Chapter 10 – cat
CAT
My new desk is next to the window, which is great news for my succulent.
I found the poor little guy half dead, falling out of a “free stuff” box on the sidewalk.
I place his little pot in the sunlight, next to some heart-shaped sticky notes Pippa gave me and a box of cat-shaped paperclips I’ve never had a reason to use before.
The pièce de résistance on my desk decor is a little Eiffel Tower statue. I’ve been obsessed with Paris since I watched Amélie as a kid, and until I can cross a visit off my bucket list, my little figurine will have to do.
Out of the twenty or so desks in the office, mine is the closest to Nate’s office. I was the first one here this morning, but my new coworkers have started trickling in. There’s an all-hands meeting at ten where I’ll meet everyone I haven’t yet.
I sit back in my desk chair and admire my set-up. I plan on ignoring the irony that today I’m unpacking my stuff in Nate’s office, when on Friday morning I was packing up my suitcase and sneaking out of his apartment at the crack of dawn.
My face heats, and I don’t need a mirror to know I’m blushing redder than a tomato.
I still can’t believe I got drunk and came onto Nate.
I even stripped for him, even though I was obviously misreading the signals.
When I kissed him, he couldn’t have jumped away from me fast enough.
Spending the weekend away from him hasn’t made me feel any less mortified.
“He’s not going to mention it,” I mutter to myself. “We’ll both pretend it never happened. And if he does mention it, I won’t melt from embarrassment. I’ll apologize like the professional I am, and we’ll both move on.”
Because now, Nate’s not just the guy who let me stay at his place.
He’s my boss.
Now that he’s signing my paychecks, it would only be more wrong if anything happened between us. Not that he’d even consider it.
My phone rings, and I see Mom’s name on the screen.
I groan. I’ve been dodging her calls for days.
Conversations with Mom are never fun—she disapproves of practically every choice I’ve made with my life.
She complains constantly that I’m “just a waitress,” sending me links to jobs that I’m not remotely qualified for or interested in. Actuarial analyst? I’ll pass, thanks.
I texted her after Nate offered me the assistant job, hoping it would earn me some approval.
Hell, maybe even a congratulations. Instead, I’ve gotten constant texts lecturing me about how to dress and behave in an office, along with warnings about how not to act.
As if I needed Mom to tell me not to download a dating app on a work phone.
Not that I’d ever download a dating app.
I’ll have to answer eventually, though, and now might be a good time. As soon as she says something offensive, I can just tell her I have to go back to work.
This call will go well.
An affirmation I don’t see becoming reality.
“Hi, Mom,” I say brightly.
“What are you wearing for your first day?” she says as a greeting.
“A pair of slacks and a blouse.”
“Is the shirt low-cut?”
“Of course not!” I sputter. Seriously, how unprofessional does she think I am?
“Tomorrow, wear a low-cut one.”
My mouth drops open. “Why?”
“You know, your new boss is very wealthy, and he’s single. You might want to think about catching his interest.”
My face turns hot. Mom has no idea that Nate and I have been flirting. So is her opinion of me so low that she thinks my only prospects are as a gold-digger?
“That wouldn’t be professional,” I snap. “You’re always telling me how important professionalism is.”
She sighs. “How do you expect to pay for your life making what you make? You have to be practical, Caitlin. You’re not the only person in the world. I have to retire one day, and it would be nice if you could contribute.”
There it is. Mom smelled money, and she wanted a taste. Well, that’s not happening. Even if Nate strode in here right now, got on one knee, and offered me his hand and half his fortune, I wouldn’t say yes, and I definitely wouldn’t try to give either to my mother.
“I have to go. Bye,” I say abruptly before I hang up.
Immediately, the phone lights up with Mom’s name again. Too bad—she’s lost her daughter privileges for at least another week. The last thing I needed was to kick off my first day with her shenanigans.
God, I need to put myself back in a good mood before Nate arrives and the real work starts. I head to the kitchen and refill my coffee cup. Then, I straighten everything on my desk again, making sure it all looks neat and professional.
I’m just picking a new computer background for my work laptop when Nate strides into the office. His eyes on his phone, he makes it halfway across the room before he even notices I’m there. When his steely gray eyes land on me, he stops in his tracks. He looks…surprised.
I straighten my shoulders. What, did he think I felt so embarrassed about Friday that I’d quit? No way. I need this job too much.
Wildly, my new building manager actually lowered my rent.
From the letter they sent, my old rent was raised too quickly for Toronto’s tenant protections.
The new owners are doing things by the book.
They changed everyone’s locks, added steel bars on the front entrance windows, and installed a crazy number of security cameras.
The whole thing is very Big Brother, but hey, at least my apartment is safe.
I might have gotten lucky, but the shelter hasn’t. The manager told me on Saturday that if they don’t get more funding in the next few months, they might have to shut down before Christmas. When I think about all the residents having nowhere to go for the holidays, my chest aches.
No, I need every cent from this new paycheck to help the shelter. Embarrassment over throwing myself at my new boss isn’t a good enough reason to quit.
I flash Nate a smile so broadly, it makes my cheeks hurt. “Good morning. Can I get you some coffee?”
“No.” He doesn’t follow that with a “thank you” before he walks past me and into his office.
Well, at least it was more than a grunt.
