Keeping it Professional

Chapter 16

Killian and Smee rushed to the conference room where many other employees were already. They were typing on their laptops and Killian grabbed his and sat down at the head of the table. As CEO and manager of the Server Analysis Unit part of the building, he had to be there. He knew the most about the building and all the servers and components that made the company run. He turned on his computer and brought up the server list and started working to get it back online. He typed in codes and told everyone what he was doing as he was doing it. They all worked together to type in the backup codes to get the server working. It had taken an hour of entering codes to try to get the server back up and running properly. Once everything was back to normal, Killian went back to his office. He put his laptop down and went through the recent transactions that had been made over the month. He organized them and printed out copies of the transactions and filed those in the filing cabinets in the corner of his office.

There was a knock at the door and a smile appeared on his face. "Come in." But, instead of a blonde, it was a brunette. His smile faded and he spun around in the chair. "Yes, Ms. Still?"

"I just wanted to give you last month's reports." She said, handing him a paper.

"Considering they were due last week, thanks." He said, snatching the paper from her. "And, Milah, please don't put crazy thoughts in Miss Swan's head. She doesn't need one of your ludicrous stories clouding her judgement about me."

"They aren't crazy, and we both know it, Killian."

"I am not possessive! So I might have been a little protective over you when we were dating, but you were married. I didn't want some other guy going after what belonged to me!"

"Women do not belong to a man. And that is where you will always go wrong." She stepped out of the office and closed the door behind her.

Killian leaned back in his desk chair and sighed. He wished that he and Milah had never met before. Having her as an employee was hard now, but he couldn't fire her unless she gave him a reason to. Just because he couldn't stand the sight of her was not a good reason. He pressed the button on his intercom, calling his secretary.

"Glinda, do me a favor and clear mine and Miss Swan's schedule for the rest of the day. We will be... Preoccupied with other business matters." He said and straightened out his suit jacket.

"Yes, sir. Have an enjoyable evening." Glinda said through the intercom speaker.

"Thank you."

Killian shut off all the lights in the office and loosened his tie. He went over to Emma's office door and knocked on the door. He opened it and she was sitting at her desk. There were a bunch of papers piled up on it. Her hair was out of place from it's ponytail and her glasses sat on her cheekbones. She looked up, but then groaned and looked back down to the papers.

"I don't have time to deal with your shenanigans right now, Mr. Jones." She said without taking her eyes from the papers.

"Swan, I've got both of our schedules cleared for the rest of the day. Let's go do something fun."

She looked up at him skeptically. "Do you forget that you are the one making me do this work because of your stupid deadlines?"

"Well, I'll push them back. I am CEO, love. I can do that."

She took off her glasses. "Fine. What are we going to do?"

"Whatever you want." Killian held out his hands for her to help her out of the chair. "We could go dancing, or ice skating, or we could go bowling. Anything you want to do and we'll do it."

"Can I just sit at home, watching movies with my boyfriend?" She asked, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Boyfriend, huh? I like the sound of that. We can definitely do that." They walked out of her office and went down to their cars. Killian blew her a kiss before getting into his car. They both left the parking lot, him following her.

The truth was though, the word 'boyfriend' still felt weird to say. Especially because of who Killian was. She didn't want to go into public with him, not because she was embarrassed by him, no. But because of that status that they both held. She was still an employee, and he still was her boss. She wanted to keep it a secret that they were dating, all because they both had reputations to withhold. It was a dumb reason, but, she didn't want his career to be ruined and everyone to think poorly of him.

Emma leaned back in her seat as she pulled up to a red light. She could see Killian's car in the rear view mirror. It felt different being with Killian than it had with Neal. Yes, Neal was a gentleman and they did nice things together, but Killian seemed to go out of his way to make her happy. It was as if he always wanted her to know he was going to be there for her. The only people that had stuck by her side throughout her childhood into her adult years had been her mother and her brother. To add another person to the list of who would always be there? That was strange. David had added Mary Margaret, and that definitely hadn't been a mistake. But, what if she added Killian? Would that be the best decision of her life, or the worst one ever? But, life had been, and always will be unpredictable. All you have to do is take a leap of faith, and hope it works out for the best. And if it doesn't, try, try again