Page 33 of Grumpy Boss's Secret

I felt as light as a feather because I was also getting lightheaded from lack of food didn't seem to matter much. Finally, after I'd sat there for hours in a haze of physical discomfort and emotional bliss, I began to hear office doors opening and closing and the sound of footsteps retreating down the hallway. No one spoke: they all seemed to leave at different times.

Had Ian left already? I checked my phone. 5:14. Most people would have left by now, right? Was it safe for me to risk it? I stood up stiffly, suppressing a groan. I stretched from side to side and touched my toes.

“The first thing I’m doing,” I said, “is eating that sandwich.”

I tucked my phone into my pocket and placed my hand on the door handle. Cautiously, ensuring it didn't squeak, I opened the door and peeked into the hallway. I didn't see anyone inside any of the offices around me. I could see Ian's door from where I was but couldn't see inside his office.

“Everyone’s gone,” I told myself. “Just walk casually down the hall.”

I stepped out of the closet, brushing the dust off my pants and squinting in the light like a mole. I leaned sideways, trying to look inside Ian's office but I couldn't see his desk.

“It’s fine,” I said. “He’s gone home. For sure. Just walk, Jozi.”

I strode down the hallway. I felt stiff – like my butt was made of metal – but I could move like I hadn't just been sitting on concrete for roughly five hours. I reached Ian's office and kept walking at a brisk pace. I glanced inside. Ian. Shit.

He wasn’t looking at me. He was at his computer. Typing. Probably writing. He looked as though he was concentrating intently, his eyes fixed on his computer screen. I practically ran. In another couple of seconds, I was out of sight.

"He didn't see me," I told myself, my heart hammering, but a grin rose. "You're fine, Jozi; just keep walking."

I kept walking down the hallway, surreptitiously glancing inside the offices I passed. I didn't see anyone. Then I heard a door open behind me. I froze. It was Ian. He was the only person I'd passed.

Glancing over my shoulder, I scurried into the breakroom. Had he seen me? In a flash, I saw my undrunk coffee resting in a patch of late-afternoon sunlight. I heard my tuna sandwich calling to me from the refrigerator. Did I move over to what I wanted, like a rational human being?

No. I dove behind the couch. I listened intently, crouched down with my head almost resting against the floor so I could see the doorway to the breakroom through the gap between the bottom of the couch and the floor. I heard footsteps.

Shoes. Men's black leather shoes. That was Ian's stride, slow and confidant. My heart jumped into my throat, watching his feet move into the center of the breakroom doorway. They stopped, the toes pointed towards the center of the room. He was looking inside.

“He must have seen me,” I thought, wincing.man,

Could he see me now? For what felt like an eternity, the black leather shoes of Ian Huntington did not move. Then, finally, they turned and went back to his office. I let out a slow, silent sigh of relief, pressing my forehead against the wood floor of the breakroom. He probably saw me. I grimaced, embarrassment tapping on the windows of my castle of relief.

"It doesn't matter," I thought, still keeping my forehead on the floor and smiling widely. "I have his book. I am going to eat my tuna sandwich and read his book."

I listened intently for a few moments, and sure the coast was clear, I stood up and tiptoed from behind the couch. I picked up my forlorn, cold coffee, dumped it out, and washed the mug. I didn’t want coffee that had been sitting out for five hours.

I made myself a cup of peppermint tea and took my lunch box out of the refrigerator. Then, I scurried along the hallway to my office with a lunch box and tea mug, feeling like a stowaway on board some great ocean liner I had no business boarding.

I shut the door to my office and locked it. “Phew,” I said. Now, was this book about me or wasn’t it? Feeling my stomach twist with a feeling other than hunger, I plopped down into my chair and took out my sandwich. As I rapidly chewed the first glorious, tangy bite, I opened the photos app on my phone and clicked on the first image of Ian’s book.

Kirk's book. I looked up for a moment and smiled. Wow. I guess he wasn't some creepy old man, after all. I looked down again and began to read. Voraciously. I was barely conscious of finishing my sandwich, and my tea was stone cold when I remembered it was there. I sat there, slowly sipping the cold tea and reading as if in a trance. Reading the words on the images was difficult, but they were clear enough. They leapt off the page and into my imagination like I was drinking a new world through my eyes.

The book was about a girl named Stacey, who lived in the Wild West. She cut her hair short and rode for the Pony Express, sassing the outlaws she came across and her boss, a grumpy old man. She was vivid and charismatic and described tenderly as delicate, fairy-like, and breathtakingly beautiful.

“Oh, this can’t be me,” I thought, holding the side of my phone more tightly.

But it was, wasn't it? I'd never considered myself delicate and fairy-like, but I had thin limbs and quick energy. I thought I was awkward. Comically so. Did Ian believe I was like a fairy, "darting around with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes"?

I kept reading. Stacey met an outlaw with a scar over his left eye. He was blond, with cold blue eyes and a troubled soul. One night, she tended to a wound on his chest out on the plains. They found an abandoned cabin, and she nursed him back to health. They made love.

I bit my lip. Reading a sex scene written by Kirk was entirely different when I'd just found out he was also my boss. And, you know, someone I'd slept with. It was incredibly hot.

"Here goes," I whispered, thrilled with anticipation. I gripped the edges of my phone more tightly and leaned in to read the words.

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him with soft eyes. Eyes that usually flashed with fire but were now dimmed to a tender glow. She reached out a tentative hand. He didn't look at her. His eyes stared straight ahead, not seeing the dark cabin in front of them but seeing dark, twisting visions he did not have words to express. He passed a hand over his eyes.

"Are you all right?" she asked in a quiet voice. Her breath caused the flame of the candle she was holding to tremble. He turned to her. Everything that he feared seemed to vanish at once, and there was only this beautiful woman caught between the moonlight and the light of the fire. Her skin glowed palely – her bare arms and neck nape. Longing for her filled him like a shout.

Without thinking, only feeling, he reached forward, placed his hand tenderly against the back of her head and kissed her. She started at first, surprised, but she did not pull away. Her heart responded to the feeling that this was a man needing love. Her body awoke to the desire to give him that love as fully as his lips were asking for it.

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