CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: CHLOE

I closed the door behind me and put my laptop down on the coffee table in the office. “How was your call, sir?”

Theo glared at me. “Oh, I had a grand old time listening to those ancient bastards regale me with their extensive opinions on how I’m messing everything up. Can’t you tell how delighted I am?”

All things considered, the call went well.

I’d heard much worse out of his mouth. A personal favourite of mine was ‘stupid, decrepit see-you-next-Tuesdays.’

And yes, I was paraphrasing there.

It was one of the few times I’d ever seen Theodore Black truly lose his shit.

“Is there anything I can get you to make you feel better, sir?”

He stared at me for a moment, then shook his head. “You can’t get me anything, but there’s something you can do.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Very well. What is it?”

“Come here.”

This was a trap.

I knew it was a trap.

I still walked across the room to his desk and looked down at him. “Is that it?”

“Don’t be daft.” He wheeled his chair back from the desk and held out his arms. “Come here.”

I made a point of checking my watch. “It’s midday, sir.”

“Well, I’m the boss, and I’m telling you that you’re on your lunch break right now.” He reached out and grabbed my wrist, pulling me towards him.

Theo tugged me down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around me, holding onto me tightly. He buried his face in the curve of my neck and inhaled deeply before slowly letting it out with a hefty sigh.

Goddammit.

This stupid sexy cinnamon roll.

I rested my cheek on the top of his head and hugged him back, letting my arms circle his shoulders. “This is an abuse of your authority.”

“You can tell HR all about it later,” he mumbled. “Promise.”

I smiled, touching my hand to the side of his neck. My thumb settled against the curve of his jaw, and he tightened his grip on me. “I’ll allow ninety seconds of exploitation, so make the most of the it.”

“Your flexibility is noted and appreciated.”

“I’m counting, you know.”

“Of course, you are.”

Shit.

Why was this bastard so cute?

I didn’t want him to be cute. I wanted him to be annoying. I wanted him to be cold and demanding and unfeeling, because that made it easier to want to throw something at his head.

When he was like this, holding me tightly on his lap, burying his face in my neck like a needy little brat, it made every single fibre of my resolve waver. He tugged on my feelings like they were strings on a harp.

“Time’s up,” I said, patting his head.

“Thirty more seconds,” Theo murmured.

“Nope.”

“Yes. Please.”

I sighed. “Fine. But you can’t do this again.”

“Yes, yes.” He brushed his lips across my neck.

I slid my hand between his mouth and my skin. “Absolutely not. Don’t even try it. I’m already giving you a mile here.”

“So mean.”

“Such a baby,” I muttered, feeling something firm press into my thigh. “Hey, that better not be what I think it is.”

He hugged me tighter. “What if it is?”

This incorrigible pervert.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve had your extra thirty seconds. Let me go.”

Two knocks sounded at the door, and Theo jerked his head up with a tiny groan, loosening his grip on me. “Deal with that.”

Sure.

Nowhe let me go.

I slid off his lap and adjusted the waistband of my skirt, tucking my blouse back in properly on my way to the door. “Ms. Walker,” I said, stepping out to the hall and closing the door behind me. “What can I help you with?”

She blinked as if she was shocked to see me. “I need to speak with Mr Black.”

“I’m afraid he’s unavailable. Can I pass a message on for you?”

Anne-Marie pursed her red lips. “No, it’s not urgent.”

“I see,” I replied slowly. “The handover to the Adair Travel temporary management team will be occurring over the next couple of weeks. Please let me know your schedule as soon as possible so that I can arrange a virtual meeting between you. You’ll be reporting to them going forward.”

“I thought Mr Black was the director of Adair Travel.”

“Yes, Mr Black is indeed the Managing Director. However, his position as Vice-President of Black Ink Corporation takes precedence. The team you’ll be reporting to has personally been hand-selected by him.”

Well, mostly.

After I’d sent him a shortlist.

She didn’t need to know that, though.

