Chapter 4 Whitney
Whitney
“What is this?” I ask once I make it to my desk Thursday morning. For once, Theo is here before me. He looks up from whatever he’s working on to see what I’m asking about. In a smooth movement, he pushes back his chair and walks out of the office.
In a way that is sexy enough to be sinful, he leans on his doorframe, slides his hands into his slack pockets, and hits me with an amused grin. “What is what?”
I point at the potted plant sitting on my desk. “That.”
“It’s an orchid.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I can see that. But why might be a better question.”
“As a thank you for speaking out when the board started attacking me yesterday,” Theo says. He gives me a soft smile. “I thought I would be a shoo-in, given my resume and the initial plan I had presented to them. I wasn’t expecting the transition to be so…rough.”
“Elena is an old bat,” I explain, waving my hand. “She was always riding Mr. Peterson about the stupidest things too. Every time she opens her mouth, something negative rolls out.”
“Well, even still,” Theo says, crossing his arms over his chest. The movement makes his biceps bulge, and though they’re covered by his light gray work shirt, I can tell he puts a lot of time in at the gym.
For whatever reason, that fact makes my palms sweaty.
“I appreciate it. So, this is my thank you.”
I look at the potted flower in front of me. The blossoms are wide open, each petal displaying its own intricate, violet pattern. The elegance of the flower is not lost on me, and I find myself staring at it, getting lost in the gesture.
“It really is beautiful,” I whisper, still tracing over the purple streaks and dots weaving across the blossom with my gaze.
“A beautiful flower for a beautiful assistant,” Theo says.
His words finally draw my attention back to him, and I swallow thickly, noting that my cheeks are burning.
He’s watching me with an unreadable expression and a gleam in his eyes.
My heart rate seems to pick up and my mouth goes dry as I clasp my fingers tightly in front of me.
We hold each other’s gaze up until the point where it almost becomes uncomfortable. Finally, he pushes himself off the doorway. “Guess we better get to work. I’ve got a deadline to meet.” He shoots me a wink and then disappears back into his office.
I look back to the flower as my computer boots up, still a little wonderstruck from the encounter.
My mind is racing, wondering if there is any other hidden meaning to Theo’s gift this morning.
To distract my thoughts from straying too far, I do an internet search on the care and feeding of orchids, jot a few notes down on a sticky pad, and put it on the plant.
It’s not difficult. Surely, I can keep this thing alive.
I don’t have the best track record when it comes to plants, but I am well and determined to do my best with this one.
No one has given me flowers before.
It’s a sad fact at my tender age of twenty-seven, and yet, it’s the truth.
Though I’ve had my fair share of relationships, I have yet to find a man who also noted the significance of simple gestures, such as gifting flowers.
Who knew I just needed to get a new boss to experience this life milestone?
For the rest of the day, my eyes keep being drawn toward the flower, and I catch myself smiling to myself one too many times. My thoughts stray to my little list again, thinking of the second thing that Theo’s crossed off.
Number 5: Random Acts of Kindness
Two weeks go by, and surprisingly, I don’t kill the orchid.
Much to my satisfaction, the beautiful buds are still holding strong.
As if acting as a beacon, it’s one of the first things I see when I step out of the elevator on our floor, and it reminds me of the way he grinned at me as he called me beautiful.
Every morning, it brings a smile to my face and I’m happy to have something to brighten up my day right away.
Though, with the euphoric feeling comes a lingering curiosity, and I wonder if he feels a similar attraction to me as I feel to him.
I try to reason with myself and play it off as Theo just being friendly, but still, the possibility is there.
Theo and I have fallen into a comfortable routine. He buries himself in work, and I try my best to support him where I can.
Nexus Realty Group, over the last few years, has really boomed into the corporate and commercial realty scene.
Mr. Peterson seemed to do a good job of setting up Theo for success without even realizing it.
From last year’s financial reports, which I’ve stolen a glimpse of while handing them over, Nexus is doing well financially—really well.
A sense of pride overtakes me when I realize that Theo really hit the jackpot with our business.
As we get to know each other and spend more hours working together, I grow more and more impressed with the way he plans to improve Nexus.
I sincerely hope that he can win over the Board of Directors and show them that they absolutely made the right choice by taking a chance on him.
“Whitney?” Theo’s deep voice bellows from inside his office on a Thursday morning, about two weeks after the board meeting debacle.
“Yes?” I call back to him as I highlight another sentence in the contract I’m reading over on the computer. I just have to finish proofreading it for consistency before I send it over for him to sign.
“What is this on my schedule today?”
I peek up from my computer and in the direction of Theo’s office.
Pushing my chair back, I step away from my desk and slide into his doorway.
I have to stifle a laugh at what I find, though it simultaneously sets my nerves on edge.
His desk is a mess, with pens and sticky notes strewn everywhere.
There’s a stack of files off to one side, which I know he’s supposed to be working through.
I can’t imagine having my workspace look like that.
Theo’s deadline is still looming over both of us. We’ve both been working furiously, but he doesn’t need to say it out loud for me to know that we’re barely scratching the surface of what needs to be done.
Theo’s sitting with his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. His fingers are threaded through his dark, curly hair as though he wants to rip it out. When he finally registers my presence, he looks up at me, the epitome of overwhelmed.
“What is my appointment at one today?”
