Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Shaye
“What are you doing?”
Oliver’s voice is borderline incredulous as he takes in the scene in front of him. I shrug, my shoulders bobbing up and down in a sheepish gesture.
He furrows his brows. “Is that an office chair?”
“Okay, maybe I overstepped just a little,” I say, getting to my feet. “But your chair is very, very squeaky, and I noticed that you winced every time it squealed.”
The wrinkles in his forehead slowly disappear.
“I did some research on office chairs. There’s a lot more information out there about them than you might think,” I say, watching a grin tickle his lips. “And as long as you don’t have any back issues that I don’t know about, I think this one is worth a shot.”
I grab the back of the frame and send the chair spinning in a circle.
“It’s top rated,” I say. “Very similar to the one you had. It’s quiet as a church mouse, and best of all, I used a coupon.” I make a face. “A digital one on . I’m not spending my weekends clipping coupons or anything. I’d starve first.”
I hold my breath and await his reaction.
It was a gamble to order him a chair without his consent or request. I knew that going into it.
Chairs are so personal. But he was clearly annoyed with his—I was annoyed with it from the office next door—and he was too busy to interrupt.
Also, if I were a betting woman, I’d bet by the looks of disarray and how far behind things seem to be running that ordering himself a chair was the last thing on his mind.
So I did it. I took a risk. And I hope he likes it … or at least isn’t upset over it.
He reaches for my masterpiece. “Did you put this together?”
“It came in after I left, I guess. Prime shipping is magical. Anyway, you were on the phone …” I bite my lip as a cloud rolls over his features. “It took all of ten minutes. You just shove this shaft into this hole and …”
I force a swallow as the cloud swiftly moves from irritation to something else entirely.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Anyway, it was simple.”
“May I?”
“Oh, sure. Of course.” I shove the chair toward him. The sound of the rollers against the floor seems intrusively loud in the small office. “If you hate it, I can send it back.”
He pulls it in front of him and sits.
His tie is gone, the top button of his shirt undone. Knees spread, hair wild, and lips curled into an undeniable smirk paints a picture that will be very hard to forget.
Focus, Shaye.
I gulp. “Do you like it?”
He stretches back and moves around, the chair bending and flexing with him. Quietly.
“It feels nice,” he says. “I just can’t believe you got me a chair.”
“Hey, you pay me to make your day more efficient. There’s nothing worse than working in a crappy chair.” I ponder that for a moment. “There are worse things, actually. But having a bad chair is near the top of the list.”
We watch each other, separated only by the corner of my desk. My office is filled with the presence of this man. I wait for a moment of discomfort—a moment where I feel smaller, somehow. A switch in the scenario that makes me feel less powerful or itchy to get some air.
It doesn’t come.
“Here’s your file,” I say, knocking on the top of the folder with my knuckle. “I’m sorry if it inconvenienced you.”
He toys with his bottom lip thoughtfully.
“I also brought you dinner.” I look over my shoulder at the Tupperware of carbonara I scooped out just before I left my house. “I’m not the best cook in the world. Don’t get your hopes up. But I made way too much and figured that you might not have eaten if you were still here at this hour …”
My voice fades away as my gaze falls on Oliver again. His hand has fallen to the armrest, and his eyes are lit up like a child seeing a gift that they weren’t expecting.
“It’s just carbonara,” I warn him again.
His eyes lift to mine.
I still, the edge of my desk biting into my yoga pants as I relax in his gaze. I find myself blowing out a breath—almost sighing—as my body realizes that we won’t be fighting or flighting anytime soon.
It’s safe here. No need to be ready to defend myself or flee.
“You have single-handedly salvaged my night,” he says, his voice throaty.
I smile. “That’s better than destroying it.”
He smiles too. Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on his knees. The movement sends a whiff of his cologne through the air.
“Did you happen to hear any of my conversation before you closed the door?” he asks, his smile faltering a little.
“Not really. It seemed like a very personal call, and that’s none of my business.”
I pick a piece of nonexistent lint off my pants.
