Page 2 of Love Notes & Lifelines
I hold up my palm in his direction without looking. “Elijah, don’t say it. Everyone needs a little hel—” The words get caught in my lip gloss when I finally lift my head to find Elijah behind his desk—he and I share this entry area of the executive suite—and Mr. Hayes leaning against the doorframe of his office with one ankle draped casually over the other. But then he crosses his arms over his chest. It’s an oddly sexual pose and heat creeps across my cheeks.
I know what his lips feel like on mine, and that is not what I should be thinking about first thing in the morning at work.
He’s smirking at me. I really wish he wouldn’t even look at me, let alone smirk. Smirking should be off-limits when you’ve had your body pressed up against someone. I thought we were in a very necessary standoff, where he takes the long way around to enter his office through another department and I pretend that I don’t know how his dick pulses when he’s aroused.
Ah, dang it. Is brain bleach a thing? I hope so, because I need something to erase his rock-hard body from my memory banks. Today his sleeves are rolled up, and since he has shockingly little arm hair, the tendons in his forearms stand out like a naked cowboy in Central Park.
“I didn’t say anything,” Elijah says. He thinks he’s hiding his laughter, but it bounces along with every word. As Mr. Hayes’s long-time executive admin, he’s much more comfortable in this space than I am.
Oh crap. I suck in my lips and bite them. Hard. I’ve been staring at the CEO for how long now? Flustered, I turn forty-five degrees to my right so I can only see Elijah, but that doesn’t stop the heat of Beck’s gaze from setting fire to every inappropriate thought rushing through my mind.
No, no, no. NotBeckwith his silky brown hair and eyes that sparkle like emeralds. Mr. Freaking Hayes.
These are the days I wish I’d had another option—but I was at rock bottom when Elijah showed up at my apartment with a job offer. Thank God I took my original contract position here seriously because Elijah’s full-time offer came just in time.
And luckily, shockingly, Mr. Hayes and I have a silent agreement to keep our distance, which means I rarely speak directly to him—it’s better that way.
I haven’t been this close to him since our initial meeting after I was hired. The one where I told him I would keep things professional—pretend our kiss never happened—and he agreed. Even the meetings that have followed have allowed for more space than this.
Most days I can almost convince myself that he’s not real because I see him so infrequently. But now he’s standing there sizing me up and making me sweat in very unladylike places, so I glare at Elijah.
“I didn’t say anything,” Elijah repeats with a grin.
“But you were going to,” I scold just above a whisper. I don’t even know why. Mr. Hayes is six feet away and can hear everything I say. Instead of bickering with my new best friend, I turn on my heel and go save the day for people who actually need me.
The doorto the utility closet swings open and I nearly choke on my pickle-and-pimento-loaf sandwich.
“What are you doing in here?” Elijah asks. His sigh of disappointment is overly dramatic, even for him, but I know he’s worried when he runs his thumbs along the underside of his green suspenders.
When my heart starts beating again, I wave him in while furtively peering behind him. “I’m eating my lunch where Caleb won’t find me. If he sees me in the break room, he’ll consider this a working lunch, and I really, really need to find another part-time job.” I knew when I accepted the job that Caleb Fairfax, Crystal Waters’ general counsel, was cool and direct, but I’d had no idea how strict, harsh even, he would be as a manager. Though it’s not as if I would have refused the job offer, even if I’d been assigned to Lucifer himself.
“Stella,” Elijah says gently, then turns a bucket upside down and takes a seat next to me.
I hold up a hand to stop him. “No, thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate you allowing me to use your car to make extra cash driving all over Raleigh for Up-Lift, but I need something more stable.”
“I know.” Something about the way he says those two words makes my last bite of questionable meat stick in my throat. “I have something for you.” Elijah pushes his suspenders aside, reaches into his shirt pocket, and pulls out a black card.
He must own a thousand sets of suspenders because they always match his socks.
He waves the card in front of my face, but I raise both hands, even the one holding a half-eaten sandwich, in the air. “What is that?” And why does it look like a freaking credit card?
“This is an opportunity for you, take it. And put your hands down. I’m not holding you at gunpoint.”
Slowly, I lower my arms to my lap. When I don’t reach for the card, he slips it into the collar of my blouse, and I raise one brow.
“Do I need to tell Samira you’re getting frisky?” I grin. His wife would tease him about it for a decade, and we both know it.
“Don’t you dare,” he hisses but flashes a debonaire smile. He and Samira have one of the strongest—healthiest—relationships I’ve ever witnessed.
I plop the last bite of sandwich into my mouth and wince. I really wish this stuff would grow on me. Brushing off my fingers on my pant leg, I retrieve the card.
“Why are you eating that shit again?” he asks. Elijah is not a man who has ever had to shop sales.
My nose scrunches up before I can answer. “It was buy one, get two free.”
He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “For crying out loud, Stella.”
I hear his voice but not his words as I try to make sense of the metal business card he’s handed me.
