16
Jonah stared at the palm-sized ornament on his desk. The green glass had caught the winter sun, casting refractions on the dark carpet and fabric blinds, enchanting anyone and everyone who’d graced his office that day. But as beautiful as it was, it was the accompanying note that had enraptured Jonah more.
Jonah Gray. We will talk soon, I promise x
No signature, but Jonah didn’t need one. Even without his full name spelled out, he recognised Sacha’s spiky scrawl even though he’d never seen it before—it matched his personality. The delicate Christmas tree decoration? Not so much.
Or maybe it did, and Jonah didn’t know Sacha Ivanov half as well as he’d thought.
You don’t know him at all. The realist prancing on his shoulder was hard to ignore. Jonah dug deep for counterarguments, but all he could come up with was that Sacha liked to eat and be bossy about orgasms.
He wasn’t bossy on Friday night.
There were exceptions to every rule, though, right?
Jonah hoped so, or he was destined to spend the rest of his days thoroughly confused.
We will talk soon…What did that even mean? Talk about what? As contradictory as the weekend had been, Sacha had made himself perfectly clear, and caught at the right moment, Jonah had accepted it. Mostly. Partially.
Actually, not at all, but he’d failed to figure out what that meant, so he’d left Sacha alone. Running into him at the market had been as unexpected as the gift he’d no plans of buying until he’d seen it on the hemp stall next to the coffee cart. And now here he was, eyeing up the glass pyramid that had mysteriously appeared on his desk that morning, when he had a million and one things he should’ve been doing instead.
It was lunchtime before he had a chance to venture out of his office. He didn’t stop himself sweeping the floor for Sacha. Didn’t even try. And for once, he didn’t have to search far. Sacha was hunched over Helga’s computer, frowning, as usual, his dark brows knotted, bottom lip caught in his teeth.
Why does he have to be so bloody sexy?
On cue, Sacha glanced up. Since the night of the ball, on the rare occasions they’d locked eyes across the office, it had become their habit to flit past each other as if the heat simmering between them wasn’t there. Each time hurt progressively more than the last, even when it was Jonah who blinked first, as guilty of evasion as Sacha. But he couldn’t look away now, and, neither, it seemed, could Sacha. His gold eyes blazed, and his lips turned up in a soft smile that warmed Jonah’s blood.
He took a hesitant step forward, the note Sacha had left playing on repeat:We will talk soon, I promise.“Soon” was a relative time construct.How about now?
“Mr. Gray?”
Jonah blinked. The engineer who’d finally come to fix the network issues was in his office doorway. “Sorry. What?”
“I just came to tell you I’m all done. I have some paperwork for you to sign.”
Of course he did. Sometimes, Jonah feared that his signature was the only reason he’d been put on the earth.
He flipped through the half-dozen sheets on the engineer’s clipboard, signing his name to who-the-hell-knew what. Sacha watched him, the half-smile still playing on his lips, until his phone distracted him, and his frown returned, deeper this time, as if it meant more.
Jonah frowned too, and the need to reach Sacha became abruptly more consuming. But the engineer wasn’t done with him. Paperwork became a detailed explanation of the work he’d done. Then a guided tour, and a sales pitch for a permanent maintenance contract Jonah would’ve signed a thousand times just to make the conversation end already.
By the time he was done and the engineer had left, Sacha was no longer at Helga’s desk. For reasons that made no sense, it felt likeGroundhog Day—a series of tedious, predictable events that led absolutely nowhere. The day dragged on, and, of course, Sacha disappeared, taking the brief rush of hope he’d gifted Jonah with him.
As evening drew in, the office emptied out. Jonah was the last FG employee left standing. He tidied the break room for no other reason than to wait out Sacha’s appearance from the alcove in the Blutecc office. Twenty minutes later, the coffee machine had never been so clean, but his only reward was looking up in time to see Helga turning the lights off in the alcove as she left.
She was alone. Jonah intercepted her at the exit. “Where’s Sacha? Did he leave?”
Helga jumped, files slipping from her grasp and to the floor. “Shit. Sorry. Yes, he left hours ago. Didn’t you see? You two seem to have eyes on each other every time I look up.”
Jonah stooped to help gather the files. “I didn’t see. I’ve been busy. He left this afternoon? Why? He’s usually here until midnight.”
Helga cocked a perfect brow as she stood. “I don’t want to know how you know that, and I don’t know why he left. He got a phone call that upset him then he was gone.”
“A phone call? From who?
“I’m not sure, he was talking in Russian for most of it, but Ithinkhis father passed away.”
“You think?”
