It hurt so freaking bad that their silence confirmed what I’d already known, but it really had. They’d barely noticed that I’d even worked there. They hadn’t cared that I’d made them millions of dollars every quarter.
The knowledge stung every fiber inside my body, the sense of powerlessness and simply being overlooked so consuming thatit nearly overwhelmed me. Sometimes, I wondered why I even tried, but when I found myself wondering again whether maybe, my parents were right, I immediately pulled up the numbers on the deal I was doing with Harrison.
My parents arenotright. Not about this.
I could make more of myself than just being an heiress who lunched. My mom was one of those and I loved the woman endlessly, but that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. As strange as I knew it was for them to accept, working in acquisitions was my passion.
It was what made me feel alive, what I was great at, and I wasn’t giving it up.
After checking the financials two more times, I came to the conclusion that my math had been flawless. I hadn’t made any mistakes and if Harrison and I pulled this off, I’d finally have something that was mine.
Harrison.
Discomfort threaded through me like it was being stitched to my insides when he slipped into my thoughts again. The man was all charm and swagger, and he wore that ridiculous grin like it was part of his wardrobe. Yet, when he’d looked at me across that table at the coffee shop, I’d felt like he’d really seen me.
Not as the assistant, or as an afterthought, or as a woman who was kidding herself about having it all, but as me. Aurelia Van Alen.
I shook it off, but shut down my laptop and decided I needed to look him in the eye again. By two o’clock, I was at his office. W&S was as sleek and sprawling as I’d always expected, multiple floors of glass, metal, and polished wood.
Even in the midst of their impressive workforce, finding Harrison, was easy. Naturally, he was tucked into a corner office on the very top floor. The baby of their family, but he was being treated like a king here.
As soon as I walked in, I could tell that he’d been expecting me. His secretary barely glanced up when I told her my name, only motioning me in. Moments later, she appeared with a cup of coffee for me, and not just any coffee.
It was my exact order from the coffee shop that day, too complicated to have been a coincidence. A double-shot oat milk latte with one pump of mocha and half-vanilla syrup.
I blinked at it, something warm spreading through my chest. I didn’t even think my own brothers knew my favorite coffee order, yet somehow, Harrison did. His secretary glanced at me, clutching her iPad like a secret weapon, but her smile was kind
“Mr. Westwood asked me to bring this in for you,” she said. “He’ll be back in a moment. He just had to step out for a meeting.”
I stared at the cup, shocked that he’d not only remembered, but that he’d gone out of his way to have it available for me. For a few minutes, I sat alone in his office, but then the door behind me opened.
I didn’t turn, though. Not yet.
“Are you going to drink that or are you just going to glare at it until it bursts into flames?” His voice held that same annoying, velvet-smooth arrogance as before, but there was also a hint of amusement in it today.
When I finally turned in my chair, I realized I hadn’t really been prepared to see him again. All tall and too good looking in a perfectly tailored suit, his tie loosened just enough to look accidental and that dark hair artfully mussed. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he shut the door behind him.
I lifted the cup. “Is this a bribe?”
“Maybe.” He strolled in. “I figured that if we were going to do this, it was safer for me to keep you caffeinated. I’m pretty sure that stuff is the rocket fuel that keeps you running.”
Appreciation twisted in the center of my chest, but I covered it with a scoff, sipping just to prove a point. “You know, Westwood, most men buy flowers. They don’t bother with surveillance-grade coffee orders.”
“Flowers die,” he said smoothly, rounding his desk and dropping into the chair opposite me. “Remembering the finer details? That’s how you win, Van Alen. You can write that down.”
My lips parted, but for once, I had no comeback. Harrison noticed, and his grin widened before he leaned forward, eyes locked on mine like he could read every thought in my head. “What are you doing here, Aurelia? I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”
As I opened my mouth, the door opened again and I stiffened, expecting to meet one of the other Westwoods, but nope. Instead, an entire team of decorators swept in like a small army, dragging in a tree that had to be at least twelve feet tall, garlands that looked like they’d been pilfered from a five-star hotel, and enough twinkle lights to power Times Square.
I arched an eyebrow as one woman who could’ve doubled as an Olympic gymnast scaled a ladder to wrap red velvet ribbons around his chandelier. “Does this happen every Thursday?”
Harrison didn’t even flinch. “It’s Christmas, man. Have a heart.”
“Having a heart is going to get you stuck in an office that looks like a Hallmark movie got sick in it.”
He gave me a pointed look. “That’s rich coming from a woman who probably organizes her family’s stockings alphabetically.”
I shrugged. “I color-code them, actually.”
