Bitch.
What a bitch.
I’d been lunging around my office for at least a half hour, and my legs were starting to give. Deciding to call it quits, I took one last lunge, closed my eyes, and held my position until beads of sweat formed on my brow and my legs began to shake.
After a minute or two of strenuous balancing, I had the strange sense of being watched. My eyes flashed open to find I wasn’t wrong. The door to my office was wide open, and Reed was staring at me. Startled by the unexpected visitor, I lost my footing and fell straight on my ass.
Reed was at my side practically before I hit the floor. “Jesus, Charlotte. What the hell? Are you okay?”
I slapped away his extended hand and ripped off my headset. “No. I’m not okay. You barged in here and scared me half to death. And this isn’t the first time you’ve knocked me over.”
His brows lifted. “I didn’t barge in here. I knocked. You didn’t answer. So I let myself in to leave something on your desk. Maybe if you were a little more connected with the world going on around you, you would’ve been aware of my presence sooner. What the hell were you doing anyway?”
“Lunges.”
“Why?”
“So my ass won’t look like cottage cheese, that’s why.”
Reed closed his eyes, mumbled something, and shook his head. “I didn’t mean why would you perform lunges in general. I do understand the theory of exercising. I meant, why were you doing them in your office in the middle of the day?”
I stood from the floor and dusted off my hands and skirt. “Because if the president has enough time, so do I.”
“I have no fucking clue what that means.”
I glared at him. “What did you need, Reed?” Although I was annoyed, I also couldn’t help myself. Unintentional rhymes were just funny. I cracked a small smile that I thought I’d hid pretty well.
Reed squinted at me. “You just amused yourself with a rhyme, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Good guess.” I flaunted a full-blown grin at how entertaining I could be.
He rolled his eyes, but I could see the corners of his lips twitch. “I’ll just leave you the invoices that I need processed.” Reed made his way to my desk and then turned back to the door. I’d almost forgotten all about the phone call that had lit a fire under my exercise routine.
“Umm . . . you had a call while you were gone. I didn’t get to email you the details since I was in the middle of my lunch lunges when it came in.”
“That’s fine. You can just tell me. Who was it?”
I locked eyes with him to watch his reaction. “Allison Baker.”
Reed’s jaw flexed, and a scowl marred his handsome face. “Thank you.”
He turned and headed for the door again. But I never could leave well enough alone. “She said to tell you it was in regard to your honeymoon.”Hours later, I felt bad about the way that I’d treated Reed. I hadn’t even asked him if he’d gone to his audition last night, and then I’d zinged him with news about a subject that I knew was a sore one, just so I could watch his face. Basically, I was rude because I was jealous from that one stupid call from Allison.
As I started to close down my computer for the night, I noticed the green dot was lit next to his name on the company internal email, which meant he was still signed on, too. Without overthinking it, I typed using the chat feature.
Charlotte: Hi. I was just about to head out for the night. Can I do anything for you before I leave? Some coffee or anything?
A minute later, a response popped up.
Reed: No, thank you. I’m good.
I chewed on my nail for a minute, then typed:
Charlotte: Are you busy? Can I ask you something?
Reed: Not busy at all. Just doing lunges in my office.
My eyes widened.
Charlotte: Really??
Reed: Of course not, Charlotte. What kind of a nutjob do you think I am?
I actually laughed out loud at that response.
Charlotte: So . . . about that question . . .
Reed: Spit it out, Darling.
Of course, my last name was Darling, and people had called me by it often growing up. But when I read that last sentence, I’d read it as Reed calling me darling—as in, honey, sweetie, baby, darling. I smiled to myself, liking the sound of that, and closed my eyes to try to hear Reed’s deep voice calling me darling without it being capitalized.
When I reopened my eyes, there was a new message on my screen from Reed.
Reed: I hope you know I was calling you Darling as in your last name . . . not darling as in the term of endearment.
As much as the thought would kill him, there were a lot of times that our minds were simpatico. I decided to feed him his own line.