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Before I could step out of the boardroom, he had me cornered. I felt grateful that all of the staff had rushed out as soon as the meeting was over.
“Fiona, what’s going on?” he asked. “You’ve been avoiding me for days. Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine.”
“Fiona, tell me the truth. What’s going on? Did I do something wrong? Did I overstep? Make you uncomfortable? You need to tell -”
“I like you,” I said.
Both of our eyes widened, and I couldn’t tell who felt more shocked by the revelation. Me or him. But since the words were already out, I figured there was no way else to go but forward. He worried about me ignoring him, so that meant something.
Chapter Sixteen
Christian
Istood unmoving, Fiona’s words ringing in my head, but not quite making sense. Of all the things I thought she would say, that was something that didn’t even make the list. I thought she was avoiding me because I had done something wrong, not because she liked me.
Fiona liked me.
My heart thumped in my chest, and I tried to understand what she said. I brought myself back into the moment. Fiona was no longer staring at me; she was looking past me, and a smile threatened to break on my face.
When she looked back at me, the smile passed and Fiona’s face fell immediately. She pulled her arm out of my hand and backed away. I took another step toward her, but she put an arm out, keeping me at the distance.
She let out a laugh, but there was no humor to it.
“I made a mistake,” she said, shaking her head. “Forget I said anything.”
Like that was possible. Those are the words I’ve spent nights wondering if I’d ever hear them from her lips, and she just offered them to me. There was no way I was going to let her walk out of the boardroom without confirming that she meant what she said.
I took another step towards her, “Fiona, listen.”
“Never mind. Don’t mind me. This never happened.”
She turned to walk out, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her back to me. I was definitely not going to let her go that easily.
“Christian, please,” she said, her voice breaking. “I get it already; you don’t feel the same way. Let me go.”
I scoffed at her. “Why would you think that?”
Fiona pulled her hand out of mine and walked further into the boardroom, maintaining distance between us.
“When did you start to feel this way?” I asked, following after her, but keeping a respectable distance. I wasn’t sure what was considered respectable, given the fact that what I really wanted to do was to pull her back into my arms and kiss her. Especially now that I knew I stood a chance of being kissed back.
“Are you trying to make fun of me?” Fiona asked, pacing the room. “Is this fun for you? Something for you to look back on later and laugh at?”
“Why would I laugh about this?”
She turned to look at me, and I could see the tears nestling in her eyes. I took a step forward, I didn’t want to see her cry, and I didn’t want to be the reason she was crying, either.
This was a woman who came into my life and offered me more than I bargained for. She came into my life and gave me friendship, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on… how could she think I would laugh at her?
“I know you think that it’s stupid that I like you,” Fiona lifted her hand up to stop my disagreement from leaving my mouth, before continuing, “I also don’t know what I was thinking of falling for you, but it happened, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
I told myself she felt the same way, trying not to grin again lest she gets the wrong idea.
“Don’t worry about it, though, I’ll make sure it doesn’t get between my job and I. So, really, we can just pretend that I never said that.”
“I don’t want to,” I said, and shook my head. “I don’t want to pretend you don’t like me because that would mean pretending I don’t feel the same way. And I feel the same way, too.”
