Dominic
Ican still taste the sweet tea on her lips. Still feel the exact moment her mouth softened against mine, the small involuntary sound she made when I nipped her bottom lip, the way her fingers found the fabric of my shirt and twisted.
The whiskey was a low buzz in my blood, but it didn’t put her hips against mine or coax her tongue past my own.
It didn’t make her tilt her head back when my thumb traced her jaw, or pull her closer when she should have stepped away.
It wasn’t responsible for the hard, insistent ache that followed me all the way to the car, or for the fact that I stood under the motion-sensor light in her parents’ driveway for a full minute trying to collect myself before I could face the kitchen window.
The drinks made it harder to keep pretending. They didn’t manufacture a single thing I felt.
I’m in my home gym before six the next morning because lying in bed has become an exercise in remembering her mouth. The treadmill does nothing to help. Neither do the weights or the cold shower afterward.
By the time I reach Rowe Holdings, I’ve accepted that I want to kiss Elena again, and she’s going to act as though the first time never happened.
She proves me right just after eight.
Elena steps off the elevator in a charcoal suit with her hair pulled back and a leather portfolio tucked beneath her arm. She pauses when she sees me outside the executive conference room, but the hesitation lasts less than a second.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Morning.”
Her eyes meet mine and shift to the conference room doors. “You’re early.”
“So are you.”
“I’m usually early.”
“I know.”
The elevator closes behind her. We stand alone in the corridor. She’s already reestablished ten feet of careful, professional distance between us; Her entire posture is a closing argument. The office begins to wake around us, a low hum of activity that gives her an excuse not to look at me.
She adjusts her grip on the portfolio. “The revised Northbridge projections came in last night. Maya circulated them to the transaction team.”
“I saw them.”
“I’ve flagged three assumptions we need to challenge before the next meeting.”
“Send them to me.”
“I will.”
She walks into the conference room without mentioning the barbecue or acknowledging that she spent last night gripping my shirt while I kissed her against her car.
I follow her inside and take my usual seat at the head of the table. Elena chooses the chair two places to my right instead of the one beside me.
People begin filing into the room. The meeting starts, and Elena becomes the analyst everyone else knows. She sits forward, pen poised, and her gaze on the lead analyst is level, unimpressed by a title she knows is no substitute for competence.
She dismantles one of the Northridge assumptions in less than three minutes.
“They’ve projected a twenty-eight percent increase without identifying the contracts expected to support it,” she says. “Either the revenue exists and they haven’t disclosed the source, or it doesn’t. They’re asking us to price optimism as though it’s an asset.”
The lead analyst flips through the deck. “They cited anticipated market expansion.”
“That explains why they want the number. It doesn’t explain how they’ll achieve it.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Remove the unsupported growth from the model and request the customer pipeline.”
I watch the analyst make the change. She’s right. She usually is.
Elena glances at me. “Unless you disagree.”
“I don’t.”
She looks at me one beat longer than necessary, her expression unreadable. I’m searching for a crack in the composure, some acknowledgment of last night, but find nothing. She turns away.
I let her leave with everyone else after the meeting. Calling her back or summoning her to my office would turn my position into pressure, and I won’t do that to her.
Late that morning, she appears in my doorway on her own.
“I have the updated projections.”
She enters and places a folder on my desk. Her fingers remain on it while I open the file.
“You were right about the revenue,” I say. “The pipeline report came in twenty minutes ago.”
“And?”
“They can support nine percent.”
“That’s generous.”
“It is.”
She nods as though we’ve concluded the only conversation she came here to have, but she doesn’t leave.
I wait.
Elena runs her thumb along the edge of the folder. “About yesterday.”
“Which part?”
Her eyes narrow. “You know which part.”
“There were several memorable moments.”
“You had a few drinks.”
“I did.”
“So did I.”
“You had one glass of wine with dinner and iced tea for the rest of the afternoon.”
She gives me an irritated look. “Of course you counted.”
“I noticed.”
“That’s my point. We were at a family barbecue. Everyone was drinking, Marcus almost said something he shouldn’t have, and you were acting differently.”
She pauses.
“Possessive?” I suggest.
“I was going to say uninhibited.” A safer word. A word that suggests a charming lack of control rather than a deliberate claim. I won’t let her have it.
“I was both.”
A faint flush reaches her cheeks. “Alcohol lowers judgment.”
“I had my last whiskey more than two hours before we left.”
