The Deal With Triplets

by Rayner, Holly

  I walked Zoe down the corridor to her room, deciding that I’d let her make the call whether or not to pursue anything. We stopped outside of her suite and simply stared at one another. If only I knew what she was thinking. I supposed I had an idea.

  I rested my hand on her shoulder. “Zoe, no matter what happens, we can promise to keep things professional.”

  “Let’s make that a promise,” she replied.

  Before I had a chance to respond, she pressed her lips against mine.

  I wrapped Zoe in my arms and pulled her closer toward me. In this moment, it didn’t matter that I was her CEO, or that she was my employee. It didn’t matter that we’d have to see each other at work every day for the foreseeable future. All that mattered was the irresistible heat between us.

  Zoe slowly pulled away from me and opened the door to let me into her room. She walked by me with a sexy grin, and we proceeded to make the kind of incredible love you only ever heard about in the movies.

  Chapter 8

  Zoe

  Mondays were normally the bane of my existence, but this Monday was different. Lucas had been kind enough to give me the day off, despite my protests, to have time to recover from the travel and the time change.

  This was completely out of character for me. I couldn’t remember ever being anywhere but Borroni Chocolates on a weekday unless I’d had a high-grade fever, save for my grandmother’s death a few years back. I’d taken three days off from work, and it had thrown off my whole routine. Of course, my family was far more important than parting with a few days of PTO, especially since I had plenty to go around, but it was the adjustment to coming back to work in the middle of the week that had made taking time off difficult.

  Nonetheless, it was Monday, and I had been instructed not to come into the office. That was a new one. Having landed back in Chicago at ten in the morning after flying through the night, I’d napped for a few hours before opting to text Ellie to see if she was free to meet up. I needed to get out of my condo—and out of my own head—plus I desperately wanted to apologize for missing her baby shower and give her the gift I’d been so excited to give her.

  I wasn’t completely sure when her maternity leave started, but I was fairly certain that, since she was at the eight-month mark, it already had. I was relieved when she agreed to meet me at a café near her condo across town. Hopefully, that meant she had forgiven me. We’d been friends for nearly one-third of our lives, so I presumed she knew how awful I felt and that it was out of character for me to be so flighty about something like that.

  Still, I couldn’t get her words from our phone call the other day out of my head. She’d been so quick to assume I’d missed her shower because of work, and she’d been right. It was clear that I needed some serious balance—and some girl talk—in my life.

  I got to our usual café twenty minutes early, anxious to see my best friend, not to mention to talk to her about Lucas, to sort out the feelings that were swirling around in my head. Ellie had always been the type to tell me the truth, even if it stung, so I knew she was the perfect person to blab to.

  Ellie was the type of pregnant woman that other pregnant women envied. She walked into the café looking like a movie star, her red curls perfectly in place and a full face of makeup on. Besides the baby bump, which was only noticeable from a side view, it wouldn’t have been obvious that she was even pregnant. I hoped that when I had kids one day, I’d rock my pregnancy like she had.

  “Ells!” I called, standing up from the table to greet her.

  She ran over to me a gave me a huge hug like she hadn’t just been yelling at me on the phone yesterday. “Zo! I’ve missed you!”

  This wasn’t exactly the stern talking-to I’d been expecting, and, quite frankly, deserved. I waited for her to sit down, pulling the table toward me to give her belly plenty of room, then reached for the gift bag by my side.

  “I’m so sorry, Ellie,” I said. “I’ve been a horrible friend. I feel awful that I missed your shower. I know it’s no excuse, but our company was bought out by a larger company—”

  “Oh, no!” The concern was apparent on her face. “What does that mean? Do you still have your job?”

  I nodded, her concern making me feel even guiltier. “Yeah, everything’s fine on that front. I just had to go on a last-minute business trip. I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d been at the shower.”

