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“So, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what exactly is it that you do at Sable Inc.? Like, what does Project Oversight Manager mean?” I asked, hoping to ease any awkwardness Nicky’s appraisal might’ve been causing. Her eyes were glued to the man!
“It means I oversee any new projects the company’s hospitality division undertakes. Here, we’re refurbishing that old Covington Inn building out by the train station. A local business-owner has purchased a Sable Inn franchise from us to be housed there, and it’s my job to offer support to the franchisee with everything from securing contracts with vendors to training staff. Basically, my main purpose here is to ensure that the hotel meets our standards so that when it opens, the guests will know without a doubt that they’ve stepped into a Sable Inn.”
“Oh, wow. That sounds really interesting. How long have you been doing that?” I asked.
“We just began our foray into the hospitality industry two years ago. Before that, I oversaw other projects like the establishment of satellite offices, and for a short while, I handled our grocery store chain franchises. It’s a great job. I get to travel the world. I love it.”
“Travel the world? I’m sure I would love that, too,” I said.
“Girl, please! You have the best job in the world, and you have great opportunities to travel.” Nicky turned to Ryan. “You know, my sister’s a YouTube celebrity, a hair vlogger. She gets invited to hair and beauty events all the time. She was even invited to Paris. If I could just get her to go somewhere…”
I shook my head. “Don’t mind my sister. She loves to exaggerate.”
“Yeah, right!” Nicky shot back.
“I had no idea you were a vlogger. Now, that’s interesting,” Ryan said, his eyes glued to me.
I shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“How’d you get started with that?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested.
I leaned back and smiled. “Well, a few years back, I had just done the big chop, you know, cut my permed hair off to go natural? And I was between jobs, home bored one day when I decided to document my hair journey on video and upload it to YouTube like I’d seen other people doing, and to my surprise, I became popular pretty fast. Started out using my cell phone and eventually got a digital camera and some studio lights, and the rest is history. I became 4C Angie.”
“Wow, that’s incredible!”
“It really is. Well, I’ve gotta go or I’ll be late for my next class,” Nicky announced, hopping to her feet. “Don’t get up.” She kissed my cheek and waved to Ryan as she breezed past him. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yes, same here,” he said to her, but his eyes were still on me.
I dropped my gaze after she closed the door behind her, unsure of what to do or say now that I was alone with him. When I looked up to see him still staring at me, I felt a familiar sense of anxiety.
Finally, he said, “I saw you at Coda the other night. You’re a jazz lover?”
My mouth dropped open only a little, but I’m sure the surprise was written all over the rest of my face. “You were there? I didn’t see you.”
“Yes, I was there. Nice place, right?”
I nodded. It was his eyes that were burning a hole in my back that night. I was sure of that, because they were burning a hole in my front at that very moment. His gaze was scorching me. The nice, personable, aw-shucks smile was gone. Mr. Boyé was drinking me in with his eyes like a predator would its prey, and the shift in the atmosphere made the skin over my chest tighten. I was attracted to him, and it appeared he was attracted to me, too, but he was my tenant. He was business, and he had to be a dog. He just had to be.
“Uh…” I began, fervently searching my mind for something to say, an out.
He abruptly stood, and that innocent smile of his returned. “I should go. Uh…I-um, I’ll see you around.”
I followed him the few steps to my front door, and as I watched him leave, said, “Yeah.”
9
The hell is wrong with me? Sitting up there in that woman’s house staring at her like I had no control over my own eyes. It wasn’t like she was half-naked or something. She was sitting there in jeans and a t-shirt, her head covered with a black scarf. No make-up, just her pretty face wearing an interested look as I told her about my job, but still, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her no matter how hard I tried. It was like some kind of magnetic force or something. Hell, I couldn’t tell you what her sister looked like even if someone had a gun pointed at me demanding that I describe her. I barely glanced at her, because just like in that club, Ms. Strickland commanded and held my attention.
What the fuck?
Yeah, I was attracted to her, but she was fine, so it was a given that I’d be attracted to her. But this, this thing that was going on in my head when I was around her? It was more than attraction. Shit, it was bordering on obsession, because there I was, sitting in my temporary office with the door closed, paperwork covering my desk, my phone buzzing in my pocket, with my mind focused on her, and only her.
It had to be the fact that I’d deemed her off limits. The whole forbidden fruit thing must’ve been driving me crazy because of her proximity to me. It was one thing to dismiss her. It was another thing to dismiss her and still have to see her nearly every day—sitting on the front porch drinking her coffee, or walking past her living room window in her short pajamas with the blinds open, or walking to her car, or shit, me lying in my bed at night fully aware that she was just feet away from me in her bed.
Damn-it! I was losing my entire mind and I didn’t even really know this woman!
I rubbed my forehead and stared at the paperwork, then shook my head and pulled my phone from my pocket, relieved to see my friend, KC’s, name on the screen. If I couldn’t focus on the paperwork, I definitely wasn’t going to be able to focus on a business-related phone call.
