Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Mr. Blackwell called Daisy into his office four times before lunch had even made an appearance.
The first time her phone rang, Daisy only flinched at the jangling tune.
He didn’t give her a chance to say hello before he was growling through the receiver.
Demanding she bring him coffee, he was explicit about what he wanted.
It was his usual, what she had been making for him since the first day she began working at Apex Technologies.
When she arrived with his drink, he merely pointed at his desk and then dismissed her with a flick of his hand.
Fifteen minutes later, her phone was ringing once more.
Making her go all the way back to his office, Daisy had stood there for a long stretch of silence before he deigned to speak with her.
He wanted her to cancel an appointment. Moments later, back at her desk, her phone rang again.
Mr. Blackwell told her that she was to send an apology to the client.
Emphasizing that it needed to be concise and professional, he hung up before she could even acknowledge him.
Daisy wrote the email three separate times before she sent it.
The third time, he called her into his office once more, bringing him a file Daisy would have sworn he already had.
Made her wait while he flipped through it, making small noises of acceptance or negation.
Her pulse fluttered at her throat, pounding in her temples, and she struggled to take in small sips of air instead of the panting breaths her anxiety demanded.
Her hands trembled where she held them clasped in front of her.
The strangest thing happened then.
“You’re shaking,” Mr. Blackwell said, tone flat though there was something sharp in his gaze. As if he were really looking at her.
“I-I’m sorry,” Daisy whispered to the expanse of lush carpet at her feet.
“Don’t apologize, baby girl.”
The words slid into her like a key turning in a lock.
No one had ever told her not to apologize.
Not her teachers. Not Claire. Daisy had spent her entire life shrinking in on herself.
Trying not to be a bother, to not take up too much space.
Yet when he said those simple words, they felt like absolution.
As if, maybe, she didn’t have to earn that space.
Like maybe he’d already decided she belonged.
Her chest tightened, painful and bewildered at the thought. Daisy would do anything not to lose that.
Then he gave her a single, curt nod to dismiss her.
Overwhelmed with her confusion, Daisy went back to her desk to work on the latest reports.
By the fourth time he called her, her nerves were beyond shot. The ringing of the phone made her recoil in terror, body trembling before she even answered. Summoned once again to his office, he told Daisy to reschedule another appointment.
Even when she was out of Mr. Blackwell’s view, Daisy could feel his attention. It was an oppressive weight bearing down on her shoulders. As she talked on the phone. From across the floor. Eyes on her as she paused, reread, and hesitated in her work.
A coworker passing Daisy’s desk dropped a stack of folders. It startled her so badly that she jostled in her seat, the chair rolling back several inches with Daisy in it.
“Easy, kitten,” Mr. Blackwell murmured from just behind her.
Daisy hadn’t even noticed he was there.
Heart leaping into her throat to strangle her voice, she mumbled an apology with her head hanging.
He didn’t respond. Standing there, watching her, making Daisy feel even more foolish and hopeless. Exposed. Then he returned to his office.
Lasting all of twenty minutes after the incident, Daisy once again fled to the restroom to cry.
Sobs silent, she dashed her palms against her cheeks, smearing away the salty misery flowing down them.
Daisy’s shoulders shook with the force of her tears.
Despite how hard she was trying, it seemed nothing she did could please Mr. Blackwell.
Though she was doing her job as she always did, now there was a constant rattling tension that made her feel she was on the verge of messing up horribly.
Yet as Daisy pressed her palms to her flushed cheeks, she couldn’t deny how she felt.
“I love him,” she whispered, daring to speak the truth in her heart out loud. The words felt enormous in the tiny stall. Ridiculous and impossible. He was far too powerful and controlled, too much for a girl like her. Daisy was small. Replaceable.
Daisy’s heart didn’t care about logic, though. Every thundering beat was just for him. The way he called her those little names now, the darkness of his voice, thrilled her.
She loved him. The worst part of it was that she didn’t even need him to love her back.
She just needed to stay.
After mopping her face dry with the gritty toilet paper and gaining what composure she could, Daisy went back to her desk.
