Page 41 of At His Beck & Call

Oliver grunts loudly. “I need you to deal with a few things this morning,” he mutters as he starts to type at breakneck speed. “Adelaide is stressed, and I don’t like seeing her that way. Burton has thrown me into a vat of shit with this case, and he knows it.” He blinks, his fingers pausing on the keys as he glances at me. “Don’t repeat that.”

“I won’t. It does look like a vat of shit, to be honest.”

Oliver’s lips twitch as he resumes typing. “Anyway, I would usually ask her to get my lunch, but I know she has a meeting this afternoon that she’s been prepping for, and all this Reynolds stuff has thrown her off. I’d like to ask if you could get my lunch for me instead.”

He almost sounds embarrassed to be asking. “Of course.”

“Here,” he hands me a Post-it. “Don’t let them put any dressing on it. They drench this yogurt stuff all over it, and I can’t stand the taste.”

I take the Post-it, amused to see an incredibly detailed request for a salad scrawled on it. There’s a Greek restaurant around the corner that I’ve been to before, and it’s from their menu. I look up to find Oliver watching me.

“Something funny?”

“No!” I say quickly, folding up the note. “It’s just very… informative.”

He snorts. “They should know what I want by now, but sometimes they still manage to screw it up. Get yourself something at the same time and ask Adelaide and the blabbermouth what they want, too.”

“Noah?” I clarify.

“Is he the one who won’t shut up?”

“I’m assuming so, yes,” I mutter, and Oliver glances at me again, his eyes narrowing. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Keep him away from me. He knows his shit, which is why they’ve sent him here, but I don’t need him talking my ear off all day.”

“Yes, sir,” I say automatically, in a dramatic voice I use with Henry when he’s being petulant. It’s a silly little routine we have, and it always diffuses any tension between us, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve made a mistake.

Oliver’s fingers still, and I think for a second he’s going to explode, then he looks me in the eye, and there’s so much heatin it my breath hitches. He stares, those impossibly dark eyes boring into me so deeply that I feel a throb of heat between my legs.

Just from a look.

“That’ll be all, then, Lissa,” he says, his voice an octave lower now, and I hightail it out of the office as quickly as I can.

Jesus. What the hell was that? Was he annoyed or turned on? I can’t even tell.

Adelaide looks up as I emerge, swallowing and glancing nervously behind me.

“He just asked if I could get his lunch because you have a meeting this afternoon,” I say. Adelaide’s shoulders drop away from her ears.

“Ah. Yes, that makes sense,” she says, sounding relieved.

“What would you like from Nikos? I’m getting something for all of us.”

She rattles off her chicken kabab with falafel order, and Noah requests a lamb kebab with a voice that I realize now is much too loud for the size of the room he’s in.

I head downstairs, a ripple of something tugging at me as I step into the elevator. It feels a little like disappointment, which makes no sense.

Did I expect Oliver to do something in the middle of the day with Adelaide and Noah just outside?

He had made it very clear that we were only ever together between 5 and 6 pm. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I would have dropped to my knees if he’d asked me to.

Chapter 14

Lissa

Adelaide and Noah have just left for the night, and it’s almost 6 pm. I know I should leave, but the truth is, I don’t want to go before I’m sure Oliver doesn’t want me to come to his office.

Ever since that look this morning, I’ve found it difficult to concentrate.