Chapter 16
Brielle
I close the door, shuffling my feet past Holly like she didn’t just catch me making out with my boss against our door.
“Uh-uh. Stop right there,” she calls.
I freeze in place, waiting to get yelled at like a naughty child. I certainly feel naughty right now.
“I need deets. Spill, girl.” She takes a sip of her water and plops herself into one of the seats at our small dining table, settling in for a story.
“There’s nothing to tell. We kissed. You caught us. That’s it.”
“That is not it. And that was not kissing. That was trying to crawl into his body through his mouth. You were basically banging against the door.”
My mouth drops. “We were not. All clothes were on at all times.” I can hear the defensiveness in my voice. I pull at the hem of my sweater, as if having it on did anything to stop Damian’s hand from smoothing across my skin.
“Better question, why? Why have you not climbed that man like a tree without the clothes? Unless…” She trails off, waiting for me to say something. I don’t give her that satisfaction. “Did you finally do the deed while you were away?”
“No,” I tell her, turning back to my room. Embarrassment washes over me. “I don’t want to talk about it, Hols.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” She rushes up to me, following me into my room. “We tell each other everything. What’s up, babe? You can’t tell me that man doesn’t want you or something. He was ravaging you in the hallway. What’s got you upset?”
I kick off my boots and collapse onto my bed.
Holly settles on the other side. She nestles under the blankets with me, and I’m reminded of all the nights back in college when we stayed up through the middle of the night, playing silly games in our shared bedroom, trying to read each other’s minds and making up stories about how the other’s life was going to play out in the most ridiculous ways.
She really is my best friend, my ride or die, my closest confidant.
“Talk to me,” she says quietly, her hand rubbing my arm soothingly.
I take a deep breath and then turn to face her. “You know how Damian and I have been spending a lot of time together?”
“Uh, yeah. I noticed.”
“And I told you that we work together?”
“Uh-huh,” she says again.
My fingers snag on the threads of my comforter where I’m picking at it. “And how everyone at work calls my boss, Mr. Edgerton, Satan because he’s such a dick.”
“That took a weird turn, but okay, yeah, you told me. Is there one of those stupid rules that colleagues can’t hook up or something? I freaking hate those. Who cares if two people meet at work and start dating? Where else are people supposed to meet, other than a dating app?”
“That’s not it. There is no rule. At least as far as I know,” I say. Although there is certainly an unspoken rule involved here.
“Then what’s the problem? What’s Satan got to do with it?”
I should have been truthful with Holly from the beginning, but I think I was afraid that she’d talk me out of it. Make me see sense that this was a bad idea. She would have been right, but I didn’t want to hear it, so I kept it from her instead.
Guilt swirls in my gut as I look her in the eye. “Mr. Edgerton is Damian. Damian is Mr. Edgerton.”
“Shut up,” she yells, her jaw falling open. She’s out of my bed in a flash, pacing the floor. “You’ve been dating your evil boss, and you didn’t tell me!”
“There’s more,” I admit.
She stops pacing and stares at me, her arms crossed over her chest, waiting.
“First, I’d like to clarify that we aren’t dating.”
“Oh, no? Dates every night, weekend trips away. That’s not dating?”
“We’re fake dating.”
Holly is back to pacing the floor. She’s making me dizzy watching her go back and forth in the small room. It can’t be more than four steps in each direction before she has to turn around.
“What? What does that even mean? How?”
“The day before Valentine’s Day, he came to me and asked me to be his date to a work dinner the next night.
He was in a jam and didn’t have anyone he felt comfortable asking out to a Valentine’s Day dinner.
” I tell Holly the entire story. The disaster of a dinner, agreeing to go on this weekend trip, realizing that we knew nothing about each other, and spending our evenings at his place rectifying that.
“So how does all that end up with you two sucking face at the door?”
“I kissed him first. And Holly… it was the worst kiss of my entire life.”
She bursts out laughing. “Seems like he improved, at least.”
I’m laughing now, too. I feel so much lighter getting this lie I’ve been living off my chest. “Yeah, he made up for it.”
A seriousness settles over us. Holly sits on the bed next to me again, her legs crossed under her. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Getting involved with the boss? After what happened at the last place?”
“No. I’m sure it’s a terrible idea. And that’s what I told him. What you walked in on was the last time. Starting tomorrow, we are Mr. Edgerton, CEO, and Brielle Collins, accountant. Nothing more.”
I try to put on a face like it doesn’t bother me to think that I won’t be spending any more time with Damian after work. Like seeing him every day, knowing what he looks like under that suit, what he feels like under my fingers, isn’t going to haunt me.
Holly’s not buying it though. She looks at me with those sad eyes, completely in tune with me. “You like him.” It’s a statement, no question about it.
A lump forms in my throat, and I can feel my eyes welling.
“I feel so stupid, Hols,” A tear rolls down my face, and I swipe it away. It’s been a long weekend, and my emotions are getting the best of me. I know that getting involved with Damian would be a mistake. It isn’t an option, even if I wanted it to be.
“You’re not stupid. You’re beautiful, smart, funny, and kind. I’m not surprised he’s taken a liking to you, Bri. But you have to be careful.”
“I know.” I suck in a breath and collect myself. “I just feel like he’s different when it’s just him and I. Like he lets his guard down for me.”
Holly nods like she understands, but she doesn’t. She hasn’t seen Damian go from CEO to chef to adoring boyfriend. She hasn’t seen him gloriously nude and then have to pretend like it never happened.
