Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Madison
T he knock on the door startled me awake from my dreams. I was so deeply asleep that not until my phone began to ring, did I jerk awake. Initially, I thought it was my cell phone as I hurriedly reached out for it, but eventually, I realized it was the hotel phone.
I grabbed it and found that it was from the restaurant. "Miss Parish? This is Miss Madison Parish?" the voice on the other end asked.
"Yeah, yeah," I replied groggy and immensely disoriented.
"We were sent up to ask what you wanted to have for dinner. There's a restaurant staff right outside your door, so he can take your order."
"Um..." It took me a while to process it. "Who sent him or her... I mean, I didn’t send for anyone. I didn’t send for food; I've been asleep."
"Mr. Swift?" she replied, and the exhaustion was immediately wiped out of my eyes. I pushed my hair out of my eyes, understood what they were saying, and nodded.
"Um, yeah, let me call you back."
"Sure, ma'am," the woman said, and the call ended.
I had no idea what time it was. I had drawn the blinds before I had gone to bed, and they had blocked everything out. I hurriedly grabbed my phone again, and when I saw that it wasn’t yet time for the performance, I released a heavy breath of relief. I wasn’t screwed. Phew. I still needed to get up then, so I could feel human, get my brain working, and a few minutes later, I knew that I needed to call him.
Earlier on, I had been certain that he was so monumentally pissed at me that besides work, and until we could get back to the city and he could fire me, he wasn’t going to talk to me. But now he was ordering food for me? This was how he was. One moment he would be cold as ice, and the next he could make you feel so warm that you didn’t know what to do with yourself. I loved this about him, and so, more than ever, I was even more confused. What was I to do now?
I headed over to the bathroom, and after brushing my teeth and washing my face, I decided to get dressed. I sent him a message.
"Sir, the performance starts in an hour. Do you need any further preparations for attending? I’m available to help you as needed."
I sat down on the bed as I waited, and then my phone buzzed with a message. "Come to my room," he said, and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest.
I stared at the message and had to check it several times to make sure it was right and that he was the one that had truly sent it. Why did he need me to come over? He usually wasn’t one for processes or meetings. He was brief in everything that he did... straight to the point.
Sighing, I rose to my feet, and I couldn’t help but wring my hands. When I arrived at the door connecting our rooms however, I stopped. I had to be professional, so I headed out the front and then went over to his to knock.
Getting this room had been his idea, and at the time, I had been nearly heartbroken. I had brought up the booking for separate rooms to him, but when we found out that they weren’t next to each other but were instead at the opposite ends of the corridor due to availability, he had then decided for us to just get the presidential suite.
"In case we’re working late and need quick contact with each other, there's no reason to be that far apart. Our major business in Bangkok is the conference and networking."
That had made sense to me, but then I cried myself to sleep that he didn’t even see me as a woman enough to care that we’d be sharing interconnected doors. Nothing was for sure going to happen between us. I was certain that it hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Now, as I waited in front of his door, I couldn’t believe how much things had changed—or had they? Had yesterday and today all just been a fluke because we were in a different country and had gotten carried away?
I didn’t know what to believe in or even hope for, and this was the most unsettling part about all of this. So, he came to the door and opened it. He was dressed in the dress shirt he had worn earlier, but this time around it was completely unbuttoned, revealing his gorgeous, unbelievable physique.
For the first few seconds, all I could do was stare, almost with my mouth agape. He eventually realized this and turned away without a word.
"Why did you come to the front? Is the interconnected door locked?" he asked as he returned to the chair by the window and took his seat. He was dressed in dark slacks, barefoot, his wavy hair neck-length and all over the place in the most gorgeous way possible.
My heart was weak. I remembered all that had happened the previous night, starting from right there on the chair he was still seated on and working with his laptop, and then to the bed. He had on his glasses. It was rare he wore them at outings or even in the office. I had only seen them when I'd stopped by his apartment. But now they were on, and the gorgeous dark rims around his eyes gave him the kind of appeal that made me want to do exactly everything I had done the previous evening, but this time around, completely willing and sober.
"Did you get something to eat yet?" he asked. "You need to eat now so you can fully recover,"
I replied, even though he wasn't looking at me but instead had his gaze on his screen.
"I think that sleep was what I needed the most, so I'm fine."
"Choose something with a soup base," he said. "It’ll make you feel great."
