Page 52 of Forty, Flirty & F*cked

STEPS IN TIME

CONNOR

Patient is supposed to be a virtue.

In my case? Patience is a motherfucker that needs a slap to the face.

It’s been six days. Six.

Technically, it’s been six days, fourteen hours, and approximately twenty-three minutes since the Tech for Tomorrow gala. Not that I'm counting.

In my defense, it's hard not to count when you keep texting your maybe-still-wife every chance you get, both of you pretending last week's kiss never happened while she steals coffee from your company’s break room and critiques your mug organization system.

"You have the company color-code the break room mugs?" She'd texted this morning, sending me a picture of one in Clearwater blue. "That's... actually not surprising."

"Says the woman who alphabetizes her protein bars."

“I told you: it’s a force of habit.” Three dots appeared and then disappeared before she texted. "And don’t judge me. They were on sale."

Now, staring at another investor presentation, all I can think about is that gala. That car ride. How she'd smelled. And how?—

"Mr. Reeves?" Yasmin appears in my doorway. "The Elvis chapel sent another package."

I don't look up. "Throw it out."

"It's... singing."

That makes me look up. "The package is singing?"

"'Love Me Tender.' But with modified lyrics about social media engagement and viral marketing potential."

For God's sake…

"Also," she continues, "Ms. Bristol asked me to tell you that she's successfully erased all hotel security footage from Vegas, disabled three different traffic cameras, and convinced the chapel's Instagram manager to 'accidentally' delete their entire photo archive from March."

"Thorough." I nod, not finishing the rest of what I want to say.

Because Ariana Bristol is very thorough.

Very thorough in managing PR crises. Very thorough in disposing of Elvis-shaped bribes.

And very thorough in the art of avoiding our "date."

Because she's also been avoiding me.

Not overtly, not in a way I can actually call her out on, but she's mastered the art of slipping away before I can steal her away from her office.

Meetings are stacked back-to-back, and any time I think I might catch her alone, she's already moving on to another crisis, another phone call, another reason not to be in the same room with me.

And I'm losing my goddamn mind.

I tell myself it's fine. The IPO is my focus. My life. The culmination of everything I've built. But every time I catch her laughing with Yasmin over coffee, every time our fingers brushwhen she hands me a file, every time she texts me some snarky remark about the latest tech scandal, it makes me want to tear up every corporate byline I've ever lived by and drag her into the nearest empty office.

But I don't. Because I'm not that guy. Because I have boundaries for a reason.

At least, I think I do.

Until I find myself at Madame Rousseau's Dance Academy, watching through the studio's glass wall as Ariana attempts to master a waltz with Seattle's most demanding dance instructor.

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