Page 7 of Their Stolen Kisses
Chapter 4
Diana
I’d never talked to the handsome, driven CEO of Pinnacle Real Estate before yesterday, but… I’d noticed him. A lot. Our offices were on the same floor, and he was basically the definition of eye candy. Any glance I could sneak at him through the cracked door of my office or over the desk outside the elevators I sometimes worked at brightened my day - and sent my imagination careening into dangerous territory.
Yeah, I had a crush on my boss. He was dashingly clean-cut, permanently hard-working, a billionaire, and, well… the pinnacle of Pinnacle. Plenty of women in the office must have had a secret crush on him.
Cameron was rich. He was CEO of a worldwide real estate franchise. He had a lot of things that were unimaginable to someone with a job as simple as secretary.
Yet, when I spoke to him, I felt like… like I was just talking to a father who needed a nanny. Cameron just seemed like any ordinary guy who loved his son, worried about him and wanted what was best for his son.
Except I didn’t fantasize about any ordinary guy bending me over an office desk and taking me from behind. Even now, my cheeks warmed just thinking about some of the scenarios my imagination had managed to tease me with.
It was just like having a crush on a movie star, right? Actors were fun to moon after. They were unobtainable, just like Cameron.
Except now that I knew him a little better and had spoken to him, Cameron didn’t feel anything like one of those lofty, unreachable, handsome faces on TV. The realness of his personality and his problems with his ex-wife had shattered the screen that made my fantasies safe and without the possibility of coming true.
Oh please,I berated myself sharply. My fantasies still had no chance of coming true. Only rich models dated billionaire men. It wouldn’t be long before Cameron would be on the front of some business magazine next to a leggy example of optimal beauty underneath some headline about marriage.
He wouldn’t be interested in a woman like me. I had curves, but not just in the butt and chest area where men liked them, although Ididhave those. Curvy butts and boobs were sexy. Curvy tummies and thighs were not.
I sighed loudly. I should have been grateful to find extra work so quickly… but it was just such a tease to work for Cameron!
I AM grateful,I told myself sternly. The evening of the day on which I had learned that our house could get foreclosed, I had gone to see my mother at Blue Pines, the nursing home in which she was staying until she recovered from her surgery. Just as I had suspected, Mom had just forgotten about the mortgage payments completely and the calls from the bank had been going to our home phone.
Too little, too late, but she changed the phone number on her banking profile to her cell right after we had a good mother-daughter cry, of course.
When I mentioned my plan to get some extra work, she just nodded her head. I knew she hated it - hated that her daughter had to make all the money for our little family of two, hated that I had to somehow make even more now, hated that I worried about her and now had to worry about the house. She didn’t speak up about it. Why should she? There was nothing else to be done. No other way.
I won’t tell her yet.The decision was an easy one to make. She’d never expect that I got another job so soon, and when I brought it up again she’d get that same tight-lipped expression and waste time worrying about me when she should be resting and getting well again.
Besides, I had a kid to visit and a good impression to make.
Cameron had informed me that he’d be working late today, which meant I would just be going by to meet Noah a bit later than expected. I didn’t mind - in fact, this was perfect. Impressing the kid would impress the father, and I wanted Noah to like me. Dark-colored, formal clothing looked great around the office. Kids preferred color and approachability, and I now had time to go home and change into such an outfit.
For all my big words about impressing Cameron through Noah, it took me a solid two minutes of standing in the cold and dark to bring my hand up and knock on the door of the house that evening. While I waited at the door for a response, I nervously glanced around, hoping this really was Cameron’s house. After I’d pulled up to the wrought iron gate in my old oil-leaking Saturn and selected “Cameron Hart” from the list of names for visitors to refer to, I’d passed row after row of beautiful, unique houses that all looked like they could belong to a billionaire CEO.
The door opened and a beam of light blinded my darkness-accustomed eyes. Cameron stepped back and waved an inviting hand. “Thanks for coming, Ms. Hayes. Please, come in.”
“Just Diana is fine… Cameron.” He’d told me to call him that, and I didn’t want him to feel like he had to call me Ms. Hayes outside the office. He didn’t respond, so when I stepped inside I said the first thing I thought of that could start a conversation. “Thanks. It’s cold out there.” The weather. That was all I could find to talk about?
“Very,” Cameron agreed. The chill lingered in the folds of my green coat, and I followed Cameron quickly into the living room to escape it.
The living room. It had all the furnishings of a living room, but this room was probably the size of the entire first floor of my house and had about twice as much furniture - and that furniture was twice as nice. At least.
“Noah’s over - well, he was in front of the couch.” A few dinosaurs and some large Legos came into view as we rounded the side of the enormous couch, but no little boy appeared. “He usually hides when someone knocks. I’ll get him.” Cameron disappeared down a hall to the right.
I breathed in and out deeply. Middle school was a long time ago. I wasn’t a silly little girl who couldn’t contain herself around handsome boys. I was an adult with bills to pay and a job to do.
Cameron reappeared two minutes later with a bundle of limbs and clothes that seemed to be doing its best to shrink into him and disappear from the world. “Diana, this is Noah. Noah, this is Diana. She’s going to watch you and play with you while Daddy’s away, okay?”
Big, round, brown eyes peeked over an arm that clutched his father tightly. Three seconds apparently told him all he needed to know about this strange woman, because he tucked his head back into the safe familiarity of Cameron’s broad chest.
“Hi, Noah.” My encouraging smile reinforced my friendly voice, even though I knew he couldn’t see it. “I’m Diana. Do you like dinosaurs?”
No answer.
“I like dinosaurs,” I continued without missing a beat. “I have a dinosaur right here.” Reaching into my purse, I quickly freed the business-card-sized, special-promotion movie ticket that I’d slipped into my wallet years ago. At the time, I had just wanted it somewhere out of the way and I hadn’t seen a trash can. After finding it still in my wallet a year later, it had become something to remember a friend by who had moved away, so I had kept it all these years.