"Yes, Sir," I replied and continued to stand before him. He didn’t look up again, so I knew that I had to move the conversation along.
"I was wondering if you wanted me to order you something to eat as well. I could join you, or maybe you want to go to the restaurant before the theatre performance. We still have about an hour left, so we need to leave soon if we're going to make it."
He continued typing, which was quite typical of him, so I knew that soon enough, he was going to finish and face me. And this was exactly what he did. He shut the laptop off, and then he lifted his gaze to mine.
"I don’t want to go out for dinner or the performance. I'd rather stay here. Plus, there's a situation I’m monitoring in New York, and I'm waiting on responses that I don’t want to miss."
"Alright, Sir," I replied, wondering what responses he was waiting for. I knew almost everything about his business, so if he was communicating with the office, I should be aware, right?
I frowned then, as fear struck me. Did this mean that someone else was handling his affairs? What was happening? I immediately moved to apologize.
"Sir," I called. "First of all, I want to apologize deeply for spreading the rumor that you are engaged. I will ensure that this is straightened out and corrected by tomorrow. It just slipped out. I was?—"
I stopped in my tracks when I realized that once again, I was so obviously lying. I lifted my eyes to meet his, and as he folded his arms across his chest to look at me, he asked, "Is this a Thailand habit you've picked up or something? Lying through your teeth."
I lowered my head. "No, Sir, I just... I'm sorry. There have been a lot of changes that I'm not sure how to process yet, so I'm not really willing to completely reveal them to you either."
"I understand," he said. "But you don’t have to lie to me. So, let's start with correcting the first lie you were about to tell a minute ago."
I watched him, not even sure if I remembered what I had been about to say. Soon, though, it came to me, and I realized that I had to admit it. What was the point in lying now, truly? We had already given food for thought.
"I... uh," I began. "With the amount of attention surrounding you, I just thought that—except I said that they would swarm you throughout the entire afternoon, and that this would get impossibly annoying for you."
He narrowed his eyes at me. This was a simple and reasonable excuse, and so I waited with bated breath for his response.
"Is that so?" he asked, and I lifted my gaze to his, hoping he’d believe my half-truth.
This was obviously a lie, but it wasn’t his business to know this, so I wasn’t surprised when he turned away and didn’t pursue the matter any further.
"Do you want to eat here, or do you want to go out?" he asked.
Going out sounded wonderful. It would be a wonderful way to experience the city, but when I thought of us being alone in the gorgeous room together, I really couldn’t compare it to being out in public and acting as platonic as possible.
"I’d prefer to stay in, Sir," I replied.
Glancing down at my outfit, I truly wished then that I had put in more effort to look feminine. But after what had happened between us, I wasn’t really looking to appear promiscuous before him. More than anything, I had wanted to be presentable, so I had simply donned a pin-striped pajama set that was as decent as they come.
"Alright," he said, and rose to his feet. There was also something about him doing this that was always so exciting to me. He was tall... much taller than me, with a gorgeous build, so every time he did this, every time the full impact of his presence in a room was felt, it made me feel this way. I stepped out of the way, but then he did something that made me nearly lose my breath for a minute. He held me and moved me gently out of the way. This was completely unnecessary. I could walk, but now, after this, it was as though I had turned to stone. I stood exactly where he had put me until he returned with the menu he had retrieved from the drawer by his bedside.
"Options," he said as he returned to the seat. He started to peruse through them, and all I could do was watch him until eventually, he noticed.
"Aren’t you going to sit down?"
Like a robot, I instantly plopped down on the bed. But then I realized that this might be considered rude, so I rose to my feet once again.
"Sorry, I, um... I’m sitting on your bed. Is this chair, okay? Can I sit here?"
I was referring to the seat before him, but it soon occurred to me just how close and in direct vicinity of each other we would be as a result, and I didn’t really think he wanted to see me that closely, or that I wanted him to. I didn’t have any makeup on, and it felt like I was encroaching on his space. Maybe it was best I returned to my room.
I truly didn’t understand myself, because the analysis was grating me to bits. It was just that until recently, he was my boss, and this was how careful and cautious I was around him. The need to be more, but not having the confidence to ask or even act this way, was what was screwing with my brain.
"What’s wrong with sitting on my bed?" he asked, and I lifted my gaze to his.
