His eyes widen.
“Not like that,” I stutter. “Sorry, it’s something I say with my housemate. I like being told I’m doing a good job, if I am. I don’t want falsities, but…” I take a slow breath. “It’s nice to be appreciated.” I squeeze my eyes, but I can still see his smirk. “I want to crawl under my desk now. Is that possible?”
He chuckles. “Learning what you need from me as your manager is helpful. No crawling required.” He looks down and up and fumbles with his cap before clearing his throat. “In summary, you’ll be great here. And as I learn about myself and hopefully improve, I’ll get involved in other areas of Coulter. In the meantime, you can speak to my counsellor. I’ve put his number in your work mobile.”
He slides the phone over to me.
“This is the main way I’ll contact you. Sometimes I need to travel. I promise to only call during work hours, unless it’s an emergency?—”
“Like…?”
“Like the dog sitter has shit all over the dog and fallen down a hole, and he’s trapped with a poo-covered dog and is suffocating and?—”
“Okay, that’s enough.” I hold my hands up. “So that’s where your head goes when someone says emergency. Bloody hell.”
He cringes. “My imagination got more vivid last year.”
“What was the weirdest thing you saw while in Greece?”
I’m mesmerised by how he strokes his defined jaw with the tip of his thumb. “Aside from a man trying it on with a woman who was way out of his league without even asking her name?” he says, referring to the guy chatting me up when we met.
I smile as I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
“I didn’t leave the villa until that night but managed a few trips out the week before I returned home. I watched someone bungee jump off a crane on the edge of a river.”
“Why was that weird?”
“The guy vomited on the way down and kept getting hit by it while he cried.”
I walk to the door with my laptop under my arm. “That’s enough chat with you today. I’m going to research nutritionists, trainers, and dog walkers.”
He chuckles as I leave the room and sit at my new desk, which is positioned outside his office.
I locate my login information and everything else I need in a folder labelledBella.
A smirk toys with my lips as a barista appears in front of me. “Niki ordered coffee for you, but he wasn’t sure what yourfavourite was, so I’ve brought three kinds of coffee with different sprinkles and syrups.”
The barista reminds me of one of Sasha’s exes. He’s hot, but nothing compared to the boss I refuse to have a crush on.
I grab a latte and point to the other coffee on the edge. “Is that for Niki?”
He shakes his head. “He makes his own.”
“Thanks,” I say.
I photograph the barista’s trolley and send it to Sasha while resisting asking the barista if he’s ever slept with a crazy brunette who shrieks in bed. She tells me too much about her sex life. I wish I could share something, but that would involve having time to fuck someone who’s attracted to me. It’s hard enough fitting in vibrator time.
As the barista leaves, I fumble with my phone. A smiling Tabi holding a rabbit from the weekend fills my lock screen. I’ve resisted telling Niki about her, but I won’t hide her. And I can’t lie to him, especially after how we met.
I blow on my coffee, debating my next steps. I don’t want to change who I am in his eyes, but if this does, that tells me all I need to know about Niki Coulter.
I sip my coffee, letting it scald the back of my throat before knocking on Niki’s door. I wait for him to answer, understanding his need for control better after seeing him with Senna and Connor.
“Come in, Rosie.” I shiver at his commanding voice.
I take another burning gulp of my coffee and fake a smile. “I can get my coffee, and I should be getting yours.”
“I don’t need you to.”
