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“You want one?”
I snapped back to reality and saw he was pointing to the machine. “Uh, I really shouldn’t,” I started to say. “I’ve had a lot of caffeine already today… then again.” I nodded. “This is sort of throwing me for a pretty big loop, so yeah, sure. I’ll have one, thanks.”
“No problem.”
I watched him as he made me some coffee and couldn’t help but notice how cool and collected he seemed. If he was freaking out about this, he was doing a great job of hiding it. Something about his lackadaisical demeanor served to bring my anxiety down as well, and I started to think that this didn’t have to be a big deal at all. We were both consenting adults, we had done nothing wrong, so really there was no reason either of us should feel embarrassed.
Right?
“So, listen,” I said, standing up and walking near him. “I don’t know what department you work in or if we will even run into each other all that often, but I just want to make sure that it’s not going to be awkward or anything.”
He glanced at me and handed me a steaming mug of coffee. “Nope,” he said. “I don’t see why it has to be awkward.”
I sighed. “That’s a relief because I was worried…”
“No need to be worried,” he added. “I think we can both find a way to move past this.”
“Uh, yeah. Totally.” I frowned, not exactly sure how to continue with this conversation. “Oh,” I said a little too loudly. “In an attempt to move past all this and start over fresh, maybe we should finally beproperlyintroduced. I’m Lily, as you already know. I just moved here after spending a little time in my hometown of Riverside and today is my first day. And you are…”
He turned to face me and flashed me a grin. “I’m David. I was born and raised in San Francisco. I’ve been working for this company since I was in my early twenties, and, uh what else… oh yeah, I’m technically the CEO.”
My stomach dropped. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster, but instead of it being a fun ride on the way down, it was as if the safety bar hadn’t been installed correctly, so I was having to hang on for dear life as the world blurred and spun around me.
“Are you okay?” David asked a couple of moments later.
“No,” I stated. “No, I am most certainlynotokay. I just found out that my new boss—not just my boss, but the most powerful person at the company—is the same man I slept with on a whim six months ago in the middle of an emotional downward spiral. Forgive me if I have a little freak-out moment.”
“I don’t see why it has to be cause for a freak-out moment,” David said. Whereas before, his ability to keep his composure was calming and reassuring, now, it was just starting to piss me off.Why didn’t he mention he was the CEO before? Why wasn’t his picture on any of those articles I read?
“You said it yourself,” he went on. “You don’t want things to be awkward, so let’s make sure they aren’t awkward. It was a casual hook-up, there’s no reason to get all fussy about it.”
“Yes, but you see, I am not the type of girl who has a casual hook-up with her boss.”
“Apparently you are.”
I narrowed my eyes, both a little offended and hurt. “That’s hardly fair. At the time, we didn’t know each other. Honestly, what are the chances that the one guy I pick up on a tropical island ends up being the CEO at my new job six months later? It’s insane!” I laughed. “This is why I don’t do things like this. They always come back to bite you in the ass. One-night stands are not for me, and I knew that, and I did it anyway, and look where it’s gotten me.”
“I don’t know,” David said, letting out a disbelieving exhale. “You seemed pretty well-versed on the whole hit it and quit it game.”
I raised a brow. “What do you mean by that?”
He shrugged, sipped his coffee. “Just that you seemed to know exactly what to do. You cleared out of the room before I woke up, left me a cute but vague note, and provided me with no way of contacting you again. That’s like casual hook-up culture 101.”
“That’s not—” I was filled with so much indignation at that moment, I didn’t quite know how to express it. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then tell me, what was it like?”
For a moment, I almost thought I saw some emotion peaking through behind his sarcastic grin. “I—I just assumed that because you’re someone who probably does that sort of thing often, and I didn’t want to come off as clingy, that I should just be gone when you woke up… I don’t know, it was stupid, but I swear I wasn’t trying to, what phrase did you just use, ‘hit it and quit it’?”
He put a hand up to stop my rambling. “Seriously, Lily, it’s fine. I was just giving you a hard time because my ego was a little hurt.”
“Your ego was hurt?” I couldn’t believe it. It had never occurred to me that a buttoned-up, worrywart of a woman like me could have had such an effect on a rich, handsome, playboy type like David Becker Junior.
“Sure, a little,” he said. “Waking up alone in that big bed, not knowing where you went, I sort of felt like a bride left at the altar, you know?”
He smiled, and suddenly all the sympathy I was just a moment ago feeling towards him rushed out of me with the speed of a gale-force wind. He was mocking me. He remembered the fact that I was in Hawaii alone instead of being there on my honeymoon, and even though I wasn’t technically left at the altar, my fiancé did still break my heart and ruin our wedding. David knew that, and he was making a joke about it. Was his ego reallythatbruised? Did he feel the need to lash out and hurt me back?
It was so immature, so rude, that I resolved myself right then and there to keep things between us strictly professional. I wasn’t going to flirt with him or let him flirt with me. I wasn’t even going to let a friendship blossom, not if this was the way he handled himself.