  “I know. Look, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that you didn’t come, but I overreacted. I know you would’ve been there if you could.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Ellie’s eyes grew wide, and she had that same look she’d given the friend group in college before suggesting we order a pizza at midnight.

  “So, is that bag for me?”

  “And your little princess,” I said with a grin.

  I pushed the bag across the table and watched as she pulled out the tissue paper, unveiling the fancy baby monitor she’d put on the registry.

  “Oh, my goodness!” she chirped. “Thanks, Zo! I love it!”

  I chuckled. “You better. You picked it out!” I waited for just the right moment before adding, “There’s more.”

  She felt around in the bag, a puzzled look on her face. “Um. No, there’s not.”

  “It wouldn’t fit in the bag, but the rocking chair from your registry should be delivered tomorrow afternoon. If you can’t be there to let the delivery person in, I can see if—”

  “You did not!”

  “I did!”

  Ellie jumped from her chair, her baby bump bouncing up with her, and came around the table to give me a hug.

  “Thank you a million,” she said. “I can’t believe you got the chair for me! That’s like the first thing I put on my registry. I put it on there thinking, odds were, no one would get for me, but I figured there was no harm in trying.”

  My friend’s smile sent my own lips forming into a smile. I was just happy that Zoe from three weeks ago had had the good sense to order Ellie’s gift ahead of time.

  “I’m sorry again, Ells,” I said. “I wish I could go back in time and do it over.”

  “The past is the past. Just promise me that, next time I have a kid, you’ll be there.”

  I giggled. “Of course. So, tell me all about the shower!”

  “Oh, it was all pretty standard,” she said. “We played cheesy games and ate finger sandwiches, and everyone sat around and watched me awkwardly open presents.”

  “Damn! You know I’m a sucker for a good cheesy game.”

  Ellie laughed. “The cheesiest! How about your work trip? Go anywhere fun?”

  “It depends what you constitute as fun,” I said.

  “Anywhere outside of Illinois, I suppose. Except maybe not Indiana or Michigan, since you go there plenty.”

  “How does Hawaii sound?”

  Ellie nearly spat out her drink. “You went to Hawaii? Without me? Now I’m officially bitter.”

  “Very funny. Just remember, it was for work.”

  Ellie studied me from across the table, as if she was taking in every inch of my face. She could be off sometimes, but this was a new level of bizarreness. What on earth was she doing?

  “Ells?” I asked, trying to snap her back to reality.

  “Zo, how naïve do you think I am?” she asked with a giggle.

  “What?”

  She looked me over once again. “You may have been there for work, but you didn’t only work while you were there. I’ve known you long enough to know the look. You totally met a guy there.”

  “I did not.”

  “So this glow, your grin, it’s all in my head?”

  I hadn’t planned on bringing up Lucas so soon, but Ellie had pretty much led me here. I’d wanted to focus more on her, on her baby shower, to make sure she knew how much I valued her. In her mind, though, sharing my secrets was a way of showing how much I valued her.

  “Okay. So there is a guy, but I didn’t meet him there. I sort o
f, well, went with him there.”

  Ellie furrowed her brow. “I thought you said it was a work trip.”

  “It was.” I hesitated, waiting for her to make the connection, but it seemed as though she was going to make me spell it out for her. “He’s my boss.”

  “Your boss?”

  “I know! How horrible am I?”

  Ellie leaped out of her chair, her baby bump landing on the table. “Zo, your boss is, like, eighty years old! Gross!”

  I burst into a fit of laughter, tears streaming down my cheeks. For a moment, I considered letting Ellie continue to think Nicolo Borroni was the man I was referring to, but I thought better of it.

  “When our company was bought out last week,” I explained, “Mr. Borroni retired and the CEO of the other company is now my CEO.”

  Ellie joined me in my laughter. “Phew. I was worried for a minute.” She settled back in her seat. “Now, tell me about the new guy.”

  I tried to hide my giddiness, but I was fairly certain it was written all over my face.

