Veiled threats

Fredric walked up to the building, it was a tall modern skyscraper in the middle of town,

It seemed like one of those shared office buildings judging by the sign outside.

He walk on inside to an empty lobby, it was a sparsely decorated entrance with a shining white marble floor and white glossy walls, as if they were trying to make it feel like a clean room.

He spotted central reception by on the left of a trio of small elevators, without much ado he walked up to the male receptionist.

“Hello, my name Fredric Bakerson, I have an appointment with Jane Hawkford, do you know were I should go?” Fredric asked, with a bit of worry in his voice.

“Ah, yes, I have been told to be expecting you, take one of the elevators to the top floor, then take the door furthest to the right after you exit.” the man responded with disinterest and turned to look down at his computer again.

Without expecting much else Fredric headed towards the elevator furthest to the right and pushed the button. It did not take long until one arrived as it seemed to already have been in motion from the basement.

The doors opened to reveal an attractive blond woman in her mid thirties wearing a modest dress. She stood leaning against the back of the elevator, Fredric could not move to the back without touching her, so he positioned him self closer to the door. He looked up at her gave her a silent nod and a polite smile, she responded the same and with that the doors closed as he pressed the button to ascend and turned to the door.

With two buttons pressed the elevator slowly ascended, her destination was at the floor below his.

The silence was awkward as the elevator seemed to take an eternity, the further it went the more he could swear that the woman was staring at him. He could hear her clear her throat and the clothes shuffle a bit.

Finally the elevator reached the first destination, the woman seemingly in a hurry brushed past him, her breasts lightly pushed against his shoulders as she past, as if that was her queue to resurface from a deep dive she exhaled heavily and moved out of the elevator into the office with renewed vigor.

When the door closed Fredric took his nose to his left armpit and smelled it.

“Wonder if I smell bad or something...” he mused as he tried to sense anything, but no, only deodorant.

Not long after he was brought to the top floor, into a corridor with a lot of doors, as per the instructions he headed to the one furthest to the right and walked on in.

Inside was Jane in a decently sized office, perhaps 20 square meters and tastefully decorated with the desk in the middle of the room with arm-less chairs facing the desk, but Jane on the other side it sitting in an office chair, all engrossed in a pile of papers.

Not long after he opened the door and walked in, she spoke without looking up.

“Close the door and take a seat” she motioned towards the chairs in front of her and with that she looked up. She looked a bit tired.

Without speaking Fredric moved to sit down, she continued as he did.

“So, I am not entire sure how you managed to get that information out of my former employee, no one would be foolish enough, or so I thought, to willingly disclose that budding deal, especially while under NDA to not speak about it.” She locked eyes with him, they had a green iris, pretty but clearly under a lot of thoughts as it seemed he could see the endless questions in them.

“Eh, yes… You see… I did not wish do any harm here...” before Fredric could stutter his way to an excuse she interrupted him. While he had looked away from her gaze trying to figure out an excuse, she never stopped looking.

“It is clear you are young and have a lot to learn, an investment firm could send people to fish for information, that much I have expected, but not anyone as inexperienced as you, that would be very risky to say the least. So tell me, what were you doing there and what could you possibly have hopes in gaining from asking questions about this?”

“I… I work for myself... As a day-trader... I was hoping to find good investment opportunities.” He looked up to meet her eyes broke eye contact again, unsure if he should feel shame or not, but he could see her smirk in his peripheral.

“A budding day-trader huh, I’ve done some light digging into your situation and safe to say you could not invest a lot, I thought you might be here on the behest of our competitors. Even though you could earn yourself a minor sum from whatever pitiful investment you could dig up you would only serve to draw unwanted attention to you and us as as we have a lot of eyes on us right now.” he could hear the spite in her words, she did not like the situation he brought, that was sure.

“I’ve readied a NDA for you, it includes the clause that you are also obligated to not **** the information to invest in stocks related to my company or any daughter companies. Or you are liable to face consequences” She pushed the papers to his side and gave him a black ballpoint pen.

Fredric looked up again to see her leaned against the desk, arms crossed in front of her desk with her ample breast pushed up in the shirt. She seemed to have stopped, resting on the desk towards him while sitting on the chair, not returning from positioning the pen by the pile. She had not broken her gaze upon him or the wry smile.

He gave her a quick look over, trying not to look too long in fear of seeming pervy and quickly looked into the pile of legal papers for rescue.

It was a bit to slog through, but after making heads and tails of the fine print, he understood that it was as basically what Jane had said, obligated to not take action towards the company or the daughter companies with the information he gained and he was to not disclose the information to anyone else.

If he did, there would be big fines he could never repay in his lifetime. As he checked the papers just to make sure he didn’t miss anything, he could see Jane staying in her position seeming leaning in her face even closer in his peripheral vision, licking and biting her lips every now and then.

He signed with the pen, trying his best to not look up at her, and sat back in the chair away from her.

“I’ll take these, and you keep the other ones as copies” she took one half of the pile and slowly slid back into her chair and put the documents on her side.

If it was not for her dark skin, Fredric could probably have noticed her slightly blush as she rose from the chair and started to slowly move around. He took that as a cue to stand as well.

“A… Pleasure to make your acquaintance Fredric, I trust that you will not do anything foolish after this.” she extended her right arm to shake and he took it and responded with a shaky voice:

“No… You will not. You have no reason to worry.” and as he finished that sentence she pulled his shake into a tight embrace and wrapped her left hand around his back and leaned down to whisper into his ears. Her soft body pushed against his, seemingly several degrees hotter than his:

“You better, there is more that could happen than can be put to print” Fredric was in shock and took several seconds to recover from her very intimate touch, her breast pushed up against him just below his face and with a soft cheek of her face resting against his temple, her lips a mere millimeter from his left ear.

She was not stopping the embrace, Fredric eventually decided that he would push away, he was startled enough by the threat to have figured out that he did not wish to be anywhere near this woman.

He took his left hand to her waist and his right to her shoulder and pushed away, she did not give at first, it was clear she was stronger. But she reluctantly let him go with a sigh.

He did not look at her, how could he after that, he hurried towards the door while she did not move nor break the gaze.

No one met him going to the elevator, none in the elevator and he mutually ignored the receptionist and headed straight home to process the situation.