Page 15 of It Must Be Love

She shrugged nonchalantly and requested softly, "Please let's not bring up personal stuff at work."

"I was just apologizing, Naya, no need to be difficult about it," I snapped. Fucking hell! Why the fuck did I say that? That did not sound like I was sorry, even a little.

"Okay," she said on a short smile, absolutely no irritation or malice in her voice. "Can I help you with something?"

I shook my head. "No."

"I'll just set up for the milestone meeting. See you in ten minutes?"

She spoke like I'd not just apologized and fucked that up by snapping at her. She showed no emotion. She seemed unfazed and very much ready to do her job.

Today, she was wearing what she always did, black pants with a black sweater. This one had a high neck and was loose. But now I knew the body beneath her loose clothes.

I walked out of the conference room and watched her through the glass walls.

She hooked up her laptop to the screen and started to go through the slides.

Her hair was tied in a low ponytail. Wisps of dark hair surrounded her face. Her eyes, like Nolan's, were gray, but hers were lighter. Her skin was darker than Nolan's, inherited from her mother who was half Sudanese and half Scandinavian.

Naya had long lashes. Her clothes were not chic. She tended to be mousy. And yet, there was a subtle elegance about her. She wasn't aggressive, but she was…strong.

She walked up to the screen and stood in front of it, checking something and then used the presentation clicker to move the slides. She smiled as she read through a slide, and I held my breath. There was something intensely charming about her in the way she tilted her head and pursed her lips when she was focused.

Naya Donovan was not frumpy, she was subtle.

How had I never noticed that before?

At the meeting she was as always precise and emotionless. She gave her team the opportunity to present part of the slide deck to us executives and didn’t hog all the attention as so many managers did.

She had answers to questions thrown at her. Whenever I asked a question, I could see Naya's team stiffen like they were waiting for me to be tough on her. Ethan had warned me that everyone on her team noticed that I criticized Naya unfairly and they were all entirely on her side.

Why had I always been so harsh with her?

I remembered the first time I'd seen her at Nolan's place. She was a kid, around thirteen, I think. She hadn't talked much but had always smiled when Hayes, I and others came over. It had taken a couple of times before I realized that she not only cooked for us but for her family on a daily basis.

I was further shocked that at such a young age, she took care of the house and everyone who lived there. Sure as hell, Nolan didn't, even though he lived there.

His theory was that he was in MIT and his focus was his education—and his family supported him. She supported him. But even without being told explicitly, I knew he wasn't there for her. She was alone…well except for Darren Wright. She was dating an ex-football player. He had a shit ton of money, why wasn't he helping her pay down her father's debt or buy her a car? I knew why. I may not know a whole lot about Naya but what I did know is that she was prideful and had integrity. She wouldn't take a handout.

I started to notice her crush when we were getting ready to graduate. She was around sixteen, still so young. Whenever we went to Nolan's place she watched me with adoring eyes. Some of the guys had observed it as well and gave me a hard time about the jailbait. It had annoyed me. I started to bring a girl along whenever we came to Nolan's place, so Naya didn't get any ideas. Yeah, I was that arrogant, because without a girlfriend as a shield, Naya would be all over me. With a girl by my side, she didn't even talk to me.

We liked going to Nolan's place and even though he'd been uncomfortable in the beginning because his father's house was not as opulent as our parents' homes—once he'd seen how good a time we had, he'd calmed down.

A big attraction was how easy it was to be at Nolan's place because it was casual. His father was awesome. Down to earth and friendly, always ready to give advice and listen—a far cry from my own father. The first couple years of university, we went to Nolan's place often to hang out, study, eat dinner, stuff like that. But then he moved out of his house and into an apartment with us. We still went to his father's place but not as often.

Naya was always sweet. Hayes was the only one of us who actually talked to her. He'd stay in the kitchen with her while she cooked. I used to ask him why he was hanging out with a high school kid, and he said she was smart and interesting. Even then she wore sad plain clothes.

I'd mentioned it to Hayes, and he'd bitten my head off for it. "You know not everyone is rich like us, right? Her father is putting Nolan through MIT—because he's not eligible for need's based scholarship. They're not rolling in money. She takes care of the house and bags groceries to support her family. I don't think it matters what the fuck she wears. She's a rockstar in my book."

I'd been ashamed of myself. Maybe my resentment built then because she was so much better than I was.

She wasn't the first girl who had a crush on me. There had been others. But somehow I'd disliked her interest in me. Whenever she tried to talk to me, I politely shut her down. And after a while she didn't even try. Instead of being relieved, I’d been more annoyed.

I still saw her the few times she came from California to visit—and it was still there, that shy adoration. After she moved back to Boston, I saw her when she was at Nolan's old place to drop off or pick up something. We'd all be hanging out and she would get in and get out as quickly as humanly possible—but I still noticed her watching me with affection.

It was a week before Naya overhead my conversation with Ann that I'd seen her outside of work. Naya was picking up Magnus from Nolan's house. We were there for a dinner party, one she had not been invited to because she was once again babysitting.

Hayes had talked to her and asked her to join us for a drink. She had that look in her eyes again. It had made me uncomfortable as hell. She worked in my company; she couldn't look at me like I was the fucking love of her life.

---