Negotiating Skills Read Online Free Page B

to himself resisting the urge to stroke himself
through his pants.
    “ I need to decide if this
working relationship can be salvaged,” he said gathering his papers
and leaning down to grab his briefcase.
    “ Until then I suggest you
make yourself scarce and try to curb your voyeur tendencies,” he
said as he strode toward the door.
    He paused in front of Veronica and
slowly ran his free hand up her arm and gently moved her to the
side.
    “ I’ll be in touch regarding
the status of your contract,” he said as he opened the door and
strode out of the office.

CHAPTER SIX
    Veronica woke the next
morning groggy , disoriented, and horny as
hell. She struggled to hold onto a dream that featured Victor Rossi
and a bowl of ice cream.
    She snuggled a pillow to her stomach
hoping to return to the fantasy when the events of the prior night
crashed through her psyche.
    “ Shit,” she yelped out as
she shot up to a sitting position.
    She whimpered as the room began to
swim around her and the contents of her stomach began to roll
around in earnest. Clutching her aching head she glanced around the
room and saw an empty bottle of rum sitting on her nightstand
alongside several empty beer bottles and empty chocolate bar
wrappers.
    Looking down she saw that she was
still dressed in her clothes from the previous day. They were
rumpled and stained with what looked like streaks of chocolate. She
wiggled her toes and felt a lone shoe dangling from her right
foot.
    “ Shit,” she repeated as she
lay her head back down gingerly on her pillow. She wanted to pull
her covers over her head as the events of the prior night played
through her head over and over again.
    She barely recalled collecting her
things and making her way home, but she vividly remembered Rossi
pleasuring himself, and the disastrous end to her presence in his
office.
    She couldn’t believe that she had let
her stupid attraction to Rossi jeopardize the project. Even now,
knowing that it would take her months to recover financially from
the loss of his account, she was aroused by what she had
seen.
    “ You’re pathetic,” she
mumbled into the empty room. She slowly sat back up and swung her
legs over the side of her queen sized bed.
    She toed off her remaining shoe and
stood carefully. Bracing herself mentally, she made her way to the
bathroom removing her clothes along the way. She wobbled into the
shower stall and turned the cold water on blast.
    She stood shivering under
the stinging spray of water waiting for her head to stop spinning
and her jumbled thoughts to settle. I need
a game plan , she thought as her brain
eventually stopped its chaotic panic.
    She reached to turn on the hot water
and let the growing steam in the shower relax her tense
muscles.
    She’d dealt with bad situations before
when she was in New York. Admittedly, none of them involved her
watching a colleague or superior in a compromising position, but
she had survived. In the end her work had always spoken for itself.
She just needed to convince Rossi that regardless of the situation,
she was the best person to complete the project.
    She shook her head and admitted to
herself that the chances of Rossi choosing to keep her contract
were slim to none. Best case scenario was that even if she couldn’t
count on him as a reference in the future, she could still use her
work with him in her portfolio. She groaned softly into the steamed
enclosure.
    She needed to concentrate on being
solvent, which meant nixing her plans to hire a junior developer.
She would have to put her hear to the ground and pick up several
smaller accounts to just even things out to from the loss of
Rossi’s business. There was no telling when she’d be able to land
another account as large as his.
    Firming her lips in determination, she
reached out and turned off the water. She reached for a towel and
began to briskly rub herself down.
    “ It’s not the end of the
world,” she said bravely as she stepped out of