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One weekend. I can manage that, right? One weekend of vaguely couple-related activities. I can be in his vicinity for two days and not kill him or, worse, let any old feelings get reawakened. I just have to take the personal out of this. It’s a business trip meant to secure a business deal. I’m good at business. It’s why I’m here in the first place.
“Fine. Can you book it all?”
Kelly grins so hard it looks like she’s about to give herself a headache. She jumps to her feet and says, “Awesome. Maybe call him first, though? Let me know what he says, and I’ll get right on it.”
“Get out, then,” I say lightly, shooing her with my hands. I might as well get this over with.
Kelly shoots a wink at me as she prances out of the room, clearly walking on the high of winning a battle. As she shuts the door, I sigh and lean forward. Aiden has left his number right on the top of the packet, clearly expecting a call.
I hate how much this feels like giving in.
Still, I pick up my phone and, with a shaking hand, dial the number.
CHAPTER18
AIDEN
Of course, the second I get back to HQ, everyone wants me.
About a million minor technicians or programmers or admins or whoever swarm around me, locusts ready to strip the skin from my bones when all I want is to crawl into my office and lie on the floor in the dark. I have literally never been so humiliated.
I’ve come close — andthatwas Candice’s fault too. Maybe chasing her is a huge waste of my time.
I just about manage to brush off the people who want me to sign and approve stuff when the elevator comes into sight. I know for a fact that my inbox is going to be crammed full of the same when I open my emails, but that’s a problem for later. For now, I’m going to lock the door and do absolutely nothing until the shame passes.
But, of course, when I step into the empty elevator, I’m joined by the person I want to see least in the world right now.
Nicholas doesn’t look at me as he stands next to me in a way that would be shoulder to shoulder if he wasn’t a literal giant. “It went well, then?” he says mildly, his mouth only slightly wavering towards agotchakind of smirk.
I grunt in response. With this streak I’m on, it would be just my luck for the elevator to break down now and trap us here, giving Nicholas enough time to extract the whole play-by-play of what went down at Candice’s. His curiosity is clearly bubbling inside him like it’s actually giving off heat, but to my relief he doesn’t say anything else.
The elevator door grinds open, and as soon as there’s a gap big enough for me to slip through, I make a run for it, Nicholas’s judging gaze burning into the back of my head.
The urge to slam my office door like a teenager raging at his parents is overwhelming. But I don’t. Instead, I grip the handle so tightly that it feels like I’m going to tear it off. As carefully as I can, I slide the door into position, only letting go when it hits the wood of the frame, leaving me in total silence. I almost turn off the light too, but locking the door and pretending I’m not in would really only serve to makemefeel better.
You can’t exactly hide if you’re the guy in charge.
Not that I’m very in control right now.
Once, when I was fifteen or sixteen and Dad was trying to prime me for this position, he made me work as a lower-than-bottom-rung admin and told me that I should never take anything for granted. I was entering endless numbers into a spreadsheet, and it was so boring I would have rather watched grass grow, but it did teach me something. He told me that as far as he was concerned, I was the CEO of that spreadsheet and any mistakes in it would filter out into the rest of the company — and it would all be my fault if the house of cards came tumbling down, because that’s what being the boss is like.
After that summer, he bought me a car. Guess I didn’t realize then that, whether things are going right or going wrong, you don’t get a reward as the CEO. All you get is the reward of dealing with the next problem.
Unfortunately, Candice has been my problem for eight long years. She looks almost exactly the way I remember — her bob still curls into her face, framing it perfectly, her blue eyes are still suspicious and kind at the same time. She holds herself even taller now, though, like the confidence she used to pretend she had has become real. It’s not actually any of my business, but I still get a swell of pride to see it.
I wish she’d come to her senses and see what I’m trying to offer her.
The shrill ringer of the phone cuts through my moping, and I’m tempted to unplug it altogether. If I ran away now to a small, tropical island with a suitcase of cash and a fake passport, what would really be the worst that could happen? Fletcher Tech is circling the drain anyway. I could escape from it all now if I left.
But my dad’s legacy rests on this, and the guilt would probably eat me alive, so I answer the phone. “Hello?”
The voice that answers might as well have been that of an angel. She’s the last person I was ever expecting to hear. “I hate you. I’m gonna open with that, just so you don’t get the wrong idea about any of this.”
“Hello, Candice,” I say, feeling a warm grin spreading over my face and filling my chest with lightness. “How are you?”
“Don’t give me any of that!” she snaps defensively, like she’s hiding something or else lying to herself. I can’t let myself get carried away. But she is cute, even when she’s yelling at me. “This is purely a business call.”
I blink in surprise. “Wait, so you’ve reconsidered?”