Her phone rang as soon as she sat down.
A quiet whimper escaped her as she reached for the receiver, slowly guiding it to her ear. Mr. Blackwell’s rough cadence struck her senses.
“My office. Now.”
Mute and bereft, Daisy hung up the phone. Rising to her feet as a man to the gallows, she plodded her way down the hall to his office. Giving the barest tap of her fingertips to the door, she somehow wasn’t at all surprised when he bade her to enter.
Mr. Blackwell was standing behind his desk when she came into the office, his arms crossed over his chest so that the sleek lines of his expensive shirt stretched tight over bulging muscle.
“Come here,” he said, nodding at the space before his desk.
Daisy drifted forward, gnawing at her lower lip as she saw papers set in neat stacks on the edge of the desk facing her. Something about it was amiss, but she couldn’t put her finger on what was different about them.
“I want you to bend over the desk,” Mr. Blackwell said as he stalked around the edge of the desk to take up position behind her. “Get your face close to the letter and read it aloud.”
“I—sorry?”
“Bend over. Get your face close to the letter. Read it aloud.”
Daisy hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at Mr. Blackwell.
At his slow nod, she turned back to the desk as heat suffused her cheeks, climbing up her face.
There it was again, that spark of heat pulsing within her chest. Her panties grew damp for some reason.
The scent of his cologne filled her lungs, making her drag in deeper breaths just to have more of it.
Taking in a shuddering inhale, she bent at the waist, resting her elbows on the desk with clammy palms flat.
“Now read it aloud,” Mr. Blackwell said.
Blinking back the sudden rush of tears trembling along her lashes, Daisy focused on the paper before her. Noticed what was strange about them now that she was so close. Red lines littered the document, the thick bands of crimson underlining her mistakes.
The Hawthorne Group's message. She’d just transcribed it earlier that morning. When her nerves had been utterly shot, every little thing making her startle. Despite how careful she thought she’d been, pausing, rewinding, checking names and dates twice over, she’d made so many mistakes.
“Read it out loud.”
“We appreciate your continued interest in the proposed partnership and—”
Mr. Blackwell came closer. The oppressive heat of him blasted into her, seeping all along her back. Though he didn’t touch her, he stood so close his presence weighed on her.
Daisy’s eyes widened as a flash of heat stole through the cradle of her hips, gathering between her thighs.
“Start at the beginning.”
“Dear Mr. Hawthorne,” Daisy whispered.
“Louder.”
Daisy followed his command. Her voice was tremulous, but she forged onwards. Reading through the missive until she came to the first red line.
“As discussed during our previous correspond,” Daisy trailed off with a muffled gasp as she squinted at the word. “I’m sorry—I—it should be correspondence.”
“Yes. Now continue.”
She did. Stumbling over her errors, trying to correct herself with every one of them. Daisy couldn’t believe how much she’d messed this up. It was supposed to be straightforward, no real room for mistakes, yet she’d failed miserably.
When she finished, fading off into delicate sniffles, Mr. Blackwell leaned over her. Palm flat against the desk beside her trembling hand, there was the faintest whisper of fabric as his fine shirt brushed against her sweater.
The scent of woods and spice invaded her senses, swallowing her whole. Heat gathered between her thighs, blooming in the cradle of her hips. Breaths strained, she sucked down little sips of his overwhelming presence. Telling herself it was just nerves, she strained to ignore the reaction.
Daisy almost leapt out of her skin as she heard his deep inhale. The faintest of rumbles staining his exhale.
Remaining above her for a stretch of her stammering heartbeats, Mr. Blackwell straightened. The very edge of his finger stroked along the side of hers.
“You may stand.”
Straightening, Daisy kept her head low. Willing the heat from her cheeks, she clasped her hands tight before her to stop from strangling them.
“Pay better attention, princess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may go.”
With that, he retreated back to his chair, leaving Daisy to scurry her way from the office. Shame and that peculiar heat fluttered through her, one terrible, the other bewildering.
She’d never had that reaction to someone. Didn’t know what it meant.