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I ignored Douglas completely. ‘Were you going to tell him about the move?’ I asked, quiet enough that Gayle wouldn’t hear as she walked towards us. ‘Is that what he was talking about?’
She looked over her shoulder to find her friend, but Gayle was still on her phone.
Charlie glanced back at me, and nodded.
‘I see. I want to talk to you about that as well. But first let’s see why Laurel is early for our meeting.’
‘Okay. Gayle?’
Her friend looked up, the phone still clutched against her ear.
‘Laurel Nielson is here. Have drinks tonight?’ There was a short pause, then she rushed to add, ‘Just the two of us?’
She got a nod as a response.
I wanted to cut in and tell her that we needed to talk again, but held my tongue. Obviously she thought she could avoid me not just in the office, but tonight too. Well, she had another think coming. Looked like today I’d keep the promise I’d given her at the restaurant when she was with what’s-his-face. Today was the day I would seduce Charlie Davis. It was going to be fun for me because I could clearly see how much she wanted me.
I smiled to myself and followed her out.
* * *
In the middle of the impromptu meeting Laurel took a phone call from her agent and I used the small pause in the conversation to put my hand over Charlie’s restless pen-clicking hand. It was a habit of hers that had once annoyed me when I was trying to focus on work, and it had become a habit of mine to stop her whenever I was close enough to do so. But as I watched her play with her pen, I realized I’d gotten used to it in time. If she wasn’t in a meeting with us, I actually missed the sound. Not as much as I missed having Charlie in the room, but it still made it into the list. It was too quiet without it. The silence too heavy.
Slowly, I covered her hand with mine and the clicking stopped. I kept my focus on our hands, but I could feel her gaze boring into my face, because usually whenever I stopped her by either pulling the pen away or covering her hand, my reactions were always instantaneous, an act without too much thought. This time I didn’t move.
Laurel kept talking to her agent.
Suddenly out of nowhere it hit me. I knew I was going to miss Charlie, but it had just hit home just how much. When she left, I was going to notice her absence at every hour, if not minute, and miss her every day because I’d gotten used to having her so close to me. I was going to miss seeing the happy look on her face when I offered her my French fries or when I brought her lunch because she was too busy working for everyone. Even the absence of the damn pen clicking in the meetings was going to be a problem for me. The thought didn’t make me happy.
I looked up and into her questioning eyes.
‘Okay, I’m sorry about that. Where were we?’
Charlie was the first one to look away and pull out from under my hand. She cleared her throat. ‘We need to consider which talk shows you’ll appear on for your next press junket for the movie. We’ll work with the PR team in the beginning to make the transition smooth for you. We don’t want to have…’
In that moment I did something I’d never done in my career and stopped listening, stopped focusing on work. I pushed my hand under the table and put it on Charlie’s thigh over her skirt. I watched as she stumbled over her words and looked down to the papers in front of her to realign her thoughts. I did nothing but watch her because I couldn’t take my eyes away. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes away from her for a good long while now.
And after kissing her this weekend…
I never wanted to stop.
As I watched her share our plans – plans that we had both worked on – I remembered something from her list that she had shared.
Find someone who is afraid of losing you.
Well, it looked like I was afraid. She had achieved that one too.
I gave her thigh an involuntary squeeze where her skirt had ridden up, as if I could keep her anchored here by my side, and noticed Charlie slowly putting her hand over mine. I waited to see if she was going to move it, but she didn’t. I turned my palm upwards and laced our fingers together.
Slowly I started tuning into what they were talking about and looked up when Gayle entered the room.
‘I’m sorry for interrupting, but I have some news I need to share if you could spare me a minute.’
