Page 28 of About That Pact

“I see what you’re doing. Regardless, on average, I would say around six or seven.”

“PM?”

She nodded.

“You work, on average, twelve hours a day, five days a week.” Man, she desperately needed a distraction in life. She needed to live a little. Rafe was happy to be the one to do it with her. “Let’s talk about the weekend. Typically, how many hours do you work on the weekend?”

She huffed. “I would say about five hours or so each day.”

“You realize you work around seventy hours a week?”

“I told you this already. I like to be busy.” She was trying to convince herself.

Rafe let go of her hand. Once she was sitting in the seat, he shut the door and got in on the other side. He was glad he’d followed his gut and had come to her when she’d claimed her scheduled workouts were hobbies—her only hobbies at that.

He drove to CineArts at the Empire, an outside movie theater showing cult classics every Tuesday night during the summer. One of his friends had talked about it last week and said it was a good time. And a good time was what Charlie needed. Granted, he wanted to give her a whole different kind good time, but he didn’t think she was up for anything that included no clothes. Eventually, they’d get there, but not now.

“I don’t like to sit idle,” she let out with a huff.

This wasn’t surprising. Ever since she was old enough to understand schedules and responsibility, she dove right into it. Rafe remembered many vacations where she’d planned the itinerary down to the minute. And during the summers, she would always brag about how bored she was because she’d finished all her projects already. She even took notes and made flashcards on the “required” reading, even though it wasn’t required.

“How far in advance are you working?”

She tilted her head to the side, her eyes perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“What do you have that keeps you so busy?” He was being generous. She was probably doing other people’s work at the rate she was going.

“Outside of day-to-day issues, my work is all up to date.”

Rafe gave her a pointed look. “A date. When is your next due date for something at work?”

She huffed again. “September.”

That was two months away.

“Does your team need help?”

“Why would they need help when I do the work for them?” She covered her mouth with her hand, as if it could stop the words that came flying out of her mouth. “I mean, it’s not the end of the world.”

This was step one of her being aware of how much she needed a better balance in life.

He parked at the movie theater. “Stop doing their work. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having a team? You could get a hobby—one that isn’t working out. You could binge a show on Netflix.”

“I did hear Bridgerton was good,” she said with some thought.

“I read the book. It was good, you should watch it. You know what? You love to read. You could join a book club.”

Her face lit up. “A book club would be nice.”

Rafe was proud she wasn’t outright ignoring the ideas. She had to have been wanting something different in her life or she wouldn’t have been so compliant.

“You could have dinner with friends once a week. Fuck it, you can have dinner with me once a week.”

“Is this your way of asking me to have dinner with you once a week?”

“If it gets you out of the office, then yes. It can’t be healthy to stare at a computer as much as you do.”

It was such a lame excuse for him to ask her to go to dinner with him. But the more time they spent together, the more obvious how well they clicked became. Rafe was determined for Charlotte to see how good they were together.