I cross my arms over my blue blouse and look at him, pretending to be stern. “That’s your appointment with Chris Johnson, head of marketing. Remember, you specifically asked me to put that on the schedule today? Because we had a ‘light’ day?”
With a heavy sigh, Theo nods and then looks back down at the stack of papers in front of him. He scribbles something on a sticky note, slaps it on the top page, and then flips to the next.
I watch him with rapt curiosity. Being so used to how Mr. Peterson functioned, seeing someone else in the thick of it is fascinating. Mr. Peterson worked with gentle focus, making sure to give each task the appropriate time required before moving on to the next.
Theo seems to be a tornado in action. He’s got a million things going on at once that all hold a small piece of his attention. Though he’s only been here for a few weeks, he’s gotten twice the amount of work done that Mr. Peterson could have finished in a month.
I suppose there is a method to his madness—quite literally. I’ll never understand it, but if it works for him, so be it. It’s not my place to force him to be more organized, even though the fact that he’s not frustrates me to no end.
In the few weeks that Theo has been here, I’ve slowly started to learn his habits.
He likes utter silence most of the time; any little noise or distraction seems to throw him off his game, and it takes him much longer to pick up back where he was.
I’ve had to make some serious compromises—usually, I like to have some light piano music playing while I work, and a certain ringer set on my desktop phone.
I swear, the first time that thing rang, Theo had a full-blown meltdown.
I answered it by the second ring, but not even a moment later, he was stomping out of his office and glowering at me from the doorway.
After I had finished my call, he nipped this issue right in the bud.
I was no longer allowed to have my ringer on my desk phone unless I was away from my desk or wearing a headset.
It was an adjustment for sure, and I had found myself getting annoyed with his strict expectations more often than not. But now, a few weeks in, I am starting to find the groove of working for him.
He is efficient, I’ll give him that. I felt like a lot of the time, I had to keep Mr. Peterson on time with deadlines.
His determination to give each task the proper attention tended to run us late.
Not with Theo, though. Usually, if I handed him an invoice or something that needed a read-through and a signature, he’d have it back on my desk within the hour.
We are racing against a clock, which is where I think most of Theo’s aggravation is coming from now. He has been reading through contracts, financial reports, budget analyses, and fiscal calendars—all the non-fun, housekeeping things that are involved when taking over a business.
And Nexus has been around a long time, which means there’s only that much more to get through.
I can tell, though, Theo is committed. He wants to do well here and make a difference in this company’s future, even with the Board of Directors breathing down his neck. It is an attractive quality—as if Theo needs any help in that department.
Number 4: Has the Ambition to Succeed
“I might need to reschedule,” Theo mutters. “I feel like I’m still balls deep in these reports, with no end in sight. And the last thing I need is to push the deadline. I’m sure the Board of Directors would just love that.”
I step further into his office. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He looks at me wryly. “Yes, cancel that meeting. And maybe have lunch with me?”
My cheeks heat, despite myself. He’s still been on this lunch thing, attempting to snag me for a lunch date ever since he first arrived.
I’ve somehow managed to avoid it, though I know at some point, I’ll have to cave and take him up on his offer.
I’m secretly worried about how it will go.
There is an undeniable attraction—at least on my part—and the last thing I need is to go to lunch with him and make a fool of myself.
“I’m sorry,” I start, and Theo gives me an exasperated look. “I have a meeting I have to be at. Maybe another time?”
His lips pull into a sideways smirk. “You keep evading me, Whitney. One of these days, I’m going to catch you.” My thighs clench at the sultry tone in his voice. Surely, I must be imagining the way his eyes heat as he stares at me from across the room.
He watches me as though he wants to have me for lunch, and it makes my body come alive with a mix of anticipation and dire need.
It seems that after my blunt outburst at the meeting, the dynamic between Theo and me has changed, despite how much we both try to keep it under control.
Following that specific event, Theo seemed almost enthralled with me.
I don’t think I’ll very quickly forget the way that he watched me as we walked out of that boardroom together.
And, of course, that was only made worse by me, literally, tripping into his office and falling into his arms.
If I thought he was looking at me a certain way before, I quickly learned what it meant to have Theo Hurst look at me.
For the first time in maybe my whole life, right there in Theo’s arms, I felt like I was finally being seen.
And though I’m certain I was imagining it, there was a fire behind Theo’s eyes that told me he liked what he saw.
And even now, as I replay it, all I can think about is how he called me beautiful when he gave me that flower the following morning.
Perhaps there was more to that gift than just a friendly gesture.
Thankfully, we haven’t had any more embarrassing events. Rather than wearing heels again and risking tripping over his threshold, I’ve opted for flats with only an inch heel at most.
Since that first week, our entire work life has been focused and driven by the need to check off the necessary requirements for the follow-up meeting in a few months.
Despite what my heart tells me, my brain agrees that this is for the best. Company policy at Nexus is no employee relationships.
Though Theo may be the most attractive man I’ve ever laid eyes on, he’s not mine. He is my boss. Nothing more.
But even with that in mind, throughout the following days, I often catch myself admiring the way he tugs at his necktie when he gets too stressed or rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt when he’s frustrated.
It’s all these little things that are drawing me away from seeing Theo as my boss, and instead, seeing him as a man.
A man I’m terribly attracted to.
And a man who might just be attracted to me too.
I just hope that I can keep reminding my heart to stay in line and listen to reason. Otherwise, I might just find myself in some treacherous waters.