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A single rule remained.
It was the one about people seeing them together outside the formal setting of the office. And, Marco insisted, it was inane.
“We are together here the entire day. We go on business trips together. What can it possibly matter if we arrive at work and leave together?”
“It was your idea. Not to mix business with—”
“It was a foolish idea.”
“If people see us coming in together and going home together, they’ll suspect that we’re… involved.”
He laughed because they were, at that moment, very involved. They were in bed, she with her head on his shoulder, his arm tight around her, her thigh over his.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said with mock indignation.
The truth was, he doubted they were fooling anybody. He knew damned well he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and each time she looked up and saw him watching her, she blushed in a way that made his hormones go crazy.
Not that any of that affected her competence.
She was the best assistant a man could ever hope to have. He didn’t even think of her as his assistant anymore. She was his partner.
She composed most of his letters without needing any input from him. She wrote his reports and memos. She was his sounding board when he needed one; she was his first-line contact with his various department heads, all of whom seemed to think she was remarkable. She was his Keeper of the Door. Nobody got past her unless she knew that was what he wanted.
Not mixing business with pleasure had, until now, seemed logical. He’d always assumed having sex with a woman who worked for him would undermine office efficiency, but after six weeks, he knew that was patently untrue.
And they weren’t having sex. They were making love. They were in love. W
hy shouldn’t the world know it?
The realization hit him at work one afternoon in early November.
The world would know it if they took the next step. A logical step. One people took after they fell in love.
He fell into his chair. He wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. No. Not yet.
Marco grabbed a handful of letters from his desk and buried his nose in them.
He read until he thought his eyes might glaze over.
One letter was particularly awful
It was a pompously-worded missive from a pompous bank that wanted him to build it a new world headquarters that would “enhance its image of tradition and privacy.” And pomposity, he was thinking when he suddenly looked up, glanced out the open door of his office, saw Emily standing at the printer, frowning at it, her hands inky, her hair coming undone from the very demure pony tail she insisted on keeping it in for work, and the truth hit him, full force.
He was ready.
For that next step. For—a slight wave of panic roiled in his belly. For those things he’d never imagined even considering.
Marriage. Kids. A dog, a cat, a house in the country.
Crazy.
But that what love was all about. Being crazy. Crazy in love.
Marco put the letter down.
He wanted to marry Emily. The question was, would she marry him?
She loved him, but in today’s world, love didn’t necessarily lead to marriage. Well, it had to, in his world. Maybe it was old-fashioned but in some ways he was old-fashioned.