I grab my laptop and follow him. “I’ve gone over your schedule for the week already. I sent your notes on the Crown Hotel Group contract over to legal, and they say they’ll have the changes ready by noon. Do you want to review them again before they send the revisions over to CHG?”
His natural frown lifts in surprise. “Yes. And the lunch meeting—”
“Rescheduled to Wednesday. The Terrace chef will be sending up catering.”
I resist the urge to preen a little when Nate actually looks impressed. The HR woman warned me about a thousand times that he’s impossible to please. Looks like I’m going to prove her wrong.
Then Nate’s eyes dip to my neck, and he scowls. Fuck—my collar must have slid down.
When I was volunteering on Saturday, Rupert came in for breakfast. I was thrilled to see him until Darren, another one of our residents, took a swing at him. I dove in between them to stop the fight before anyone could get hurt, and I happened to catch a blow to my neck.
Turns out, Darren mistakenly thought Rupert swiped some cash from his bag. We managed to get everything sorted out, and Darren apologized to me at least a dozen times. I’d all but forgotten about it until I got dressed this morning, and I had to pick a tie-neck blouse to hide the bruise.
I reach back up to adjust my collar, but it’s too late.
“Close the door,” Nate growls. His voice is so low, I can practically feel it scrape along my skin.
I nod, glancing back behind me at the occupied desks. I wonder if they’ll be able to hear if Nate yells at me…
An eerie silence settles once I shut the door. Nate strides toward me, and I flinch when he reaches for the tie neck of my blouse. He tugs it, undoing the bow and revealing the full bruise.
“What happened?” he demands.
I stare straight ahead, my eyes fixed on his tie. Today, it’s steel blue. “Nothing. It’s just a bruise.”
“A bruise you got from someone.”
I sigh. “Two guys got in a fight at the shelter. I broke it up, and got a tiny bruise. That’s it.”
He slams his hand against the door beside me, making me jump.
“Are you insane?” he hisses. “What the fuck were you doing, jumping in between two grown men fighting?”
“It’s no big deal.”
His eyes blaze with fury. “They left a mark on you. It’s a big fucking deal.”
I cross my arms. He’s acting like I ended up in the hospital, not mildly bruised. I swear, the version of me in his head is a helpless little princess who can’t lift her own pencil.
“Fights almost never happen, and when they do, I can handle them. Besides, it’s my fault for convincing Rupert to come back to the shelter.
He warned me he had a problem with someone there, but I talked him out of it.
So I had to break the fight up. If one of them got hurt, or got in any trouble, it would have been my fault. ”
“You got hurt!” He pushes back from the door, striding toward his desk like he can’t bear to look at me. “Doesn’t the shelter have any goddamn security?”
“We did a while back. But funding got low, and it was one of the first things to go. The shelter’s barely scraping by as it is.”
He’s silent for a long moment.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
I frown. “What do you mean, a deal?”
“If you let me implement safety measures at the shelter and let my driver take you home after any late shifts at the office or Terrace, then I’ll fund the shelter for the rest of the year myself.”
I gape at him. He can’t seriously be blackmailing me into taking a ride home. But how can I turn this down? With his funding, the shelter could funnel its other donations into the improvements it seriously needs. Kitchen upgrades, additional beds, maybe even adding a small computer lab.
Most importantly, we don’t need to worry about it closing.
Just thinking about it makes me so relieved, my eyes burn with unshed tears. Thank god Nate still hasn’t turned around to see them. It wouldn’t earn any respect from a businessman like him to see me—
Wait.
Nate’s a businessman, and businessmen love negotiation. I lift my chin.
“Next year, too. The rest of this year and next year, too.”
He turns back toward me, the ghost of a smirk on his lips.
“Very well. Until the end of next year.”
He extends his hand and I eagerly reach forward to shake it.
When our hands touch, I feel a now-familiar electric pulse.
It’s like my body is magnetically attuned to his; I’m too aware of his every movement, down to the way his chest rises and falls as he breathes.
It’s impossible to pretend that I don’t know how it feels to have his body pressed up against his.
I’ve been holding his hand for way too long.
I yank it back, and with a final nod at Nate, I open the door and let the noise from the office filter back in.
Two women at a nearby desk have their heads together. They’re whispering, and one points toward Nate’s office. When she sees me, she freezes, obviously caught.
What did they think we were doing in there?
I duck my head, hurrying back to my desk. Even though nothing happened with Nate, I still feel like being in there with him was wrong. Of course, he didn’t bring up me trying to kiss him—he’s too professional to bring that into work.
Doesn’t mean it’s so easy for me to forget.
Nate pokes his head out of his office. “Forgot to mention—CHG wants to do the contract signing in person at their headquarters. Can you book two tickets to New York for Monday morning, returning on Tuesday?”
I nod, eager to have a task to distract me from the gossipers. “Of course.”
“You have a passport, right?”
I nod automatically before his meaning catches up with me. “Wait, you want me to go with you?”
“You are my assistant, aren’t you?”
“Right. It’s just that I usually help out at the shelter on Mondays.”
He smirks. “With their new funding, I’m sure they’ll be able to cover for you. I need you there with me.”
My thighs clench together as my mind fills in the ways I wished he needed me.
“I’ll get it done.”