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Max peaks his head in. “Mr. Black, you have a visitor.”
No matter how many times I tell that man to call me Damien, he still calls me Mr. Black. And every time he does, I look around for my father.
Zoe steps into the room with a little wave at me. A smile. A smile that freezes on her face when she sees Felicity. She takes in her fitted black pants and teal blue sweater that brings out a reddish hue in her brown curls. Her huge hazel eyes dart from me to Felicity, then back again. She nervously shifts her brown bag from one arm to the other as I stand up.
She walks toward me and I pull her into my arms. She feels so good curled into me and smells like heaven; vanilla and cinnamon, brown sugar and honey. She’s positively mouthwatering and I press my lips to the top of her head as she speaks. “I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something,” she says with a glance at Felicity.
“Not at all. My assistant and I were just talking about her fears that Cameron is going to take over my company.” I guide her over to the couch in my office.
“But there's no way he's going to take your company. You told me you're too smart to fall for his tricks,” she says.
Felicity stands up and begins to pace once more. I wish she would just leave my office, but she doesn't seem to have any intention to go anywhere.
“Am I interrupting your work?” Zoe sounds concerned and I shake my head. There are reports I should probably be looking at, but I'm not too worried about them. In the grand scheme of things, reading them now or reading them later doesn't really change anything.
“So how did movie night with your friends go yesterday?” I ask.
Felicity lifts her head, and I have no doubt that she's going to use that statement to tell me Zoe is cheating on me. But I'm not worried about what Zoe does in her downtime. I have no concerns that she's going to betray me. I know she's not a cheater and given how heartbroken she'd been when Jake cheated on her, I know that she doesn't have it in her to do that to me.
“We actually played a ton of games and had a lot of fun and everybody wished that you could be there.” Her words surprise me. Her friends would like me to be an addition to their lives too? As someone with no real friends of my own, beyond the body that I catch up with once a year, it seems strange to me that I have a group of people wanting me to be part of their lives.
“Well, maybe we'll have to make that happen next movie night.” At my words, she blinks and nods her head.
I notice her gaze tick to Felicity once more as she lets out a breath and opens her mouth like she wants to say something. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about, but maybe later.”
Felicity clears her throat and notably says, “Ahem.”
Both Zoe and I turn to look at her and I wonder what she’s about to say or do. “So you met on the cruise ship?” she says, standing up and making her way over to us. She stares down at Zoe like she's comparing the two of them and finding Zoe lacking.
“We did. I called him out for drinking first thing in the morning... while sipping my mimosa.” She has the grace to look embarrassed, but her smile is absolutely adorable.
The look Felicity gives me is less than adorable; she looks disgusted. I can't help but wonder if she's forgotten the times that she and I have shared a drink right here in this office on tough days. Of course, now I know that those moments meant a lot more to her than they did to me, because I thought we were a couple of work people sharing a drink about tough life moments, and she saw them as a chance to fall in love and convince herself I must be doing the same. Well, she was wrong.
“She's the reason I mostly stopped working while on the cruise.” I wind an arm around her shoulders, possessively pulling her closer, and Felicity’s eyebrows drop low and angry over her pretty eyes. “I wanted to be fully present with her, and she convinced me to have fun.”
“Oh, she convinced you to have fun.” I can tell Felicity is seething under it all. “So, what else do you guys have in common besides day drinking?”
Zoe blinks. “Actually, I don't really day drink. It was just kind of me being my vacation self on the cruise. You bring up a valid point. I was worried that once Damien got to know who I am when I'm not on vacation, he wouldn't like me as much, but it seems like quite the opposite has happened.”
I give her a gentle squeeze. “I like both versions of you. Honestly, I haven't seen a facet of you that I don't like yet.”
“That's so sweet,” she says, gazing up into my eyes with a loving expression that makes my heart thump double time. “I don’t know how to describe it, but we also have this... connection.”
I know exactly what she means and I feel the same way.
But Felicity lets out a snort. “Okay. A connection. Cute.”
It's been half an hour since Felicity left us alone in the office and I watch Zoe take a bite of her Pad Thai, her eyes closing with delight. I'd ordered in food so that we could enjoy spending our time here together.
Neither of us have spoken about our run in with Felicity, and that's fine with me. I'm done thinking about her other than to consider whether or not I should offer to let her resign or fire her. As I watch Zoe, I feel a flood of affection for her. There's something so sweet and so kind about her; she didn't even seem to notice Felicity’s snarky attack.
“This is so good,” she says.
I want to ask her what she wanted to talk about without Felicity in the room, but I don’t want to push her. I think she's absolutely amazing, inspiring, and supportive, and I’m impressed by her every time we interact. I don’t want to ruin that.
If I'm being completely honest, she's everything I ever wanted and more.
But I don't know how to tell her how I feel about her. I still worry that it's too soon. After all, she was so recently cheated on by her ex-boyfriend Jake, and the two so recently split up. I'm afraid that she's going to rebuff me and say that this is just a rebound relationship for her and that it's not as serious as I feel. It's really unlike me to develop feelings at all, let alone develop feelings as quickly as I have.
