Summary:

Maria is finally achieving the kind of success in her work that she has always wanted. She's not going to blow all her hard work to pursue what could be with a man she only just met. If only her heart was on the same page as her mind, it would make things easier.

Notes:

Yay, chapter three. So, from here on out, the chapters are alternating POV. I don't usually do that because it confuses me. :D But, this is a typical romance novel so that's how it's written. :) Hopefully it didn't come out too badly.

Enjoy some Maria angst.

And it's only half past the point of no return
The tip of the iceberg
The sun before the burn
The thunder before the lightning
Breath before the phrase
Have you ever felt this way?

Maria stared in surprise at Steve. How had he found her? How had he even begun to know where to look? It was when she finally registered his apparel that she began to connect the dots. Steve. Stephen. Oh, no, this was Stephen Rogers. She pulled the file for the new hire out from under the stack she'd been working on and opened it.

She'd only glanced at it briefly this morning. She turned to the back pages where there was a copy of his driver's license. His face smiled up at her from the small square in the corner of the copied license and Maria felt her throat constrict.

"Shut the door," she said, this time far more curtly.

Steve immediately complied, but he didn't move from the spot where he seemed to have become rooted. Maria took a deep breath to steady her emotions before she continued.

"Was it some kind of a joke?" she asked, her voice as icy as she could make it.

Steve still looked as surprised as he had when she first saw him.

"Joke?" His voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Last night."

Just as she had been last night, she could read the emotions that flashed across his face. If he was acting, he was good. He didn't look as if it had been a joke to him. Still, Maria just couldn't believe that their meeting had been a coincidence.

"Did you know I was going to be there?" she asked, her face set hard.

"I…?" He started to ask. "But you…" Steve was as tongue-tied as he had been the night before.

Maria felt her heart softening. She knew she was being unfair. Finally she relaxed and rested her head in her hands. She heard Steve sit down in the chair across from her.

They were both silent for several minutes.

Maria chastised herself for being so stupid the night before. She should never have gone to that club. But her neighbor had a reservation she couldn't use and the woman looked similar enough to Maria that Maria was able to use her ID to get in, though the guard barely looked at the photo, he'd been too busy checking out Maria. And the reason Maria had gone was the worst part. She'd gone to do exactly what she'd done, pick up a guy and go home with him.

"You said you'd stay." Steve's soft, pained voice interrupted her thoughts. In her mind she could hear his whispered plea, "Stay." She could almost feel his breath brushing her ear at the memory.

She couldn't look at him, couldn't stand to see the pain she'd caused him. She knew something had happened between them, that he had felt it all so deeply. It's why she'd agreed to stay; it was also why, when she awoke at two in the morning, she'd left.

Finally, it was unavoidable, so she lifted her head to look at him. He was trying, and failing miserably, to look strong. And now it was about to get worse. Maria had never hated herself more than she did at this moment.

"If you are going to work here, for me." She paused to take another steadying breath. "Last night can't have happened."

The look that passed across his face cut through Maria's heart as nothing ever had before. This was going to be so much more difficult than she thought. She stood and began to steadily pace a path around her office to give herself an excuse not to look at him when she said what she knew she had to, in order to save both of them. She wasn't about to sacrifice her career for a relationship with a man she'd barely met, no, scratch that, she wasn't about to sacrifice her career for anyone for any reason. Normally she didn't feel like such a bitch when she thought that way, this was certainly an exception.

Maria was grateful Steve didn't turn in his chair to follow her with his gaze around the room. This was going to be almost impossible for her as it was. She didn't want to look at him at all, didn't want to see his face when she lied to him.

"Last night was a mistake," she said flatly, crossing her arms across her chest defensively, even though he couldn't see her.

She tried not to imagine the pain that visibly crossed his face. That same face that had been so full of love and wonder last night. As if she was some sort of rare find. But Steve didn't know her, he didn't know how selfish she was, how her career was the only thing that mattered to her. She'd been wrong to encourage any sort of thoughts that way, to allow him to touch her and make her feel so many things she didn't even know she was capable of feeling.

"Can you agree to that?" she asked.

He waited a moment before answering. Maria watched out of the corner of her eye as his shoulders raised and lowered several times as he took deep breaths.

