Come Work For Me

by Weston Parker

  He came out of his office a second later, his expression both confused and suspicious. Looking over his shoulder at me, he shook his head when he saw I was starting to get up. “Stay here. I’ll get it.”

  I heard the door open, then an unfamiliar voice speaking. “I have a delivery for a Mr. Hawkings.”

  “I’ll sign for it,” Joseph said while I frowned. A delivery for Lincoln?

  Trepidation threatened to choke off my air supply. What were we going to do if it was from Kurt? If he’d found us again?

  Thankfully, I needn’t have worried. Joseph came back into the living room wearing a wide smile and carrying a paper bag with the logo for a deli I knew he loved, a fruit bouquet and two stuffed dinosaurs.

  Lincoln shot up off the couch and just about tackled him in his excitement. “I love fruit. I love dinosaurs. Are those for me?”

  He looked up at the stuffed animals with his very best puppy eyes. Joseph laughed and nodded, handing the dinosaurs over first and then carrying the food to the kitchen. He plucked a card out of the fruit bouquet and handed it over to me when I followed him into the kitchen.

  “It’s from Ollie.”

  I grinned. “I figured it might be from him as soon as I saw what it was. He’s such a good friend.”

  “He is,” Joseph agreed. He dished up the deli food for our lunch, put some fruit on a plate for Lincoln and then went back to his office to eat.

  Meanwhile, I snapped a picture of Lincoln hugging a stuffed T-Rex and eating a piece of pineapple, and sent it to Ollie.

  Me: Thank you!!!!!! You deserve the person of the year award for this.

  Still smiling, I set my phone down and went to grab my lunch from the kitchen. If I’d thought he deserved the person of the year award before I’d tasted the food he’d ordered for our lunch, I thought he deserved it two years in a row once I tasted the roast chicken dish he’d sent over.

  Lincoln polished off his fruit and fell asleep before I’d even finished my lunch. When I was done, though, I knew I had to go talk to Joseph. Lincoln’s nap would last at least another hour and I’d been putting off talking to Joseph for long enough.

  Now that we’d had sex for the second time, we really needed to talk about it and how it affected the fake relationship thing he had suggested. I also needed to find out how fake this relationship of ours still was. All in a day’s work.

  Exhaling a heavy breath, I dragged my hands through my hair a few times before taking my plate to the kitchen. I even washed it before I realized that I was now officially out of excuses. Big girl panties, Lilac. Just do it.

  Joseph’s office door was open, but I knocked softly anyway. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” He looked up from where he was sitting in his large, leather chair. His leg was on the floor next to him and he was rubbing at his stump.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I can come back later.”

  A scowl formed on his features and he shook his head. “It didn’t bother you when we took that bath.”

  He sounded a bit defensive and I wondered why, but what he had said gave me an opening for what I wanted to talk about. “Yeah, we should talk about that. Now a good time?”

  Chapter 27

  Joseph

  Well, this is it. Lilac had finally realized that I’d taken advantage of her not once, but twice and she was clearly ready to call me on it.

  I’d known to expect this, though. I could take it. As much as I’d hoped she didn’t regret what had happened between us either, I was enough of a realist to know that she probably would.

  Waving her in, I motioned for the leather couch against the far wall of the office. “It’s a good time. We can talk.”

  She came in, glancing between me and the couch before she took a seat. It looked like she was looking for a closer chair, but there wasn’t one. Plus, it was probably better for this conversation if she wasn’t too close to me anyway.

  My brain seemed to go haywire whenever she got too close. Self-control, common sense and workplace etiquette took a backseat when she was within touching distance.

  Although she had been the one to come to me, she didn’t say anything when she sat down. In fact, she didn’t even look at me. Her gaze was rooted to the floor next to her feet.