“That doesn’t mean it was out of your system.”
“I was sober enough to arrange a ride, help clean your parents’ kitchen, and remember everything you said beside your car.”
Her fingers flex against the edge of my desk.
The slight tremor in her fingers when they flex against the desk tells me she remembers it too. “Elena,” I say, my voice softer than before, “I knew exactly whom I was kissing.”
The color in her face deepens.
She lowers her voice even though my office door is closed. “You’re my boss.”
“I was yesterday too.”
“You’re Cliff’s best friend.”
“I’ve been his best friend since college.”
“We have a clinic appointment next Monday.”
“I remember that as well.”
“Then you understand why this can’t become a habit.”
She’s built a careful wall of plausible deniability. I lean back in my chair, shifting the angle, taking back a little space. “You kissed me back.”
“I’m aware.”
“You pulled me closer.”
“Fine. I participated.”
“Enthusiastically.”
She looks toward the windows, and I catch the brief curve of her mouth before she controls it. There it is. A crack in the professional finish. It’s gone as quickly as it came.
“I’m not discussing my level of enthusiasm with you.”
“You brought up the kiss.”
“To establish that it was an isolated lapse in judgment.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Both.”
“I disagree.”
Her eyes return to me. “Which part?”
“I didn’t lapse.” I keep my voice even. “The whiskey made me less interested in pretending I didn’t want to kiss you. I’d make the same choice sober.”
She studies me, searching for a qualification I have no intention of giving her.
“And what if I wouldn’t make the same choice?” she asks.
“Then I won’t kiss you again.”
Her shoulders loosen slightly.
I close the folder and hold it out. “But I’m not going to lie and tell you I regret it. I think we both felt how much I enjoyed it.”
I know I shouldn’t tease her about it but the blush that creeps up her neck is exactly the response I wanted. She rolls her eyes and reaches out to take the file from me without letting our fingers touch. “I should get back to work.”
“I’ll see you this afternoon.”
She reaches the door, then turns. “One kiss isn’t conclusive.”
I smile. “Whatever helps you concentrate.”
She leaves before I can see whether she smiles back.
Later in the week, walking past Elena’s open office, I learn that her thirtieth birthday remains unfinished business.
“You can’t escape turning thirty with one expensive dinner and hope the rest of us forget,” Maya is saying. “We all own calendars.”
“I’m not trying to escape it.”
“You refused a party.”
“I agreed to drinks.”
“After Olivia and I threatened to come to your apartment with decorations.”
“You threatened balloons. That’s different.”
“There will still be balloons.”
“Maya.”
I continue toward my office before either of them notices me listening.
An hour later, Elena sends me a message asking if I have time to review the final Northbridge questions. I tell her to come in.
She arrives with her laptop and a legal pad, her composure rebuilt into something seamless.
The unease from this morning is gone. For twenty minutes, we work.
She anticipates a question about the attrition model before I ask, pulling up a supporting schedule without breaking the conversation’s rhythm.
She is sharp, focused, and untouchable. Then she closes her computer.
“Was there anything else?” I ask.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t continue.
I wait. She takes a breath.
“Maya and Olivia organized belated birthday drinks for me on Saturday.”
“I heard.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Were you listening outside my office?”
“I was walking past.”
“And then slowed down?”
“I had nowhere urgent to be.”
“You’re the CEO. There’s always another meeting, another fire to put out.”
“Not that morning.”
She shakes her head, but she’s fighting a smile. “It’s in the West Loop. Maya will be there, along with Olivia, Marcus, and most of the people I knew in college. There may also be balloons, despite my explicit objection.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It could be.”
She turns the pen between her fingers, watching the motion instead of me. I know what she’s trying to ask. I wait, because I need to hear her say it. I need this to be her choice, stated plainly.
Finally, she sets the pen down. “Would you like to come?”
I want to accept before she finishes asking.
“To your birthday drinks?”
“Yes.”
“With your friends.”
“That’s generally how birthday drinks work.”
“Why?”
Her eyes narrow. “Most people say yes or no before requesting a written justification.”
“I’m interested in the invitation.”
“You already took me to dinner on my birthday. Maya considers you partly responsible for the fact that she couldn’t force me into a party that night.”
“That explains why she might invite me.”
“She didn’t.”
“You did.”
Elena shifts in her chair. “I thought you might enjoy it.”
“Your college friends interrogating me?”