Standing smack dap in the center of Damien’s office not twenty-four hours after that fucking phone call wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined when I’d hung up.
The midday sun invaded the space, pouring in through the massive windows and glinting off every reflective surface in sight. He watched me over the top of his computer screen with his eyes narrowed, his brows knitting together, as if I was somehow affronting him by just being in his damn office — but he knew I was coming. I’d scheduled this with him first thing in the morning.
“If this is about—”
“It’s not.” I took a step toward his desk, the right side of my body warming immediately as it came into contact with the rays of the sun. “I read last night that you acquired the rights to the water filtration I did my presentation on.”
His mouth turned to a thin line as he lowered his laptop screen an inch. He leaned back in his chair, his black suit jacket tugging at the sides and opening up just a little further, showing more of his white button-up. “Before or after I called you?”
“After. I just… I know I outlined its usages in my proposal, but I wanted to bring something up that I hadn’t marked down.” Another step forward and I ended up just behind the wingback chairs opposite his desk. I leaned forward on the back of one, desperate to feel casual. Who’s the one tempting fate now, Olivia?
His eyes met mine, crystal clear blue nearly making me pause. But he said nothing, and I took that as my signal to keep going.
“You know just as well as I do that there are places here, in the US, that could use this technology to combat water problems,” I said, swallowing around the lump in my throat when his eyes flicked back to his screen for a fleeting second. “You also know that it could be useful around the world. And with it being able to generate electricity, I was thinking — if Blackwood could produce enough of it and absorb the cost, you could give it to those places for free as a means for filtration and purification, and sell the energy produced. That could be where you make money from it, instead of selling the product as a whole. They get the benefit of clean water at no cost to themselves, and you get the benefit of energy production that you can charge companies to use.”
The ray of sunlight reflecting off his Rolex nearly blinded me as he scrubbed his face.
He looked unimpressed.
Shit.
“Olivia,” he sighed, pushing his perfectly styled peppered hair back away from his face. He looked out the window, his eyes locking on to something, and my stomach sank. He wouldn’t look at me. “I appreciate your enthusiasm and your passion regarding this, and frankly, your passion for everything in this space. But we simply can’t afford that right now.”
What? Blackwood Energy Solutions was one of the largest sustainable businesses in the country. I’d seen his house. I’d seen this building. How could he not afford that? “What do you mean?”
His tongue dragged along the edge of his top teeth, his jaw ticking. “I mean, although I understand where you’re coming from, Blackwood cannot afford to eat the cost of that right now. We need positive cash flow.”
“It would be positive cash flow. You’d just have to wait for it to pay for itself,” I offered.
“We can’t wait for that. Not at the moment.”
I blinked at him. Since when was Blackwood not able to wait for their returns? Plenty of our projects operated in similar ways, whether that was setting up a project just for a return from the government or flat-out donating our resources. That didn’t make sense. “Are you punishing me?”
His gaze snapped back to me, his eyes blowing wide. “What on earth would I be punishing you for?”
I let the silence fall, let him sit in that for a moment in case he wanted to come to the conclusion himself, but from the perplexed look coating his features, he wasn’t getting there on his own. “For how I spoke to you last night,” I explained.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
“You sure about that?”
“Liv.” My spine stiffened. Has he called me that before? “Look, I wasn’t going to say anything because I don’t want any of the staff panicking, but the company is dealing with some monetary problems, okay? No one’s job is at risk, but it means we’re a little… tight. It’s nothing to do with you or how you spoke to me. That was entirely justified.”
He leaned forward onto his desk, his eyes darting to the analog clock beside him. I didn’t know what to say to him — I didn’t think it was unfair of me to assume that it had to do with us, but I guess I was wrong.
“I understand you’re passionate about it,” he continued, his voice softening, deepening. As much as I wanted to forget what had happened between us at his house, that voice, that angering voice, brought me right back to it and had me crossing my legs. “I will take your idea on board and see what we can do. Genuinely. But I can’t promise anything, princess, not just yet—”
He cut himself off. Wide eyes met mine once more, and my cheeks heated, my lips pursing. “Please, don’t—”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He flicked the screen of his laptop back upright, diverting his attention to that instead. “My head’s in so many places. It’s probably best if you go.”
The longer I studied him, the more I noticed the lines above his brows were deepening, and the space beneath his eyes had darkened. He looked exhausted, and the way that he carried himself usually—tall, proud, sure of himself—was almost nowhere to be found. He was hunched over, fumbling his words, not quite right.
Despite what had happened between us and the anger I harbored toward myself because of it, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for him.
“Can I help?” The words came out before I’d thought them through. His eyes met mine again, unreadable. “You’ve got a lot going on. Is there anything I can do to take some of the load off?”
His mouth opened as if he had words prepared, but quickly shut.
