Chapter 3 Elizabeth
ELIZABETH
I want to scream. I want to dance down the street like some Broadway extra. I want to cry, but in the good way; the mascara-smudging, clutch-your-chest kind of way.
By the time I kill the engine and jog up the cracked steps to our apartment building, I’m still buzzing.
A promotion. An actual promotion.
For a year I prayed for something, anything, and it happened today when I least expected it. Hard work, dumb luck, fate… who cares? I’ll take it.
Even the miserable climb to the third floor feels easy tonight. My boots click against the concrete, my bag bounces on my shoulder, and for once, I don’t curse the dead elevator. The pep in my step could carry me all the way to the roof.
Halfway up, I dig into my tote and find the little foil-wrapped truffle I stashed from the office spread. Victory chocolate. I pop it into my mouth, let the dark sweetness melt slow on my tongue, and of course, my mind slides right back to Jonathan Clark.
The way he looked at me across that table today, steady and unflinching, like he could pin me there with his eyes alone.
I imagine him standing in front of me now, taking this same piece of chocolate between his fingers, pressing it past my lips, watching me suck it down with his thumb resting at the corner of my mouth.
My thighs tighten as I climb the stairs.
The thought flips, quick and dangerous, into something filthier—his hand replacing the chocolate altogether, his voice low in my ear telling me to open wider, take more.
Heat spikes through me, shameless and hungry, and by the time I reach our floor, my body’s buzzing in ways that have nothing to do with the promotion.
I push into the apartment and find Dani exactly where I knew she’d be, curled up on the couch in Christmas-print pajama bottoms, hair twisted on top of her head, already clutching a wineglass like a pro. “Hey, I already poured yours,” she says, lifting a second glass toward me like a saint.
I kick off my shoes and flop beside her, stealing the glass in one swoop. “You’re an angel.”
She grins, eyes glinting. “Now let’s get this party started.”
I take a heroic gulp, the red warming all the way down, and try to keep a straight face, to bury the news until later. But Dani tilts her head, studying me, and I know I’m sunk.
“Spill,” she orders, tapping the rim of her glass with a painted nail. “You’ve got that look.”
I play innocent, swirling the wine. “What look?”
“The one where your eyes are throwing confetti. I’m a journalist, Liz. Reading people is literally what I do for a living. Now spill before I burst.”
She leans closer, and my grin finally breaks free, wide and unstoppable.
Rolling my eyes, I let out a laugh. “Fine, you caught me.” Standing up again, I do an exaggerated twirl. “You are looking at the new personal assistant of the one and only Jonathan Clark, owner of Clark M & A!”
Dani shrieks and bounces up and down on the couch cushion. “No way! See, I told you it would happen soon. I could just feel it.”
We both cheer as we clink our wine glasses together, and I find my seat next to her once more. “Wait,” she says again. “How did it happen? I want to know everything. You go from not being noticed to being promoted in a week.”
As I go into every small detail of my morning, the only thing I leave out is how insanely handsome he is or how he makes me weak in the knees. It’s a total cliché from every story or show I’ve watched about work.
A woman falls in love with a man, she gets special treatment, everyone else around is jealous and holds hatred, and the woman always gets hurt in the end. I don’t want that for myself.
Dani holds onto my every word as if I’m telling the best story she’s ever heard, and I take advantage of the opportunity, not having many people in my life who listen to what I have to say.
People kind of listen, but they’re usually waiting for their turn to speak, not actually hearing me. Dani truly is my best friend.
“Well, is he handsome? We already established he’s successful, but is he at least eye candy?” Dani asks, leaning in.
Scoffing, I wave her off. “Looks aren’t everything. Besides, I’m there to do a job, not ogle my boss. I worked too hard for all that.” Before I can stop her, she jumps up and runs into her bedroom, returning a few seconds later holding her laptop.
“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” she remarks, dropping back down on the couch and pulling up her search engine. “Let’s do some digging on this, Jonathan Clark, shall we?”
Her fingers work fast as she types in his name and begins to scroll. “Whoa …” she whispers. “This is your boss?”
We both look at the picture featuring an ever-so-handsome Jonathan Clark in his best suit, standing and shaking hands with one of his previous clients as they hold the contract to a building.
I instantly recognize the document, since it was sent to me to send out to the client beforehand for approval.
“Yes, and I know he’s handsome,” I reply. “But this is the big break. This job means way more than some little crush.” I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince her or myself. “Strictly business, although he is unfairly gorgeous.”
