Chapter 9 #2
Callum’s office looked different at midday.
The city beyond the glass was pale under a washed-out sky, the streets below all silver movement and tiny yellow taxis.
His desk, which had been almost bare yesterday, was now covered in files, marked-up statements, a laptop, two phones, and a half-empty mug of coffee he had clearly forgotten existed.
He stood near the conference table by the window, with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand holding a phone to his ear while the other rested on the back of a chair.
I forgot how to breathe for half a second. Possibly more than half a second.
Sleeves should not have been sexual. They were just fabric.
But Callum with his sleeves rolled up looked like sex on a stick.
His forearms were strong, lightly tanned, dark hair visible near the wrist, watch still in place.
The sight hit low in my body, a sudden pull of want so immediate and intense that I stopped just inside the door.
Benjamin, behind me, murmured, “Tragic.”
I turned my head slightly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Callum looked over then and his eyes passed over me. The hard focus in his face eased by a fraction, sudden warmth moving through the severity before he locked it down again. His gaze touched my face, my blouse, my hands clasped around my notebook, then returned to my eyes.
My pulse skipped a beat.
“I understand,” he said into the phone. “Send it to Tom. Nothing goes out without legal’s approval. I’ll call Marcus after lunch.”
Lunch.
With me.
The idea of it did not become less dangerous because it involved sandwiches.
He ended the call and set the phone down. “Avery.”
“Mr. Rowe,” I returned, because Benjamin was still there and because I valued survival.
Callum’s mouth twitched. “Benjamin.”
“Yes?” Ben almost chirped.
“Thank you.”
“I live to transport new hires through emotionally charged architecture.”
“Close the door.”
Benjamin looked from him to me. “That is my least favorite instruction.”
“Benjamin.”
He sighed. “Fine. But I’ll be just outside.”
The door closed. For one second, the room seemed to expand and shrink at the same time.
Callum gestured to the conference table, where lunch had been set out with the kind of casual abundance rich people pretended was simple. Two sandwiches, salads in clear bowls, fruit, sparkling water, coffee, napkins folded in a neat stack.
“Sit,” he ordered.
The word went through me before I could stop it and I sat obediently. His gaze narrowed slightly, as if he had seen the reaction and hated himself for seeing it.
He took the chair across from me, not at the head of the table. It was intentional, I thought. Equal enough to calm me, distant enough to behave. He pushed one of the salads toward me.
“Have they fed you?” he asked.
“Benjamin gave me water.”
“That’s not food.”
“He implied hydration was a privilege.”
“Sounds like him.”
“He’s a twat.”
Callum’s eyes lifted.
I froze. “I’m sorry. That was unprofessional.”
“It was also accurate.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
“He’ll grow on you,” Callum assured me.
“Like mold?”
“Like ivy. Destructive but elegant.”
I opened my salad and picked up the fork, needing something to do with my hands. “He’s already less terrifying than yesterday.”
“High praise.”
“I think he might not hate me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because he’s still insulting you to your face.”
“That’s affection?”
“With Benjamin, that’s practically a sonnet.”
I smiled down at my salad, then felt the smile fade before I could stop it. Callum noticed immediately.
“How is your first day going?” he asked.
I considered lying. Then I remembered every time he had dragged honesty out of me like a splinter and decided to save us both the time and effort.
“Boring,” I replied.
His eyebrows rose.
“Not bad,” I added quickly. “Just boring. Lots of videos. Policies. Forms. Passwords. A workplace conduct narrator who looks like she sleeps in an old musty carpet.”
Callum leaned back. “That sounds like training.”
“It is training. Which is fine. Training is important. I support training as a concept.”
“But?”
I stabbed a cucumber with more force than necessary. “But I thought I’d be doing something.”
“You are doing something.”
“I thought I’d be doing something useful.”
“You’ve been here four hours,” he said.
“I know.”
“On your first day.”
“I know.”
“At a company with several thousand employees, confidential projects, public contracts, and an active external threat attempting to undermine our credibility.”
My stomach tightened. “I know.”
His voice did not rise. It did not need to. That was what made it worse.
“And you’re pouting because no one has handed you responsibility before lunch?” One eyebrow rose and I shrank in my seat.
