by Jolie Day
Joel chuckled. “Well, spend a little more time with her and you’ll start to see it,” he promised. “She can be pretty ruthless.”
Avery was silent for a long moment as Joel continued to stir the meat and vegetables, before turning off the burner and doling the food out onto two plates. When he turned around to serve her, he found Avery deep in thought, her eyes fixed on a spot above the kitchen sink, unseeing. Gently, he placed her dish in front of her, the soft clinking sound bringing her back to the present. Avery blinked, turning to look up at Joel as he sat next to her at the kitchen island.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, casually, as he took a bite of his food.
Avery shrugged, looking down at her plate. She picked up her fork and began moving her food around the plate, deep in thought. Joel watched her, occasionally bringing a forkful to his own mouth, his eyes studying her, silently, waiting her out.
Finally, she put down the fork and he turned to her, giving her his full attention.
“Is this…what we’re doing…” she trailed off, biting her lip. Joel placed his hand on her bare thigh, but it wasn’t sexual; just reassuring. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Is it smart?”
“Probably not,” Joel chuckled, squeezing her thigh. “But we’re both adults, aren’t we? We can do what we want?”
“But what about work?”
“What about it?”
“You’re my boss,” Avery pointed out. “Won’t that be a conflict of interest?”
“How so?”
“Joel,” Avery sighed. “You know exactly how.” She gave him a look and Joel took a deep breath, reaching this time for her hand to squeeze. He was silent as he watched her, their linked fingers resting on her thigh. “Can I be fired for this?” she asked, after another long moment of silence. “Can you?”
“Kara would never,” Joel assured her, tugging on her hand so that she met his eyes with her own; saw the honesty etched in the blue depths. “She would never get rid of me.”
“And me?” Avery retorted. “My contract runs out in four and a half months, Joel; what happens then? What’s to keep the company for severing ties? What’s to keep them from dissolving it now?”
“Me,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “I wouldn’t let them fire you. I wouldn’t let Kara even consider it.”
“Even if things don’t work out between us?”
“Let’s…let’s not think about that right now,” Joel sighed, reaching up to cup her cheek in the cradle of his large hand. “Let’s just…enjoy each other. Just for a while. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, after all.” He chuckled and used his other hand to push up his glasses, tilting his head to the side. Avery gazed at him for a long moment, looking deep into his crystal blue eyes before she took a deep breath and shook her head.
“I just…I want to make sure that I’m not packing my bags at the end of six months,” she admitted. “I don’t want to go back to Illinois. I can’t go back there, Joel.”
“And you won’t have to,” Joel swore, cupping both sides of her jaw in his hands and stroking the softness of her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “Whether this—whatever it is—if it works out between us, or not; you will have a place in this city. You have my word.”
Avery searched his eyes for a long moment and though she knew it was ridiculous to trust a man she’d known for less than two months, she couldn’t help but feel entirely confident in trusting in him. It was something unfamiliar for her, but she made no attempt to resist it.
She gave him a smile, leaning in to press her lips to Joel’s, and let the butterflies flood her entire body as they kissed. When they were broken apart by the growl in her stomach, Joel laughed out loud and let her go, turning her back to her plate as he stood and retrieved a bottle of red from his wine rack and uncorked it. He reached for two glasses in his cabinet and poured one for each of them, handing Avery hers and holding out his.
“To us,” he said, his voice soft and his eyes holding hers as they clinked the glasses together. Avery let out an involuntary shiver as the vibration ran through hers, her hazel eyes staying locked with his as she brought the glass to her lips and took a long sip.
She could swear, just for a moment, that there was a glow around the irises, but then it was gone, leaving the man smiling at her as he took another forkful of food and brought it, this time, to her lips. Avery welcomed it with a smile of her own and tried to forget her worries.
And it worked—at least, for a while.
Chapter Seventeen
Avery struggled not to pull at the collar of her turtleneck the following Monday, as she walked into the office with the usual tray of coffee in her hands. The hickeys that Joel had left as he nipped his way down her body the night before were beginning to heal and itched like crazy, but revealing them might attract the rumor mill to speculate about her love life.
It was bad enough that the photographs taken of her dancing with Antonio Juarez-Ramos were starting to circulate in the news. They called her “Mystery Woman” and her face was obscured by JR’s shoulder, but her dress was completely recognizable.
She was even getting looks in the elevator as it climbed towards her floor—which she tried to ignore the best she could, to no avail—and she could swear she heard whispering behind her, accompanied by some giggling. She bristled at that—the giggling—because she wasn’t unused to it. In Illinois, she’d been the subject of teasing multiple times and it usually had to do with one of two things. One, the fact that she cared more about her studies and work than about finding a boyfriend to hold her books and escort her from class to class. And two, because she was typically the heaviest girl in class.
This was almost exactly the opposite.
When the elevator doors opened, she let out a breath and made her way quickly toward the lounge, placing the drinks down and taking only her own and Joel’s, just like any other morning. But when she got to his office, Edith was standing in front of his door with an emotionless expression on her face. At Avery’s questioning glance, she just shook her head and held out her hand for the drink. Avery didn’t hesitate to hand it over.