“What are you working on?” I asked, plucking up the courage to step further than the wingbacks. I set my bag down in the chair and came up beside him behind his desk, leaning down to get a good look at the screen.
Children’s beds.
That’s what filled his screen — bed after bed, exorbitantly priced, some shaped like race cars and others with frames and princess-style netting.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he breathed. The sentence was so fucking raw, so exhausted. It made my chest ache for him. “I don’t know what he likes. I don’t know what he’s used to. I don’t know anything.”
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t know much about kids either,” I offered, and he shot a small smile at me in return. “But I was a kid more recently than you, so…”
He snorted, ringed fingers coming up to cover his mouth. He turned the laptop so it was facing me fully. “Yeah, fine. You’ve got a point.”
I scrolled to the next page, and then the one after. We studied them in silence, bed after bed, each one of us liking some more than others or straight up disagreeing on one shaped absurdly like a dinosaur. I tried to keep in mind the basics — when I was kid, what did I want? Of course I wanted something cool, but I would have regretted that two years down the line when I was no longer into the big red dog. And considering Damien had no idea what Noah was interested in…
“This one,” I said, clicking into the listing and pointing my finger at the screen. A simple black bed frame, double sized, big enough for him to grow into and basic enough that it could change with him. “You can find out what he likes when he arrives and get him some bedsheets that go along with that.”
His brows knitted as he looked up at me from his office chair, and I groaned my frustration.
Flicking into another tab, I pulled up the most basic graphic sheets I could find to get my point across. An all-over print of the original Alice In Wonderland illustrations on basic, polyester fabric. “Something like this, for whatever he likes.”
He shook his head in disbelief as he turned the computer back to him. “I didn’t even know you could get sheets like that. I always had basic ones growing up.”
“That’s because you’re old,” I grinned.
“No, it’s because my parents were overly convinced that every part of their house needed to fit their design,” he griped, rolling his eyes.
“Whatever you say, Grandpa.”
“Oh my God, Liv, I’m forty-five,” he laughed. “I just became a dad. Please don’t make me think about grandkids yet.”
I shot him a grin and he returned it, the wrinkle above his brows beginning to smooth. “Okay, okay, sorry. Just a middle-aged dad.”
“How dare you call me middle-aged. I’m not even fifty yet.”
I chuckled and shrugged. “If we’re going off of male life expectancy…”
He scoffed playfully as he focused in on the laptop again, adding the bed frame and mattress to his cart. I didn’t want to look at the price of it, and from where I stood, it seemed like he didn’t even bother to check. He added two sets of sheets, and at my suggestion, added a third and a fourth. Just in case.
We picked out some basic toys. We picked out some wallpaper with glow-in-the-dark planets on them. We picked out one of the newest game consoles, boxes upon boxes of Legos, clothes in varying sizes, and a bundle of books.
He checked out on every website with me standing beside him, his credit card face up on the desk where I could easily see it. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of trust in me that I wouldn’t steal his details or just the flippant nature of being that wealthy that it wouldn’t matter — but either way, it was oddly… comforting.
Even if I shouldn’t have stayed to help him with it.
“Thank you,” he said, closing the laptop in front of him. I shifted, allowing him space to stand, and when he didn’t bother to back up an inch from my personal space, I did it for him. “Genuinely. I wouldn’t have thought of all of that on my own.”
I shook my head. “You would have figured it out eventually.”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. For all I know, I could have ended up empty-handed until he arrived, then frantically asked a five-year-old what he needed as if he could reliably tell me.”
I studied him for a moment, the way he kept his gaze from me, the way his fingers tapped against the solid frame of his desk. The way his chest rose and fell. The way the crease above his brow deepened again. “Are you prepared?” I asked, the words coming out a little weaker than I wanted. “For everything to change, I mean.”
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through his nostrils. The steady stream of air wafted the scent of his cologne all over me, and I couldn’t help but remember how it invaded me when I’d had my head in the crook of his neck. “If I’m honest, will you think less of me?”
I shook my head.
“No. I’m not prepared. Not by a long shot, Liv. But I have to be, and I’ll find a way to be.”
He tugged the sleeve of his coat back, checking the leather and silver antique watch on his wrist. I wasn’t sure whether it was the way he’d said that as if he was defeated in a war he hadn’t even waged yet, or if it was just the leftover emotions I’d somehow let blossom for him — but I found myself moving closer to him, slipping between him and his desk, his cologne painting the inside of my nostrils.
I found my arms wrapping around his neck.
I found my head against his shoulder.
Just… a hug. Easy, normal, with only the wildest temptation to lift my lips to his instead of just the simple embrace. But he wrapped a single arm around my waist, holding me there, chest to rigid chest.
“Thank you,” he said again.
But he shouldn’t have thanked me. Every second the embrace continued, I realized more and more that this wasn’t selfless. It was an act that let me be close to him, however he would allow it now that he’d placed up boundaries.
I held him for myself.
