Chapter 10
Quinn
The week was dragging by and it was only Wednesday, but it was made marginally better by the constant stream of texts that Theo had been keeping up with since I had texted him letting him know I was home safe on Friday night.
I woke up to a good morning text on Saturday, which was surprising.
But even more surprising was that he carried on the conversation.
I even made a comment that he didn’t seem like the type of guy who liked to text and he said he wasn’t.
That had a smile growing on my face and butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
Work had been busy, I’d started each day at seven a.m. and wasn’t getting out of the office until after eight p.m. and even then, I had to go home and work in an attempt to finish everything I needed to.
When Theo had told Richard to clear my schedule and Richard had agreed, I don’t think he realized that I would be the one to clear it.
And that he would require me to do a shit ton of work so the projects just didn’t need me on them anymore. I had cancelled my volunteer shift this week because I could hardly take a bathroom break.
I rubbed my hands over my eyes and sat back in my chair.
There was a cleaner vacuuming the carpet in the office, but the rest of the place was empty.
I’d planned on doing an online Pilates class, something I’d been seriously lax with.
But I was probably too tired and just setting myself up for failure or injury.
“Shit,” I said as I looked at the clock, it was nine-eighteen. I groaned and put my head down on my desk for a few minutes before pulling myself up, packing my things and making my way out of the office.
It was a beautiful April evening, despite it being dark the days were getting longer each night. Spring was in the air, and I was pretty sure it had rained earlier because everything smelled like fresh grass. I yawned as the cool breeze hit my face.
I lived just outside the core, so I couldn’t walk home but I would walk a few blocks and then grab a ride. I just needed a little bit of exercise and some fresh air since this was the most I’d gotten in a few days.
I knew it was a bad idea to not pay attention to what was going on around me, but I was looking up food on my phone, trying to decide what I was in the mood for.
It was an important choice, especially since I’d been eating out all week.
I was contemplating Greek food versus tacos when I ran straight into a wall.
I let out a squeak and started to fall backwards but managed not to fall flat on my face because someone grabbed my arms. I was relieved for zero point two seconds before I realized that meant that I hadn’t run into a wall, but a person and I was walking alone. At night.
“What the fuck are you doing?” His voice stopped me before I could panic.
I frowned, looked around, and decided he must have just turned around the corner I was coming up to. He was wearing a pair of black shorts and a tight black T-shirt. His hair looked a little darker with the sweat from what I am assuming was his evening run.
“Hey Theo,” I said sheepishly as I took a step back, but he didn’t drop his arms from me.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He asked again in a low growl.
“Out of all the people in this city, I run into you, literally.” He didn’t say anything but raised an eyebrow.
“I was walking.” He shot me an unimpressed look.
“Sorry, I should have been paying more attention to where I was going. And honestly, with all that muscle I thought you were a wall.” He didn’t crack a smile at my compliment.
“I meant why are you walking with your head down?” I opened my mouth to respond but he continued. “Wait, no. I meant to ask why the hell you’re wandering around with your head down, at night, alone?”
I bit my lip for a minute and watched the heavy rise and fall of his chest. “I could answer both of those questions, but I have a feeling one of them might piss you off more so… I was looking down at what I should eat for dinner.”
“Jesus, Quinn.” Theo dropped his hands from me and ran them through his hair. “What are you doing walking alone here? You don’t even live near here.”
“I could say the same to you. Well, at least the walking alone part, I have no idea where you live.”
“Quinn,” he groaned as he glared at me this time and crossed his hands over his chest. A muscle in his jaw ticked and I had to say, I liked pissing him off.
“I live around the corner, I got tired of the treadmill so decided to go for a run, and I was paying attention to where I was.” He shot me a look.
“I said I was sorry about that.” I wondered if I could distract him from the situation. “And that doesn’t make me think you’re any more sane as we’ve already discussed… it concerns me that you run ‘for fun.’” I added the air quotes but nothing showed on his face.
“Are you just leaving work?”
I froze with my hand on the strap of my work bag that I was adjusting on my shoulder. “Ummm… yes… and I hope that shows you how dedicated of an employee I am and doesn’t piss you off.”