"No," he said. "But I can work around it."

His voice was steady and controlled. And Maria felt as if she was the only one who might lose it. He refused to look at the night before as a mistake, even after she had treated him this way. She had the feeling he was going to let this slide, as a moment of fear.

"We can't do anything even remotely close to what happened," she continued harder than she felt. "I cannot be your friend. I cannot be anything but your boss."

Any other man would have made some innuendo or comment, but Steve only nodded his head mutely.

"OK, then," she said, as if this was somehow settled for her, as if she was perfectly fine with her decision.

She walked back to her desk and pressed a button on her phone and summoned Jasper Sitwell, the office manager. There was a tense silence as she and Steve waited. Maria could feel his eyes watching her but she didn't look up at him. She didn't think she was strong enough yet, not when she could still feel his touch on her skin.

Jasper finally arrived, and Maria had to say it was the first time she'd ever been relieved to see the man. She introduced the two men and had Jasper take over as far as getting Steve acclimated and settled. When the door shut behind them Maria collapsed fully into her chair. She looked down at her hands as they began to shake and tried to keep it from spreading to the rest of her body.

She now regretted abdicating the hiring process immediately following her own hire. HR had been fine with it reasoning that the position they eventually hired Steve for wasn't directly related to Maria's job except in managerial aspects. She had been hired to clean up the previous manager's mess, and to, hopefully, keep the SEC out of things. It was a dream come true to land a job like this. And the fact that she'd been asked to an interview based on one of her old boss's recommendation was just an affirmation that she deserved it. And in one foolish, selfish move, she had threatened the entire thing.

Maria shook the thoughts from her head. They'd get her nowhere and she had far too much work to do.

The rest of the day was a haze of paperwork, filtering through file after file on the computer, meetings both in person and online, and phone calls. Through it all, she successfully avoided all but a glance at Steve. Natasha said her good nights and Maria nodded her good bye, pencil in her mouth as she went over more figures. Before she knew it, the night's shadows were creeping into her office. She finally looked at the time and saw it was already 9pm. She sighed audibly and began to clean up the papers. She took the files she could remove from the office and stuffed them into her bag, then exchanged her heels for walking shoes and finally shut off the light and walked to the elevator. A few minutes later she turned out onto the sidewalk and headed for the subway.

The street, while not as packed as it was during the day, was still rather full. Summer evenings brought a lot of people out since the days were so unbearable. The subway, as well, had quite a few people. Many from the city, others were tourists riding some of New York's more famous lines. She exited several stops later and when she came up the stairs she found night had already descended.

As Maria walked the two blocks to her apartment, she tried not to think about what she'd been doing only 24-hrs ago. It was foolish to entertain the memories. She needed to do exactly what she'd told Steve to do, pretend it never happened.

The sound of a motorcycle coming up the street caused Maria's heart to quicken. She slowed her pace and stopped, but was disappointed when the driver passed by and she saw that the rider was far too tall to be Steve. The rest of the walk seemed tiresome, her feet felt as if they had turned to lead. As she finally trudged up the front steps and the three flights of stairs she could think of nothing but Steve and how he had shown her exactly what he thought of her legs.

She opened the door to her flat then shut it by leaning hard against it. She closed her eyes and let her memories take over for a moment. The feel of Steve's hair between her fingers, his lips pressed to hers, his hands hot on her skin, his tongue, good g-d his tongue, no one had ever made love to her the way Steve had. It was as if he knew her already, as if he'd spent years studying her and practicing on her. And in his eyes…

No, Maria stood up. She would not think about this again. She picked up her bags and began her nightly routine. Her briefcase she dropped onto the coffee table, then she slipped off her tennis shoes and set them on the shoe rack along the wall next to the kitchen. She pulled on her soft slippers and padded into the kitchen and grabbed up the tea kettle, dumped the morning's water out and rinsed it before adding fresh water and starting it on the heat.

