Chapter 15 - Andrea #2
I read aloud. The terrible Scottish accent, all the voices, the hero being an idiot about his feelings while I did commentary between paragraphs.
He listened with his head against the back of the chair, eyes closed, and at some point his hand found my ankle again, his thumb tracing slow circles that I don’t think he was aware of.
The fire popped. My voice got softer. The pauses between sentences stretched out as the warmth of the room and the weight of his hand on my ankle pulled me toward sleep.
I finished the chapter, looked up, and he was watching me.
Guard completely down. No CEO mask, no King face.
Just him, listening to me read, with an expression I’d never seen him give anyone else.
Open, unguarded, reverent. Like I was the most important person in any room and he couldn’t believe he got to be in the same one.
I love this man.
The words pressed against my teeth. I held them there. Not yet. But soon, because keeping them in was getting harder every time he looked at me like that.
The next day at the office, the elevator opened and Lorraine stepped out.
My stomach tightened before my brain even caught up.
Lorraine Ashtor, Finneas’s childhood friend, the woman who’d been telling everyone at this company and apparently half the city that she and Finneas were basically engaged.
She had a title here that amounted to nothing, a role Finneas gave her because their families were close, and she used it as a platform to walk around like she owned the place.
Including, on a semi-regular basis, walking up to my desk to remind me that I was beneath her.
Red hair, sharp outfit, heels clicking across the tile like she owned the floor. She walked toward me with that stride she had, the one that said everyone else in the room was furniture and she was the person who’d ordered it.
“Hello, Andrea.”
“Hello, Lorraine.”
“That’s Ms. Ashtor to you.”
“Sure it is.”
Her mouth thinned. She walked to my desk and stood over it, looking down, using every inch of height she had on me.
“Is Finneas in?”
“He’s got a call in ten. Make it quick.”
“I’ll take as long as I need. I’m not an appointment.”
“Everyone’s an appointment. That’s literally how offices work.”
She ignored that. Her eyes moved over me, slow, dismissive. Pink blouse, floral print, pencil skirt. I could feel her cataloguing every piece of fabric.
“You know, Drea, I keep hoping you’ll eventually dress like a professional.”
“That must be devastating for you. My condolences.”
“It reflects badly on Finneas. You’re his assistant, not a kindergarten teacher.”
“And you’re what exactly? Remind me what your title is? Because I handle his calendar, his files, his meetings, his correspondence, and I have never once seen your name on any of it.”
Her eyes flashed. Jaw going tight. I kept my face sweet.
She leaned in, her perfume way too strong for 9 am. “You should be careful, Andrea. Assistants are replaceable. One bad review, one complaint to the right person, and you’re out.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s advice.”
“How generous. I’ll file it with the wardrobe tips I’ve been ignoring for two years.”
She straightened up with a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Finneas and I go back a long way. Our families are close. Very close.” She let that hang. “He’s not available, sweetheart. Not for someone like you. So whatever little crush you think you’re hiding, I’d suggest you get over it.”
My pulse was spiking, jaw tight, but I kept the pleasant face because I’d be damned if she saw me flinch.
Two years of this, of her dropping hints, implying a relationship, marking territory.
Before last week it used to eat at me, used to keep me up wondering if she and Finneas were actually together and I was the idiot pining after a taken man.
Now I knew the truth and I couldn’t say a goddamn word about it.
Couldn’t tell her he’d been in my bed last night, couldn’t tell her the man she was claiming had his mouth on my wrist two hours ago. Couldn’t tell her shit.
“Noted. Anything else, or can I get back to work?”
She held my stare, then turned and walked into Finneas’s office without knocking.
Twenty minutes. I watched through the glass even though I told myself not to.
Lorraine was animated in there, leaning in, laughing.
She touched his arm at one point, left her hand there, and my pen creaked in my grip.
Finneas was behind the desk, stiff, keeping distance.
He spoke, brief and flat. Her hand dropped, her laugh faded.
She came out and I braced for the parting shot because Lorraine always had one. But she just looked at me, then kept walking. No jab, no smirk, no last word.
That was new.
Finneas came out a few minutes later and stood by my desk. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I wasn’t fine. My hands were shaking under the desk and my jaw ached from clenching it. “She’s charming as always.”
He looked at me like he wanted to say more. He knew exactly what Lorraine was like, but I would never become the snitching jealous girlfriend, so I kept looking at my screen.
“I’ll handle it,” he said.
“Handle what exactly? Because she’s been coming to this floor for two years treating me like dirt and nothing’s changed.”
It came out sharper than I meant it. He went quiet. I kept typing. After a second he went back to his office. I stared at my screen, feeling guilty and angry at the same time, which was becoming a regular combination when it came to Lorraine.
That night I sat on my porch and tried to read and couldn’t focus.
The words blurred on the page, my brain stuck on the way Lorraine left without her usual parting shot.
No jab, no smirk, no last word. She just looked at me and walked out, and that bothered me more than anything she’d actually said because at least when Lorraine was insulting my clothes I knew where I stood.
I closed the book and pulled my knees up. The porch was quiet. No Fin, no warm body pressed against my leg. Just me and the night air and a knot in my stomach that wouldn’t loosen no matter how many times I told myself it was nothing.