The months since I'd first joined Dellite Inc had flown by quickly. I had slowly fallen into a routine and built a rapport with most of my team and colleagues, save for a few exceptions obviously. I hadn't gotten the chance to meet with Mira much despite working in the same office since I'd been so busy and she'd been occupied with writing. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Oli even though Mira had assured me that they'd made up.
"And that's the final budget that we've allocated...
I was only half listening to the man - he was a part of my team - that was currently presenting in front of us. Neil had called the entire finance team so that we could go over our budgets and break even for the year end. Neil and I were facing each other, though our faces were turned in the direction of the speaker. I could see him tapping his pen on the mahogany table. The rhythm was slightly distracting as I tried like hell to divert my focus from my boss to my colleague. It wasn't working. No matter what I did, my attention always seemed to hone in on Neil - especially when he was in the same room.
"That looks great to me." Neil commented once the guy had stopped speaking. I suddenly felt a nudge under the table as I jolted in my seat. Mac, who was sitting opposite me and beside Neil, gave me a weird look as I smiled abashedly at him, pretending that his boss and friend wasn't just playing footsie with me. Thank god the rectangular table wasn't made of glass. "Though I think we could ah!"
My foot connected with Neil's shin as he cursed, righting himself in his chair. I watched Mac's lips thin, as if he was fighting a smile. Well, that's what you get when you try to distract me.
"Everything okay, Neil?" The guy he was speaking to - Josh, I think - asked with concern.
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I just stubbed my toe in my chair."
"Oh. Alright. So..."
I zoned out again as Neil asked another question, knowing that he was just trying to stall us because the budget that we'd set was perfect. I'd made sure of it. I knew he was just butting in and asking questions to prolong the meeting.
"Well, that pretty much wraps it up." Neil said, steepling his fingers as everybody shuffled, gathering their things. "The finance team has done a great job. Keep up the good work, guys!"
I stood up to follow my team outside, wanting to brief them about the Madden account that I was supposed to be handling.
"Aaliya, could you hang in there a second?" Came Mac's voice as I turned around to face the two of them. I pointedly avoided any contact with Neil as I sat back down, pretending that everything was nothing but professional between us when in reality, it was the furthest thing from that. Like we hadn't spent almost every night together at Neil's place since after the convention.
"Sure."
"I wanted to talk to you about Keith Madden. He's actually sent me all the necessary documents and a contract as well stating some basic guidelines." Mac spoke as he slid a bunch of papers towards me. "Now, I've taken the liberty to go through it and make sure that there's nothing that would put our company in danger. But I think you should go through it as well since you're the one who'll be personally handling his accounts. You know, in case of any mishaps."
"I'll be supervising, you know that right?" Neil said as he crossed the room and stood near the floor to ceiling windows. Both of our cabins had a similar view that looked across the city. If you peered hard enough, you could even see the Space Needle.
"I know that, Neil." Mac punctuated his words with a sigh. "But she needs to be in the loop as well. If anything happens tomorrow, she and the company will be in deep shit."
I gulped at the thought of messing up, knowing that I simply couldn't afford for that to happen.
My eyes roved over the clauses and all the legal jargon that was going over my head.
"I'll sign it." I said, gesturing for a pen.
"You can consult your own lawyer if you want, just in case. I understand -
"I trust you Mac." I replied, cutting him off before I held a hand out. "I know that you've read through it thoroughly and would never put me in jeopardy."
"Right." Mac's eyes softened a smidge as he handed over his pen.
I signed the contract without any further ado before handing it back to Mac and giving him the green signal to email it back to Madden and his team. Some sort of silent communication went on between him and Neil before Mac finally relented, nodding his head and bidding me goodbye before heading out alone.
"So," Neil started as he rounded the corner of the table, his fingertips trailing over it. And at that moment, I really wished I was that table.
"Don't so me." I huffed, pretending to be annoyed. "Don't pull that kinda shit again, Neil."
"What did I do?" The expression on his face was so comical that I nearly laughed at it. Nearly.
"I'm serious."
"Hi, serious. I'm Neil."
I couldn't hold back my smile at that. "You're really fucking frustrating, you know that right?" I said, once I'd finally managed to force my facial muscles back into a frown. Looking up at him, I found a brilliant grin stretching his face. As if just the sight of me smiling made him smile. "Footsie, really? In the middle of a meeting with your employees right beside you?"
He shrugged once. "So? It's not like they had X ray vision and could see it."
"Don't do that again."
"Why not? That's the point of this whole forbidden thing, isn't it?"
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head as I pushed back from my chair and got up, walking towards the door. "Stop."
"What? You don't like me talking about us fucking -
"I said stop." I slapped a hand on his mouth as I peeked out from behind the blinds, hoping that no one was nearby. "You're going to get us in trouble someday." I whispered, glaring at him.
He licked my palm as I squealed, pulling away immediately. "Ew, Neil!" I exclaimed. "You're so disgusting."
"That's not what you say when I'm licking your pussy in my bed." The asshole had the audacity to smirk as he opened the door and walked out - but not before I slapped his ridiculously good looking suit clad chest. Like seriously, a good looking chest? That was a first for me. "See you later, mon soleil." He sang, as I cursed him out mentally. He really was going to get us in trouble someday.
***
"Neil," I gasped as I bared my neck to him. He pressed sloppy kisses down to my shoulder, pulling my blouse to one side before he bit into my skin. "Fuck." I moaned as my hands grasped at his hair.
"I can't wait to get you in my bed again." He mumbled gruffly against my neck.
"Neil." I tried to say his name again, determined to get him to listen to me. "We shouldn't be doing this here." We were currently on our lunch break. The rest of our colleagues had headed downstairs to the main cafeteria, while some were at their desks having their meals there. It was dangerous to be doing this in one of the bathroom stalls in the ladies room. We could get caught. But a part of me - the same part that had said fuck it the night of the convention - wanted to throw caution to the wind. But the more logical and rational part of me was telling me to put an end to this right fucking now.
