“I am going to make some changes,” I add.
He nods quickly. “Of course. Whatever you want,” he assures me. “But...this was okay, right?”
My stomach sinks a little in my lap, that this is the reaction he’d expect of me. “I’m not mad, Wesley. I mean, Mr. Chambers.”
I inject as much sincerity into my voice as I can. I need him to believe me. “I’m appreciative. You helped me. You didn’t have to do that. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if—after the way I’ve treated you—you actively tried to sabotage me.”
He sticks his hands in his pockets and glances at the desktop. “That little retribution thing? I barely noticed.”
The silence that falls between us feels oppressive, a heavy blanket. Because what can I possibly say to him now? Other than I’m sorry. I fill my lungs with a big gulp of air, swallowing my pride with it, to do just that. But he starts to tap a fast rhythm on his desk with his index fingers. Maybe the silence was only oppressive to me.
“I’m exhausted,” he says, rubbing a hand down his face and skewing his glasses. His messy hair and rumpled clothes fit together like puzzle pieces. He slept at his desk last night to get this done. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve fallen asleep at my desk from staying late and working hard. But to know he did that—for me—something inside me turns over again, like yesterday, and as it settles it feels alarmingly like IlikeWesley Chambers.
“So I’ll go get us some coffee and you can make some revision notes and when I get back we can get to work on polishing this up.”
I nod.
“The usual?” he asks.
I frown. “Umm. Obviously?”
He laughs softly through his nose. “I was...joking.”
Warmth fills my chest, not embarrassment, but happiness. The urge to smile back at him, laugh with him, pulls one corner of my mouth up but I tamp it down. All of this is so new, foreign to me. It’s the relationship I wished to have with him from the beginning. Working together, enjoying it. Feeling comfortable enough to joke, to laugh.
But now so much has happened, it feels impossible and fleeting, as fragile as a baby bird in the palm of my hand. The fear that I will wake up tomorrow and we’ll be back to what we were before—not quite enemies, but not like this—a team. It hurts to think of it.
He pulls his security ID out of a drawer and starts down the hallway. His day-old shirt isn’t as wrinkled from the back and I suppress the urge to offer to pay for his dry cleaning. Wesley glances over his shoulder before he turns the corner and smiles at me.
“Oh!” I say. I hold up his apology coffee. “This is for you.”
His smile crinkles and he turns back to me.
“I don’t know how you take it...” I hold the cup out to him. It’s lukewarm now. “It’s cold. But...I was trying to say thank you.”
He passes my own—also cold—coffee to me. “Cheers.”
I take a sip of my cold drink.
But that warm feeling in my chest is still there.
With each click of Wesley’s pen my shoulders rise a little higher. He always seems to be in a perpetual state of motion but after the stress of this morning, he’s more fidgety than usual as he follows me to the conference room. I swallow my annoyance. He saved my butt today, after all.
Plus, if I had a pen in my hand, I’d probably be clicking it, too.
I stop just outside the conference room and as I turn, I catch him. His gaze falls from the top of my head, down over my blazer, my waist, and resting on my ass, which I slowly remove from his view.
He pulls his eyes up fast but his eyes widen. He knows he’s caught. Now would be a good time to throw out a sarcastic,Catch a good look?orLike what you see?
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I can’t even remember what I wanted to say to him. I wait for the grimy feeling that comes with Richard’s leer to hit me now. But it’s conspicuously absent.
That can’t be good.
Brushing a hair off my forehead, I feel his eyes follow the curve of my neck down to my collarbone where my silk blouse brushes against my skin.
“Oh,” he says. “Red, white, and blue. You’re like the Fourth of July.”
I blink at him as embarrassment prickles my neck. Wesley wasn’t checking me out. He’s associating me with the least sexy holiday.
