Once they were gone, Derek tugged my chair out for me, an act of chivalry I’d never before experienced. For a moment, we stood a smidge too close. His size threw me off. You see a man that tall and toned in an action film and you think, Run. But Derek was no tough guy, at least not that I’d seen.
He pointed to my coffee, sitting before me on the table.
“Heather made me promise I wouldn’t spill it on you before she left.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes when I smiled. Instead, I watched him from beneath my lashes as he rounded the table. The chair that made me feel small looked almost diminutive under him.
“We have twenty minutes,” he told me, sounding nearly apologetic.
I wanted to lean forward and start speaking at a rapid-fire pace. Twenty minutes wasn’t enough. It was hardly anything.
Derek didn’t waste a second.
“I brought that book for you,” he said, reaching down into his beaten leather messenger bag.
Without Reservations by J.W. Marriott, Jr., slid across the table.
I noticed the yellow tabs stuck between the pages.
“Those are the sections I think you could learn the most from,” he explained. “They’ll help with your profile.”
“I’ll read the whole thing,” I assured him, knowing I would.
I wanted nothing more than to impress him, to soak up every small piece of information he felt compelled to offer. He nodded and I noticed a glint of respect in his gaze. He admired my work ethic the same way I did his.
The book was for a class assignment. I had to profile an entrepreneur in the hospitality industry, and Derek had been the one to suggest I write about J.W. Marriott, Jr. He’d first been assigned the book by a professor at Princeton.
“How are things going with your new roommate?” he asked after I slid the book onto my lap. Both hands wrapped around it like it was a prized possession.
“Good. She helped me pick out this dress.” I glanced down at it then shot him a crooked smile. “Thank you, by the way.” His brows furrowed in confusion and I hurried to explain, “Heather sent over a gift card to make up for the coffee-stained suit.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned on his perfectly honed features. “I’m glad.”
Then, for some reason, silence clung to us. He glanced at the dress for only a moment before reaching for his coffee.
I turned red and tried desperately to come up with another subject for conversation. It felt like I was waiting for him to give his opinion of the dress, but that would be inappropriate. He was my mentor. As long as I was professionally dressed, it was irrelevant what I wore.
Oh god, does he think I’m waiting for a compliment? Speak! Say something.
I held up the book. “Thank you for this, by the way. Everyone else in the class is still floundering for who they’ll choose.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if more than one of them profiled him as well.”
“Well, I’ll just have to do it better.”
We jumped into a discussion about my assignment and how I should approach it. There was no mention of what he thought about the dress, which I thought was for the best. I wasn’t sure I’d survive a compliment from Derek.
Over the following weeks, Derek and I communicated often, but the topics always stayed professional. We discussed my internship and coursework at school, how I was doing in my classes, what his role as Head of Entertainment looked like. Once, I shadowed him for an entire day. In the morning, we met outside of the coffee shop, and much to my annoyance, Heather remained by our side all day. He barely noticed I was there, too focused on his work. He met with the Head of Casting and discussed the planned performances for the holiday season, ensuring staff was hired and properly trained. We ran from there to another meeting, this one conducted in an office overlooking Castle Drive. Heather told me to sit quietly in the corner, and I did, watching Derek command the room. I doubt I even remembered to blink. I doubt I could have repeated a single sentence uttered. I was too infatuated. I understood that day why Derek paired his slacks with stylish tennis shoes instead of loafers. Though my new flats were comfortable, we covered the entire area of the park at least three times over, and when I made it back to my dorm that night, my feet were killing