Chapter 16
‘I expect you to be professional when working here! This is not your playground, Caleb. Why can’t you take anything seriously for once?!’
My ears were still ringing from Ethan’s lecture when I returned to the office. I knew who it was behind the emails. Pissed as I was with Eve, there was also a hint of admiration for how creative her revenge has been.
In college, we barely interacted, and when we did, it was mostly in the confines of the classrooms where we would constantly be trying our best to out-do each other.
Working at Thalvyn Maritime together has been our first time forced together in close proximity, and I find her even more infuriating.
And yet, keeping my hands off her is the hardest thing I’ve had to do, especially now when I know what she tastes like, what her moans sound like, how her curves feel under my hands.
Her defiance is addicting, breaking it when she’s under me, my obsession.
I never meant to toy with her in the stairwell, never meant to put my hands on her in the office, to put her in that position, but the unrepentant smile on her face drove me crazy. Ethan questioned my work ethics because of her. Her smug smile snapped something inside me.
I glance at my watch. It’s been twenty minutes.
Maybe I should go seek her out, find her wherever she’s gone to cool off and.
.. What? The rational part of my brain knows I should leave it alone.
Let her simmer down before we have another confrontation.
But the other part of me—the part that’s still buzzing from having my hands on her in that stairwell—wants to track her down and finish what we started.
But I hesitate because I know Eve. She might just shove me down the stairs if I corner her right now. The woman has zero qualms about violence when she’s pissed, and after what just happened, she’s definitely pissed.
My hands are still tingling from where they touched her skin. The memory of her pressed against that concrete wall, the way her breath hitched when I leaned in close, the defiant tilt of her chin, even when she was trapped—It’s driving me insane.
I check my watch again. Twenty-two minutes now.
The office feels too quiet without her presence. Even when we’re not speaking, there’s this electric current that runs between us, this awareness that makes the air feel charged. Without it, everything feels flat. Lifeless.
I try to focus on work, pulling up the Serastra campaign files, but the words blur together on the screen.
All I can think about is the taste of her mouth, the soft sound she made when I pressed closer, the way her fingers had gripped my shirt like she couldn’t decide whether to push me away or pull me closer.
This is what she does to me. Turns my brain to mush and makes me act like a fucking teenager with his first crush.
I’m still debating whether to go find her when I hear the sharp click of heels on tile. My pulse kicks up before I even see who it is, but I know. My body recognizes the sound of her walk, the particular rhythm of her stride.
The office door opens, and Eve strolls in like she owns the place. She looks composed.
Her hair is still loose around her shoulders, dark waves cascading down her back, but she’s clearly run a brush through it.
The wild tangles from our encounter in the stairwell have been smoothed into something more professional.
Her clothes are pressed—shirt tucked back in, skirt straightened out.
She’s not wearing any lipstick, which means she wiped it off after I had my mouth on hers.
The thought sends a jolt of heat straight through me.
She walks past my desk without so much as an acknowledgment. Doesn’t even glance in my direction. She looks up at me in that defiant way that always makes me want to grab her and remind her exactly who was making her moan twenty minutes ago.
But as she passes my chair, moving with that fluid grace that makes every man in the office stop and stare, her heel comes down hard on my foot.
“Fuck!” The word explodes out of me as white-hot pain shoots through my foot and up my leg.
I double over in my chair, groaning, my hands instinctively going to my injured foot.
She didn’t just step on it—She stomped on it.
Full force. With that sharp stiletto heel that could probably puncture steel.
“Oops,” she says, settling into her chair with the kind of casual grace that suggests this was anything but an accident. She doesn’t sound sorry at all. If anything, there’s satisfaction in her voice.
I’m still groaning, flexing my foot to make sure she didn’t break anything. The pain is sharp, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. “Jesus Christ, Eve.” She doesn’t respond. Just settles into her chair and pulls out her keyboard like she didn’t just commit assault with a deadly weapon.
Through the haze of pain, I have to appreciate the performance.
To anyone else in the office, it would have looked like an accident.
A simple misstep as she walked past my desk.