In truth, I did hear bits and pieces of Oliver’s conversation but only because his voice was raised. He seemed angry and frustrated. There were notes of sadness, too. Although I know he’s human, it’s hard to imagine Oliver not in control of a situation to the point it affects him that way.
When I look up at him, he hasn’t moved. He’s still watching me. I expect him to say something, to change the subject—to blow off the call as something trivial and march forward with the Jewell file.
But he doesn’t.
And the longer we sit across from each other, the more I feel prompted to say something. To ask.
I shift against my desk. “I want you to know that I’m a really good listener.
I’m not prying, and I’m fully aware that your private life is yours.
I’m also not being nosy,” I say in a rush, my nervousness getting the best of me.
“I just know what it’s like to have something going on and feeling like you have no one to objectively listen to you. I mean—”
“Shaye.” He grins.
I bite my bottom lip.
“Thank you,” he says.
“The chair was no big deal.”
His grin stretches across his cheeks into a full-blown smile. “Yes, thank you for the chair. And for dinner. And for the file. And for …” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’d say being you, but I haven’t known you long enough to really know who you are in that capacity yet. Right?”
The last word, the question, hangs in the air.
“I’d like to think that I’m the person you’d thank for being herself.” I laugh softly. “I’ve never had that happen before. Seems cool.”
He laughs too. “So, who are you, Shaye Brewer? Besides the obvious.”
“Besides the chatterbox, non-coupon cutting, fairly competent in the executive assistant realm?” I joke, hopping up on my desk and letting my feet swing.
“I somehow think that’s a very under-serving description of yourself.”
“Me too. I’m also a decent, probably slightly below average cook.”
He chuckles and relaxes back in his chair. “Slide that carbonara over here while you talk.”
“Yes, sir.” I push the container, a plastic fork, and a bottle of water his way. “Do you have any allergies I should be aware of in the future? Peanuts? Shellfish? Even though there’s no way I’m ever making anything with shellfish.”
He opens the Tupperware. “Not a shellfish fan?”
“Not an anything-that-was-ever-in-the-water fan.”
“You’re missing out.” He scoops up a forkful of pasta. “But no, no allergies except to bullshit.”
“Ah, I happen to share that particular affliction.”
He takes a small, measured bite. His eyes widen. “Oh, that’s good.”
Internally, I beam. Externally, I try to remain unaffected.
“I thought you said you couldn’t cook?” he asks, gathering another bite.
“I can cook the basics decently well. It’s edible.”
He shoots me a look as though I’m being silly and wraps his lips around the fork. My breath hiccups as I watch the soft yet determined way he slips his mouth over the utensil.
My body heats, my face probably flushing an embarrassing shade of crimson as I equate watching this man—my boss—eat to porn.
“It’s very good,” he says, setting the container down. He reaches for the bottle of water. “I was starving.”
“Which explains why you think it’s good,” I joke. “When was the last time you ate?”
He takes a drink. “Lunch. Did I have lunch?” He screws the top back on the bottle. “Maybe breakfast. Hell if I know.”
“You have to take better care of yourself.”
His smile is warm. “You sound like my mother.”
“She sounds like a brilliant person.”
He laughs and sits back in his chair again. “My mom is pretty brilliant. She raised five sons and started her own jewelry line and takes care of everyone in the family.”
“So, that’s where you get it, huh?”
His lips drop back into a thoughtful line. His head cocks to the side.
“I mean that you seem to have a lot of those qualities too,” I say quickly. “You’re a businessman. You’re smart. And I can tell that your brothers respect you tremendously.”
He feathers his chin with his thumb. “It’s a mutual respect.”
“I can’t imagine having a family like that.”
He drops his hand and straightens himself in the chair. “Tell me about yours.”
I bite my lip and smile around it. It’s more of a wince, an internal sob about discussing a topic that you’d rather fight a bull than discuss. But the longer I fidget on my desktop, the more intense his determination for me to answer gets.
I search wildly for an acceptable starting point into an explanation that is both politically correct and honest. Telling the truth—that my mother is heartless and my ex-husband was abusive and now deceased—feels like it would paint me in an unfavorable light.