"Fuck that." Neil growled, as if agreeing with me, as his mouth found its way back to mine. "I needed to taste you like, yesterday." He pulled back a bit before whispering. "Also, I missed you."
"You saw me a couple of hours ago!"
"Still not enough." He frowned at me as I smoothed the crease between his brows, before pressing kisses all over my face.
I bit back a laugh at the neediness of this man. The last time we'd had sex was a couple of days ago. We'd both been pretty busy since then, being completely wrapped up in work commitments. But now that we'd finally gotten a moment together, we were making the most of it. A sudden lurch in the door handle caused us both to freeze as a voice came through.
"Hello? Is anyone here?"
Uh yes, you dumb fucking bitch. Why else would it be locked? The sound of Tina's nasally voice made me angry and panicked both at the same time. Over the time that I'd worked here and through the handful of interactions that I'd had with the woman, she had made not so subtle racist remarks every time I was in the room, which had obviously pissed me off. I'd even attempted to tell her how disrespectful she was but she always tried to blame it on me and said that I was reading too much into things and that it wasn't that deep. Like ok bitch, you're really telling me that casual racism isn't that deep? Please.
Neil had filled me in on how she'd been the other woman in his parents' marriage and the cause for their divorce. She'd been a thorn in his side ever since he'd taken over as CEO and never failed to make snide remarks about his mother or his parents in general. I'd asked him why he tolerated her - I mean, if I were him, I would have booted her sorry ass ages ago. But him being the patient saint that he was, said that it wasn't possible. Which made sense because she could file an HR lawsuit on the basis of wrongful termination. And that was a whole different headache that Neil definitely did not need right now - especially now that he'd finally found his footing in the company. As if living up to his father's reputation wasn't enough already.
"It's me." I replied, clearing my throat and pushing away from Neil.
"Oh, Aaliya!" She said in a high pitched voice. "Do you want me to wait for you?"
"No!" I hastily responded. "It's fine." I frowned at the weird hand gestures Neil was making at me. Squinting, I tried to understand what exactly he was mouthing at me. "I uh, have constipation?" My words came out like a question as Neil pressed his fist to his mouth to prevent himself from laughing. "So I'll be here a while."
"Oh," An awkward pause. And then, "okay." The soft shuffling of footsteps that grew lighter and the click of the door indicated that she'd gone.
"Constipated?" Neil chuckles reverberated through the stall as he bent over, clutching his stomach. "Out of all the excuses you could think of, you came up with that?"
"I panicked, okay? And you distracted me with your stupid hand gestures!" Throwing my hands up in the air, I glared at him. "Stop laughing, you jerk!" I hissed as I poked his stomach. His very hard stomach. Nope. No. Not going there.
"Sorry. I just couldn't help it." He took a deep breath before bursting out laughing again. Just as I was about to say something more, my phone pinged.
My face fell as I read the message on my screen. It was from Aryan - the same guy that my mother was trying to set me up with. He'd contacted me first, right before we'd left for Denver, asking if I was free. I'd told him that I had a packed schedule for at least a month, then. But that conversation had completely slipped my mind since we hadn't bothered to keep in touch after that. And now he'd texted me, asking if I was free for lunch since he was in the area. Fuck.
"What's wrong?" Neil asked as he crowded me, noticing that I'd gone quiet.
"Well," I swallowed hard. "You know how desi parents can get really interfering and try to set you up with someone?"
"I might know a thing or two about it." The clench of jaw was telling me exactly how he was going to take the news.
"My mom was trying to set me up with this guy I used to play with when we were kids. And he's asked me to meet him for lunch."
"No way." Neil's response was instant as his hands found my hips. "You're not going on a date with some douche canoe doctor when you're with me."
"How do you know he's a doctor?"
"Is he not?" He asked with a quirked brow.
"Fair enough." I relented as I leaned into him. "But it's not a date, Neil. And you know I have to go. I'm going to politely turn him down anyways. I'm just humoring my parents for the time being. You know how it is." I said softly as I turned his jaw to face me.
"Why didn't you just say no?"
"Like it's that easy with brown parents." I scoffed. "If that were the case, then I wouldn't have done half the things I had to do." I took a deep, fortifying breath as I summoned my patience. "Besides, we weren't even anything back when I agreed to this."
"You agreed to this?" His nostrils flared as my restraint snapped and I pushed him off of me.
"I've had it with your macho bullshit, Neil. We're not a couple." I reminded him as he looked away from me. The words tasted sour on my tongue but I pushed through. "Look, I'm going either way, okay? And not because I want to, trust me."
"Fine." He muttered as his shoulders drooped. "Just come back to the office immediately, okay?" He cut me off before I could speak. "Please."
"Okay." I bit my bottom lip and looked up at him, pushing the door open. I pressed a quick kiss to his lips, trying to convey to him what I couldn't through words. "I'll see you after lunch break." With those words, I left him behind, pretending that it wasn't killing me to see him so dejected. For what was not the first time in my life, I hated myself for slipping into the role of the perfect, cultured daughter so seamlessly. But it sure was the first time that the way I was conditioned to behave was affecting someone other than me. And I despised that.
♡♡♡
Brown girlies, where ya at??? Raise your hand if you've been a victim of overly nosy and interfering family members *slowly raises her hand*
Sometimes, I like to go back and read stuff that I've written and I'm genuinely like "DAMN I WROTE THAT?!?!?" Imposter syndrome really is a bitch sometimes. Anyways, hope y'all enjoyed today's chapter - it's light hearted, full of banter and with a side of jealousy *wink wink*
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