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He scowled harder and I didn’t want this little fire to turn into an inferno, so I dropped it. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll just do our work and get along.”
“Great,” he replied. Not exactly cold, but there was no more playfulness in his eyes. Isn’t that what I wanted?
My eggs were starting to congeal. I was sure he was still only eating his to help get rid of his hangover. I sipped my coffee in silence while he finished, and then gathered up all the trash. It was much less fun than kissing him, but I’d made my bed of professionalism and now I had to lie in it.
“Do you want to walk back?” I asked.
He shook his head and headed for the company car parked at a meter about a half block away. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, without any hitches. Two meetings, a lot of catching him up on his emails, a few errands. He was respectful and kind. It would have been perfect if we started that way from day one.
No, it was perfect. It was exactly what I asked for. But it was far from what I really wanted.
Chapter 19 - Eli
Day seventeen of stark professionalism passed the same as the ones before it. Every day I wondered which of us would crack first, but Violet seems to be doing just fine. Still dressing like a nun on an arctic expedition despite it being summer. If she thought it was less distracting to me and would keep me from being attracted to her, she was dead wrong. I knew exactly what her gorgeous body looked like under all those layers, and I had a very good memory. For the thirtieth time that day, I had to stop myself from imagining Violet’s body.
We were getting along great, and I was getting more done than I had in a long while. When Alfred called last week from his Florida retreat to ask how things were going, I wore his ear off telling him all the new projects I had been able to start, thanks to Violet’s supreme efficiency. He might have even sounded a little jealous at the end of our chat, then I heard a splash and a bunch of laughter in the background, and I knew he wasn’t missing me at all.
I stood up from my desk, not knowing what to do with all the energy I had lately. It seemed one of the side effects of still working with Violet was that I still compared her to every woman I met. They all still came up lacking, so I simply stopped going out since there was no use in it. The side effect of that was that I wasn’t drinking every night anymore and shockingly, I wasn’t plagued with guilt or self-loathing the first night I tried to go to sleep sober. I drifted off thinking about introducing Violet to my old crew down in the art department, and asking if they had any little chores she could do to help her in her quest to learn about the entire company. I only wanted to make her happy.
Basically, she was on my mind all the time, even when we weren’t together. A different kind of torture, but one that didn’t make me want to drown myself in booze. I was glad she didn’t quit, even though I still wished there was something more between us. It was only seventeen days, though. I tried to be optimistic that whatever effect she had on me would wear off over time and the thing I thought was love would fade.
“I’m heading to the gym before lunch,” I said as I jogged past her desk. I started lifting weights down at the company gym on the sixth floor, something I used to do religiously and was enjoying again. “Care to join me?”
I imagined helping her rack up her weights, lifting her for an assisted pull up. She actually looked like she was considering it, and my hopes soared.
“I better not,” she said. “I need to prepare for the meeting this afternoon.” She glanced at the calendar and smiled at me. My heart did a flip. “You’re clear until one, so have a good workout.”
Just that soft smile she gave me had my stomach in knots. I ran to the stairs instead of the elevator, afraid if I was given those few minutes of waiting I would run back and push her hair behind her ear and place a kiss on the side of her neck. It had been like that for seventeen damn days. When was I going to forget about how good we’d been together? How good we were together. We got so much done, and got along like a house on fire. If only…
I barely got into the changing room, eager to get in a good sweat, when my phone pinged furiously. I was supposed to be free until one, but now there was a message from Violet saying to please get back as soon as possible. I called her, wondering what the emergency could be.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Your brother Will is here with his kids,” she said in a low voice. “That’s breakable,” she called, then hissed to me, “He came to take you to lunch. Please hurry.”
Violet was fantastic, but there was no way she could deal with the whirlwind that was my niece and nephew. I flew back to my office to save her.
The writer’s bullpen was curiously empty. Nobody wanted to be a victim to Harrison or Ava’s hijinks, and nobody wanted to be roped into “keeping an eye on them” while Will slipped away for a break, either. I braced myself for what I might find when I swung open the door to Violet’s office, hoping they’d only broken inanimate objects.
I expected carnage, but what I got was a scene out of a Mother Goose book. Violet sat on the floor near the windows, her long skirt billowing around her ankles and the kids sitting in front of her. She held up a folder with our newest campaign proposal pictures in it and pointed out details.
“Which one is better?” she asked.
“I like the one with the horse,” Harrison said.
“Me too,” Ava piped up. I felt my eyebrows shoot up. Agreeing with her older brother? “I love horses.”
“I took riding lessons when I was ten,” Violet told her. She did? I stood there silently, holding my breath, not caring where in the hell Will had disappeared to, and not wanting to interrupt this magical scene.
“I’m only four,” Ava said, her lip jutting out. Okay, this was more like it. Cue unholy tantrum.
“You could ride a pony,” Violet assured her. Tantrum averted. I was stunned.
“Do boys ride horses?” Harrison asked.
Violet laughed. “Of course. Do you want to see more pictures?” She turned the page and pointed out a perfume ad that had a woman in a flowing white dress walking through the woods.
“That’s a ghost,” Ava said. “I hate her and I hate her perfume.”