“There are some manuals on your desk,” Edith informed her. “Mr. Harper would like you to read through them and make some notes.”
“Of course,” Avery replied. “But, um, is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Edith replied, curtly, as she turned and walked into Joel’s office, shutting the door behind her with a finite click. Avery stood there for a moment, just watching the door, before she made her way behind her desk and sat down. She wondered what on earth she had done wrong to make Edith treat her so coldly; she feared it had something to do with the gala, but she had no idea what.
So she decided to just focus on her work.
Less than an hour passed when a newspaper was slammed down in front of her, obscuring half of the pamphlet she was reading and causing Avery to let out a gasp and roll back in her chair. When she looked up, Edith was standing there, one eyebrow raised in question and disapproval, in equal measures.
“Where did you go on Saturday night?” she asked, one hand on her hip.
“To the gala,” Avery replied, albeit a touch hesitantly. With the way that Edith was now looking at her, she was no longer sure that she’d actually been at the party at all.
“I mean after,” Edith clarified, rolling her eyes. “When you and Mr. Harper disappeared, where did you go, exactly?”
“Didn’t he tell you?” Avery asked, choosing her words carefully. Edith shook her head, her gaze never leaving Avery’s. “I took Mr. Harper back to his apartment,” Avery informed her, in a whisper. “Just to wrap his wound and change his shirt.”
“You didn’t return to the party?” Edith asked, though she sounded like she already knew the answer.
“No,” Avery told her. “I went home. I was tired.” Neither statement was entirely false, but neither was true, either. S
he hadn’t exactly spent much of Saturday night sleeping, though a great deal of it was spent in bed. Most of Sunday, as well.
“Well, the press seems to think that you and Mr. Joel were…otherwise engaged.” She pointed to the picture of Avery and Joel on the bottom corner of the front page of the newspaper; Joel’s arms were around her as he led her in dance. Their eyes were locked in a heated gaze that she could feel radiating off the newsprint and Avery flushed, clearing her throat. She shook her head and pushed the paper away from her.
“That’s ridiculous,” she murmured. “He’s my boss.”
“Then you understand why this might be inappropriate?” Edith said.
“Of course,” Avery assured her. “But, trust me, nothing is going on between me and Mr. Harper. No more so than yesterday.”
Edith didn’t look quite like she believed Avery, but Avery’s eyes held firm on hers, unwavering. Finally, the older woman sighed and grabbed the paper off the desk, returning to her own without another word. She seemed to be somewhat satisfied, but Avery didn’t know how long that might last.
Edith shot her curious glances for the rest of the morning, until Avery finally stood and announced that she was going to grab lunch. She padded to Joel’s office and knocked gently on the door. At his soft reply, she opened it and met his blue-eyed gaze over the edge of his glasses. Joel gave her a dimpled grin and opened his mouth—presumably to say hello or something of the sort—but was almost immediately interrupted by something just over her shoulder.
Avery turned as Joel got to his feet, his smile melting into a guarded frown as Kara Nichols appeared just behind her. The younger woman jumped, startled at her sudden appearance. For the first time since she’d met her, Kara didn’t give her a smile upon meeting.
“Good afternoon, Avery,” Kara greeted, coolly, “do you mind if I have a private word with my brother?” The tone of her voice was just as cold as her eyes and left no room for argument—not that Avery would have dared argue with her, anyway.
“Of course,” she said and started to inch past Kara, back to her desk, before turning back to Joel. “Before I forget, though, Mr. Harper,” she said, feeling her face heat up as both siblings locked their eyes on her—one pair were decidedly more open and affectionate than the other, and it wasn’t the pair she was used to—and she swallowed thickly. “I’m about to make a lunch run to the deli; would you like something, like a sandwich maybe?”
“Yes, thank you,” Joel said, clearing his throat and purposefully ignoring his sister’s gaze as she narrowed her eyes at him now. “Roast beef and mozzarella on rye, please.”
“Yes, sir,” Avery said, then turned and then scurried out as fast as her feet would carry her. She flinched as the door shut firmly behind her. When she turned back, she could swear that she saw the wood around the lock splinter a bit. She turned to Edith with a frown. “What do you think that was all about?”
“Beats me,” Edith replied, not looking up from her computer, “but you might want to make yourself scarce; take the long way today.”
Avery nodded, mentally thanking her for the advice as she grabbed her messenger bag and phone from her desk. Halfway across the office, she could hear Kara’s voice rise in volume and she paused, turning her ear slightly in an attempt to make out what she was saying, but all she could make out was the thunder of her voice as it shook the door and sent shivers up her spine. She couldn’t force her brain to decipher whatever it was she was saying, as an irrational fear gripped her heart.
She was back at the elevator in record time, resting against the wall as she let out a deep breath.
*****
The deli wasn’t as crowded as it usually was and that could have had something to do with the fact that Avery was there much earlier than usual. It was barely past noon and the small, locally-owned business was mostly frequented by students, who rarely crawled out of their beds before noon, anyway, let alone walked down the street to grab their lunch. She was in and out in a matter of minutes.
