The Billionaire & I

10.

"Hey, how are you feeling today?" His grin widened as he walked in further.

"Better, thank you." I smiled sheepishly.

"When is your lunch break?" He paused to ask.

"In about an hour."

"Great, let me buy you lunch today then."

"You can't take my PA to lunch Mark," William said.

"She's not your PA during a lunch break," Mark responded and the corners of my lips lifted at the wit of his words.

"I'll see you in an hour then." I grinned and left. Keeping the envelope away, I continued with work; replying emails, making photocopies and occasionally chatting with Heather. An hour passed before the double doors to William's office opened and Mark came out.

"Heather, I see you're already eating, I'd have asked you to join us for lunch," Mark smiled at Heather who was munching away at her bowl of salad.

"Next time," she smiled raising her fork high and he nodded.

"You ready?" Mark turned to me.

"Yup," I carried my bag then waved Heather goodbye.

The restaurant Mark chose was two blocks away from the office building and we sat by the window which had a pretty nice view of the busy street. The restaurant was equally as busy, as many other offices in the vicinity had their lunch breaks at this hour too.

"Thank you for agreeing to share your lunch break with me." Mark beamed after the waiter left the table with our orders.

"How could I say no to free food?" I grinned. We talked about random topics of interest until the waiter returned with our food.

"So why did you really want to buy me lunch today?" I asked.

I wasn't stupid.

He smiled knowingly, "can't I just causally take you out?"

"So you want to court me?" I laughed fully aware that wasn't the case at all.

"Will might object." He smirked.

"I know exactly where you are heading," I dropped a fry and sighed, "Friday night was interesting enough. You are probably wondering why I wasn't fired and you may have some funny theories like an upcoming 'office romance' but that is very far from the truth."

When Mark proposed the lunch, I knew he probably had some assumptions and maybe even questions to follow.

"You're quite funny Ophelia," he laughed heartily, "so what is the 'truth'?"

"I should really have been fired on Friday but something personal happened, and my boss being so kind and gracious decided not to fire me, yet." I shrugged noncommittedly.

"And here I was thinking it was going to be one of those classics, 'falling for my boss', 'the boss and I'." His tone was more mocking than understanding. But his words were funny and I laughed before sipping my soda through the straw.