“My family isn’t like yours,” I say carefully.
He snorts. “That might be a good thing today.”
I swing my feet again, watching the slight golden thread in my Hey Dude shoes catch the light. He’s expecting me to say more, to explain, but I don’t know how to do that.
“You don’t really want to talk about it, huh?” he asks.
I look down at the floor. “Well, there’s nothing to really gain from that conversation. It’s also mildly mortifying to go in depth about your family’s dysfunction when the person you’re talking to has … your family.”
“We …”
I look up.
He sighs. “Honesty is the one trait that I value most. It’s above loyalty and integrity and generosity.
” He shakes his head. “No. The importance of honesty is that it is an element in all of the others. Right? You can’t have integrity or truly be devoted to someone else if you’re not honest with them. ”
“True.”
He moves around in his chair. “So, I’m going to be honest with you. And I’d like to think that you’ll be honest with me too. Always.”
“Of course. That doesn’t mean that I want to spill my family secrets to you,” I say with a nervous laugh. “But it is refreshing to hear that honesty means so much to you. It does to me too.” My mind flips back to Luca and my mother. “It doesn’t for most, sadly.”
He leans forward and looks me in the eye. The contact isn’t physical, but it might as well be. The weight of it is heavy.
“The conversation I was having when you came in tonight was with my father.” He stills as if the admission is new to him too.
“Growing up, Pops was my hero. I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to be him. He was the master of his universe, you know? He was exactly what I thought made a man a man.”
My feet stop swinging. “And now?”
He blows out a breath. “And now I’m not sure what the fuck is going on with him.”
If Oliver were a friend, if he were Lisbeth, I would know what to say. I’d offer an explanation—midlife crisis, maybe?—and a possible solution—have you talked to him? I’d also make sure my friend knew it wasn’t their fault.
But Oliver isn’t my friend. He’s my boss.
“What?” he asks.
I give him a curious look. “I didn’t say anything.”
“No, but you were thinking something. What was it?”
“I was just thinking … I don’t know how to respond to that—to what you just said. Do I offer you my sympathies and tell you that it isn’t your fault? Do I suggest reasons for his behavior? I mean, I work for you. We aren’t friends.”
Despite the fifty words I spoke, only three of them seem to hit us. We aren’t friends.
Oliver recoils from the statement, looking vaguely hurt. I flinch from the taste of them too.
It’s true? we aren’t friends. So why does that sound so cumbersome?
“That was rude,” he says with a compressed chuckle.
“You know what I mean.”
He peers at me for a long moment. “I think we should be—friends, I mean. Wouldn’t it make things easier between us?”
I force a swallow down my throat. “I don’t know. Would it?”
“My brothers are my friends, and it’s easier to work with them than anyone else.”
That makes sense. But I’m not sure if it makes enough sense to override the warning flares being shot by the logical section of my brain.
He sighs. “Look, Shaye. I’m going to circle back to the whole honesty thing, okay?”
I nod warily.
“I’ve felt like you and I could be … friends,” he says before clearing his throat, “since you ran into me with your car.”
“I ran into your car with my car.”
He laughs, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t want to stifle our …
rapport with each other by stuffing us into a professional box.
” The laughter wanes, but the smile stays.
“Sure, we need to be professional. But I want us to be honest and open with each other. Who knows how well we’ll work together if we allow ourselves that space? ”
A bolt of energy races through me as I absorb his words.
I know what he means. People who get along and can trust each other do work together better.
I’ve seen it in action. But there’s an edge to his words that slices through the rational side of me.
It bleeds into the irrational, the illogical side.
That’s the side that is reading way too far into things.
I squirm. “Okay. Yes. Friends it is, then.”
“Friends it is.”
He grins. I think he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t.
My phone buzzes next to me. “That’s my reminder to take the trash cans at my house to the road for the morning.”
He stands. “Let me walk you out.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him, but my body fills with a warmth that’s so hot it almost makes me wiggle.
“Some fresh air will do me some good.”
He flashes me a wide, disarming smile as we head for the door. All I can do is smile back.