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"Shocking," Hannah quipped, grabbing a piece herself and turning away.
Elliott smiled, finding it comforting to be able to enjoy a quick meal at his own home.
"So how are we going to do this?" Hannah said, wiping crumbs off the counter where she was eating and dropping them into the sink.
"Do what?" Elliott asked, grabbing a cup of coffee.
"Well, this no car thing. Are you going to drop me at a car rental place before work?" she asked.
"No," Elliott said, his face confused. "I'll drive you to work."
"Right," she said, squirming. She didn't want to have to get into this. "But..."
"What?" Elliott asked as her sentence hung.
"It's just... I don't think it's a good thing if it got out that we are..." she waved, at a lack of words as to label what, exactly, they were doing.
Realization dawned on Elliott's face. She didn't want people to know. Like she was embarrassed.
It was a new thing for Elliott. Most women wanted the world to know. Wanted to plant a flag on him to show other women 'look what I claimed', or possibly, 'back off I got him first'. He found he didn't like it this way. He didn't like her being ashamed of sleeping with him. But the more dominant rational part of him understood completely.
"Alright," he said finally. "I will drop you at the bakery down the block," he said trying to sound casual.
"Okay, that works," she said, topping off both of their coffee cups before taking the carafe to the sink to clean it out.
"And I'll arrange for you to get one of the company cars," he said as he finished the last of the toast.
Hannah's hands stilled in the soapy water. "What?" she asked, looking over at him.
"You're a full time employee and the nature of your work demands travel. It's actually wrong that I didn't give you one to begin with," he shrugged.
"Oh," Hannah said, turning back to her cleaning. "Okay. That's great, thanks."
"Don't thank me, Hannah," Elliot said, coming up behind her.
His chest brushed up against her back. She tried to not lean into him, to stay focused on washing the soap off the carafe. Was he going to make a move on her right there in the kitchen? When they were almost running late for being early for work. But he reached around her, grabbing the soapy sponge and washing out their coffee cups. Hannah put the carafe in the drying rack and stayed still, his arms around her as he soaped up and rinsed out their mugs. There was no escaping the small, intimate moment.
And it was then that she realized she might have slightly more than sexual feelings toward Elliott Michaels.
Then he was moving away from her and she took a deep breath, trying to clear her frazzled thoughts. She was just overwhelmed. That was all.
Tad kept sending odd looks her way throughout the day, but, blessedly, found himself too busy to stop and chat with her. For only being away for a few days she had an absurd amount of work to catch up on.
She was thankful for the distraction, losing herself completely in her work.
There were keys on her desk when she came back from the kitchen. Just in time for her needing to run across town to pick up something at Elliott's lawyer. She went down to the faculty garage and clicked the lock button twice, listening for the beep. It took two tries for her to locate the late model black Mercedes that, somehow, passed as an employee vehicle. Somehow she doubted all the reps drove expensive luxury cars. But then again- EM Corporation was certainly not hurting for money.
When she got back to the garage an hour later, she noticed a figure standing near the parking spot she had vacated before. It was numbered and she figured there were assigned spots for each work car. She felt her hands tense and her heart speed up. A part of her had managed to bury the fact that someone had tried to kill her the day before. But being back in her everyday life made it impossible to ignore. She relaxed when she noticed it was just Tad. But as she was about to pull in, Tad walked into the space, holding up a hand to stop her. She stopped the car when she saw the concerned look across his face. Climbing out of the car, she felt sick. "What's wrong Tad?" she asked and he simply pointed to the ground where her car was supposed to be parked.
You were supposed to die, whore.
"What the hell is going on, Hannah?" Tad asked, enunciating each word firmly. She started to shrug and he shook his head at her. "Don't even," he said viciously.
Hannah felt her idea that she had control over the situation slipping. She was in so deep. And now she had to fill in Tad. The idea left a sour taste in her mouth. "Fine. Fine. But I don't want to talk about it here," she said as a few men walked out of the elevator and walked toward their cars. "Hold on," she said going back to the car and returning with a large cup of coffee she had just bought. She opened the cap and spilled it over the words, making them run until they were unreadable.
Tad backed up and she pulled the car in. He got into the passenger side and rolled up the window.
"I want to know everything. I knew something was up," he said, almost to himself.
