hell are you?” Gaston demanded. No greeting, no good morning or apology for last night. Just the newest demand and in that arrogant tone that always irritated her.
“I would love to tell you that I’m sitting on a sandy beach with a mohito in my hand, but you probably know exactly where I am.” She let out a deep yawn, filling her lungs with much needed oxygen.
“And you couldn’t have picked up the phone to let me know that you weren’t coming into the lab today?”
“What are you talking about?” she mumbled, padding her way into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. Once again, she looked around and noticed how nice everything looked now that she’d cleaned up so much of the chaos.
Gaston’s sigh came through the phone and Elana pictured him running a frustrated hand through his thick, black hair. “I’m talking about the fact that it’s already eleven o’clock in the morning and you haven’t bothered to show up!”
Elana looked at the clock over her stove and gasped. “Oh no! I’m so sorry Gaston! I’ll get to the lab immediately,” she said, rushing about and pulling off her clothes so she could take a quick shower.
She heard him sigh again a moment before he called out her name. “Elana, just stay home today. You’ve been working three times the hours of everyone else and you need the break. I’m sorry to have woken you if you were finally getting some sleep. Just take the day off and rest.”
She looked down at the phone, wondering what was going on. “I don’t need to rest, Gaston. I can be at the lab in less than an hour.”
He chuckled at her insistence, a deep, rumbling sound that made her heartbeat increase. “No, you can’t, Elana. Just take the day off. You have to work tonight with all of these board members so just relax. Go out and get a manicure or whatever it is you women do to treat yourself and I’ll pick you up at six o’clock.” He was about to say goodbye when something occurred to him. “Elana, do you have something appropriate for tonight? Do you have a cocktail dress?”
Elana was still confused and she really didn’t want to spend the evening in his company. And what’s worse, she definitely didn’t want him to come back here tonight to pick her up. She didn’t want him even remotely close to her, much less back once again in her private space after what had happened last night in her kitchen. The man was just too big and too male for her tiny apartment and she was finding that she didn’t have any resistance when he touched her.
She ran a hand through her hair, wanting to avoid him coming back into her apartment. “Gaston, please just let me meet you at the event. There’s no need to drive all the way over here just to pick me up.”
“Elana, take the day off and relax. And don’t you dare be anywhere else but at that apartment waiting for me or so help me, I’ll pick you up and bring you to my place for the next month just so I know where you are.” He hung up after that and Elana stared at the phone, wondering why he was so angry. Technically, she didn’t really work for him. And he was right, she’d been working long hours and most weekends for a long time. It wasn’t like her to take a day off, but if she wanted to, she wasn’t going to do it simply because he’d told her to!
Although, she had a schedule that she’d submitted along with her proposal and she was way ahead of that time table. Her results already were fantastic so as long as she finished on time and on budget, which it was turning out she was actually going to be ahead of schedule and under budget, she really shouldn’t worry about taking a day off.
One thought occurred to her as she laid the cell phone down on the now-clear coffee table in front of her. How had he discovered that she wasn’t at work? She stood in the middle of her apartment pondering these questions and it occurred to her that she really wanted to take the day off today. She wanted to clean up the rest of her apartment so she didn’t lose the momentum that had built up last night. And since he’d basically ordered her to do just that,