She left the kitchen and began to take down her hair, failing to keep her mind from wandering to how good it felt to have Steve pull it down last night. Maria didn't have a lot of experience with men and even less with sex, but no one she'd ever been with had done that. It had been such an intimate moment, and the way Steve had looked at her…

No, she told herself again. The last thing she should ever do is think about his eyes, and how he looked at her. She might cave. No one had ever looked at her that way before. It had been his eyes more than her desire that had made her follow through last night. She had always had this ridiculous notion about what it might be like to have a man look at her the way Steve had, especially while making love.

As she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and brushed out her hair she chastised herself for her selfish fantasies. No man could be expected to feel that deeply. Men just didn't think that way. They were solely into it for the sex and if women wanted someone to care for them they should try to develop friendships with other women. And Maria was horrible at that as well.

The tea kettle whistle made Maria jump and she glared at her reflection. She was behind in her routine. She should have been out of her work clothes by now.

She walked back into the kitchen and prepped her tea, then quickly changed out of her clothes before pouring herself a bowl of Lucky Charms. She sighed at this open acknowledgement that she planned to spend the evening feeling sorry for herself. She should have the chicken and rice she'd pulled out of the freezer this morning to thaw. Though why she'd done so she wasn't sure. As Maria sat down at her small table next to the shoe rack, she reminded herself that she had considered going back to Steve tonight. Though she'd run in terror in the pre-dawn hours, by the time she'd arrived home, he had permeated her mind. The idea that there was a man out there like the one she always dreamed was almost unbelievable. If it hadn't been for this morning…

Maria chewed on her marshmallows and cereal and swallowed thickly as she allowed herself a moment of self-pity.

It figured, it really did, that he would show up at work this morning under her employ. The one man, the only man, who had ever given her what she wanted, what she needed, fulfilled an actual fantasy, was now unattainable. It would have been easier, she reasoned, if she'd learned that he was married. At least she could hate him in that case. Instead she carried the feel of his touch on her skin in a way she knew she wouldn't be able to rid herself of anytime soon.

She finished her cereal and first cup of tea. Then she washed up the bowl and spoon while her second cup steeped. She was almost back on track with her routine, she had only one more hurdle to jump.

She walked back into the main room and stared at her record player. Each night she listened to the music on old vinyl LPs and 78s. Tonight, though, would be different. When she'd been putting her shoes on before sneaking out on Steve this morning, she'd noticed his stereo system had a turntable. Out of curiosity, she'd peeked at the collection of albums next to it. When Steve had claimed not to be able to dance, she wondered if he meant only modern dancing. The albums were from the true classics, Goodman, Cole, Crosby. In fact, a few were the same as hers. Maria took a deep breath and walked over to her collection and pulled out Crosby's "Around the World." Bing's voice was crooning to her as Maria took out her laptop up and began another few hours of work.

Two LPs later, Maria finally decided to call it a night. She closed everything up and walked back to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face and finish the rest of her evening routine. She turned out the light and crawled into bed. She tried to take her usual solace in her routine; in the fact that she had her own place; in her decision to break free from Chicago and everything it had been. Tonight, though, not even that could comfort her.

Her whole life Maria had wondered what it would feel like to have someone love her. In college she'd had a roommate who'd explained that what she wanted couldn't be expected of any man. That men couldn't think that way because they were more interested in the physical aspects of life, they couldn't be bothered with romance and basic human kindness. That women had to accept that the ideas planted in their minds by reading romance novels and watching chick flicks were selfish and self-serving and just accept men as they were. At least then they would learn to be content with what they had.

But Maria had never entirely believed that. If she had, she would have completely given up her romance novel hobby, she wouldn't drive across town so she could watch the latest chick flick without risk of anyone she knew seeing her. And she would have left last night with the first jerk who came on to her instead of watching Steve across the room and wondering what he was like, aside from being brave enough to stand up to a bully twice his size. Her heart wouldn't have leapt to her throat as she watched him approach her with the pizza, his eyes on her the whole time so she knew she wasn't imagining that someone like him was coming to talk with someone like her.

Maria groaned and shifted in the bed. This, this single life, no man to have to dictate her decisions and actions to her, was what she'd wanted. She'd been so glad to leave Chicago and finally be free of her father and her boyfriend, to have her own life. Why had she even decided to go out and try to pick up a guy? Men were…Maria breathed deeply and realized that she had to change her thoughts on that. Maybe most men were, but Steve was not.