“You didn’t say you were still working.” He frowned and looked at the time on his watch.
In his last text he had asked me if I had plans tonight. I had vaguely mentioned that on Wednesdays I volunteered, I just failed to mention that this week I couldn’t make it and cancelled my shift.
“Guess it didn’t come up,” I said with a lame shrug.
His eyes narrowed. “What could you possibly be working on? You’re on my account and the kick off meeting isn’t until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Just, you know, wrapping up a few things.” I readjusted the strap of my bag again.
“Dick is making you do extra work because I told him to clear your plate. He isn’t clearing it at all.” It wasn’t a question. Theo was a businessman, he knew the deal.
“It’s fine, please don’t make a big deal out of it, Theo. I’m managing.”
He let out a sigh, uncrossed his arms and grabbed the bag from my shoulder. He had it slipped off before I really noticed.
“Hey! Are you robbing me now?” I didn’t say it too loud in case someone actually thought I was being robbed.
“No. So you haven’t eaten?” he asked as he hiked the bag on to his own shoulder and put a hand on my lower back, herding me as we turned around.
He put me closest to the building so he was walking on the side of the road.
I noticed it immediately when he’d done it when we were on our way to coffee, turns out it wasn’t a coincidence.
“Ah, no… I think the last thing I ate was a chocolate bar at like five but it was one of those small ones. I’m honestly not even sure how long they’d been in my drawer at work, maybe since Halloween?
But those things don’t go bad, right? It’s just chocolate and sugar.
Halloween is the only time I ever get…” I trailed off, realizing I’d started rambling.
He stared at me for a moment, almost like he was tracking my story back for the answer. But he didn’t seem bothered by my word vomit. “We can head to my apartment and order some food.”
“It’s okay, I was going to order food, then a car and go home. Don’t you want to finish your run?”
“I was just about done anyway. Now you’ll have food with me and Arthur will drive you home.” His hand on my back kept me walking at a good pace beside him even though with his long legs, he could have easily outpaced me.
“Fine, but only because eating alone sounds sad tonight and I’m too tired to argue.”
“Good to know, tired means less arguments. After we eat, we can talk about what the hell you were thinking.”
“You’re stubborn,” I mumbled as we made our way toward a tall glass building.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Well, I was deciding between Tacos and Greek.”
“There is a great Greek place around. If we were ordering tacos we need to go to Pedro’s and I don’t want to go over there tonight, they don’t taste as good as a take-away.” He led us toward a building and the door man buzzed us in, although he looked big enough to be security, maybe he was both.
“Good evening, Mr. Knight,” the man said as he held the door open. Theo gave him a nod and moved me toward the elevator bank. We went to the last elevator and he entered a code before the door pinged open.
“Penthouse?” I guessed. He didn’t say anything as he moved to the other side of the elevator and rested his arms on the bar behind him, his muscles flexed. It was distracting.
“I live in one and Asher lives in two.” He pointed at the PH button on the panel.
“Do you own the building?” I assumed based on his descriptions of what they did that they would own properties, apartment buildings wouldn’t be a surprise.
He nodded. “The rest of the guys have penthouses in other buildings we own nearby.” He was very particular, he only answered the direct question asked and didn’t offer more. On one hand it was infuriating, and on the other it made me more interested in figuring him out.
We stepped out of the elevator into a hallway with only two doors. We went left as he entered a code into the keypad, opened the door and stepped aside to let me in first.
“Wow,” I said as I stepped in and looked around.
The whole back wall was two story windows, looking out over the city. The trees were just starting to become that crisp spring green even though in the daytime you would still be able to see snow covering the Rocky Mountains in the distance.
A big sectional couch was nestled on the left side of the room and a hallway with closed doors beyond that.
If you went straight, there was a black spiral staircase that, as I moved in, I could see led to a second level.
His kitchen was behind that, sleek black cabinets with white counters that looked so clean I wasn’t sure anyone ever cooked in there.
“The view is even better from the balcony.” He tilted his head toward the door that led outside, it was hard to see amongst all the windows. “I’ll order us food, feel free to look around.”