  Fuck. This is going to be bad if she can’t even look at me. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked up then, right into my eyes. There were questions in hers, but I needed to get all this out before she said anything.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. I wasn’t really, but I should be and I figured it was as good a place as any to start. “I shou—”

  Before I could say anything else, she cut me off. “Don’t be sorry, please. We’re both adults and both times we… Well, you know, it was in reaction to a high-stress situation.”

  Shit, well that hadn’t been at all what it had been about for me. But again, she’d come to me. “Okay?”

  Lilac shifted on the couch, her gaze darting around as she fiddled with her fingers in her lap. It was very clear that she was uncomfortable. A part of me begged me to go over there, sit down next to her and put my arms around her, to soothe her and to comfort her; to assure her that she had nothing to be nervous about.

  “I just, uh, I wanted to talk to you about it because I need to know what it means.” Her voice was only just above a whisper, but the house was quiet and I heard her as if she’d yelled the words right into my ear.

  My heart tripped over itself again. Maybe she wasn’t in here to chew me out about taking advantage of her. There was something in her voice that gave me hope that I wasn’t the only one feeling like it meant more.

  But then she continued, and sent my hope plummeting, crashing and then burning at my feet. “You know, I just wanted to know what it means for my job and for the fake dating thing you cooked up.”

  Sucking both of her lips into her mouth, she released them with a pop and took in a deep breath. “I love my job. I’m not the CFO yet and I know that I might not ever get there, but I really don’t want this to influence my work in any way. I know that it’s really rich coming from me, and I know that I, uh, initiated things, but I...”

  She trailed off, sighed, took another breath and sighed again. “You apologized to me earlier, but if one of us should be apologizing to the other, it’s me to you.”

  “What? Why?” Huh?

  None of this was what I had been expecting at all, but I could work with it if what she said next was anything along the lines of what I was hoping it would be.

  Lilac frowned as she looked into my eyes, her cheeks coloring. “You’ve already given me so much more than I could ever have asked for or that I had any right to. I don’t want you to feel like things have to be different between us or like you owe me anything just because we—”

  I held up my hand to stop her, having heard enough. “You definitely don’t owe me any apologies and I don’t want things to be different between us either. I also know that I don’t owe you anything, but I don’t want you to feel like you owe me, either.”

  “Okay.” She stopped fidgeting with her fingers, curiosity and maybe even a spark of hope flashing in her eyes. Yeah, I can definitely work with that.

  My own hope from before got reborn from its burnt ashes, rising from my feet and settling firmly back in my chest. “Can you relax? Can we just talk like we’re two people who are being honest and accept that we don’t owe each other anything?”

  She dropped her head back and I saw her chest rise and fall on yet another deep breath before she nodded and her eyes found mine. This time she didn’t look away, and neither did I.

  “You said you didn’t want what’s happened between us to affect your job, right?”

  “Right,” she answered without hesitating.

  I inched forward in my chair, keeping our gazes locked. I needed to be looking into her eyes while we had this conversation. “I don’t want it to affect your job either, you have my word. Do you mind if we get the work
stuff out of the way before we move on?”

  She shook her head, but it seemed that the floor was mine. “Let me level with you about something. Maybe that will help you to understand better where I’m coming from. Titus resigning was more than just a pain in my ass. He’d been with me for a long time and honestly, I didn’t quite know what the company was going to do without him.”

  A soft gasp came from her, but she didn’t interrupt me. “Yeah, I know. Shocking, but it’s true. Ollie and Grant were the only ones who knew how much his resignation rattled me. When I chose you to replace him, I wanted someone young who I could teach from the ground up. But most importantly, I wanted someone who I thought would be in it with me until we both hit retirement, someone who would grow to become as invested in the company as I am.”

  “I could be that person,” Lilac said. The edge of determination in her voice brought a smile to my lips.

  “I know. Why do you think I chose you? Your job is safe for as long as you want it, Lilac. No matter what happens between us.”

  Her relief was palpable. Shoulders relaxing, the tension and nerves that had been radiating from her since she entered my office melted out of her.