Dani chuckles as I get started on the prep for dinner. The kitchen smells like garlic and butter by the time I’m elbow-deep in cooking.
My so-called “sinful pasta night”—extra cream, too much parmesan, and enough chili flakes to make us sweat. If I’m going to celebrate a promotion, it’s not with takeout.
Dani is now parked at the counter with her laptop open, fingers flying, her glass of wine sliding dangerously close to her elbow. Every now and then she hums like she’s found something juicy.
“You know,” I say as I drain the pasta, “I’ve worked my ass off this year just to keep afloat.
Grandma’s home isn’t cheap. Neither is helping Mom cover the bills when her hours got slashed.
Dad and Karl are killing themselves pulling overtime, and here I am—trying to hold the seams together with an office paycheck and crossed fingers. ”
“Mm-hmm.” Dani doesn’t look up, but she nudges her wine out of harm’s way. “You’re basically Atlas with a manicure.”
I laugh, tossing pasta with sauce until the steam fogs my glasses.
“More like Cinderella with rent due. Without this job, I don’t think I could do it.
And even with the promotion, I bet Sunday dinner will be the same.
Dad will ask Karl about work, and no one will even remember where I spend my forty hours. ”
That thought twists in my chest, but I drown it out by plating the pasta like a five-star chef and dropping a hunk of bread beside it. “Voilà. Sin on a plate.”
Dani finally glances up from her screen and whistles. “If your boss doesn’t notice you, at least this meal would get you worshipped in any other household.”
I roll my eyes and dig into my own plate, the rich sauce coating my tongue. “They don’t mean to ignore me. Dad just…sees Karl. Always has. I’ve accepted it, mostly. Mom tries, but it’s not the same. A girl needs her dad to look her in the eye once in a while.”
Dani’s quiet, which is rare. She studies me instead, and the attention makes me squirm. I stab another bite of pasta, my mind flashing back to Jonathan in that conference room.
The way he said my name. The weight in his eyes when they locked on mine.
I swallow hard. “And speaking of attention—I still can’t believe I went from brewing coffee to working side-by-side with the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.”
Dani groans, shoving her laptop shut. “Knew it. This is about your boss again. The pasta’s got nothing on him, huh?”
I grin around another bite, but inside, my chest is a furnace.
Gorgeous was too small a word for Jonathan Clark. And actually talking to him? That was a whole new ball game. I’m not sure I’m ready to play it, but God, do I want to.
Dani hums thoughtfully as she chews and waves the fork at me, snapping my attention back to the present. “Well, congrats to my best friend. You deserve it!” she begins. “I have the liberty of writing a few columns on the city’s largest companies, and I believe Clark’s is on my list.”
She props her feet on the coffee table, fork twirling pasta while she rattles off her week—office politics, some new column she’s pitching, the usual whirlwind.
I listen, nodding, sipping my wine between bites of creamy sauce that should be illegal. Friday nights are our ritual: too much food, too much wine, and reality TV that fries our brains in the best way.
By the time the plates are scraped clean, we’re curled into the couch, the latest disaster of a dating show flickering across the screen. But my mind keeps drifting.
The noise of contestants shouting fades into the background, and all I can see is Jonathan Clark at the head of the conference table, his gaze locked on me like he was memorizing the shape of my face.
My stomach flips again, wine and nerves tangling until I’m restless. I wish I could crawl into his head for just one second and see what he saw when he looked at me.
Dani has that talent, the way she reads people like open books. Me? I’m just stuck replaying one look over and over, wondering if it meant anything at all.
Most of the time, I miss the signs. Back in school, Dani was always the one nudging me under the desk, whispering, He likes you, idiot, while I blinked, convinced the boy was just being polite. Being timid isn’t just inconvenient. It’s a curse.
But with Jonathan, there was no mistaking it. The moment his eyes locked on mine, butterflies didn’t just flutter, they rioted. It’s still tumbling in my stomach now, hours later, leaving me restless and jittery.
Monday can’t come fast enough. And yet the thought of sitting outside his office, his voice rolling through the doorway, his gaze catching mine across the desk makes me flush hot and cold all at once.
He’s commanding, untouchable… and then those eyes soften, and I wonder what it would feel like if that look was meant for me alone.
I take another sip of wine, my pulse hammering.
Can I keep this crush locked down where it belongs? Or will it break loose the second he says my name again?