Deciding to follow Edith’s advice, Avery took the long way back to the office.
It wasn’t that much longer, but Avery allowed herself to slow down and window-shop, gazing at designer clothes and shoes and bags, smiling at small children as they ate with their parents in cafes, and just giving herself a little time to breathe as she strolled along. It wasn’t often that she got express permission to dawdle in the middle of a workday. Usually, she tried to make it back to the office as soon as she could to finish up whatever work Joel had assigned her in the hopes that she would get the chance to work on her own ideas and designs for the company.
But today…well, despite the circumstances it was nice to walk around the city for a bit.
By the time Avery reached the corner, just before she got back to the office, she had only been gone about twenty minutes and could stand to loiter around for another five, so she stopped by a nearby newsstand and browsed through the magazine selection. Beautiful actors and actresses and singers and models smiled up at her and she scanned the little blurbs next to their heads, but didn’t pause to pick any of them up. She wasn’t one for gossip columns or entertainment magazines. She didn’t care who was dating whom or who had been found with a mistress or which celebrity would be starring in the next big blockbuster. It was all nonsense, in her opinion.
But the newspapers…
Avery let out a gasp as she caught sight of a familiar face on the front page of one of the bigger name periodicals—two familiar faces. Her own hazel eyes were in grayscale, reflecting the photographer’s light as her gaze pointed upward, staring deeply into the icy, colorless, bespectacled eyes of Joel Harper. Her hand was in his and she could tell that they were dancing, but to the outside observer, it looked like so much more. And it was. She knew that and Joel knew that. But now, it looked like the whole world knew about it, too.
Including Kara.
A knot formed in the pit of Avery’s stomach at that thought of Kara finding out about her and Joel through a newspaper article (a front page newspaper article, no less) and it suddenly became clear why she was so angry when she came to the office earlier.
But surely this isn’t the first time that Joel has been in the paper with somebody, Avery thought. After all, he’s been out with several women before, hasn’t he. One per week. That’s what the workers at the café said. Besides, it was just a dance.
Still, Avery couldn’t help the worry that seeped into every centimeter of her body and she found herself digging into her pocket for change, tossing it at the clerk and snatching a newspaper from the pile. She shoved the paper into her bag as she shuffled away, walking as quickly as possible towards the office, suddenly very aware of every pair of eyes that came to land on her.
Do they know? she thought to herself as she scratched her neck through the sweater. Have they seen the article? Were they there on Saturday night? Did they see Joel and I leave together? Do they have the same suspicions as Kara? Is Kara going to find a way to let me go without Joel being able to stop her? Is she still here?
A thousand questions seemed to filter through Avery’s mind as she rode the elevator up to her floor and they doubled as the doors opened and she met the gaze of several of her co-workers—only for each and every one of them to turn away at the last second. Avery was suddenly shrouded in silence as she entered the outer office and scurried her way towards Joel’s door.
Once again, she was intercepted by Edith.
“I’ll take that,” the older woman said, grabbing the bag that held their sandwiches. She opened it and reached in, pulling out Joel’s roast beef and mozzarella, then handed the bag back. “Mr. Harper would like me to let you know that you can head home early today. You will not be required to stay until he leaves.”
Avery’s heart dropped to her stomach and she swallowed past the lump of worry in her throat. “May I ask why?”
“He didn’t say exactly,” Edith informed her. “Just said that you could g
o at five and to have a good night.”
Avery nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “And I’ll be expected tomorrow morning, as per usual?” she asked, praying that the answer was yes and she didn’t just lose her job.
“Of course,” Edith said. “Though, Mrs. Nichols might want to schedule an appointment with you.”
“Any particular reason for that?” Avery asked, hoping to get some kind of answer.
“I can’t say,” Edith sighed. “But it shouldn’t be anything to worry about.” She offered Avery what she probably thought was a comforting smile, but looked more like a grimace. “There are some more pamphlets on your desk,” Edith told her. “Mr. Harper says that when you’re done with them, you can head on home.”
Avery cast a long look at the door to Joel’s office. She could no longer hear voices from behind it, so she figured that Kara had already returned to her own department, but she still wanted to check that he was doing alright. She wanted so much to talk to him; to find out what was going on.
Instead, she forced herself to return to her desk and pull out her lunch, unwrapping her sandwich as she picked up one of the blueprints and ignored Edith as she slipped into Joel’s office. She continued to ignore the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach as she made notes and forced herself to finish at least half of the sandwich before tossing the rest in the trash.
Avery was halfway through her third blueprint when she remembered the newspaper that she’d shoved into her bag earlier. Glancing up over the top of the paper, she studied Edith for a long moment, making sure the other woman wasn’t watching as she reached surreptitiously into her bag and pulled out the periodical, tucking it inside her sweater as she stood and walked, as casually as she could manage, to the bathroom.
There, she picked a stall, pulled her feet up to rest on the seat with her, and opened up the paper to the main article, forcing her gasp to the back of her throat.
Chapter Eighteen
