Lexi
Halfway up the stairs, she tried again to reclaim her hand, but Grayson pretended like he didn’t notice. Only after they’d mounted the two flights did he let go of her hand, and she self-consciously tucked it into the oversized cavern of her sweatshirt.
Grayson unlocked his office and gestured for her to step through. She just wasn’t used to hand-holding, or probably any PDAs, she thought, quietly wandering around his office.
Over the last two years, possibly three, she’d only been in one relationship, and it really hadn’t gone well.
And that guy hadn’t been into PDAs either…
or any kind of affection, now that she thought about it.
The last person to hold her hand might have been her father, once upon a time.
Before that, she couldn’t remember. But the gentle envelopment of her hand had stirred a vague memory of her mother…
“Is something wrong?” Grayson asked.
Lexi turned from his bookshelf to see him mixing a drink. He stood next to a large modern bar that looked to be on wheels. From first glance, it seemed to have every kind of liquor on it. He noticed her looking.
“Can I offer you something?”
“No thanks. I don’t like to drink after long days.”
“Interesting. Isn’t that when most people prefer to drink?” he asked, raising his own cocktail to his lips.
He reached below the first shelf to bottles of water and handed one to her before sitting on a couch in front of a low glass coffee table. Thirsty and tired, she drank as she continued to wander the office. It looked to be bigger than her apartment.
“Will you sit?” he asked.
He had a small stack of papers in front of him, but she could still feel a little buzz from the adrenaline the scene downstairs had roused.
“In a couple minutes,” she said. “Your boy got me revved.”
The space had a variety of couches and large chairs; it would seem he had wanted a living room as his office. By the mobile bar cart, she looked over a kitchenette, and across the entire space on the far wall was an actual work desk holding a laptop.
“Why do you have so many couches?” she asked, wandering over to play with the buttons on the miniature cooktop.
“I like to be comfortable. How do you know Gaidar?”
Her head came up, and she considered it. She figured there was no harm in him knowing.
“Kris? We went out.”
He said nothing for a moment, but took a healthy drink.
“May I ask how many of my employees you’ve dated? I feel like it’s relevant information.”
“I don’t see how,” she answered.
Lexi crossed from the kitchen to sit on an overstuffed armchair. It was completely round, and she found it moved as she sat back. The entire thing spun in circles and it rocked.
With a huge smile, she spun and rocked, kicking her shoes off to tuck her feet underneath her.
When she noticed the silence, she looked over to see him staring at her with a grin.
She cleared her throat and drank from her bottle to hide her blush.
She would swear on a stack of whatever that she had never blushed as much in her life as she had in two days in this man’s presence. Still, he said nothing.
“Problem?” she asked, looking back up at him.
Grayson kept his head down over his phone, and she sighed slightly, relieved to not be under his intense scrutiny.
“No, no problem. I’m texting your pizza guy and making a note to myself that you like toys.”
“This isn’t a toy, it’s a chair,” she said, her voice as prim as possible.
“You were playing with it,” he said, locking his eyes on hers. “That makes it a toy. I don’t care what it is.”
Lexi felt heat climb into her cheeks again, but refused to look away. The way he’d said toy… maybe it was best if she changed the subject.
“Pizza’s here?”
“Yes, it’s downstairs. I’ll go get it.”
“I can run downstairs, I don’t mind.”
“You already took your shoes off. Stay.”
With that, he rose and walked over to the door, which he closed behind him. Now that he was out of the room… she grabbed the papers he left on the coffee table.