AllFreeNovel
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She was so beautiful sitting there in her business attire, her hair up in her signature prim little bun. Her legs were crossed in the tight suit skirt that barely came down to her knees. He had missed her so much. Not just while he was gone, but he missed the way things had been before, sharing a laugh, having her in his arms. Life didn’t seem complete without her in his orbit. “Can I get you a drink?”
All the staff had gone home, it was just the two of them alone in the place, and it was quiet. Exactly how he’d planned to approach her again. This way, she’d have no excuses to run away.
“Sure, since I’m off the clock now, a white wine sounds perfect.”
He uncorked the bottle and took down a wine glass. She tugged at the clip in her hair, and her bun unraveled, her dark blonde waves tumbling down on to her shoulders. He stared at her, distracted by her beauty, and lost focus mid-pour. She was stunning, and the sight of her took his breath away.
“Noah.” Her voice snapped him out of his daze.
“Huh?”
She nodded pointedly at the glass. “Spilling.”
“Oh, crap,” he said, and quickly righted the bottle, just as the liquid flowed over the rim. He smiled at her apologetically, and grabbed a bar cloth.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“I might be, if it helps with what I have to say,” he said, cleaning up the spill.
He needed to tell her how he felt and he didn’t care that she thought he was too emotional. He carefully put the overfull glass of wine in front of her.
Leaning on the bar, he gazed at her. “Jordan, please hear me out.”
Her shoulders slumped in a ‘here we go again’ gesture. “You’re not going to try to sell me the friends-with-benefits option again, are you?”
“No.” He chuckled. “And I apologize for that. God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Good.” She sighed, looking relieved. “And yes, sometimes you can be.”
“Listen, I know that you think I need time to process my dad’s accident, but I don’t agree. This is something I’ve been thinking about long before any of that happened, and I still feel the same now as I did then. In fact, dad’s accident has in some ways brought me a lot of clarity.”
She tilted her head to the side and waited.
“I didn’t like being without you. Jordan, you are so good for this place, I hated to ruin that. But I knew you’d still be here at least, even if we weren’t together.”
She nodded, but her expression was of frustration. “You already made that abundantly clear.”
“But that’s not all, Jordan. I hated putting on the brakes.”
“Yeah, well,” she added, unimpressed. “Probably for the best.”
He would ignore that comment, hoping she didn’t mean it.
“You were there for me in Canada,” he continued, “and that meant the world to me.”
She shook her head, but her words were more gentle. “I did what any friend would do.”
“But you’re not just a friend. You are so much more to me.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I hate your rules.”
Back to the damned rules. Why had he ever thought them a good idea?
“Forget the rules,” he said, frustrated. “Erase them from your mind. We’ve already established that I’m an idiot.” Noah ran his and through his hair. “Jordan, we make a great team, on and off the clock. You can’t deny that.”
“Yeah.” She looked around the business they had built together. “We do.”
“Then hear me out. I have a proposal for you. You’re an amazing general manager, but you are so much more than that. You’ve made this place what it is.”
