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“It’s fine,” I tell him, and with a movement of my chin, he disappears.
Xander Alexander isn’t known for gushing praise or criticism.
If it’s fine, it’s fine. If it’s not, you’re fired.
And fine means perfect. Like everything should be in a place like this.
I should know because I have the definition of perfect sitting right across from me, which makes me an expert.
“How’s your steak?” I ask Chloe, guessing the answer by the look on her face as she eats.
“It’s…perfect.” She smiles, waiting to swallow a mouthful before answering.
“I’ve never had anything so good,” she adds, making me wonder more about exactly what it is Chloe has been raised on.
I’m spoiled, sure. I’ve had it good for twenty years, but my beginnings were pretty humble compared to what I take for granted today.
As if she’s having the same thoughts, we both ask each other about our lives at the same moment.
I want to know more about her family, her upbringing.
And she wants to know how I came to be the second in charge of such a massive organization.
“You first,” I coax her. “Tell me about where you live and your folks,” I ask. Figuring that’s something most people can sum up in a few words.
But the effect on Chloe is different.
She seems to freeze up and even sets her knife and fork down.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I assure her. “Just wondered where you hail from, what your folks do…that sort of thing,” I add.
But she’s looking anxious. Like I’ve opened a wound bigger than her being exposed as a phony job prospect.
“I guess I’m not Condor material if that’s what you mean,” she says, trying to sound lighthearted, but her tone's bitterness is hard to miss.
I know it’s not directed at me, though.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I suggest, but she thinks for a moment, seeming to arrange her thoughts.
“I was raised in the burbs and rarely got to the city,” she says. And I figure maybe she’s just not one to talk about herself much.
But I encourage her with my full attention.
I want to know all about her.
“My parents adopted me. I was too little to remember much. But apart from that, they’ve done all they can for me… dad’s a draftsman, and my mom works part-time as a secretary at a doctor’s clinic,” she says, shrugging a strained smile as if it’s impossible for her to talk up her life in any way.
She asks me if anything’s wrong, which it isn’t.
But I can’t help but feel like the wind’s been knocked out of me.
Hearing someone else mention their adoption so casually is a new experience.
I’ve never told anyone about mine, mainly because I don’t know anyone.
Not the way I want to know Chloe, anyway.
“Adopted, huh?” is the best I can manage, and it misses the mark. It makes me sound like a brash asshole who wouldn’t know any better.
But I do know, Chloe. I know all about being adopted.
“Maybe we could talk about you instead,” she says, blushing. “My life’s a little bit boring by comparison,” she adds, and I take her hand in mine.
Ignoring the restaurant. Ignoring everything but her hand in mine.
I want to tell her everything. I need her to understand how much we have in common.
How alive I feel now that we’ve got each other.
But it all seems to catch in my throat like bugs on flypaper. I just can’t find the start of everything I want to say.
I can’t even make the first three words I want to tell her most come out.
Sympathetic to my cause, Chloe doesn’t press me for anything, and we finish the rest of our food in relative silence.
After a while, I feel her watching me, and looking over at her, I’m relieved to see the little mischievous smile starting to play on her lips as we finish our main course, which only leaves room for one more thing.
“Dessert?” I ask, quickly adding that I don’t mean food either.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she says without hesitation.
I don’t think I’ve gotten up from a table and back to my room so quickly in my whole life, but it definitely feels like now is the right moment for many reasons.
Least of which is my need to be inside her. But most of all, we both feel an urgency that can’t be ignored.
Glancing at the hotel manager as we pass him in the lobby, he opens his mouth to speak, but I hold a firm finger up to silence him.
“Alright, Mr. Alexander. I understand… Do not disturb….”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Chloe
We take the elevator back up to our suite, and anything we pass on the way is all a blur for me.
I don’t know what they put in that steak, but it’s given me an almost, no, has given me an emergency between my legs that only Xander can cure.