She tucks me in with a kiss to my forehead. “You’ll feel better after you get some sleep. Build those walls back up before you go back to that office tomorrow, and walk in there with your head held high.”
“Thanks, Holly.” I force a smile for her benefit. I love Holly like a sister, but right now, I just want to be alone.
The elevator doors open, and I walk into the CreativEdge office with a refreshed mindset.
After tossing and turning half the night, I decided to do what Holly said and rebuild my walls.
What happened between me and Damian was fun, but it’s in the past, not to be revisited again.
I’m not going to give it another thought, just like I’m sure he isn’t either.
My eyes automatically flick to his corner office, but they don’t linger. I don’t wait to see if he sees me walking by. I don’t make eye contact like we’re in on some private joke together.
Okay, maybe I glance into his office, but it’s quick. And I only find it empty anyway. Damian isn’t sitting behind his desk like he usually is, but that’s not my concern. I’m not here to wonder where he is. Not. My. Business.
I get to my desk and pop my earbuds in so I can finish the podcast I was listening to on my walk to work this morning. People start filing in over the next twenty minutes while I get to work.
“Morning. How was your weekend?” Erica asks as she comes in and puts her bag down.
Images of Damian flit through my brain. I can still feel his hand around the base of my throat, his mouth on mine. Heat rises to my cheeks, but I shake it away as I shut down memory lane.
“Good. Uneventful. How about you?”
“I tried this restaurant down by the harbor. It was delicious…” Erica keeps talking about what she did over the weekend, Rui joining us a few minutes later and jumping into the conversation as well.
This is good. This is exactly what I need. Life is back to normal; regular conversations that don’t involve me having to put on a show or play a part.
“Well, better get started before Satan starts freaking out,” Rui says.
“Seriously,” Erica agrees.
Words of his defense are on the tip of my tongue, but I stay silent, offering them a small smile.
I get back to what I was doing before they came in, time moving at a snail’s pace on this Monday morning.
The sound of footsteps padding down the hall makes my breath quicken. I know those footsteps, the cadence of his walk. I can tell it’s Damian—Mr. Edgerton—before he gets to our shared office. He turns into the researchers’ office across the hall, asking for their weekly report on the key accounts.
“That report needs to be in my inbox before 10:00 a.m. This isn’t new information. Every week, we go over this. Is there a reason you can’t seem to hit this deadline?”
“No, Mr. Edgerton. No excuse. You’ll have it in five minutes, I promise,” Devin says with a pleading tone.
I nearly roll my eyes at the dramatics. He sounds like someone is holding his child hostage instead of being talked to about his inability to work within a deadline.
“Good.” His firm voice reverberates off the walls. “Next week, I don’t want to have to ask for it. 10:00 a.m., Devin.”
Damian turns from the office, his head shaking with quiet disappointment, and walks back down the hallway. Not even the quickest of glances my way.
Which is good, really. I don’t need him glancing my way. Don’t want it. We have no shared experiences, no secret knowledge about each other, because it never happened.
“There he goes again,” Rui says quietly.
“At least Satan’s taking it out on the research team this time instead of us,” Erica counters.
Without thinking, I open my mouth.
“Why do you all call him Satan? I didn’t think there was anything wrong with what he asked of them. It sounded like it was a known assignment and established deadline that Devin failed to meet.”
“He has access to all of the information. He could just run the report himself, but instead, he wants his minions to do all his work for him,” Rui complains.
“But is that really the best use of his time? And isn’t it kind of our job?”
“You haven’t been here long enough. Just wait. He’s going to come in here at the end of the month, yelling about why we haven’t closed out the books for the month and how we need to properly code every single expense.”
We just closed the books on February last week, and he never once came into our office yelling and screaming. As a matter of fact, I didn’t hear him yelling and screaming at anyone from any department.
“It just seems to me like he’s getting a bad rap when he’s just trying to run a business and has expectations that his staff will do their jobs.
” I shrug. “That doesn’t sound like Satan—it sounds like a boss.
” I should stop there, but now that I’ve started, it just keeps coming.
“Not to mention the fact that he keeps everyone’s favorite foods stocked in the kitchen, Mary’s yogurts and Carl’s breakfast bars.
He encourages the teams to work together, specifically the marketing and sales teams. He tells you over and over to get here on time, but despite the fact that you’re always late, he never makes a big deal out of it.
” I pull in a breath, more examples on my tongue.
Rui and Erica share a look, and I realize I may have said too much.
I shouldn’t be coming to Damian’s defense.
I’m barely supposed to know the man. But I do.
Listening to the team bad-mouth him every day was getting old last week, but now that I’ve spent real time with him, now that I know him—the real Damian—it pisses me off even more.
I take another breath, calming me down, my hands nervously playing with the ends of my hair. “I just don’t think it’s fair to Mr. Edgerton to call him Satan behind his back, when it’s your own missed deadlines that started it.”
“I, uh, I guess you’re right,” Rui concedes. “It isn’t like he’s yelled at me for being late when I was here on time.”
“And I did code all of the office supplies to that contract instead of overhead expenses, messing up the true portfolio costs that one time,” Erica says.
“I still think he could be friendlier though,” Rui adds.
I try to keep the smile off my face as we let the conversation drop and get back to work. Inside, a feeling of pride swells on Damian’s behalf.
A quiet scoff catches my attention. I look up and find Devin in the doorway, his face pinched in a deep scowl before he turns and walks away.