Page 17 of Undeniable

I stopped breathing altogether, worried if my chest rose at all, it would happen again. And I tried to ignore that small part of me that wanted it to.

Silently, we stood there for several more seconds until he let the necklace fall back to my chest. I still felt the lingering sensation of his inadvertent touch, and the charm was warm against my skin.

“I’m glad it all worked out,” he muttered, his eyes raised to meet mine. And the possibility of the magnitude of the moment was reflected back to me.

“Yeah, me too,” I stuttered, and my attempt to sound confident and unaffected flopped. Instead, I sounded breathy and wistful, and what the hell was I doing? What thehellwas going on?

In a bizarre change of topic, James asked, “Are you going to prom?”

My heart stuttered suddenly at the question, but then I thought about the way he’d phrased it. He was simply asking if I was going. Not asking me to gowithhim.

“Yes.”

“Someone finally ask you, or are you going solo?”

His question wasn’t meant to be derogatory, but I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes. The small smile that tilted his lips thankfully evaporated the heaviness of the moment.

“Someone asked me.”

“And who did the Ivy Sharpe say yes to?”

The name almost slipped from my lips, but I considered the fact that James didn’t know. It had happened over a week ago, yet he hadn’t figured it out and I considered there was possibly a reason for that.

“Guess you’ll find out this weekend.” I smiled playfully and headed toward the cafeteria.

Behind me, I heard James mutter something under his breath, frustrated at the lack of information, before he began walking in the same direction.

SEVEN

James

It wasSunday evening and I was sitting at the office sipping my fifth, or maybe my sixth, cup of coffee of the day.

My eyes hurt from staring at my computer screen for the entire weekend, but I was almost done. I just needed the page to load one more time so I could finalize my report and hand it over to our CEO.

A quick knock came from my open office door, and I looked up to see the man himself standing in the doorway, looking about the same as I probably did. Our CEO, Rafael, me, and our CFO, Peter, had been at the office all weekend, combing over the financial data for a company Rafael wanted to acquire. As controller and, apparently, the only finance department employee they trusted, I’d been asked to review the accounts and previous statements to ensure it was a solid investment.

We were all worse for wear. And Peter had only gone home an hour before, after leaving me to finish it all up.

I was good at my job—the numbers were neat and tidy and if they weren’t, I made sure they ended up that way. I oversaw all accounting functions for the company and got paid a shit ton of money to do it. Hence the constant never-ending weekends and mountains of work.

“You’ve gotta be almost done,” Rafael said.

I nodded, and finally, the screen loaded. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Just a few more notes to add and then the summary will be in our inbox. We can go over it tomorrow. I’ll have Shelley set up a meeting for sometime in the morning.”

He was shaking his head before I’d even finished. “No, let’s do it Tuesday. I’ll be working from home tomorrow after I catch up on sleep tonight. And I recommend you do the same.”

Arguing with the boss wasn’t wise, but I also didn’t think it was necessary that I work from home. While I thought about it, I sent an email to my assistant, Shelley, asking her to set up the meeting for Tuesday morning.

“I’ll have Shelley schedule Tuesday, but I’ll be here tomorrow in case you—”

“Actually, let me rephrase. You are not allowed to come into the office tomorrow. Clear?”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Rafael had been trying to instill in me, in his words, “a work-life balance” for years. But it wasn’t really necessary when my “life” outside of work consisted of my friends, whom I saw enough of even without the so-called balance. And I was good at my job, so why wouldn’t I want to spend time there?

The argument was poised on my tongue, but I decided against it, instead nodding as he waved goodbye.

---