“Yeah. Are you busy?”
Honey took this as an opportunity to make her escape. She stepped closer to the desk to grab her envelope that Nikos placed on the desk, but the moment her fingertips grazed it, Nikos grabbed it himself.
“Sorry, Allison, but I am busy tonight,” Nikos said without looking at Allison as he only kept his eyes on her. But Allison didn’t seem to notice as she pouted.
“You’re always so busy. You can’t even go out on a date with me.”
“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” Nikos said as he stood from his seat. “I don’t want there to be any question of favoritism.”
“But I—”
“Can I get my pay?” Honey asked, interrupting their conversation. She held her hand out, hoping Nikos would stopplaying these childish games that were probably entertaining to him but weren’t for her. She had better things to do than sit here and listen to Allison throw her pride away, like getting back to her cozy bed.
“You will,” Nikos said, still holding the envelope in his hand, out of her reach. “But I must speak to you first.”
“Go ahead,” Honey said, coyly. She had no problem if he wanted to speak to her while someone else was there. It would be entertaining to see him try to explain why he wanted something more with her when he just told Allison that it would be inappropriate to go on a date with her.
Nikos’s blue eyes brightened with amusement. “Privately.”
“Privately,” Allison grumbled with a small pout, looking like she regretted inviting her along to come pick up her pay. Honey was regretting it too, wondering if she should have waited for Nikos to leave the club first and just asked Georgios for her pay instead.
“I don’t have much time to speak—”
“I need to speak to you before you go.”
It was spoken with the tone an employer had with their employee when they did something wrong, and it didn’t help that Nikos looked the most serious she had ever seen him. For a moment, she almost felt like she had done something wrong. Even Allison looked shocked as her eyes frantically darted back and forth between them two before she cleared her throat.
“Well, I have to be off,” Allison hurried out, and Honey whipped her head to see her friend scurrying off for the door.
“Allison,” Honey called, but Allison only gave her an apologetic look, mouthing, ‘Good luck’ before leaving the room. Allison probably thought she was going to be reprimanded for something. Honey turned back to give Nikos an accusing glareonly to see that the serious look was gone now and replaced with a sly smile.
“Ugh,” she said, annoyed that she was in a room alone with him, which was the last thing she had wanted. But realizing there was nothing she could do about it, she decided to face this situation head-on. There was no point in avoiding him when they would continue to work together for the foreseeable future. She would give it to Nikos straight like hard liquor.
“No,” Honey said bluntly.
“No to what?” Nikos asked with his sly smile still there despite her clear rejection.
“You know what,” Honey said. “To the private conversation that you didn’t want Allison to hear about, and I guess the rest of the girls, for that matter.”
“We haven’t even had the discussion yet,” Nikos argued with a laugh, and Honey looked at him exasperated, annoyed that he clearly wasn’t taking her rejection seriously.
“There is no need to because the answer will be no to whatever you say.”
“A pay raise?” Nikos said, arching an amused brow, and Honey glared at him.
“You did not want to have a conversation about a pay raise,” Honey said.
“How do you know?” Nikos asked, taking a step closer to her. “Isn’t that what bosses and employees usually discuss?”
Honey said nothing, wary of the distance he was closing between them.
“Unless we’re more than boss and employee,” Nikos said, taking another step closer. Honey wanted to remain poised without fear, but she found herself taking a step back in retreat,not wanting to be too close to him, afraid of what it would do to her.
“We are,” Honey said, looking him in the eye. “We’re friends.”
“We are friends,” Nikos acknowledged as he disregarded all social rules of personal space, standing close enough to her that if she even moved a millimeter, they would touch. This was definitely not the appropriate amount of closeness that should be between friends, let alone a boss and their employee. But Nikos had already made it very clear to her that whatever lines she wanted to draw between them, he would cross over them every single time. Now that she thought about it, it had been that way since the beginning.
Honey swallowed thickly, before taking a step back to try to create some distance between them.
