Page 26 of Never To Be Mine

My stomach flipped. I pretended not to notice. “Send him in.”

I didn’t look up from my computer screen when the door opened. Just held out my hand. “You can just leave it here.”

“No good morning? No thanks for bringing this by?” His voice carried that hint of amusement that was already starting to grate on my nerves.

I finally looked up. He was wearing jeans today. Dark jeans that fit him entirely too well, paired with a simple white T-shirt. Casual but somehow still polished. Like he’d just thrown on whatever and managed to look like he belonged on a billboard.

I really hated him for that.

“Good morning,” I said flatly. “Thank you for bringing this by. Was there anything else?”

He stepped closer to my desk, holding the thumb drive between his fingers. “I thought you might want to review it now. Make sure it works with what you had in mind for the presentation.”

“I’ll look at it later.”

“It’ll take like three minutes.”

I sighed and held out my hand again. He placed the thumb drive in my palm, his fingers brushing against mine for just a second.

I plugged it into my computer. Hollis walked around my desk and stood behind me.

Now, I had to smell him. Had might have been a strong word. Got to. It was like he’d been sleeping in an orange grove. In the mountains. It was very clean and outdoorsy.

Very him.

And now every time I smelled an orange, he would be front and center in my mind.

“I was going to go with thirty seconds, but my guy is so good we went a full minute. But we do have a version that’s shorter.”

“We’ll see.” I pulled up the file and hit play.

The reel started. Sixty seconds of perfectly edited footage. Customer testimonials flowed into product shots. The music worked with it. It was well done.

We typically paid thousands for something like this. And honestly, I couldn’t say it ever looked this good.

“Well?” he asked when it finished.

“It’s fine.”

“Fine?” He leaned against my desk, crossing his arms. His thigh was like two inches from my hand. “Come on. You can do better than ‘fine.’”

I ejected the thumb drive and set it aside. “It’ll work.”

“High praise from Juno Young.”

I gave him a look. “Was that all?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, my office door swung open.

Hollis quickly stood up, like we’d just got caught acting out one of the many fantasies that had filled my dreams.

My father walked in, his face lighting up when he saw Hollis. “Oh good, you’re both here. Perfect timing.”

Dread crept up my spine. “Perfect timing for what?”

“I’ve set up a little interview for you two,” he said cheerfully. “Nothing formal. Just a casual conversation about the partnership, how you’re working together, all that good stuff. We’ll record it, edit it down, and get it out there so we can change the narrative.”

I stared at him. “You did what?”