She couldn't stop herself wondering what he was doing, she took a sort of sick solace in the pain she must have caused him. It reminded her that she didn't deserve anyone who would look at her the way Steve had, who touched her and held her as Steve had. She could almost feel his arms around her now, almost breath his scent as if she was in his arms, fulfilling her dream of falling asleep in the arms of someone who loved her.

Her eyes shot open as the emotions overtook her and she struggled to breath. She sat up and turned on the light beside her bed.

Maria realized she wasn't going to sleep so she got up and opened her laptop and started back to work. She hadn't had a sleepless night since she'd arrived in New York, but she'd had plenty in Chicago and she knew how to work around her insomnia.

Maria had thought that as the days went by, she'd get used to seeing Steve each work day. She had put up with worse in her life, this was small in comparison. But it didn't happen that easily. And it wasn't Steve's fault.

He had done exactly what she'd asked of him. He didn't act any differently around her than the others in the accounting office, he didn't make comments on the sly during meetings. He held the door for her when they walked through, but he did that for everyone.

No, it was Maria's problem. She found herself waiting to hear him say "Good morning" to the others in the office, the kindness of his voice washed over her in a way that made her wish there could be more between them. When the office manager, Jasper Sitwell, commented on how well Steve was working out, Maria felt a sense of pride swell in her that she'd never felt over another person.

There were two full office meetings Maria had to attend each month. She never caught Steve looking at her, and wouldn't she have since she always found her eyes drifting to him when he had to look the other way down the meeting room table?

The second meeting after Steve started work at Stark Industries, he had been tapped to present his group's project. Some men stuffed their hands in their pockets when they stood in front of the group, and Maria wished Steve had been one of them. Instead his hands moved smoothly through the air, and in spite of her concerted effort to concentrate on his words, Maria found her mind drifting occasionally in recollection of how those hands felt on her skin. Focusing on his face didn't help. She knew she couldn't look in his eyes, so her gaze kept drifting to his lips. At one point his tongue darted out to moisten them. Maria had to reach for the glass of water in front of her as her throat seized up in memory.

In between time, she avoided the office. It wasn't unusual for her position, Sitwell had the run of the room, and it wasn't unusual for her, personally. She'd never been one to engage in even casual relationships in the office, or even casual relationships. People were dangerous, she knew well enough, but Steve was not just any person.

She made it through the rest of August and all of September without so much as considering giving in to her daily temptation to go to Steve's apartment. But by October, her mind had changed tactics and was trying to convince her that a clandestine relationship would be perfectly acceptable. After all, no one had to know.

In response, she tightened her daily routine, becoming almost compulsive about it. It was her comfort, her safety. If she could keep her days the same, she could keep her feelings under control. And feelings must be kept under control because they were dangerous.

"No, Mr. Sitwell, we cannot have an office Halloween party," Maria said flatly.

She was perturbed that he'd made it an order of business during their bi-monthly staff meeting. He should have brought it up to her in private.

"If you would like to bring candy for your office mates, you are welcome to do so," she told him. "If you want a few decorations on your desk, that is fine, as well, so long as they are appropriate for the workplace."

Sitwell looked across the table at her, a disappointed look on his face and Maria wondered, again, how on earth this man had become the office manager.

"No costumes or parties," she reiterated. "This is not Southern California."

She stared him down for a brief few seconds, just long enough that he might remember it wasn't a good idea to broach this subject in public, before dismissing the meeting.

She had a teleconference with Mr. Stark, who was in California, and a few others, so she made her way up to the 40th floor where the boardroom was. Stark and the others seemed pleased with the progress she'd made, though she still couldn't rule out the SEC stepping in when the quarterlies were released. Still she found herself with the unusual feeling of being flattered when Mr. Stark told her that hiring her was the best decision he'd ever made. Maria didn't let it go to her head, Stark was an infamous flirt after all, and he didn't know her that well.

When she returned to her office, she found an envelope on her desk with her name on it. She glanced at the door and weighed the wisdom of shutting it before she read the contents. The writing she recognized as Steve's. She didn't want him to think she couldn't read anything he placed on her desk, no matter how unusual this was, without closing the door.