  “Well, his name’s Lucas. Lucas Cadieux.” I waited for the reaction I’d expected from Ellie, and it appeared on her face right on cue. “Yes, like the chocolates.”

  Cadieux was fairly well-known in the US, but not nearly as popular as it was in Europe. Since Ellie had spent a year in college studying abroad in Switzerland, I’d been sure she’d know about Cadieux, and I was right. Her jaw dropped, and I waited for her to make the next move before continuing.

  “So you’re in love with one of the richest men in Belgium,” she said.

  “I’m not in love, Ells. It was just a one-night stand.”

  “Stop! You already gave it up?”

  “Ellie!”

  She lowered her voice. “Sorry. I just meant that, well, that was fast.”

  I went through the past week, filling Ellie in on everything from the coffee shop meeting to my time with Lucas in Hawaii. I wanted her to have the full picture. I left out no details, going so far as to repeat the conversation we’d had as best I could.

  “Zo! He sounds awesome!”

  “He is,” I said. “I mean, I feel like we really connected. But maybe it was just the atmosphere in Hawaii. We decided to keep things professional from here on out.”

  “How was it?” she whispered.

  I closed my eyes, picturing his bare, muscular arms around me. “It was perfect. He’s perfect.”

  “Then why not pursue it?” Ellie gave me her signature momma-bear look, the look that made me sure she was going to be a great mother, but the look I wasn’t really in the mood for. “If you like him, and he likes you, then—”

  “Let me stop you right there,” I said. “I don’t even know if he likes me. He gets so hot and cold. The sex was great, but we both agreed it was a one-time thing. It was probably just a combination of the excitement of being in Hawaii and the mystique of a forbidden tryst. It’s nothing.”

  She crossed her arms. “Are you sure?”

  “Put it this way. He’s even more of a workaholic than I am.”

  “Damn. Fine. It’s best that you don’t fall for an emotionally unavailable man anyway. It always ends in heartbreak. Remember Jenna on our floor senior year and that professor? Or my brother and that Olivia girl? It never ends well. If he doesn’t want you, good riddance.”

  “You don’t have to be quite so harsh about it,” I said, laughing at her dramatics. “It was a great night, but that’s all it was. One night. I’m a grown woman. I’m not about to spend my life pining after my boss. That would seriously put a damper on things.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “New topic please?”

  Ellie scooted her chair closer to mine. “Cal and I narrowed down our list of baby names. Wanna hear?”

  I leaned in, as if she was about to share her deepest, darkest secret. “Absolutely.”

  Chapter 9

  Zoe

  It had only been twenty-four hours since I’d seen Lucas, but it simultaneously felt like it had been a millisecond and a lifetime. I wasn’t sure what I was more nervous about: getting back into a routine after missing the first day of the workweek, or trying to play it cool with the new boss I’d nonchalantly slept with.

  In the week since Lucas had joined the company, I’d only passed him maybe a dozen times throughout the workday, so I hoped that maybe there was a chance I could avoid him, at least for a day or two, until I got my footing back.

  Then again, I wanted nothing more than to see that luscious hair and those gorgeous eyes and that chiseled jaw.

  Cut it out, Zoe, I told myself.

  I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be the girl who had a crush on her boss. I’d worked too damn hard to get where I was in the company, and I wasn’t about to throw it away for some guy who might or might not have felt the same way about me.

  I hadn’t even been in my office for two minutes when a knock pierced through the silence. I just hoped it wasn’t Lucas. I wasn’t ready yet.

  “Come in,” I called, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Greg poked his head in the doorway.

  “Hey, Zoe, I just wanted to thank you again for covering for me in Hawaii,” he said. “How was it?”

  “It was great!” I was probably thinking it was for different reasons than he was, but it was the truth. “I learned a lot there.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I hope Lucas wasn’t too tough on you.”

  “He’s all bark and no bite,” I said. “No worries. How’s little Avery doing?”

