“Would you like to go inside, ma’am?” the doorman asked kindly, looking at her with a fatherly smile.

Her first reaction was to shake her head. Most months, she had to scrimp to pay the rent on her tiny, cramped studio apartment. But then she remembered the big check from her paintings. A smile slowly formed on her face. She wasn’t aware of the doorman’s gasp as her smile transformed her features. Despite her ignorance of the fact, she was a strikingly beautiful woman. Her dark brown hair was tied up in a professional looking knot on the back of her head which only emphasized the high cheekbones and the elegant line of her jaw. Her eyes were a startling color of light blue that sometimes seemed almost magical, especially against her thick, black lashes. They were the eyes that one would see on a witch, her father had mentioned on several occasions, and not in a