She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 158

(Gloria)

It’s nearly ten at night on a Thursday and I’m still at my desk.

This is not unusual.

I often work late, no matter what day of the week it is.

What is unusual is that I’m not alone in the building.

Nathanial is across the corridor in the office Mason gave him.

I’m overly aware of his proximity, which is annoying me.

I don’t look up when his footsteps come down the corridor.

I keep my eyes on the contract I’m marking up, pretending to be engrossed in the legalese, even though I’ve been on the same paragraph for twenty minutes and the words have stopped being words.

He stops in my doorway with a paper bag.

"You haven’t eaten anything since lunch."

"I had a granola bar at four."

"That’s not eating, Gloria. That’s taunting your stomach."

"It had nuts in it. They’re healthy."

"I brought you the orecchiette. With the broccolini. The way you like it."

I look up.

He’s leaning against the doorframe in his shirtsleeves with the bag in one hand and a small paper carrier with two coffees in the other.

He looks tired, but still unfairly appealing.

I wish he wasn’t. I wish this was all so much simpler than it is.

"Nathanial."

"What? I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you to eat pasta."

"At my desk. With you."

"With me. While we both pretend we’re working."

I close the contract.

The food smells too good to ignore and my stomach is on the verge of adding its voice to the conversation.

"Bring it in."

He sets the bag on the corner of my desk and puts a coffee at my elbow.

The orecchiette is exactly the way I like it.

"How’s the Bauer wind-down going?" I ask.

"Slow. Your boss has been useful."

"Mason is not my boss, he’s my employer."

"Mason is half the city’s boss this month."

I almost laugh.

We work in companionable silence for another hour after dinner.

Nathanial stays in my office and I don’t hate having him here.

He reads on the chair across from me with his coat folded over his lap like a boy on a long bus journey.

At ten fifty I close my laptop and he closes his, because he’s not going to leave a second before I do, and we both know it.

He walks me to the lift.

"Thank you for the pasta."

"You’re welcome for the pasta."

"Don't read anything into it."

"I wouldn’t dream of reading anything into pasta, Gloria."

"Goodnight, Nathanial."

"Goodnight."

He’s been doing this all week.

He brings me dinner.

He doesn’t push.

He stays in my office until I’m ready to leave, then he walks me to the lift and goes back to his hotel.

He hasn’t asked me a single question I don’t want to answer.

He hasn’t tried to kiss me.

I’d pretty much decided, before any of this started, that I was finished with Nathanial Morton.

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