  “She’s doing much better, thanks. Through the worst of it now. She should be back at school by the end of next week.”

  “That’s great, Greg.”

  He nodded. “Anyway, I have to get to a meeting. I just wanted to make sure you knew I’m forever indebted to you.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” I said with a laugh.

  I shuffled through the papers on my desk, searching for the usual bulletin that Lacey, the intern assigned to the marketing department, put on my desk each morning with a list of meetings and items to remember. Lacey was meticulous, reminding me so much of how I’d been when I was in college. While previous interns had simply made a schedule of meetings and included the occasional bullet point of extraneous information, she organized my daily bulletin into sections—schedule, reminders, events, goals.

  It took me a few minutes to set my mind settled back into work mode and make sense of some of her notes. I had a phone meeting with one of Lucas’s marketing executives from Cadieux in an hour, the contents of which were only specified as “collaboration and informal brainstorm.” Greg must have set it up while I was away. I knew it would be good for company rapport to ensure that the meeting went well, but I also wasn’t in the mood for one of Lucas’s minions telling me how to do my job.

  Lacey’s last reminder on the page made me chuckle: “Don’t forget Taco Tuesday! Margie will be collecting money from anyone who’s interested in lunch from Joe’s Taqueria. All orders must be in by 11:30.”

  Joe’s. I hadn’t had Joe’s in weeks, maybe months, and it was one of my favorite takeout places in the area. We generally ordered out as a group for some foodie occasion—Taco Tuesday, Wing Wednesday, Pizza Friday—once every two weeks or so. It wasn’t an official company event or anything, but it was a fun way to build connections.

  When I’d been in Margie’s position, I’d been the one in charge of collecting orders. It had been a logistical nightmare, figuring how much everyone owed, making sure I ordered each thing correctly, and distributing lunches when they were delivered. Now that I was on the other side, though, it was fun to try new restaurants and not have to leave the building to hunt down food.

  I looked at the clock on the corner of my computer screen. I still had plenty of time to give my order to Margie, but I’d missed more than a few order-outs by getting preoccupied with work and missing the cutoff to order.

  I pulled the menu for Joe’s Taqueria from my desk drawer and scanned it,
trying to decide what I’d be hungry for in four hours. Carne asada tacos sounded perfect. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.

  The main workspace of the floor, just steps outside my office, wasn’t as loud and full of life as it had been when Mr. Borroni was in charge, but it wasn’t quite as dead as it had been before I’d left for Hawaii. Maybe Lucas had actually taken what I’d said to heart.

  I walked over to Margie’s cubicle, where Harry from the accounting department was already reciting his own lunch order. I wondered if Margie actually got any work done on days that we ordered out, at least before lunchtime. Nicolo had always known about, and often partaken in, the tradition, so it had never mattered.

  “You ordering today?” Margie asked me once Harry stepped aside.

  I nodded. “I’ll get the carne asada taco platter, please.”

  Margie looked at the menu beside her and wrote down my order beneath an already-long list of Mexican dishes.

  “With tax and tip, yours is fourteen eighty-two,” she said.

  I handed her the twenty-dollar bill.

  “I don’t have change right now. Can I get it to you later?” she said.

  I grinned. “Someone will inevitably shortchange you. Add it to the pot.”

  She laughed, probably because she knew that my own reign as the office lunch-money collector had taught me that it was, in fact, true.

  “How was Hawaii?” Margie asked.

  “It was really nice! Long flight, but the conference was great. I’ll talk more about it in our marketing meeting tomorrow. We got some great ideas.”

  “And the new boss?” she asked with a lowered voice. “You survived the whole weekend with him. That’s a big deal.”

  “He’s not as bad as…”

  I tried to finish my sentence but was distracted by Lucas’s newfound presence in the room. He moved closer toward me, and it seemed as though every employee around him, Margie included, grew quiet as he passed them.