Page 46 of Romance with Mr. Bossy Pants

“Who? Whom?”

“When you asked ‘for who,’ it should be ‘for whom.’”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. As the clock ticks on, I notice the yawns Chloe can’t quite stifle. “Let’s wrap this up,” I suggest. “You look like you’re running on fumes.”

“It’s really late and we’re the only ones left in the building, well aside from the janitors probably.”

She gets up to pack her things. Meanwhile, I straighten up and slip into my suit jacket. Leaving my office, I spot Chloe exiting hers.

“I suppose offering you a ride is off the table?” I ask.

She nods.

As we approach the bank of elevators, Chloe rummages through her bag to make sure she doesn’t leave anything behind.

Then, there’s a loud bang, followed by buzzing and flickering lights, then darkness. The power is out again.

Ugh. Not now.

15

Chloe

Tension knots up in my shoulders as I silently wait for Daniel to lose it. But the devil must be on a break today. Daniel leans back, his face calm. “Maybe they’ll have it back up and running in no time.”

“Well, I sure don’t want to walk down 50 flights of stairs right now. I’m pretty tired.”

I eye him carefully—no sign of anger.

Danger. Danger.

“What about calling maintenance?” He asks.

“They’re gone for the day and probably won’t be back till morning. I can call the emergency line. But shouldn’t this place have generators?”

“It does, but it’s been on overdrive since our recent outages and we have to get new ones. Don’t sweat it,” Daniel says, grabbing a chair. “Call the emergency line and we’ll wait it out a little while until security does their rounds. In the meantime, I need to tell Michelle’s sitter to stay a while longer.”

I watch Daniel pull out his phone, scrolling through his contacts with furrowed brows. He makes a call, waits, then hangs up with a sigh. “No answer,” he mutters.

He tries again and gets through this time. “Thanks, I owe you.” He ends the call and rubs the bridge of his nose.

There it is. He must be getting irritated. I observe him as I call the emergency line.

He should be furious, yet he’s handling it all with a calm I didn’t expect.

He looks up, catching my eye, and I brace myself for some kind of outburst, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he just gives a resigned shake of his head. “Hope it’s not a long night.”

With some hesitation, “I have to admit. You’re handling this a lot better than I expected.”

“I’ve been here before, that’s all.”

“It’s almost better if you weren’t this calm. It would help if you weren’t calm at all, actually. You should be through the roof right now. Come on. Let it go. I’ve been around you long enough to know I can handle your outbursts now.”

“There’s no—”

“Oh, I get it. The suspense is my punishment,” I’m starting to ramble now, stumbling between my words, but I can’t stop myself. “Or maybe you’ve already made arrangements to fire me, and you don’t need to scold me anymore.”

“Chloe—”

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