Chris is ranting about his travel dilemmas. Aidan doesn’t give me any indication of what he wants to talk about.
I want to answer, but I’m no longer able to think about anything but Chris’s couch right in front of me and levitating to the cushions that look like soft fluffy clouds.
“Just five minutes,” I murmur. As soon as my head lays on the cushions, I find my body sinking deeper into the couch, feeling her words tickle in my ear as I make myself more comfortable.
“Ready for some butterflies?”
This is the last thing I hear before I drift off into sleep. When I wake up, it’s nothing but flashes and giggles.
The irony of this is not lost on me as everyone at the firm is acting like paparazzi to one of their own. The worst part of it all is that Albert Linderman is here today.
I jolt upright, seeing both of their faces in the crowd, patting down my pants as if it will make a difference in the creases showing. Scrambling to pick up all my stuff—laptop, phone and jacket—has only caused me to drop my phone twice. With each drop, my stomach sinks.
“Do you normally let your employees sleep in your office, Chris?”
Chris’s lip quivers, as if he is on the verge of exploding from Albert’s comment. Albert’s phone begins to ring.
“I got to take this. Fix this” He says to Chris before walking away from my disheveled state. When Albert slips away from our view, Chris is immediately shouting at the crowd to disperse.
I have never wanted to be more invisible than I do now.
Has everyone lost their humanity? The thought lingers as I attempt to grab everything for a third time in my hands. My role of strategist is further out of reach than ever before.
The swarm of employees scatter back to their designated cubicles. When they do, Chris says in a firm tone, “Go home, Charlotte.”
I lower my head, my gaze sinking into the ground.
Once I am finally able to grapple everything in one go is when I hear the slow clap from the employees around me. Every ounce of me wants to curl up and die.
So I run to the bathroom, the quickest escape.
“Can we switch places?” I whisper as soon as I see her olive skin and arched brow appear in front of me.
“You are right where you need to be.” She says, and it’s the most vague advice you can give someone when they have faced public humiliation.
Chapter eleven
A Forgotten Dinner
From the office bathroom to the hallway of my apartment building, she remains at my hip. Casper—the not-so-friendly ghost—has not disappeared once since we left the humiliation ritual at my office. Her presence hangs in silence as we sit in the rideshare to my apartment.
“He’s there, just so you know.”
Her warning catches me off guard as I make my way out of the car and up the stairs, peering over my shoulder to see her right there beside me, making the most grimacing facial expression.
“You know he wasn’t always this way…” I say, turning my key in the door handle, cracking the door open slightly to see Aidan on the couch wearing only gray sweats and no shirt. A look on him that I prefer over the suits he wears frequently for meetings.
He jumps out of his seat as soon as he sees me. Every muscle of his is flexed.
“I came home last night and you weren’t here.” Aidan smothers me in a hug, hungrily kissing me and showing me that he is relieved I am okay.
“I fell asleep at work. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to be here at my place. I thought you were coming over tonight instead?”
“You don’t have to justify anything,” Ghosty commands. I remain still as a statue in his arms, trying to slow my heartbeat in my chest.
“We had dinner plans with my parents. You left me alone to deal with them,” he says.
I pull away from his hold. “We had plans with them for Thursday?”