  “So how about we just say that I’m not firing you. As for the fake dating thing, how about instead of fake dating to get the douche off your back, we just date for real? We’re obviously compatible in bed and we work well together.”

  She laughed, only replying once I quirked an eyebrow. “We don’t know if we’re compatible in bed. We do know that we are in a limo and in the tub, though.”

  At that, I had to laugh too. I sat back in my chair and watched her. She hadn’t said no to dating for real, so maybe she was good with it. Another little nudge couldn’t hurt, though.

  “I like your kid, your kid likes my TV, it seems like a win-win to me.” I shot her another grin, and when the corners of her eyes crinkled and she shook her head, I knew I had her.

  She got up and sauntered over to me. This time when she did it, I saw the extra sway she inserted in the way she walked. It made me think about the first time I had noticed it in my office, I should have known from that day that something would end up happening between us. Idiot.

  It surprised me when she dropped a kiss on my cheek after coming to stand in front of me. We hadn’t kissed at all without sex as an immediate result. It felt nice, though.

  Her eyes twinkled as she looked down at me and ran a hand through my hair. “Well then, dear, don’t work in here too late. I’ll make dinner later.”

  Chapter 28

  Lilac

  “First day back at the office,” Joseph said as we climbed off the elevator on the daycare floor. “You sure you’re ready for this? We could still go back home and just work from there again.”

  I shook my head, almost instinctively reaching for his hand before I remembered where we were. It was still such a novelty that I could do that now, hold his hand whenever I wanted, that I kept wanting to do it just because I could.

  “No, it’s okay. We can’t work from there forever, and we’ve already been out for a day and a half. That’s a long time as it is.” I smiled down at Lincoln, who was walking between us. “Besides, you’re excited to get back to daycare, aren’t you?”

  He nodded, his lips spreading into a wide grin. “I got to ride in an ambulance and I got two new dinosaurs. Wait until I tell everyone.”

  Jodie stepped out of the daycare center before I could reply, rushing over to us as if she’d been waiting for us to arrive. “I’m so sorry, Lilac. We had his inhaler and it just wouldn’t work. We tried. I’m just so sorry. Is he okay?”

  She looked so apologetic that I couldn’t resist pulling her in for a hug. “He’s fine, Jodie. Really. You guys did everything you could. There was nothing anyone could have done to stop it.”

  She squeezed me tight before letting me go. “I just feel like we should have done more. We’ll keep a close eye on him for you, I promise.”

  “I know you will.” Bringing Lincoln back to the center was tough. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Jodie or any of the other workers, it was more the knowledge that I’d have to leave him alone to go up to my office.

  He hadn’t been more than a few paces away from me since the attack had happened, and I didn’t really want him to be. But I had been serious when I’d told Joseph that we’d have had to come back to the office at some point. Delaying the inevitable would only make it harder when we finally came back.

  “You have a good day, okay buddy?” I pulled him into my arms and held onto him for a minute, breathing in deeply before releasing him. “We’ll come get you for lunch.”

  “More grilled cheese?” He grinned, pleading with his eyes.

  “I don’t know.” I said, reaching out to run a hand through his soft hair. “We’ll decide what we feel like later when we come get you.”

  “I’m going to feel like grilled cheese,” Lincoln informed me, then turned to Jodie. “Can we go play now?”

  “Sure, sweetie. Say goodbye to Mommy and we can go.” She waited while Lincoln gave me a peck on the cheek and fist-bumped with Joseph. I saw her eyes widening when he did, but she didn’t mention how weird it was that the big boss was there with me to drop off my kid or that he seemed to have a good relationship with said kid.

  Joseph took my hand when the elevator doors slid shut, stroking his thumb over the side of it. “He’s going to be fine, you know that, right?”

  “Yep.” It didn’t mean that I wasn’t fighting the urge to go grab him and bring him to the office with me, though. I tightened my fingers around Joseph’s. “Thanks for going with me. I think I might have chickened out and refused to let him go in if you hadn’t been there.”

