Chapter 19
NINETEEN
DEENA
Cal’s smile was unlike any expression I’d ever seen on his face. It was pure delight, and it lit his face up from within.
I’d seen him surly and annoyed. I’d seen him sly and cunning. I’d seen him turned on and angry.
I’d never seen him full of pure, unadulterated joy.
The force of it hit me like a train. He was so gorgeous. My whole body felt electric, my heart pulsing as my extremities tingled. His eyes met mine, and a touch of guardedness returned to his expression. The distance I’d insisted on creating between us was still there.
“Hang on, Erica,” Cal said. This had to be the sister and niece he’d told me about. “Let me put this up on the wall and then you can go.”
“Yeah, Mommy! We’re hanging my picture.”
Cal stood and taped the drawing to the wall, right between two large canvases of modern art. He stepped back, and his niece joined him to admire the drawing.
“What do you think, Lila?” Cal asked.
Lila scrunched her face, then waved an imperious hand at the wall. “There’s too much stuff on the wall. You can’t even see my picture!”
“Lila, this is Uncle Cal’s office,” her mother chided.
“No, she’s right,” Cal said. He spun around, studying his walls.
His gaze landed on a diploma framed behind his desk.
His MBA. He strode over to it and yanked it off the wall.
Right when I was going to slink away and leave them to their family time, Cal spoke to me without looking away from his diploma.
As he put the frame face down on his desk, he said, “Deena, do you mind going to the supply closet at the end of the hall? I think there’s a screwdriver in there somewhere.
Willa might be able to help you. Phillips head. ”
“Sure,” I said.
He lifted the diploma and showed it to Lila. “You think your picture will fit in here?”
“Yeah!” She smiled at her uncle, then at her mom. She had a gap in her teeth right at the front, just like Riley.
I melted. It was just too cute. I dropped my laptop back on my desk and made my way to the supply closet. After a bit of shuffling around, I found a small tool bag, which I brought back to Cal’s office.
He had one of those big, expensive-looking canvases in his arms. His hair had fallen over his forehead as he shuffled over toward the back wall, the painting brushing his front. Erica watched him with her chin resting on her palm, a fond, slightly lopsided smile curling her lips.
“Is he always like this?” I asked quietly, setting the tools on his desk.
Erica glanced from her brother over to me. She huffed. “Pretty much. He gets an idea in his head and nothing will change his mind.”
And he would do anything for the people he loved, I noted.
Like rip apart his office decor just to make his young niece happy.
Lila bounced on the balls of her feet as she watched him, then flitted over to study the frame of the painting.
She scraped at it with her index finger, then bounced over to where Cal stood in front of the second painting.
Cal grabbed it off the wall, but the edge of it caught on a table lamp. I dove forward and caught the lamp before it smashed on the ground. Cal looked down from where he stood, his eyes bright, a smile on his lips. “Thanks. You mind grabbing this end? Let’s rest it against the back wall.”
We put the canvas next to the first one, and then Cal tugged on one of Lila’s pigtails and led her over to the desk.
He unscrewed the back of the diploma frame while I put the table lamp where it belonged, and then I found myself drifting toward his desk so I could watch.
Erica had leaned her arms on his desk, and Lila was kneeling on his chair.
Cal stood in the middle, taking tiny screws out of the back of the frame and setting them carefully aside.
He pulled out the backing of the frame, then slid out his diploma.
He glanced at it briefly, then set it carelessly aside.
His niece’s picture, he handled much more delicately.
He gently peeled off the loops of tape he’d previously stuck on the back of it, centered it in the frame, and put the whole thing back together.
I grabbed the level from the tool bag, along with a hammer and a little nail.
Cal grinned at me, setting off a tiny detonation in my chest. With Lila leading the way, we walked over to the far wall, leveled the frame, and marked where it should go.
Then Cal hammered the nail into the wall and hung up his niece’s drawing.
Cal picked Lila up and held her there as he asked, “Better?”
She gave him a big, exaggerated nod. “Much better,” she confirmed, and Cal laughed. This time, when he met my gaze, his smile didn’t slip, and I realized I was smiling too.
Feeling unsteady, I excused myself back to my office. I heard the hubbub of his family leaving as I worked, and finally looked up when a shadow darkened my doorway. Cal stood there, looking more at ease than he had before his family’s visit.
He cared deeply about his loved ones. They were his world.
In an instant, my view of him shifted. He wasn’t just a callous businessman who liked things done his way. He wasn’t just overbearing and domineering. He cared. He was capable of love—deep love.
It shouldn’t have changed anything for me, because our situation was still the same. He was dangerous to my independence, and I hated how unsteady he made me feel. But I couldn’t help liking him a little more after what I’d seen today.
What would it feel like to be one of those people he cherished?
“You wanted to see me?” he asked.
“I have a proposal for streamlining client travel bookings for people who aren’t already in your organization,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I’ve used this process in my own business, and it really helps cut down on errors. I could implement it here for you.”
He nodded and dragged a chair around my desk, folding his big body into it as he leaned forward. “Show me.”
I did, then got a warm buzz in the pit of my stomach when Cal leaned back, impressed. “You’ve certainly earned your keep,” he said quietly.
