Chapter 39 - Because You Like Them
Monday afternoon, my tattoo became office property.
Apparently.
Emma was the most enthusiastic.
"Oh my God."
I laughed.
"What?"
"No, seriously. I love it."
She was standing behind me while I held my hair out of the way.
"That's so pretty."
"Thank you."
"No, I'm actually mad."
I looked over my shoulder.
"At me?"
"At myself. Why didn't I think of something like this?"
I laughed.
"You can still get one."
"Yeah, but then I'll look like I copied you."
"You would be copying me."
"Exactly. That's the problem."
Nicole came over next.
Then Maya.
Then somehow Ben got involved despite having absolutely no reason to be involved.
"They're vampire wings," I explained for approximately the fourth time.
Ben looked at them.
"They're bat wings."
I turned around.
"Get away from me."
Emma laughed.
"They're vampire wings."
I pointed at her.
"Thank you."
"I support the artistic vision."
"Finally. Someone with culture."
Ethan appeared sometime during this nonsense.
"What are we looking at?"
"Angel's tattoo," Maya said.
I moved my hair again.
Ethan looked.
Then-
"Damn."
I looked at him.
"What?"
"That looks hot."
I stared at him.
Okay.
That was considerably more enthusiastic than I like it.
Ben's head turned.
"Damn, Ethan."
Ethan shrugged.
"What? It does."
Nicole laughed.
"Subtle."
"She asked what I thought."
"Actually, I didn't," I said.
Ethan smiled.
"Still true."
I shook my head, but I could feel myself smiling.
And then, for absolutely no useful reason-
Very attractive.
Adrian's voice came back to me.
I stopped smiling.
Oh.
The tiny hesitation before he'd said it.
The way he'd been standing behind me.
His fingers moving through my hair.
It's very attractive.
Oh.
Apparently I'd been so surprised that Adrian had used the word attractive at all that I hadn't stopped to consider what he'd actually meant by it.
Or maybe I'd understood it perfectly and simply hadn't processed the translation.
Ethan had just provided the translation.
I lowered my hair.
Well.
That was information I probably didn't need at two-thirty on a Monday afternoon.
Nicole was showing Daniel something on her screen.
"I still think the grill should be closer to the seating area."
Daniel shook his head.
"Then everyone sitting there gets smoked out."
"Not if it's positioned properly."
"I'd still separate them."
I looked over.
"You don't have to separate them. Adrian's terrace has a grill area right beside the outdoor dining space, and it works perfectly."
Silence.
I kept looking at Nicole's screen.
Then stopped.
Oh.
Slowly, I looked up.
Ben was looking at me.
Nicole was looking at me.
Daniel was looking at me.
Emma was looking at me.
Maya-
Maya looked delighted.
Shit.
Ben spoke first.
"Adrian's what?"
I considered lying.
Unfortunately, the sentence had already happened.
"Terrace."
"I heard the noun."
"Then why did you ask?"
"How do you know Adrian has a grill on his terrace?"
"Because I've seen it."
Nicole's eyebrows went up.
"You've been to Adrian's house?"
"Penthouse."
Maya covered her mouth.
I closed my eyes.
Why the fuck had I corrected that?
Ben leaned back in his chair.
"Interesting."
"It's really not."
"I disagree."
"Nobody asked you."
Nicole smiled.
"When were you there?"
"At some point in recorded history."
"Helpful."
"You're welcome."
Daniel looked over.
"How many times?"
"Next question."
Ben immediately raised a hand.
"Were you two alone?"
I stared at him.
"Not that question."
He grinned.
"Worth a shot."
And that should have been it.
Nicole went back to her screen.
Daniel went back to work.
Even Ben seemed willing to let me keep whatever remained of my dignity.
Emma didn't.
"But when did you go?"
I looked at her.
"I'm not telling you."
"Why not?"
There was something unusually direct about the question.
I paused.
"Because it's none of your business."
Emma went quiet.
The words had come out sharper than I'd intended.
"Sorry," she said.
"It's fine."
She hesitated.
"I just didn't know you two were that close."
Something about the way she said it made Maya look up.
I noticed.
Emma seemed to notice too.
"I mean-he doesn't exactly seem like someone who has coworkers over."
"He doesn't."
"But he had you over."
I looked at her for a second.
"Apparently."
Emma looked down.
And immediately, I felt bad.
She'd only asked a question.
Maybe she'd pushed a little harder than everyone else, but I hadn't needed to bite her head off for it.
"Actually," I said, softer, "Adrian didn't invite me."
Emma looked back at me.
"He didn't?"
"No. One of his family members did."
I meant it as reassurance.
Somehow, judging by Emma's face, it had achieved the exact opposite.
"You know his family too?"
Oh.
Right.
That did sound worse.
"Some of them."
Emma stared at me.
