12. Nora
CHAPTER 12
NORA
D ragging my feet into the office on Monday, the weekend’s loneliness clings to me like a stubborn stain. Lynn was out of town, leaving me with the echoing silence of my own apartment and the hum of a city that, despite being full of millions of people, made me feel like I was the only one on Earth.
I’ve barely settled into my desk when an email notification pops up. It’s from Oliver — Mr. Wolfe, I sometimes jokingly call him to myself — asking me to meet him in his office for a briefing on some documents. A twinge of something akin to excitement flips in my stomach, but I squash it down. He’s my boss, not a potential cure for weekend boredom.
Heading to his office door, I take a deep breath and give three sharp knocks. “Come in,” comes the response, his voice smooth and deep.
“Good morning,” I say as I step inside and find him standing at the coffee maker.
“Morning, Nora.” He flashes me an easy smile.
My eyes trail over him — over the fitted suit that hugs his shoulders and waist in all the right ways. The fabric seems to whisper secrets of power and self-assurance, and I can’t decide if I want to lean in closer to listen or run away.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing toward the chair across from his desk.
He moves around to his side, every motion deliberate. I sit, crossing my legs and smoothing out my skirt more out of nervous energy than necessity. Ever since our group night out at the bar, it’s been harder than usual to get him off my mind, and I’m more than a little afraid that — somehow — he can read my thoughts.
“Let’s go over these documents. We have some new properties coming up that require careful handling,” he explains, sliding a folder towards me.
His fingertips brush mine in the process, and I force my attention back to the task at hand, tamping down the fluttering in my chest.
“Of course,” I reply, opening the folder and scanning the contents.
I’m more than well-versed in legalese, but Oliver has a knack for making the driest contract sound intriguing. It’s a skill — one that I’ve seen serve him well in negotiations.
“Right here,” Oliver says, pointing to a particularly dense paragraph. “We might need to push back on the indemnity clause.”
I nod, my brain already sifting through strategies and counterpoints. But then his hand brushes mine, an electric jolt that sparks an uninvited warmth up my arm. For a split second, our eyes meet, and there’s this… thing, a silent acknowledgment of the touch that neither of us planned. It’s like a fizzing soda bottle, moments from spilling over.
Then Oliver clears his throat and pulls his hand back. The effervescence between us goes flat as he steels his gaze back onto the papers.
“Make sure they don’t corner us with liability,” he adds, all business again, voice clipped to efficiency.
“Of course,” I murmur, my pulse still erratic.
I refocus on the text, but the letters blur into a meaningless dance of ink. I blink them back into order, pushing down whatever silly little flutter that moment stirred up.
“Did you do anything interesting this weekend?” Oliver’s question catches me off guard, casual yet somehow loaded with curiosity.
“Ah, no, not really,” I admit, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “Mostly did housework. Laundry. I guess I could have gone out. I realized recently there’s a lot of Chicago I haven’t seen yet.” I offer a small shrug, feeling his attention on me. “Guess when I was in college, we were too busy studying.”
“Chicago has changed,” he muses, leaning back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. “A lot can happen in eight years.”
“Exactly,” I agree, a bit too eagerly. “There’s so much history and culture, all these neighborhoods with their own stories. I’ve always wanted to absorb all of that, you know? Just never really got around to it.”
He nods thoughtfully, tapping a rhythm on his desk with the silver pen in his hand. “It’s good to have someone show you around. Makes the experience richer.”
“Sure,” I reply, trying not to sound wistful.
The idea of wandering the city with someone who knows it and wants to share it is unexpectedly appealing. And for a fleeting second, I imagine what it would be like to have that someone be Oliver.
But those days are long gone. He probably never thinks of me now unless it’s for my legal eye. I force a smile, professional and bright.
“Maybe one of these days I’ll play tourist properly.”
“How about this weekend?” He leans back in his chair, and there’s a spark in his eyes that seems out of place with the starched collar of his shirt. “I’ll take you sightseeing.”
The words hang in the air, delicate and dangerous. For a moment, they don’t seem real — more like the fragments of those silly fantasies I entertain when the Chicago skyline blurs into a canvas of what-ifs on my lonely commute home. But then Oliver smiles, and it feels like sunlight piercing through the overcast sky of my routine.
“Really?” My voice betrays a hint of incredulity. The man before me, who ignored me for years, is offering to play tour guide? It doesn’t add up.
“Really,” he confirms as if he can hear the skepticism threading through my one-word question. “I’ve been so buried in work that I’ve never actually taken the time to see the city. Not properly, anyway.”
“Workaholic” is too mild a term for Oliver. He’s the first in the office, the last out, his life woven so tightly with the company’s that I sometimes wonder if he ever stops being the CEO or if that’s also an identity he carries even to the shower. Yet here he is, ready to step away from the blueprints and contracts, if only for a day.
“Next Saturday?” he suggests, and there’s a hopeful tilt to his brow that makes my heart skip a beat.
“Next Saturday sounds perfect.” The words tumble out before I can second-guess them, buoyed by the thrill of anticipation. “I’d love to.”
“Let’s make a day of it,” he says, and the idea of spending hours with him, untethered from the anchor of our desks, sends a ripple of excitement through me.
“Let’s.” And just like that, next Saturday becomes a beacon, a promise of something bright and thrilling and wholly unexpected.