Page 16 of Secret Desire
“Yeah. I’ll take the stairs just in case,” she said, walking towards the bedroom door.
“It’s a long way down,” I protested. “Take the elevator. I’ll go with you and make sure no one’s coming down before you get on.”
“Fine.”
Four days later I was going crazy. It was a super busy week and between meetings, work-related social events, and doing actual work, I put in several ten hour days. Throughout the week I had several meetings with Ashley. Every time I saw her across the conference room or ran into her in the hallway it was all I could do not to pull her into my arms, kiss her senseless, and tell everyone she was mine.
Except she wasn’t. And she couldn’t be. That didn’t keep me from wanting it to be true though.
We were finishing up a meeting on Thursday when Theo came into my office.
“Just the two people I want to see,” he said, pointing between me and Ashley. “May I have a few minutes?”
Ashley and I exchanged a look as the other people left the room. I knew she was wondering if Theo had figured out that something was going on between us now. I wouldn’t put it past him to watch the security cameras to track everyone’s comings and goings.
“What is it Theo?” I asked in my best ‘I’m a busy CEO’ voice as I stood up to encourage him to be brief.
While that voice intimidated most of our staff, it did nothing for Theo. He just raised an eyebrow at me and quirked his lips.
“It’s about Grace.”
I plopped back down into my chair. “What about her? I thought she was perking up now.”
She’d still been obviously depressed when Ariel and I had an AGM partners meeting with her yesterday but for the most part, she seemed to be feeling at least a little bit better. Or she was getting better at hiding her misery, afraid we’d descend on her apartment and drag her out of bed again. I was pretty sure she got bruised last time.
“We got a very nice architectural proposal for the Clark Street project,” he said.
“I should go,” Ashley said. “Architecture is not in my purview.”
“Wait,” Theo instructed. “The proposal is from Nicole Lowenthal’s new architecture firm.”
“Nicole submitted a proposal to AGM?” I asked in surprise. “I’m surprised she would do that after everything that happened.”
I turned to Ashley. “That’s the woman Grace is in love with,” I explained.
She nodded, which told me she’d heard the story from Theo already.
“I may have visited her and encouraged her to submit a proposal,” Theo said.
I frowned. “Why?”
His eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “Are you kidding me? First of all, she’s very talented and we could use a good architect on the team. Second, she and Grace are perfect for each other, which we all know, and even though they’re madly in love, they aren’t going to do a damned thing about it without a little help from us.”
“How did Nicole look?” I asked.
“As bad as Grace,” he confirmed.
I suspected as much, but it was nice to know that Nicole was as devastated by the break-up as Grace was, even though it was mostly Nicole’s fault.
“I have a plan to get them back together,” Theo said.
I straightened my spine. “Great, what do we need to do?”
A few days later I sat at a table in our back conference room with Theo and Ashley while Nicole talked to us about her proposal. Every few minutes her eyes darted towards the window nextto the conference room door, as if she was nervous that Grace would walk by and see her here.
“This all looks great Nicole,” I told her enthusiastically.
My reaction was authentic. Nicole had clearly done her homework on the project, and we already knew that she’d fit in well with our team from our work together on the Grant Park College proposal. We hadn’t gotten that job, but none of us were surprised, given that we’d been competing against national firms with much more resources than we brought to the table.