She picked it up and sat in her chair. When she opened it, she slid out a ticket to the Prospect Park Zoo's "Boo at the Zoo" event. She'd seen the ads on TV but hadn't paid it much attention. She never celebrated Halloween, it was a child's holiday, as were all the others, if she cared to admit it to herself.

She flipped the ticket over, on the back there was a sticky note with a phone number on it. The word's "My cell #" written below. Maria sighed and slid the ticket back into the envelope before setting it aside to continue with her day. She could call him later and tell him "no."

She considered calling him into the office. Maybe he needed a reminder of how things had to be. Her mind mocked her at that idea. She was the one who couldn't stop thinking about him.

Hours later, she was surprised by Natasha's goodnight and waved her out quickly before returning to her work.

Fifteen minutes later she heard a knock at her door. It was a little early for the cleaning crew, she thought as she looked up to see who was asking for her.

She forced herself to remain outwardly calm as she stared into Steve's blue eyes. He was apparently not going to wait for her to call him. And, she thought, that was probably a good thing, since she really had no intention of doing so.

"Yes," she said, as if she thought he might just have some general business to discuss.

"Is that your final answer?" he asked and flashed a cocky grin that surprised her and caught her completely off guard.

She opened her mouth to reply that her answer was "no" but no words came out. She shut it again and leaned back in her seat.

"It's a really nice event," he said. "I used to go with a friend when I was in high school, we took his little sister as a cover, but we both really liked it."

He was smiling now and there was a confidence in his eyes similar to the one she'd seen when he was taking on that bully outside the club back in August.

"Steve," she started.

"It's not a date," he said. "I'm just making sure you get to know some of the nicer things New York has to offer."

She smirked at him. He sounded as if he'd rehearsed this conversation. She couldn't blame him, though.

She shook her head in disbelief at herself as the word, "Fine," came out instead of "No."

"Great," he said. "Oh, and it's far more fun if you wear a costume."

She glared at him now but he only smiled at her.

"I'll pick one up for you," he said. "You won't have to worry about it."

She looked at him in surprise for a moment, usually most men got angry when she looked at them that way, or at least nervous. Steve was probably the first person not to react either way.

"OK," was the only reply could voice.

He smiled like a kid on Christmas morning, then he turned and she listened as he collected his coat and briefcase and got onto the elevator.

It was fifteen minutes later, in the middle of crunching some numbers, that Maria truly realized what she'd just done. She groaned and lowered her head into her hands.

Notes:

This note is more of a personal note and has nothing really to do with the story, per se, except that this will probably be the last E/M story I write. I'm writing this out as a note because I have learned over the past several months since I left my abusive husband that I'm not alone and I feel compelled to keep speaking about this in case someone in the same situation happens across one of my stories. I want people to know they can get out.

I began writing as part of my self-therapy. When I was married I was not allowed to go to individual therapy because I was told we had no money. Abusers keep their victims from therapy so they won't be able to get any help. So I tried to keep myself alive by writing all my pain into my stories. I found it useful to work through things I was thinking about. I put them on my characters, whether they were specifically bad things, or just ways I thought things ought to be. The E/M stories began when I started trying to work through the sexual abuse by myself. There was no other way to deal with it. I'm sure I lost several readers as a result, but I figured my life was a bit more important than popularity. :)

Anyway, I am now in therapy, which is how I was diagnosed with PTSD, and it's been very helpful. I will probably still use my stories to work through some of my problems, but this one just doesn't feel as right to work through in public anymore.

On a side note, for those not on my tumblr, where I've been posting about the Duggar situation, what you hear and read about them in the news, that was exactly how I was raised. Anna Duggar doesn't have anything but what she's been handed by her husband, because that's what she's been taught from her earliest days that she is worth. As a woman she has no other options in her religion. She must just accept that her husband is an adulterous, child-molester and "forgive" him and tolerate him because she will be shunned and cast out by her family and friends if she doesn't. It's a very cultish thing and is not based on anything from the bible but from their twisted distortion of God's word and their worship of men. The conservative Christian community is either guilty by silence or, for their own distorted reasons, circling the wagons. So, I guess it's up to us liberals to keep talking about it.