Page 1 of Love Notes & Lifelines
CHAPTER ONE
STELLA
Kissingthe boss is never a good idea.
It didn’t matter that I’d clocked out for the last time, my contract as a temporary employee was over, and he wasn’t my boss any longer.
Because it wasn’tjusta kiss. He consumed me, owned me, and for two whole hours with him in that bar, I felt free from the confines of responsibility.
It was completely out of character for me, but that night, I’d just wanted to be the girl without a noose around her neck. I was fully prepared to go right back to my life full of landmines.
Fast forward a year. Now my rule isnever kiss a man in a stupidly expensive suit.
Because now that man is my boss. Again.
Months after the best night of my life—andthatmind-altering kiss—I unexpectedly received an offer for a full-time position as an administrative assistant to the general counsel at Crystal Waters’ corporate headquarters.
It had been half a year since that one night with Becker Hayes, the company’s CEO. When I had temped in that office, he’d been traveling or working at other locations. The offer came when I desperately needed consistent income and benefits tosupport my mother, so I said yes faster than I could blink and assumed I could easily avoid a CEO who was never in the office anyway.
Rule number two isdon’t make assumptions without having all the facts.All the travel Mr. Hayes was doing during my time as a temp wasn’t his normal schedule.
I’ve learned that six months completely away from himandsix months ignoring the awkwardness of seeing him nearly every day, especially since my desk in the executive suite’s reception area is mere feet from his office, has done nothing to help me get over him.
Get over that kiss.
The possibility of running into him keeps me on high alert as I exit the elevator on the top floor of the Hayes building. Constantly scanning my surroundings has become part of my rather strict morning routine. This job is the only thing keeping my mother in her assisted living facility. I can’t lose it because my libido has a thing for my boss.
“Oh, thank God you’re here,” Kara from marketing says the second I step off the elevator.
I’m a mess. But I’m a mess with a job, so I focus on the obstacle in front of me.
Kara’s a nice girl with dirty blond hair and blue eyes. She’d make a perfect Barbie for Halloween, and she’s as smart as she is beautiful. I hear she’s somewhat of a marketing prodigy, which makes me want to be her own personal cheerleader, but unfortunately her marketing skills don’t transfer to her knowledge of office equipment.
So far this week I’ve fixed her phone, un-jammed the copier, and helped her remove her blouse from the laminating machine.
“Hi, Kara. I love your dress. What’s up?”
She glances down at the light pink silk garment and shakes her head. I’m sure she thinks I’m absurd, but I’d kill for an hour in her closet.
“It’s the 3-D printer. It went a little…haywire,” she says, ignoring my obvious dress envy.
“Stella, could you help me with the fast copier?” Teddy from in-house counsel asks as Maria catches sight of me from the opposite direction.
“Stella. I don’t know what I did, but the coffee machine is making mud pies in all the mugs,” Maria says in a rush.
This has also become my morning routine—fixer of office equipment.
“Right,” I say, juggling the bags in one arm and the scrapbooks I’m bringing to my mother later in the other.
I hurry to my desk and take one second for myself to ensure everything is in its correct spot. If anything on my desk is out of place, I get sweaty.
“Kara, go unplug the 3-D printer,” I call while fitting the scrapbooks into the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet and wishing it had a lock. “I’ll be right there. Teddy, don’t touch anything, I’ll go there next, and Maria, I’ll make a fresh pot on my way to help Kara.”
My lunch goes on the shelf behind me and my purse tucks into the only lockable cabinet I have access to, then I check it. Twice.
“Thank you,” Maria says. She’s a lovely woman in her sixties and the new, very impressive, and unnecessarily expensive coffee machine makes her twitchy. “What ever happened to plain old drip coffee?” she mutters, turning on her heel.
Kara and Teddy head in opposite directions, and I inhale deeply as they go. The moment to breathe should be relaxing, but I sense my coworker Elijah laughing at me.
