Page 38 of Love Not Qualified

But Haelyn was nothing like the others. I could see that even if she had only been working for me for one week. She paid close attention to those around her and for the first time since I met her, I wanted her eyes off me.

I knew she did the right thing. And I also knew it wasn’t her fault I didn’t hide it better.

I should’ve kept my distance and made her take an Uber so she wouldn’t smell me.

Fuck.

What was wrong with me? What was I thinking?

I am going to stop drinking. For real, this time.

My feet flew over the steps as Haelyn’s heels clicked behind me, trying to keep up. We should’ve entered the building side by side, but the fact that sheknewmade me want to walk as far away from her as possible and that was exactly why I made a gap between myself and her by distance if I couldn’t do it by presence.

Haelyn shouldn’t have said anything, even if she wasn’t completely wrong. What I did was none of her business, and it wasn’t her place to lecture me about how I should or shouldn’t act around potential partners.

But what if she was right and Gorig smelled my breath? What if that alone would’ve screwed the whole thing?

Shut up.

A faint crack reached my ears and when I turned around to the source of it, a flicker of annoyance brushed my chest at the sight of Haelyn straightening her back with a shaky smile.

I stepped aside, holding the door open for her, but she refused to move.

“Come on,” I urged her, my jaw twitching as I held onto the last drop of patience.

I considered myself a patient and calm man, but something about Haelyn erased it all. I looked down at my fists. They were shaking.

How did she manage to infuriate me so badly?

She was nothing to me after all. Why did I care that she caught me smelling like rum? It wasn’t like after smelling me one time that she could know this was an everyday thing for me.

She couldn’t know. Could she?

She shook her head, that trembling stretch of her lips still present. “You go first.”

My eyes lowered in a squint.

What the hell had gotten into her all of the sudden?

Was she nervous about the meeting?

Because until ten minutes ago, she was eager to get here and fix everything. Now, Haelyn was looking at me with round eyes and no intention of walking further.

I was about to insist, but decided against it. There was no way I was going to lose valuable time by trying to get her fine ass to move. I stepped inside the building while Haelyn caught up with the pace of a turtle.

She let out a sharp exhale when she reached me and threw two words my way before walking up to the reception. “Wait here.”

Bossy much?

I swallowed my words and propped my back on a wall, scanning my surroundings. Gorig’s first floor was a splash of color, unlike the monotonous shades of ours. On my left, there were dozens of desks with busy employees typing with a strange smile on their faces, even though there was nothing to separate them from the people they were surrounded by.

My employees valued privacy and would’ve fought for it with their teeth, I couldn’t imagine them handling the position of having to knock elbows with others while working together.

In front of me, there were a few red chairs here and there facing the luxurious reception. The desk had a half-circle shape, where two women had their attention focused on different people waiting in line.

“Smile, it’s free,” was written behind the enormous reception.

When it came to our ways of ruling our companies, Gorig and I couldn’t be more different.

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