Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
No, that was all way too much. He’d liked the coffee even if he hadn’t said anything. Flowers? Too cliche. Unless….
34
BEN
The next day, I kept looking at Miles’s door after I returned from lunch. I even started to get up a few times to go talk to him, but I sat right back down each time. I wasn’t sure what to say.
I believed Ford, but would Miles still feel the same way after I’d walked out and refused to talk to him? Did I really want to risk trying again if he did? Was it easier not to know?
I thought about the coffee that had been waiting on my desk the day before. I was sure Miles put it there. The mug was from his office, and the coffee was the special blend he insisted on. He used it at home too. I remembered drinking it while he’d made breakfast and had to blink back tears.
Midafternoon, Miles stopped briefly at my desk to say he was going out.
I checked his calendar. “You have a meeting with Lisa in thirty minutes.”
“Cancel it.”
“When will you be back? I can try to reschedule.”
“I don’t know how long my business will take. Clear my calendar for the next few hours.”
Where was he going? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. Talking to him was still hard. I felt too many things: anger, grief, desire, love. I needed to think before saying anything else. Even asking a simple question could lead to me topics I wasn’t ready to discuss.
He didn’t come back for over an hour. When the elevator opened and he stepped out, I stared. And not just because he was gorgeous and magnetic and always drew my attention. No, his tie was askew, he had dirt on his pants, and he was holding a small bouquet of dandelions. I’d never seen him look so disheveled, not even after a ten-mile run.
He approached my desk and held out the bouquet. “These are for you.”
“Did you…did you go pick these?”
“You said you didn’t like perfect flowers from a florist, so I had to search for these.”
“You seriously picked these yourself?”
“I did.”
I studied him. He was sweaty, and his face was flushed. “Did you go on a walk?”
“Yes.”
“In this heat?”
“I started walking toward Central Park. I looked in some courtyards and anywhere there was grass, but I reached the park before I saw any.”
“So you were just going to pick them anywhere you saw them?”
He nodded.
“You can’t just go in someone’s courtyard and—”
“I’d get them more. I’d pay for natural landscaping. I’d buy them a new building, I don’t fucking care. I wanted these flowers to give to you.”
Laughter bubbled up inside me, and I couldn’t keep it in. “I love the thought of you walking around in your million-dollar suit trying to find some dandelions. You know you can be arrested for picking flowers in the park.”
He snorted. “I’d like to see someone try that.”
“I suppose you’d just pay them off on the spot.”
He shrugged. “I’d do whatever was necessary.”
“You’re….” I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I have some suggestions, if you’re interested.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Not yet. Not here.”
“This was never a game for me.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything else.
Miles walked into his office and softly closed the door.
The next day, I had to accompany him to a board meeting and try not to let everyone there see how shitty I felt.
Afterward, when he tried to talk to me, I told him I had work to do. Thankfully, he didn’t try to stop me when I walked back to my desk. It almost killed me not to turn around. I’d seen the hurt in his eyes, and I did want to talk to him. Every time I thought about him picking dandelions for me, my heart melted for him all over again. He’d hurt me, but had I deserved it? It wasn’t like I’d been honest either.
Miles tried to talk to me again at my desk, but I told him I had to focus on work or I wouldn’t be able to stay for the rest of the day. He didn’t push things, and I wondered if was because he understood I needed some time or if it was too public a place—fucking in his office was one thing, arguing about what we’d done to each other was something else.
On Thursday, I was supposed to go to knitting circle. I’d been avoiding Eudora as much as possible, answering her texts with single words or short phrases. I knew she would try to get the full story out of me, and I also knew that as right as I was to be upset, I’d done exactly what she’d asked me not to do. I’d hurt Miles.