“I don’t mind. I’m free tonight,” Tyler replied.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Are you doing this out of the kindness of your heart?” I asked him.
Tyler cracked a smile. “Oh, you think I’m kind now?” he replied.
I smiled back before grabbing my laptop and settling against his side. I didn’t expect to have a work partner tonight, but I was glad for his company. Tonight would’ve been long and boring without him because I had planned to stay up for a few more hours working on my business plan. The time would fly by with him beside me.
“If we work hard now, maybe we can play hard later,” I told him, giving him an extra incentive. It encouraged me to want to get to work too.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Tyler said, his eyes glancing at my lips briefly. He breathed in, stopping himself from kissing me again. “I’m here to motivate you.”
I grinned, my shoulders shaking from laughter. I welcomed all forms of motivation. Whatever helped me get the work done as effectively and quickly as possible.
“We should get to work before I change my mind about being responsible,” I murmured, feeling my control start to weaken as we huddled close together. It was hard to focus on work around him, but we could work together to put each other back on track. If he helped me, there was something good in store for him too.
“Tempting,” Tyler teased me as he leaned close to my ear.
I shook my head, unable to hide the smile on my face. My cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling so much around him. It was a nice feeling, though. No other guy made me feel like some bashful teenager. Something was going on between us, and it went beyond mere lust.
Chapter 14
Tyler
I took Madison’s advice and decided to try something a little different at work. What could I say? I trusted her judgment. She was a bright woman, and I would be a fool if I acted too proud to take advice from her. Just because she was an intern didn’t mean that she didn’t have good ideas. Since I hadn’t seen a change in things in my business, I figured that I should try to implement the change myself.
It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I wanted to start small. Instead of holding today’s meeting only for my executive board, I invited Madison and Sara to sit in as well. I had an announcement for them to hear, and I wanted them to have the experience of sitting in on a meeting. They couldn’t hear everything, but they could hear the information that they needed to know.
“I wonder what this big announcement is. Maybe we’re getting some kind of reward or something,” Sara murmured to Madison.
Madison merely shrugged before glancing over at me.
I could see that her mouth wanted to curl up in a smile, but she fought it off. I found myself doing the same. It was hard acting like something wasn’t going on between us when we were around other people in public but there was a little fun in sneaking around. I couldn’t help but wish that we didn’t have to hide all the time, though.
I enjoyed being around her. As her boss, I had no reason to be around her as much as I wanted to. I wasn’t her boyfriend. I didn’t know what we were, but I liked what we had. Our chemistry was unmatched, and I would be naïve if I didn’t acknowledge that everything felt different with her.
“Thank you, Madison and Sara, for joining us this morning,” I said as I stood at the head of the conference table. The girls sat at the other end of the table from me, peering over at me with nearly matching expressions.
“It’s a pleasure, Mr. Ashland,” Sara spoke up as she flashed a smile at everyone else at the table, including Brittany.
“Thank you,” Madison merely said, skipping the flash and getting to the point.
I kept my smile at bay, adopting a casual look as I pulled out a few sheets of paper from a folder.
“I have an announcement that I wanted to share with the interns this morning,” I said as I looked down at one of the papers. “There’s a business conference that I’ll be attending soon, and I want to take you two with me. It’ll be great exposure and will give you an opportunity to talk to multiple business professionals.”
Both Sara and Madison looked happy and surprised by the news, expressing their gratitude as I nodded to them. Honestly, I wanted to just take Madison like I did at the gala. However, her words about making some changes regarding how I treated the people in my company stuck with me. Perhaps, I needed to motivate people in different ways and judge those results.