Say the Word(78)

“I was supposed to drop these, um…” I trailed off like the babbling, incoherent idiot I’d evidently become, at an utter loss for words. “Um…”

“Files,” Sebastian supplied, a ghost of a smile crossing his lips.

“Right, of course, they’re files,” I agreed, cringing internally. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball of embarrassment and die rather than continue this conversation. “I was supposed to drop them off here tonight. So, um…”

Grimacing at my total lack of social grace, I edged backwards slightly so I was next to the secretary’s desk, and piled the files in her wire inbox basket. With a fleeting glance back at Sebastian, I bobbed my head and turned to go. “Okay… have a good weekend, then, Bas—Seb—” I cleared my throat, blushing furiously. “I mean, Mr. Covington.”

Fuck, shit, damn. Could I be anymore awkward if I tried?

I made it about three steps toward the elevator before Sebastian finally spoke again.

“Ms. Kincaid,” he called softly.

So close, I thought, staring longingly at the elevator doors. I sighed and turned to face him. He was standing a bit closer now, and in one hand he held my battered phone.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, slapping my forehead with one palm. “Completely forgot about that.”

I approached him, trying to walk with confidence even though I was shaking like a leaf. His silence was terrifying, but the possibility of what he might say when he finally broke it was infinitely more so. My fingers trembled visibly as I reached out into the air between us, and he watched their progress with the intense gaze of a predator stalking his prey.

Our hands brushed as I removed the phone from his palm and, in what was quite possibly a figment of my overactive imagination, I swear I felt a jolt of electricity shoot up my arm straight to my heart. Yanking my hand backwards, I lifted my gaze to meet his.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered back.

I spun to go, but found my progress halted by a firm grip on my arm. A glance down confirmed it — Sebastian’s hand was wrapped around my bicep in a gentle but insistent hold. I lifted confused eyes to meet his, which had softened to show a hint of remorse. There was no time to dwell on the fact that he was less than a foot away, that he was touching me, because he opened his mouth and said two little words that short circuited my entire thought process.

“I’m sorry.”

I blinked at him, stunned. “What?”

“For the other night, for the way I’ve treated you all week… I’m sorry.”

I barely kept my jaw from falling open. He released his hold on my arm and sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair and mussing it in an instant.

“I thought — well, it doesn’t really matter what I thought. The bottom line is, I brought you here for the wrong reasons. And I’ve been punishing you for something I should’ve gotten over a long time ago. We were kids, we didn’t know anything back then. It’s not fair to blame you. I mean, after all, what we had?” He laughed lightly, though his eyes were deadly serious. “That wasn’t even real.”

He stared at me, watching as his words hit home. I tried my best to mask my expression, to conceal the pain his statement caused me, but I could only withstand so much before my facade splintered.

Because it had been real. It was still real — the realest thing I’d ever felt.

“Right?” he asked, his voice low and his eyes searching mine.

“Right,” I agreed in a small voice, forcing myself to nod.

Something flickered briefly in the depths of his eyes, but disappeared too quickly for me to identify it.

“I’m tired of tiptoeing around one another at work. I’m sure you are too. And from everything I’ve seen, you’re an asset to this project. So from now on, I’ll play nice. I promise.” He held out a hand for me to shake. “Sound good?”

I subtly pinched the fleshy part of my hand to ensure that I was, in fact, awake and not lost in some strange dream-fugue state. Was he really giving me a clean slate? Letting me off the hook after everything I’d done to him? It seemed too good to be true. But if he had an ulterior motive of some kind, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it might be.

With my eyes fixed on his face, I slipped my hand into his and tried not to show how much the simple act of our palms meeting affected me. Outside, I was professional, shaking his hand with the perfunctory composure of any colleague. But inside, I felt that small touch radiate up my arm and out through every corner of my body. His touch filled me, made me feel truly alive, as though my most vital atoms and particles had lain dormant and were only now rousing after a seven year hibernation, stirred awake by the siren song of Sebastian’s touch.

It took all the strength within me not to let my eyes drift closed at the sensation, not to lean into his touch like it was the only source of oxygen in an airless room. Instead, I forced my fingers to unclasp and my palm to drop, falling like dead weight to my side. His eyes still trapped mine, searing into me with their intensity, but I managed to simply nod. I took a step backward, so there was a bit more space between us.

“Thank you,” I said, accepting his apology as though he were any other coworker who’d eaten my yogurt out of the communal fridge in the break room, or “borrowed” my favorite pen from my desk drawer and never returned it. I shifted my weight from one heel to the other, wholly uncertain about what to do next.