Page 14 of My Forbidden Boss

I reach for my bag I left on the floor and half stand. “I’m sure you don’t take all of your employees out on their first day like this. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow, Mr Chandler.”

I push the chair back as David reaches for me, snatching his hand back before he can encircle my wrist.

“Don’t leave,” he says. There’s a tone in his voice that stills my feet. “This isn’t like that. Not what you think.”

I peer at him. He holds my gaze, hiding nothing. It helps to reel in my galloping heartbeat. I wish this is exactly what I want it to be, but I shove that fantasy aside. Thoughts like that are nitro-glycerin. “What is it then?”

He falters. His gaze drops to the clean white tablecloth that must be murder to wash, and then back to me. “Because you’re hungry and it’s my fault you haven’t eaten tonight. I might be a tough boss, but I’m not an ogre.”

He’s anything but an ogre. More like front cover GQ silver-fox model. I focus on his eyes, remembering my place as his employee. His very new employee with dishonorable intentions. The dim-lights of the restaurant could be changed for strobing red and blue if he found out I wasn’t really employed by him. That Max paid off the real employee Blue Sky hired and told her to keep quiet while he sent me in her stead.

“You could have ordered me pizza on the way home,” I say. This is a top-notch restaurant. Date material. Too intimate to be anything work-related.

Part of me, actually a big part of me, longs exactly for that, but a bigger part of me is sink-me-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-water-tight not going to happen. No leaks in this reinforced submarine.

“Would you prefer pizza? They serve that here too. If it’s not on the menu, I’ll get them to make one up,” David says and that one-two to the gut is so swift I nearly wince. He says it like he wants me here. That I’m not a chore. I search for deception, but there’s nothing. He’s simply waiting for my answer.

How long has it been since someone’s cared? Second grade? Further back?

I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. My knees go weak and it’s drop to the seat or the floor.

“I haven’t eaten pizza in a long time.” I don’t want to admit anything to David, but the words have minds of their own and fly out. Two minute noodles are my go-to. They’re cheaper than pizza, but Mom and I make the most of it, eating them with a smile and a joke as though it doesn’t bother us. As though it’s our choice. The only other person who knows the full state of my life is Maddy. I don’t know why I’ve admitted something like that to David.

Usually no one cares enough to listen.

David smiles and I’m reeled in fish on a line style. “Pizza it is.”

David waves the waiter over and orders my pizza, as though ordering something as simple as a pizza in a place like this is done all the time even though the people I see through the gloom are eating gourmet dishes in irregularly shaped designer dishes and flashing expensive silverware.

He picks up his wine and looks at me over the rim while I play with the condensation on my glass of water, fighting not to squirm at the rising heat simmering through my blood. “Did you move to New York for this job?” he says.

“I…yes. I moved here a couple of days before I started at Blue Sky,” I say.

“That’s a big move,” he says. I fill in what he doesn’t say; ‘for someone your age’.

I frown, because I don’t like being reminded of our age gap. I try to rub away the hardness in my stomach but it does no good. “I’m not that young,” I say.

I don’t feel young. I feel twenty years older than the biological age of my body. I look at the people I went to school with, watch them fool around and laugh and wonder that I’ve never been that carefree.

“I didn’t mean anything related to your age,” David says. “I merely mean it’s a big move coming half way across the country to a place like New York. That takes courage.”

“I haven’t been called courageous before,” I say. More like ‘ghetto-girl’, ‘gutter-whore’ and my personal favorite ‘beggar-bait’.

It wasn’t courage that sent me here, but it’s amazing how far fear drives a person. He must see something in my face because he stills and frowns at me with eyes that see right through me. The pizza lands in front of my face and my mouth waters. Everything but the scent of fresh pizza flees my consciousness. I don’t notice the waiter talk and walk away after wishing us bon appetite. I clench my fist over my stomach as it lets out a growl that makes the people at the table next to us glance over.

I duck my head. “Sorry. Being this hungry always hurts.”

Silence thickens the distance between David and I. I glance up and recoil from eyes that cut. “How often are you this hungry?”

My shoulders round and my gaze falls to the white table cloth. I note the quality of the material. The ironed thickness is so different to the plastic table tops at Bob’s Burgers. This is when he’ll out me. Call me out for being the fraud that I am. Ask how can I be the high-level PA to a man of his position because I’m that person. The person everyone looks at for the wrong reasons.

“Eat, Adeline,” he says, his voice quiet.

My eyes fly to his, but he’s not looking at me. His lean fingers pull a slice from the delicious mess of tomato sauce and cheese. He holds it up, ready to bite when his eyes lock on me, dark wells of expectation. Waiting for me to eat.

I collect myself and take a slice of pizza. Strings of cheese melt from my slice. The base warps under my fingers. I bite into it, and flavor explodes over my tongue and I moan. This is delicious. This is heaven. My mouth waters and I burn my lips as I take another bite, and another, and too soon I realize I’m empty handed and David isn’t halfway through his slice. He says nothing, just keeps his eyes on his slice. It’s easy for me to reach for another slice because his face is blank. No judgment. No condemnation. No questions.

My shoulders loosen. I take another slice and inhale that too and then suddenly I’m stuffed. My stomach groans. I can’t take another bite. I lean back in the chair, eyes drooping because my stomach is finally full and it’s the best feeling in the world. David waves the waiter over and says something I miss.

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