When his eyes flicked over to meet mine, I saw the hidden meaning behind his words. If you want to quit, I won’t be mad. I could walk away with a little over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he’d let me go.
My voice was hoarse when I asked, “Will you keep your niece’s drawing up on the wall?” Hidden meaning: What kind of man are you, really?
His gaze circled my face, eyes crinkling at the corners. The lion was amused. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow and find out.”
The picture stayed on the wall, and a few more of them appeared around it as the days wore on. The big expensive-looking paintings got moved to the lobby, and his MBA reappeared in its designated space behind his desk the following week in a new frame.
I revamped his company’s entire travel booking process, implementing a lot of the lessons I’d learned while building my own business. I was getting paid a lot of money, but I was giving him my hard-won knowledge. It seemed like a fair trade.
My workload ballooned, and I found myself staying at my desk through lunch most days. I’d work late, catching up on my own clients’ requests after hours. My office was quiet, clean, and had fast internet. It was better than my studio apartment or the cafés where I’d worked before.
I blinked, and a month had gone by. I realized it late one night, when most of the lights outside my office were off, and I was considering the ramifications of drinking coffee at this hour. Then the sound of a door closing made me look up. I’d thought I was alone.
Cal walked out of his office, stopping outside my door. He frowned at me. “You’re still here,” he noted.
Our relationship had been mostly professional in the past month.
I still caught myself staring at the way his muscles shifted under his clothes, and when his attention swept over me, it always gave me a shiver.
But he was my boss now, and I’d gotten what I wanted.
Distance. Security. Thick, stone walls to keep me safe.
Sort of.
“I’m still here,” I confirmed. “Just got a few things to finish up for a client, and then I’ll head home.”
He hummed, checking his watch. He looked up again, and the force of his gaze made me glad I was already sitting. “Don’t stay too late,” he commanded.
“Yes, sir,” I quipped.
Something changed in the air between us when those words left my lips.
It only lasted a moment, but it was electric.
It was in the way he looked at me, like he was remembering everything we’d done only six—no, seven weeks ago.
Or the way he stood, like it was taking everything he had to stop himself from closing the distance between us.
Suddenly, the professional walls I’d tried to erect seemed like they were made of spider’s silk. He could sweep his arm and brush them aside in an instant, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do anything about it. If he walked over, grabbed me, and kissed me, I would open my mouth and welcome it. I’d open my legs and welcome that too.
But the electricity in the air faded, and Cal gave me a short nod. “Goodnight, Deena.”
I held my breath until I heard the elevator doors open, and then I released it in a gust. The words on my laptop screen blurred, and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes to try to shake away the effect of his presence.
“Screw it,” I murmured to myself, and crossed the office to hunt for coffee in the kitchen.
Within seconds, the pod machine was spluttering hot liquid into a mug, and as soon as the cream and sugar were in, I inhaled the scent like it was my lifeline.
I drank it down in three big gulps, then made another to bring back to my desk.
The machine was still rumbling when my phone rang. I smiled at the number on the screen. “Deena!” Alba said, her face popping up. She always had a big smile on her face these days, even though she looked tired. “Are you still at the office?”
“Just finishing up,” I said, which was nearly the truth.
“That new boss is taking up too much of your time,” she chided.
I smiled. “I’m working on my own stuff right now. Just using the office for the free Wi-Fi.”
“And the new boss?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t told Alba about everything that had happened lately. I knew she wouldn’t judge me for my behavior, but the thought of putting words to my experience with Cal…
How could I? I couldn’t even explain to myself why he had such an effect on me. How would I explain to my friend that from the moment I saw him, it felt like the nexus of my world had changed? And the more I tried to deny it, the stronger the pull became.
It made no sense.
Instead of opening up that can of worms, I changed the subject. “How’s Adam?” Her son was just over five months, and he was the cutest little thing I’d ever seen.
“Asleep,” she said. Her eyes were sparkling, joy suffusing all her features. “He sat on his own today, and he kept giggling every time he did. Then he’d fall over from the giggles.”
I laughed and wondered if I did want what Alba had. She’d gone through hell to get there, but now she seemed to be embracing the quiet life at home.
How would it feel to let go of this driving need to be independent? To lean on someone else when I needed support instead of always feeling like I had to handle everything on my own?
But if I leaned on someone else, how could I be sure it wouldn’t be a trap? How would I go back to being on my own when it inevitably crumbled?
Finally, when I’d nearly finished my second coffee, I told her I had to go.
I had work to do, and then I needed to make it home before I collapsed.
Coffee hadn’t made a dent in my fatigue, but it had caused a sour tightness to grip my middle.
I shouldn’t have had so much of it on an empty stomach.
I shuffled back to my office—and I stopped short.
On my desk, a container of takeout from the place at the bottom of the building sat waiting for me, utensils placed beside it. I crept closer and saw a Post-It from Cal. It said only one word, scratched out in his tightly controlled, angular handwriting:
Eat.
It was the private jet all over again. Except this time, instead of feeling resentful at being coddled, I found myself appreciating it.
I opened the takeout container and found chicken and pesto pasta salad.
It smelled unbelievably delicious. Sinking into my desk chair, I wolfed it down and tried not to think about how much I appreciated the gesture.