I probably should have stopped talking.
So naturally, I kept going.
"That's why I was there. It wasn't-"
I stopped.
Wasn't what?
Whatever Emma thought it was?
I didn't even know what Emma thought it was.
"Never mind."
"No, it's okay," Emma said.
She smiled.
It was a perfectly normal smile.
Almost.
"I just didn't realize you knew that much about his personal life."
I didn't answer.
Because there wasn't really a safe answer.
And for the first time, I thought about it from her side.
Emma knew Adrian Vale exactly the way almost everyone at Vale Architecture knew Adrian Vale.
As Adrian Vale.
CEO.
Architect.
Closed office.
Bad temper.
A man who came to work every morning and somehow managed to reveal absolutely nothing about where he'd come from or who he'd go home to.
Ben didn't know.
Nicole didn't know.
Daniel didn't know.
Emma didn't know.
For all of them, the wall was the same.
I looked toward Adrian's office.
Once, that wall had been the same for me too.
I hadn't known anything about him beyond these walls either.
But somewhere along the way, for some reason I still didn't completely understand-
Adrian had let me in.
He'd let me step inside the wall everyone else was still standing outside of.
I knew what his home looked like.
I knew what he looked like inside it.
I knew there were parts of Adrian Vale that had nothing to do with Vale Architecture.
Parts none of them had ever seen.
And judging by the way Emma had suddenly become very interested in her screen-
She'd just realized that too.
By Tuesday morning, Adrian had been saying no to the Halloween party for almost a week.
I'd lost count of how many times I'd actually asked.
Mostly because he'd started saying no before I could.
Tuesday morning, I'd walked into his office carrying a set of revised drawings.
He looked up.
"No."
I put the drawings on his desk.
"I came here to give you these."
"Okay."
"And ask about Halloween."
"No."
I stared at him.
"That was preemptive."
"That was efficient."
Asshole.
Tuesday afternoon, I'd called him.
He answered with-
"No."
"That's extremely unprofessional. What if this were an emergency?"
"Is it?"
"No."
"Then no."
He hung up.
Asshole.
I changed tactics.
"Would you come if you didn't have to dress up?"
"No."
"If you only stayed for thirty minutes?"
"No."
"If there was good food?"
"There is good food every year."
"And you still don't go?"
"Correct."
"What kind of monster are you?"
"The kind that doesn't attend Halloween parties."
Wednesday morning, I didn't ask at all.
Mostly because I was beginning to suspect he enjoyed saying no to me.
So I ignored the subject completely.
Apparently that bothered him more.
Around eleven, Adrian called me into his office to review the latest Solara revisions.
Actual work.
We spent twenty minutes arguing about an entrance detail.
He thought mine was unnecessarily complicated.
I thought his was boring.
"It isn't boring."
"It looks like an airport entrance."
"It does not."
"It absolutely does."
"Have you ever seen an airport?"
"Yes, Adrian. I've participated in aviation."
He looked at me.
"Participated in aviation?"
"I've been on planes."
"That's not participating in aviation."
"I participated as a passenger."
He stared at me for a second.
Then went back to the drawing.
"My entrance stays."
"No."
His eyes lifted.
I smiled.
"How does it feel?"
"What?"
"Being told no."
"I experience it approximately forty times a day since hiring you."
"Good. Then you're used to it."
I leaned over the drawing.
"Move this back."
"No."
"Adrian."
"Angelica."
"Come on."
"No."
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Then I realized-
"You're doing this on purpose."
"Doing what?"
"The Halloween no."
"This is architecture."
"You're enjoying the word."
"I've always enjoyed the word."
"Not this much."
His mouth moved.
Barely.
I pointed at him.
"There."
"What?"
"That."
"I didn't do anything."
"You almost smiled."
"No."
"You did."
"No."
"See? You're addicted."
That time he actually smiled.
Just slightly.
I hated how much I liked winning those.
"Move the entrance."
The smile disappeared.
"No."
Worth a try.
I didn't mention Halloween again that day.
Thursday morning, I asked.
No.
An hour later, I walked past his office, stopped at the door, and looked at him.
He looked up.
"No."
I continued walking.
By Thursday afternoon, I had almost accepted that the impossible had happened.
Everyone had been wrong.
There was apparently one thing Adrian Vale would not do just because I asked him.
The Halloween party was tomorrow.
And he wasn't coming.
I was standing beside his desk that afternoon, reviewing something on his monitor, when he spoke.
"What are you dressing up as?"
I looked at him.
"What?"
"Tomorrow."
I stared.
"You're asking about Halloween?"
"Yes."
Interesting.
Very interesting.
I straightened.
"Why?"
"It's a question."
"You hate Halloween."
"I don't hate Halloween."
"You've rejected Halloween approximately fourteen times."
"I rejected the party."
"Same thing."