Page 26 of His Secret Gift

“Yes.” I can hardly believe myself.

A few moments of silence pass before she says, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

Sputtering, she asks, “Um, what the hell happened? And don’t skip out on any detail.”

I hug my knees to my chest. “I don’t know. It started with a few drinks at the club, and then wham!”

“Wham? He just stood before you—in his billionaire and handsome glory.”

As funny as it sounds, that is pretty accurate. When I tell my best friend the same, she laughs.

“And then what happened?” Just like how she knew I was chewing on my nails, I know that she’s probably curling her hair in her fingers. She always does when she’s listening to juicy gossip… and this is juicy.

But I continue, “Well, he didn’t seem to know who I was. So, I just went with it.”

She groans. “Details, Kayla. Please! I need the details!”

I shrug one shoulder. “He took me out to a restaurant. Oh, my god!” The memory of the gigantic jellyfish tank distracts me. “It was so cool, Mol. They had a huge tank…”

“Kayla! For god’s sake!”

Right.Even I’m exhausted over how many times I’ve derailed this conversation. “We went to a restaurant because I knocked over the chocolate souffle he had in his hands for his friend, so we went to get some more, and he bought an extra one for me.”

“Oh, there it is. That’s all a man has ever had to go to get to your heart. Feed good ole Kayla Allen some chocolate, and she’ll be yours forever.”

I smiled. “… like you did when we were kids?” I joke. She did bring me the biggest chocolate heart for Valentine’s Day one year, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

“Exactly.”

“Then, after that, we were outside and standing in the brightness of a streetlamp… and we had a moment. Well,” I bite my lower lip and smooth the hair behind my left ear, “I thought we were going to. But just when I thought he was finally going to kiss me, his phone rang.”

“And he took it?”

“He said he had to.”

“Ugh.”

I’m not sure why I feel the necessity to stand up for him, but I do. “He’s an important guy, Molly.”

“I understand that.”

I wonder if part of my ego needed her to acknowledge that. Like it wasn’t just some random nobody who I shared a moment with. It wasJack Shelley. CEO extraordinaire of Shelley Publications.

“But it’s still shitty.”

I suck air through my teeth. With that, we could agree. Not that I blamed him, but I wanted more than anything for him to kiss me. After a brief sigh, I say, “But it’s probably for the best.”

“Perhaps.”

That reaction surprised me. “Really?” I would’ve thought she’d prefer the scandal.

“Well, yeah. I mean, he’s your boss, no?”

I take a deep breath in and out. “That he is.”

“And nobody wants to be the new employee who is macking on the boss.”

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