No one else even glanced over. But I felt the deliberate pressure, the way she aimed for maximum impact with that stiletto heel.
“I probably deserved that,” I mutter, still nursing my throbbing foot as she opens her bag and takes out her lipstick, reapplying it.
She doesn’t acknowledge the comment. I watch her through narrowed eyes as she begins typing on her keyboard.
She’s completely ignoring my existence as she gets to work.
I spend the next hour trying to fix the email disaster. Every message I send now requires manual approval, and I have to explain to three different department heads why they received detailed analyses of extinct whale species attached with the quarterly reports they were expecting.
The whole time, Eve sits at her desk like a statue. Professional. Polite. Completely fucking irritating.
When Joshua stops by her desk to ask about the Serastra timeline, she gives him a bright smile and launches into a detailed explanation about vendor confirmations and timeline adjustments. Full sentences. Animated hand gestures. The works.
When Flora asks about the catering arrangements, Eve’s response is warm and thorough, complete with suggestions for dietary accommodations.
When Steven brings up concerns about the budget, she leans forward attentively, nodding and taking notes, offering solutions with that sharp intelligence that usually drives me crazy.
But when I clear my throat and ask if she’s reviewed the latest graphics proofs, she doesn’t even look up from her screen. Just slides a folder across her desk in my general direction and says, “Fine.”
One word. No eye contact. No explanation.
I catch Joshua glancing between us, his brow furrowed with curiosity. After watching Eve chat easily with everyone else while giving me the arctic treatment, he sidles over to my desk.
“Dude,” he whispers, leaning down to pretend he’s looking at my screen. “What the hell did you say to Eve?”
“Nothing,” I mutter, not taking my eyes off my computer.
“Nothing?” Joshua’s voice drops even lower. “Man, when Eve gets like this—but only with one specific person—that means they really fucked up. Like, personally pissed her off bad.”
I glance over at her again. She’s laughing at something Flora just said, her whole face lighting up with genuine amusement.
Then her gaze accidentally meets mine for a split second, and the warmth disappears like someone flipped a switch.
She looks away immediately, her expression going carefully blank.
“It’s nothing,” I repeat, but the words feel hollow. Joshua gives me a look that clearly says he doesn’t believe me, but he backs off.
The rest of the afternoon is torture. I watch her be warm and engaging with literally everyone else in the office while treating me like I’m invisible.
When the maintenance guy comes around to fix her squeaky chair, she chats with him about his daughter’s soccer team.
When the intern brings her coffee around, she thanks him with genuine appreciation and asks about his classes.
But when I try to hand her a file she needs for the campaign? She takes it without looking at me and says thanks in the same tone you use to dismiss a waiter.
By four o’clock, I can’t take it anymore.
“Eve,” I say, standing up from my desk. “Can we—”
She stands, too, smoothing down her skirt. “I need to make copies,” she announces to the room in general, and walks out.
Just like that. Doesn’t even acknowledge I was speaking.
I stare after her, my jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack. Around me, the office continues buzzing with normal conversation and productivity, but I feel like I’m in some kind of bubble where Eve Lopez has decided I don’t exist.
Did I cross a line? In the stairwell, when I had her pressed against that wall, when I kissed her like I had every right to—
Fuck.
Maybe I did. Maybe pushing her like that, cornering her, was too much. Even if she kissed me back, even if she was just as into it as I was, maybe afterward she realized how fucked up the whole situation was.
I try again when she comes back, attempting casual conversation about the campaign timeline, but she just nods and gives me clipped, professional responses while continuing to chat and laugh with everyone else.
By five-thirty, I’m ready to grab her and shake some sense into her, but I have to leave for my dinner with Zeeshan Rogan.
I should be focused on that. On saving the launch event that’s hanging by a thread, on proving to Iris and the board that we can still pull off this heritage marketing campaign, on making sure the ‘Legacy Refined’ concept doesn’t die.
Instead, all I can think about is how Eve smiled at the fucking maintenance guy while acting like I was a piece of furniture.
“I’m leaving then,” I tell Eve as I gather my things.