I wasn’t expecting him to stick around. Yet after Gage’s office door closed, he turned toward me, an expectant look on his face. My hand still gripped the loose string on my sweater as I waited for his next move. He sauntered to the front of my desk. But rather than him plopping on the edge like he normally would, he gave me a curt nod and walked on.
It didn’t feel right.
At all.
“Chase.” As soon as I said his name, he stopped. “Are you OK?”
He kept his back to me, but his shoulders slumped in response to my question. He couldn’t hide that. He didn’t hear me approach and nearly jumped out of his suit when my hand landed on his arm. But it got him to look at me.
He might come across as immature to many. Yet, while we were together, I saw a version of Chase Parker I was willing to bet not many had seen.
He was sensitive.
He was caring.
He was thoughtful.
And, yes, he was fucking amazing in bed.
“I thought maybe we could take a minute to talk about your schedule for the rest of this week and next. I got ahold of Simon’s book, so I’ve started familiarizing myself with what you’ve got going on.” I pulled away a bit as I spoke. Being so close to him made it hard for me to breathe.
All he did was nod briefly, then stood motionless in the hall, staring at me. Staring through me.
“Sure,” he finally said. There was so much defeat in that one-word answer. “How about we go downstairs to my office. Does that work?”
“I’ll meet you down there, I just need to grab a few things.” Running back to my desk, I found my tablet, Simon’s old-school datebook, and grabbed a notebook and a pencil.
While on the elevator, I contemplated if I should address his mood change or not. It might be best to keep it strictly professional. These continued blurred lines were making things confusing.
I tapped on the door twice and heard a quiet “Come in.” As I did, I found him sitting at his desk, turned about and facing the window. This was such a stark difference from earlier and not normal Chase behavior at all.
If he was upset about something, there were typically outbursts. There were arguments. There were incidents we had to recover from.
Calm, subdued, upset Chase was scarier.
As I powered on my tablet, I opened the datebook to the current week. He stood and wandered around the room, seeming not to know where he wanted to settle. He walked back to the door, as if he were going to leave, only to close it. Then he came back to where I was seated and sat across from me.
“It appears you have a couple meetings tomorrow we need to confirm. And there’s a dinner meeting next Thursday night that I’ll need to confirm as well. Were you aware of these?” I asked.
“Stop,” he said.
I looked up, confused.
“Excuse me?”
“Stop, Maryellen.”
Chase leaned forward in his chair, his clasped hands resting against his bent knees. He focused on his hands as if they held the answer to every mystery of the world. I found myself looking at them as well, wondering what he was going to say or do next. Then I watched one of his fingers straighten from his grip, lift from his leg, and graze my knee.
I wasn’t sure at first if his finger even touched me, it was so soft and gentle. The shiver going down my spine confirmed he had. Then he did it again, but this time his finger rubbed the inside of my knee, lingering.
I was afraid to look up. If I did, I knew the look in his eyes would destroy any self-discipline remaining in me. I didn’t want him to know how much I missed him.
He couldn’t know.
But my body betrayed me. Totally betrayed me.
CHAPTER 8
