Back in her office, she closed the door and slumped in her chair. The pile of work on her desk never seemed to go down, and the gratification of doing her job had started to bleed into puddles on the floor that needed to be cleaned up. What happened to the joy she once felt? The job hadn’t changed. Her boss was always kind of a jerk. To her, anyway.
The institutional-style clock on the wall clicked away the seconds.
Every day the seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours. And at five, the pile on her right was never any smaller.
Something inside of her had shifted, and Grace couldn’t quite put her finger on what.
She opened the folder she’d been working on before being pulled away the night before and dug in. Luckily today was a field day. She’d be out of the office for several hours, giving her the space she needed away from her boss. Only a couple more office days, then the holiday party, and short work weeks for the rest of the year.
Her office phone rang, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Grace Hudson,” she answered.
“Good morning.”
Dameon.
Just the sound of his voice lifted her mood. “Good morning,” she chimed back.
“I thought a call would be better than texting your work cell.”
“That’s probably wise.”
“You’ll let me know as soon as you replace it?” he asked.
“I will.”
“Good. That way I can text you something completely sappy about how much I enjoyed last night. Not the reason it happened, but how it ended up.”
She lowered her voice, not that anyone could hear with the closed door. “I really can’t talk about it here,” she told him.
“I completely understand. I wanted to let you know that I’m back in the city. But if you need me, I can get up there in thirty minutes.”
“And when in the history of LA traffic does it only take thirty minutes to get here from downtown?” She had to laugh.
“Okay, thirty-five.”
She snorted.
“I’ll be back Friday.”
The holiday party. The thought of him resting his hand on her back or repeating his kiss with someone from her office seeing them ran in her head. “About the party. We can’t . . . I mean it’s not a good idea for us to be too . . . familiar with each other.”
“I understand discretion.”
“Thank you.”
“I have a phone number for you,” he said.
“Whose?”
“Mine, at the San Francisquito house. The cell service out there is awful.”
She laughed. “I could have told you that.”
“Something that’s worth looking into with the project.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
He told her the number and she jotted it down.
“I’ll let you get back to work.”
“See you Friday,” she said.
“I look forward to it.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
Soon the sound of the clock ticking reminded her to get out of her daydream and get back to work.
Some things were just more trouble than they were worth. And keeping his office open and expecting any real work to get done between Christmas and the New Year was one of them. Half of his staff went out of town to visit family, and the other half had family visiting. His office party was set up for Saturday and then the doors would be shut until January second. It was an expense his accountant advised him against when he’d first opened the doors. But his employee satisfaction and retention was significantly better than the next guy’s, and that saved him money in the long run.
This year, Dameon was looking forward to the week between the holidays so he could put some time into the ranch house. There were a few things he wanted to do to make it more livable when he was there. Nothing too extensive since the plan was to level the house and make way for the development. But where the place stood was in the third phase of houses, which meant it was a good year away from demolition. The fact that he’d be closer to Grace hadn’t slipped his mind. And after the previous night, he especially liked that he’d be ten minutes away.
He’d driven back to the city after he’d dropped her off and finished the evening with a kiss. She’d been soft and responsive and looked up at him like a woman wanting more. That look had filled his dreams and put a smile on his face since he left her side.
Then his thoughts turned to Sokolov and the reason Grace had called him in the first place.