  “We can go get him anytime,” he said, letting go of my hand and taking a step away from me to put some distance between us when the doors opened on our floor. “Guess I’ll see you soon.”

  “See you soon.” I smiled, already missing the feel of his hand in mine as we made our way to our respective offices.

  Once I was behind my desk, though, I put all my personal stuff aside and got to work. I answered all the emails I had gotten behind on first and was just about to start a report for a client when there was a knock on my door.

  Looking up from my computer, I saw a nervous looking guy around my age standing in my open doorway. “Ms. Hawkings, I just had a question I wanted to ask you.”

  Me? I nearly frowned in confusion, then I remembered that I was supposed to be becoming their CFO. I had extended the offer to everyone in the office to come to me if they needed any help, and I guessed that this guy was about to take me up on it.

  “Sure, come on in.” Whatever he had to ask, I just hoped I’d be able to answer him. He wasn’t the first person to make use of the open-door policy I’d instituted, but I still got a little nervous every time. “What can I help you with?”

  “I work on the sixth floor,” he said, walking into my office but stopping about halfway in. I didn’t push him to take a seat when it didn’t look like he wanted one.

  “The sixth floor, that’s a lower data floor, right?”

  He nodded, twining his fingers together before blurting out what he was here to talk to me about. The words came out in one long stream. I swore the guy didn’t even take one breath.

  “We’re developing a new point of sale software, but we’ve underestimated the budget. My supervisor said it was my fault because I was the one who put everything together. He said—”

  I held up my hand, smiling as it dawned on me why he was so nervous. “Relax. We have processes in place for exactly this kind of eventuality. Go back down to your office, send me an email so I have your address and I’ll send you the necessary paperwork, okay?”

  His eyes suddenly became watery. “Is Mr. Matthews going to fire me?”

  “No.” I shook my head firmly, glancing over into Joseph’s office. He was on the phone, his stoic, intense impression on his features. He shoved a hand into his
dark hair, clearly frustrated. “I’d have told you that we could go talk to him together so he can confirm what I’m telling you but now might not be a good time. Take it from me, he’s not going to fire you over this.”

  A few minutes later, the guy was calm again when he left my office. A smile inched its way up on my lips. I was really starting to hit my stride here, feeling like I was useful instead of just being an imposter. It felt pretty damn good.

  The morning went by fast. I was barely aware of time passing before Joseph was at my door, knocking as he leaned against the frame. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead, making him look like a model posing for a corporate shoot. “You ready for lunch?”

  “Depends.” I arched an eyebrow even as I gave him a teasing grin. “Are you still frustrated? Because if you are, you can eat by yourself today.”

  He frowned, his head falling to one side as he narrowed his eyes. “How do you know I was frustrated?”

  “I can see you.” I motioned to the glass between our offices. “I thought you knew that.”

  Shaking his head as the frown melted into a smile, he lifted a hand and hooked his finger at me. “Come on, smartass. I thought we could order up from the cafeteria. It’s Greek food today, which is always awesome. I’ve already asked Ollie to go grab Lincoln.”

  “You’re the best.” Grabbing my phone from the desk, I stood up and went to him. I really wanted to hug him, press my lips to his and kiss him until I was breathless, but I had to settle for reaching out and giving his forearm a squeeze.

  He grinned. “I know. Does Lincoln like Dolmades? I’m thinking we should order a platter of stuff, but I can’t decide what we should get on it.”

  “Are you always this excited about Greek food?” I asked, letting go of his arm and following him back to his office.

  “I am. Love the stuff.”

  We walked to his lounge area, taking seats side by side on the couch where I usually sat alone. Joseph’s side pressed into mine, making me feel all giddy. I hadn’t realized that adults could get butterflies too, I thought we’d left those behind in high school. I was quickly learning how very wrong I had been. I had butterflies over Joseph, all right. Big, fat butterflies with wide wings that never slept when he was around.