“If that’s all…” I said after a moment of her staring blankly at me. “Once Mr Black is done with the matter requiring his attention, we’ll be leaving for the day.”

That woke her up. “You are?”

“Yes. He has a meeting we must be present for at two-thirty.” I checked my watch. “If you’ll excuse me…”

When she said nothing, I smiled and ducked back inside the office, quickly pushing the door shut behind me. The second it clicked shut, I let my smile drop and rolled my eyes.

“That’s the most human I’ve ever seen you at work.” Theo grinned at me behind my desk. “And I didn’t know I had a meeting we have to be present at this afternoon.”

“Shh!” I scurried across the room and clamped my hand over his mouth, pressing my finger to my lips. “She’ll hear.”

His eyes twinkled. “Suh wuf duf?”

“What?” I blinked at him then quickly pulled my hand back. “Say that again.”

“So, we don’t?” He grabbed my wrist and kissed my palm. “I was trying to do that.”

“Stop.” I retrieved my wrist from his grasp and stepped back, putting some distance between us. Far enough that this grabby man couldn’t take hold of me again. “And no, there’s no meeting,” I said in a hushed tone. “But she’s been getting on my nerves all morning, and I just had a mildly uncomfortable conversation with Lennon, so I’d rather leave.”

“Ah, I see you’re taking matters into your own hands.” He tapped his fingers against the armrest of his office chair. “And I am aware of that conversation. We’ll discuss how dense you are later at home.”

At home.

“I refuse.” I sniffed, turning away from him and walking back to the sofa. “Now, sir, please finish your work here so we can stick to your schedule.”

Theo stared at me for a moment, then spun his chair back around towards the computer. He clicked the mouse almost aggressively, and I froze when he almost immediately wheeled the chair back and got up.

“What are—”

“I’m done. I logged out of everything. Let’s go.” He walked over to me and held out his hand. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Um.

The rapture?

How the hell should I know? He was the one who’d come marching over here.

“I was waiting for you to finish your work,” I said slowly. “Are you done?”

“Yes. Let’s go.” He peered down at me with a dark glint in his eye. “We need an impromptu performance evaluation for your observation skills.”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but there was no way it was going to be a good thing for me.

***

Theo stared at me across the dining table. His arms were folded, and he tapped his fingertips against the rolled-up sleeve of his white shirt like he was trying to draw my attention to it.

Performance evaluation, my arse.

This was nothing but an opportunity for him to express his delight at being right about the whole Lennon thing.

A conversation I was vehemently opposed to, I wished the record to note.

“Sir,” I said, linking my fingers together and resting them on the table before me. “Company guidelines dictate that there must be a forty-eight-hour notice period before a performance review, and they must be accompanied by a written report. I don’t think this qualifies.”

“Then give me ten minutes and I’ll have a written report for you,” he replied smoothly.

“That won’t change the fact your notice was forty-eight minutes, not forty-eight hours.”

He leant forwards. “What are the company guidelines regarding interpersonal office relationships?”

“There are surprisingly few, but I’m almost certain that you and I might have broken every single one of them. Consider that before you continue down this line of questioning.”

Theo checked his watch. “It’s too long until seven p.m.”

I sighed and sat back. “You’re the Vice-President of the company. How on Earth do you have the time to sit here with me and concoct some cockamamie story just to ask me about what Lennon said to me? God only knows I don’t have the time for this, and I’m not you.”

“Oh, good. You know why I want to talk to you. Can we get on with how I was right, and you were wrong now?”

“Absolutely not. I don’t have the time for this. My email inbox is fit to burst.”

“You can get to it soon enough.”

“I insist you let me go now.” I flattened my hands on the table and stood up. “Or you can kiss goodbye to any kind of personal relationship both inside and outside of the office. In fact, I’ll pack my bags right this minute and book a hotel I can charge to the company on the grounds of your unreasonable behaviour.”

His eyes widened. “Unreasonable behaviour?”

