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“Thank you,” I said, taking it from here.
“I see you aren’t wearing your tie again, sir.”
“It’s forty-five minutes away. I didn’t think I needed to until we got close.” I sipped the coffee and let out a happy sigh. “You’ve figured out the coffee machine, I see.”
“Hmph.” Chloe turned around and pulled my shoes from the shoe rack. “Please put your shoes on. Make it quick. I don’t want to have to break any speeding laws, especially not this early in the morning. I’ll meet you in the car.”
With those final words, she turned and stalked outside, leaving me standing in the hallway with my phone in one hand, my coffee in the other, and my shoes right in front of me.
Harvey was right.
She was scarily efficient.
I put my coffee and phone down and put on my shoes, tying the laces before grabbing my stuff and hurrying outside.
“Please lock the door, sir,” she called out of the window.
I spun back, locked the door, then finally got in the car. “Are we ready to go now?”
“I should be asking you that.” She put the car in gear and backed up. “I’d offer to be your wakeup call, but I’d have to charge overtime.”
I put my coffee in the cup holder and yawned. “It would be worth every penny. I truly forgot about how early we were getting started today.”
“If it makes you feel better, sir, we should be done early.”
“Should is the magic word there, Miss St. James.”
“Ninety percent of my overtime is because of you, so please refrain yourself today.”
I fought back a smile as I looked across the car at her. “What overtime could I possibly give you here?”
“I’m sure you’d be able to find something if you put your mind to it.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you think of me as a boss or a tyrant.”
Chloe didn’t say a word.
“Well, that settles that.”
She coughed, briefly covering her mouth with her hand as she pulled up at a red light. “Please don’t put words in my mouth, sir.”
“You weren’t answering.”
“My aunt taught me not to say anything if I couldn’t say anything nice.”
“That’s exactly why your silence settled it, Miss St. James.” I glanced at her, catching a tiny smile curving her lips before she quickly schooled her expression back into one of nonchalance.
She did that a lot, almost as if she were afraid to let me see her truly smile. Even the deliberate ones she put on in front of me were often forced, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a smile on her face that wasn’t a business one. Not up close, at least. I’d seen the barest of glimpses of them when she’d spoken to Harvey or my grandfather and father, but she’d never directed one at me. Even in the grocery store yesterday when she’d been buying half the sweets in the shop and had smiled at me, there’d been a level of reticence.
What would it be like to be on the end of a genuine smile from her?
I wanted to know. I wanted to feel the warmth that would inevitably be a part of it.
I thought I knew her well, but maybe I didn’t know her at all.
“What’s our schedule here today?” I asked, reaching for my coffee.
Chloe reached into her door and pulled out her tablet, then handed it to me. “The code is zero-six-zero-eight and it’ll be on the screen when you unlock it. It’s quite crude, but I pulled it together quickly this morning while trying to get you moving, sir.”
