Chapter 7 Jack #2
“I just wanted to make sure you understood,” she said finally, “that I don’t need your charity.”
“It’s not charity. It’s lunch.”
“It’s you, trying to—”
“Trying to what?” I stood up, and she took an instinctive step back before catching herself. I moved around the desk, slow and deliberate, and watched her hold her ground even though every line of her body was screaming at her to retreat.
“Trying to be nice? Trying to show my employees I value them? Tell me, Pauline—what terrible crime am I committing by buying people food?”
She was breathing faster now. I could see her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, just above where her grandmother’s necklace rested against her skin.
Her eyes darted to my chest—I’d rolled my sleeves up earlier, and I saw her gaze snag on my forearms before she yanked it back to my face.
“You know what you’re doing,” she said, but her voice had lost some of its edge.
“Do I?”
“You’re trying to get under my skin.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Her jaw tightened. She spun on her heel, apparently deciding that retreat was the better part of valor, and grabbed the door handle.
She pulled.
Nothing.
I watched her yank on the handle again, harder this time, her whole body straining with the effort. The door rattled in its frame but didn’t budge.
“Problem?” I asked, not bothering to hide my amusement.
“The door is stuck.”
“Is it?”
She shot me a look that could have curdled milk. “Did you do this?”
“Yes, Pauline. I sabotaged my own office door in the thirty seconds between you storming in here and now, specifically to trap you with me.” I walked over and tried the handle myself. Solid. Completely jammed. “It’s an old building. These things happen.”
“Fix it.”
“I’m not a locksmith.”
“You own the building. Call someone.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed maintenance, keeping my eyes on her the whole time. She was pressed against the door like she could phase through it if she tried hard enough.
“Twenty minutes,” I said after I hung up. “Maybe thirty. Maintenance is dealing with something on another floor.”
Her face went through approximately seven different emotions in the span of two seconds. Disbelief. Horror. Fury. Something that looked almost like panic. And underneath all of it, something else—something she was trying very hard to hide.
“I’m trapped in your office,” she said flatly.
“It would appear so. This is a nightmare.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “It’s a jammed door, not the apocalypse. You don’t need to look at me like I’m about to attack you.”
“I’m not—” She stopped, pressed her lips together, and seemed to be counting to ten in her head. “Fine. Fine. I’ll just… wait.”
She moved away from the door and positioned herself against the far wall, as far from me as the office allowed. Arms crossed. Spine rigid. Looking everywhere except at me.
The silence stretched between us, thick and charged.
I loosened my tie. The office really was warm, and I was enjoying her discomfort more than I should have. I pulled the tie free from my collar and started unbuttoning the top of my shirt.
“What are you doing?” Her voice came out higher than normal.
“Removing my tie.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m warm.” I draped the tie over my chair and met her eyes, letting the corner of my mouth curve upward. “Why? What did you think I was doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You look terrified.”
“I’m not terrified.”
“You’re pressed against the wall like you’re expecting me to ravish you.”
The flush on her cheeks turned crimson. It was magnificent. I wanted to trace the path of it with my fingers, my mouth, wanted to see how far down it went and what sounds she would make if I followed it.
“You wish,” she said, but her voice came out breathless, and we both heard it.
“A man and a woman, trapped in an office,” I said, leaning against my desk and keeping my distance even though every instinct screamed at me to close it. “Alone. No escape. These things tend to end one way in the movies.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“No?”
“No. This is a workplace. And you’re my boss. And if you think for one second that I would ever, under any circumstances—”
“Who said anything about that?” I smiled—slow and deliberate. “I was making an observation about fictional tropes. You’re the one whose mind went there.”
Her mouth parted open again. “I—that’s not—you implied—”
“I implied nothing. I stated a fact about narrative conventions.” I tilted my head, watching her squirm. “Interesting that your brain jumped straight to that conclusion, though. What does that say about what you’re thinking about, Pauline?”
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
“Your face suggests otherwise.”
“My face is none of your business.”
“Your face is the most interesting thing in this building. And I own the building. So I’d say that makes it very much my business.”
She stared at me, and I watched something shift behind her eyes.
The anger was still there, but it was warring with something else now—confusion, maybe.
Or curiosity. Or the same pull I felt every time I was in the same room as her, that gravity that had existed between us since the first moment I really saw her.
“You’re insufferable,” she said, but there was less venom in it than before.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“By who?”
“By you, mostly. Over the years. In my imagination.” I unbuttoned one more button on my shirt, watched her eyes flick down to the exposed skin before she caught herself. “I’ve had a lot of imaginary arguments with you. You’re very creative with insults in my head.”
“This is insane.”
“Probably.” I pushed off from the desk and took a step toward her. Just one. “But here we are.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t retreat. Just stood there with her back against the wall and her eyes locked on mine, and for a moment—just a moment—I saw something crack in her armor. Something vulnerable underneath all that fury.
Then a knock sounded at the door.
“Maintenance,” a voice called through the wood.
The moment shattered. Pauline’s walls slammed back into place so fast I almost got whiplash watching it happen.
The next few minutes were a blur of tools and apologies and explanations about faulty mechanisms. The repairman did something to the lock, tried the handle, and the door swung open like it had never been stuck at all.
Pauline was moving before he finished his explanation, practically sprinting for freedom. She caught her heel on the threshold and stumbled forward, and I caught her elbow without thinking—just a brief touch, steadying her, my fingers wrapped around her arm for maybe two seconds.
She looked up at me with wild eyes.
“Careful,” I said quietly.
She yanked her arm free and disappeared down the hallway without another word.
I stood there listening to her heels click rapidly into the distance, and then I laughed. The whole thing was absurd—the jammed door, the panic, the way she’d looked at me like I was dangerous and irresistible in equal measure.
Whatever had gone wrong between us—whatever had made her run all those years ago—the connection was still there. Buried under layers of hurt and anger and stubborn pride, but alive.
She wasn’t indifferent to me. Not even close.
And now I just had to figure out how to reach her.