I think the quid pro quo may be perceived by the woman. It may be implied. He did not say "you look lovely today" (actually not a good compliment as it implies she does not look lovely every day, the word particularly should be inserted before lovely). He called her "hot chocolate" or sexy. It would make me wonder where it might lead, especially if the boss has a reputation of being kind of sleazy toward other women.
I would perceive it as threatening coming from a boss. The mail room guy can be shrugged off, but not the boss. What if she didn't like being called "hot" by a married man and wanted to give him the cold shoulder, but felt compelled to laugh and act like he was complimenting her when she felt the opposite- that he was being sleazy? I don't think women should be compelled to have to act like they enjoy compliments they perceive as sleazy in order to get along or get ahead at work.
Since you have described yourself as being, what.. uptight? Can't remember the exact word you used.. please don't take offense when I say that you appear to be overly sensitive to what people say to you.
If you consider "you look lovely today" to be
not a compliment, simply because, carried to the extreme of word parsing, it might imply that you don't look lovely every other day... man, that's just extreme sensitivity, sis....
I find it much easier to just take people at their word... If someone tells me "hey, you look like you're losing weight"... I don't take it to mean, "you really are a fat-a**" .... I would feel complimented by it. I mean, I already KNOW I'm fat, and should lose weight, and if someone mentions it, it means I'm doing something right... it's a compliment.
Telling someone they look especially lovely today is not a slam on how they look every other day, it's simply a compliment, and should be taken as such.
I think that many, if not most people would not be "offended" by an off-hand compliment, as long as nothing else was implied.
Our daughter in law is a very beautiful woman.... we were eating supper with them in a sports bar owned by her grandfather, and a woman and a man came up, and the woman told her "I hope you don't mind me saying, but you are just beautiful".... she just smiled and said "thank you", and the couple left. None of us thought that they were trying to "get" anything out of it, it was simply someone paying her a compliment.
And, I realize, a boss paying a compliment is a slightly different thing, with other possible ramifications, but how do we know whether O'Reilly compliments ALL his female staff that way? Perhaps he does, and none of the others see any hint of sexual impropriety in it?
Judging from what little we have heard about her "allegation", ALL he did was make that one comment. He never did make any demands, requests, suggestions... nothing. Just a slightly suggestive compliment. And if she complained about it, he should have been reprimanded, and that should have been the end of it.