Heat rushed into my face. “I am not pouting.”
Callum looked at me and I looked back. The silence that followed was not professional.
It was not even close.
His eyes held mine, steady and far too knowing.
I felt the whole morning on my skin suddenly: my disappointment every time he had not appeared, how I had perked up when Benjamin said he had requested me for lunch, the childish little sting of being sent through training modules while he was somewhere else doing important things with important people.
I had wanted to matter too quickly. Worse, I had wanted to matter to him.
“I’m not pouting,” I said again, but with less conviction.
Callum set his fork down.
“Avery.”
My name in that tone was already dangerous.
“Yes?”
“Don’t lie to me, young lady.”
Everything inside me stopped.
The words were not loud. They were not harsh.
They were not even especially scandalous, not objectively.
Men had said young lady to women before, to daughters, nieces, interns, strangers blocking grocery aisles with shopping carts.
But in Callum’s mouth, in that low, firm voice, across a private office table after one dinner and one nearly sleepless night, the words slipped under my professional armor and found bare skin.
My core fluttered with need so sudden I nearly dropped my fork.
His gaze moved over my face, catching the blush, the small inhale, my hand tightening around the napkin in my lap.
A quiet flare of awareness flickered across his expression that he controlled almost immediately, but not before I saw it and not before the knowledge passed between us like a match being struck.
He knew what that had done to me.
And worse, it had done something to him too. I saw it in the way his hand closed on the edge of the table. The subtle tightening of his jaw. The breath he took through his nose before leaning back slightly, putting one more inch of space between us as if inches could solve anything.
“You shouldn’t call me that,” I breathed, my voice coming out softer than I intended.
His eyes did not leave mine. “No?”
I swallowed. “It makes me sound like I’m in trouble.”
“You are,” he growled, and I thought I may have seen spots before my eyes.
The low pull in my body turned hot. I pressed my knees together beneath the table and wished the conference table were larger, wider, made of stone, possibly reinforced by one of Callum’s buildings.
Anything to hide the fact that my entire nervous system had decided being in trouble was a love language.
“For being bored by onboarding?” I asked.
“For acting like a first day is beneath you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then say what you meant.”
I wanted to snap back. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to tell him I was not entitled, not ungrateful, not some little nepotism hire who expected a corner office because her father had once known the CEO. But the truth rose first, embarrassing and plain.
“I just wanted to be useful,” I attempted to explain.
His expression softened slightly.
“And I wanted…” I stopped.
His gaze sharpened again. “What?”
Nothing about the question was safe.
I looked down at my salad. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Avery.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Say it anyway.”
I laughed once, without humor. “You really do that a lot.”
“What?”
“Make me say things.”
“Only when you’re trying to hide inside the unsaid.”
My face burned hotter.
I looked up. “I wanted to see you.”
Callum went very still.
I should have taken it back. I should have laughed.
I should have added something bright and harmless, like because you’re the only person I know here, obviously, or because I had a question about HR, or because Benjamin keeps speaking in prophecies and I needed a translator.
Instead, I sat there with my pulse hammering in my throat and let the truth remain there naked on the table.
Callum’s eyes moved over my face, and the restraint in him was no longer subtle. It was visible in his shoulders, his jaw, and even in his hands.
“That,” he said quietly, “is exactly why we need distance at work.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You say that, but you looked disappointed when Benjamin told you I was unavailable.”
“I didn’t know I was being audited.”
“You are very expressive when you think no one is looking.”
“Unfortunately, Benjamin is always looking.”
“So am I.”
My breath caught.
He seemed to hear what he had admitted at the same moment I did. The room went silent except for the faint hum of the HVAC and the distant office noise beyond the door.
Callum’s gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.
This time, he did not look away fast enough to pretend it had not happened.
I felt myself soften under that look, the air leaving my lungs in a slow, careful breath.
I had been wanted before. This was different that any of the bumbling boys I’d messed with prior to this.
Callum’s wanting did not reach for me. It held itself back with strength that made me feel my weakness.
That restraint should have made me feel safer.
Instead, it made me wonder what would happen if he ever let go.
“Callum,” I whispered.