“Yes. You’re trampling all over the work-life boundaries we set. I indulged you earlier because I could see that your meeting was stressful, but I can’t do it here where we both live. Surely you can see this is a recipe for disaster.” I stared firmly at him. “Those boundaries must stay firmly in place here in the cottage.”

Theo sighed, dropping his head into his hands. “Yes, I know.”

I lowered myself back to the chair and stared at the table. “Look. I know how you feel about office relationships, but even if I didn’t, there’s no way I ever would have accepted Lennon’s dinner invitation. I don’t do long-distance relationships, nor do I indulge in personal desires when I’m working.” I paused. “Usually.”

He glanced up, his lips quirking into an irritating little smile.

“If you heard him ask me out, you heard me turn him down,” I pointed out. “And before you say anything, he wasn’t working yet, so he wasn’t hitting on me during work hours.”

“I wasn’t concerned about that.”

“Then what were you concerned about?”

“Nothing.” He propped his chin up on his hand and turned to look out of the window. “I just… don’t like sharing.”

I stared at him.

He didn’t like sharing?

What kind of bullshit was that?

“Sharing what? Cake? Coffee? Your newly reignited love of gummy bears?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “And I swear to—” I paused. “Nope. I can’t finish that sentence. I’m still on the clock.”

Theo met my gaze, and there was a darkness edging into his eyes that only grew the longer we held eye contact. “You’re right. I’m the Vice-President of the company. I don’t have time for this ‘cockamamie story’ as you so eloquently put it.”

“You’re being childish.”

“Yes, I am.” He got to his feet, turning away from me. “Even I can be childish, you know.”

Yes. I was realising that such a thing was true.

“Well, if you aren’t going to sit here and have a reasonable conversation, then please excuse me. Sir.” I pulled my bag over to me and took out my laptop. “I’ll work here for the afternoon. I think it’s best if we work separately today, so let me know if you need me.”

He stared at me for a moment before he pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “All right. Then I’m going to take my lunch. I’ll be back in a bit.”

He was going out? That was unusual. “I can go and pick your lunch up if you tell me what you’d like.”

“No.” He grabbed his jacket from where he’d tossed it on the back of his chair and shrugged it on. “You have far too many emails to answer to do something as menial as fetch me some food.”

Wow.

Wait.

Was he put out that I hadn’t realised that Lennon was interested in me? Or was he bothered about the fact Lennon had actually asked me out?

“What an excellent point,” I said brightly, logging into my email. “Please take a moment to remove the stick from your backside before you return, sir.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Miss St. James.”

“You may pretend all you like as long as you return in a better mood, Mr Black.”

Theo grunted and stalked out of the dining room, and it was only a minute later that the sound of the front door swinging shut with a hefty bang rang out through the cottage.

I grabbed my phone and darted through the cottage to the little downstairs toilet room. I poked my head out of the small window that overlooked the driveway just in time to see Theo pulling out onto the road before turning right and disappearing behind the hedge.

And immediately dialled Heidi’s number.

“Is this Chloe St. James? Calling me during working hours? Are you ill? Is there an emergency?” she answered. “Are the gods descending from the heavens to punish humankind?”

“Shut up,” I replied, closing the bathroom window and walking back through to the dining room. “Can you hear me all right?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. What’s wrong for you to be calling me right now?”

“I need your help,” I said, standing in front of the window that overlooked the back garden. “With Theo.”

“Oh, you’re calling him Theo. How cosy of you,” she said, laughing. “What happened?”

“The assistant manager at the store asked me out this morning.”

“Ha! Shit, sorry. I probably wasn’t supposed to laugh at that.” She coughed. “I bet that went down well with your boss.”

“If it did, I wouldn’t be calling you, would I?” I rolled my eyes and leant against the wall. “He basically dragged me out of there, sat me down for an impromptu performance evaluation over my observation skills, and has just marched out of here on his lunch with a stick so far up his arse it’s impaling his brain and killing his cognitive reasoning skills.”

