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At forty years old, he’d not lived like a monk. He’d been with women, lots of women. In his twenties, he refused to have a serious relationship, jumping from one woman to the next, within hours. He’d been a bastard, he knew that.
Anna-Beth wasn’t just about sex. Although, he did want to fuck her. This was different. This was a desire to keep, which he’d never felt before.
****
Anna-Beth knew she could do this.
Staff ate lunch with their bosses all the time. She’d seen it at her parents’ workplace. A working lunch, where they bounced around ideas and resolved problems. It would be perfectly fine, and she didn’t even have to acknowledge how good he smelled.
She was tempted to check her reflection in the screen of the oven, but she stopped herself at the last minute. It didn’t matter what she looked like. George was her boss. This was the two of them being friends and nothing more.
She grabbed her lunch, which was the same as George’s. He told her from that first day that she would eat the same as him.
Anna-Beth wasn’t exactly sure on the full conditions of her employment, but she was kind of winging it. Also, she never wanted to ask. George being her boss was bad enough. She wondered if her brother knew about her secret crush.
Stepping back into the office, she forced a smile to her lips as she took a seat on the end of the sofa. She was tempted to move as far away from George as possible, but that seemed a little too rude, so she stayed close.
He hadn’t started his lunch yet.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, a little concerned.
Cooking fish wasn’t new to her, but she loved salmon cooked so many different ways. Poaching it was one of her favorite methods.
“No, everything is going to be delicious. I just wanted to wait for you.”
“Oh,” she said. She didn’t think she’d be charmed by that, and yet she was.
He waited for her. How had he gotten to be so sweet? So charming, and still single?
There were rumors of him being a playboy. Anna-Beth knew there were rumors about everyone and everything, including herself. She tended to ignore them as half the time, no one knew what they were talking about.
She held onto her knife and fork, and once again offered him a smile.
Stay calm.
He is your boss.
And you’re just eating lunch together.
This is not a date, or anything stupid.
“Enjoy,” she said.
Inside, she was cringing. What did people say just before they started to eat? She’d not been on many dates in her life. There had been a couple of men her parents had insisted she date—sons of other businessmen, associates, and other wealthy families. Those dates had been a disaster.
They often talked about some of their most brutal business practices. One guy had even told her how he’d gotten an assistant to fall in love with him, used her for her skills, and then when he’d gotten bored and she had no other ideas, he fired her and then bound her so tightly with a NDA, she would struggle to even start her own firm. Anna-Beth had assumed it was meant to be some kind of impressive tale, but she’d been horrified at what he’d done and ended the date immediately.
Her parents hadn’t been happy about that. It had cost them a multimillion-dollar contract. Anna-Beth hadn’t known that at the time, but even still, she wouldn’t sell herself for money, even for family.
Pushing those memories aside, she couldn’t help but look at George out of the corner of her eye. She watched as he took one bite of the salmon and his eyes closed. He enjoyed her food, which was important to her. Whenever one of her nannies was distracted, she would sneak down to the kitchen and hang out with Niah, the family cook. She loved being in the kitchen, and whenever her parents or brother would arrive, she’d hide behind the counter.
Anna-Beth learned a lot from Niah, and she hated it when the cook handed in her notice. She was also happy for her as well. Niah had saved and built a small fortune, and along with Anna-Beth’s investment, she’d been able to open that fancy diner she’d constantly been talking about. Her parents hadn’t been happy to lose their favorite cook, and she and Niah had promised not to say anything about her investment.
The diner was doing amazingly well. One day, she intended to visit and even eat there, but she had been too worried about her parents attempting to destroy it.
Not all of her trust fund had gone to causes she was passionate about. She also helped several people, and she invested in a few companies. Her portfolio wasn’t big.
She helped Niah, and that gave her a small return each month. Then there was the father and son team who set up an app to help with their pizza business. It sounded amazing, and seeing the love between father and son, she invested without a second thought.
