“You wouldn’t. I don’t really talk about it.” He smiled faintly. “It’s hard to sleep when your mind won’t shut off. So I work. At least that way the hours mean something.”
I should’ve left it there. But something in me wanted to understand him better. Wantedhimto let me in a little more.
“Your mom. What was she like?” I asked gently.
His expression shifted, flicking with surprise, but then he gave in.
“She was sweet. Patient. The kind of mom who made cookies from scratch just because it was Friday. She loved birthdays. One year she let me plan her whole day. I made us go to Six Flags and eat way too much junk food.”
I smiled, imagining a much younger, carefree Nathan on a rollercoaster with his mom. It was the most human image of him I’d ever had.
“She sounds amazing,” I said quietly.
“She was.” The fondness in his voice softened something inside me, and then, just like that, he straightened, the boy retreating behind the man again.
I reached for a fry, more for something to do than anything else, dragging it through a mix of ketchup and mayonnaise I’d made on the edge of my plate.
His gaze dropped, lingering for a second. “What is that?”
I glanced down. “Ketchup and mayo.”
“I can see that.”
“Don’t judge it until you try it.” I held out the plate slightly in his direction.
His expression didn’t change. “I’m not trying it.”
I shrugged, popping the fry into my mouth. “You’re missing out.”
“I doubt it.”
His gaze lingered a second longer, not on the plate this time, but on me like he was cataloging something, filing it away for later.
By the time we finished eating, the room had gone quiet again but not in the same way it had before.
I wiped my hands on a napkin, glancing at the clock. “I should go.”
His gaze lifted briefly, settling on me. “Yeah,” he said.
I grabbed my bag, hesitating for half a second before turning toward the door. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Better than Maid in Manhattan?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I joked, and earned the surprising sound of Nathan’s laughter as a reward.
“Goodnight, Elise.”
Tonight had been unexpected. For a moment, Nathan Edge wasn’t just my boss—the hard-edged CEO with impossible standards. He was someone else entirely. A man with shadows in his past and a warmth buried so deep beneath his polished exterior that I almost missed it.
I didn’t know what to make of it. Of him. There was more to Nathan than I’d ever imagined, and that realization both terrified and intrigued me. The question now was whether I should run from it or dive deeper.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ELISE
THE WOMAN SITTINGacross from me smiled like she’d already gotten the job, and that was only the first problem.
“Tell me about your previous experience working in a fast-paced environment,” I said, keeping my tone polite as I glanced down at her résumé for what felt like the tenth time.