“Okay. One thing at a time. Did you turn down the coworker?”

“Yes, and cleanly. No room for misunderstanding,” I said. “He even heard the whole thing.”

“I’m guessing he noticed this guy had feelings for you and you denied it.”

“How did you know that?”

“Not much is denser than you, Chlo.” Heidi snorted. “Did you have an argument?”

Did we?

“I wouldn’t call it an argument,” I said slowly.

“So, you definitely exchanged some words.”

“That’s how a conversation usually goes, Heidi.”

“Yes, and don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes you really are dense. Did you actually ask him why he was being a brat?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then stopped. “No.”

“Hmm. I thought as much.” She sighed, making the line crackle. “Isn’t it obvious? He’s jealous.”

I froze. “He’s jealous?”

“Yep. You’re sleeping together, and he heard you get asked out by another man. That’s going to make anyone uncomfortable.”

“But what’s there to be jealous about? If anything, he should be happy. I told Lennon I couldn’t go out with him because I’m seeing someone.”

“Are you, though? You’re not actually seeing Theo, right? You’re just fucking him.”

She didn’t have to put it quite like that.

“Then all the more reason for him not to be jealous. I’ve overstated our relationship.” I paused. “Are you sure he just isn’t uncomfortable with me saying that?”

“Hey, blockhead, use your brain,” Heidi said. “Have you even discussed what your relationship is? Have you considered there’s the tiniest chance that the man might just have feelings for you? Ones that extend past the bedroom?”

No.

I’d never truly entertained such a thought. Was that my problem?

I groaned, lowering myself into the chair. “I can’t wait to come home. I need a break to sort out my head.”

“Wow. You’re down bad, aren’t you? What happened to the woman who downed soju and whinged about the man she called The Bastard?”

I slumped on the table, resting my head on my arm. “She got mesmerised by a penis and lost all sense of rationality.”

“That… Yeah, I think we’ve all been there.” Heidi sighed. “You’re flying back on Saturday morning, right? That’s only a day and a half.”

“Yeah. And I think he’s out most of the day tomorrow doing some stuff at Buckley Manor for the duke.”

“There you go, then. You can get through it until then. Come back, clear your head, and return on Sunday night with a game plan.”

She was right.

If by some insane twist of fate Theo was jealous, then it meant there was more than mere attraction at play between us.

“Yeah,” I said after a moment of silence. “You’re right. Thanks, Heids. I should get back to work before he comes back.”

“Comes back? Did he really storm off?”

“He said he was getting lunch, but he might as well have stomped off like an angry toddler,” I replied. “Anyway, I have to go.”

“Let me know if you have time on Sunday, all right?”

“I will. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up and put my phone down, then let out a big sigh.

Was he really jealous? If so, what was he even jealous over? I’d clearly and decisively turned Lennon down, and like I’d just said to Heidi, I’d even told him I was seeing someone.

Unless Heidi had it completely twisted, and Theo wasn’t jealous but instead put out by me saying that. What if he thought I had the wrong idea about our relationship? I knew perfectly well that our personal relationship was nothing but sex.

There was nothing to be jealous about.

I sat up and propped my chin up on my hand, turning my attention back to my email. What had been a mere inconvenience earlier now felt completely overwhelming. All these people needed my attention, some more urgently than others, yet all I could think about was Theo.

A day and a half.

Could I make it that long? Or was it better to get out of here sooner rather than later?

I opened a new tab in the browser and brought up the airline’s website. I logged in and brought up my flight details, then selected the ‘change flight’ option on the sidebar.

Please. Please. Please.

A late flight was open for tomorrow night, and my eyes widened as I clicked on it. The available seats were all worse than the one I had booked on Saturday morning, but I didn’t care. Even the extra charge didn’t bother me as I selected to change my flight for the earlier one.

Right.

That was fine.

I just needed to get through another twenty-four hours, and then I would be able to breathe again.