"Um... it's where you sleep?"
He was immensely amused, which made me feel a bit lighter.
"It's where you slept too, last night."
"Ah..." I stared at him. "Yeah."
"Do you remember?" he asked, and it took a while before I could respond, because even though I knew that sooner or later, we would have this conversation, it wasn’t really something that I wanted to have right now... that I was ready to have right now. But I couldn’t lie and say I didn’t, even though technically earlier that morning, it would have been the truth. Why the hell hadn’t he asked me then?
"Yeah... I mean, yes, Sir. I do remember."
"Take a seat," he said, and I settled down on the seat before him. He watched me, and then he picked up his phone to take the call. I listened to the smooth, quiet way he placed his order, and then he handed the phone over to me.
I immediately panicked. Answering his phone was more or less my job, but it wasn’t something that I wanted to do in front of him, because I was sure to sound like a blubbering idiot. So, I lowered my head and my tone as I accepted the menu from him as well and placed my order. After the call ended, I returned the phone to him.
"Have you had Thai food before we came here?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir," I replied. "My, uh, friend put me onto it. Emma. I mean, you didn’t need to know her name; I just wanted to humanize her, so it wouldn’t seem like I was lying."
"What would make me think you were lying?" he asked.
"Um, I... I've, uh, it has seemed as though I have been lying so far today, but I don't lie. I mean, I usually don’t lie at all; I just try to work around the truth a bit when I’m in a tough spot. And Emma is not a lie. She used to work for a law firm, and they always went out to fancy restaurants and whatnot, and she got introduced to Thai food, so whenever she came over to my house, she always... I mean, not always, usually ordered it, and that’s how I was introduced to it."
I finished my entire message and wanted to shoot myself in the mouth, because what had prompted me to say all that? He usually didn’t talk this much. He usually didn’t like people who talked this much.
He nodded at my response, and suddenly, I had to get out of there so that I could breathe. So, I rose to my feet, nearly startling him.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and I smiled.
"Just a moment, Sir. I left my phone in my room. I’ll just be a second; let me grab it. I didn’t want to miss anything important."
"Alright," he replied, and I started to head for the connecting door. But then I recalled that we were supposed to be professionals, so I started to go through the front door. I thought he would stop me to discourage me from being so formal, but he didn’t say a word. He had most probably returned his attention to his phone.
Turning, I returned to my room and found my phone. I immediately called Emma because in many ways, it felt like I was spiraling out of control.
Thankfully, she immediately picked up.
"I think something broke inside of me yesterday," I said.
"How so?" she asked.
"Ever since all that happened, I have literally turned into a blubbering, rambling idiot. I’m answering questions he didn’t ask me, talking too much, acting weird, and generally neurotic. What the hell is happening to me?"
"Of course," she almost died laughing in amusement.
"You really don't know what's happening to you?" she asked.
I headed over to the bathroom to check and adjust my appearance, since I would be sitting just a few feet away from him for the next half hour at least.
"Do tell," I replied sarcastically as I pulled dried mascara off my lashes.
"You’re trying to win him over," she said. "You’re trying to get him to know you and to like you."
"What?" I asked incredulously.
"You know exactly what I’m talking about," she said, and I had no choice but to eventually admit that she was right.
"So, I’m saying more and talking more because I’m hopeful."
"Yes, you are," she replied. "And that is wonderful because it will mean that you will listen to me when I say this. He is what you want. He has been what you’ve wanted for the longest time, and you have denied yourself that. You’re not timid, and you’re not that unattractive woman with bright green oversized dress shirts and Salvation Army oversized blazers."
I rolled my eyes at her, but every single word she was saying was hitting me straight in the heart.
"My point is, don’t hold back. He’s wonderful, and all that, as you’ve said, but you’re just as awesome. I don’t want you to cower anymore before him, and since you two have already crossed that invisible line, then please don’t settle for less."
"It’s so easy to say all you’re saying right now," I said. "But you should see how I am around him. You wouldn’t believe it."
"And that needs to change," she said.
"Again, easier said than done."
She sighed.
"I’m leaving. Do whatever you want."
I didn’t argue. I needed to end the call as well because there was nothing further left to say. I knew what I wanted, bright and clear, and I had found the confidence to not shy away from it. So, with this resolve in mind, I grabbed my phone and returned to his room.