Selene glanced at her desk clock. It was 1:30 pm and her heart raced with several thoughts. How was she going to survive having lunch with Nikolas? She looked down at her hands shaking slightly,as she pushed aside the files on her desk and rested her head on the table in a desperate attempt to cool down her burning brain.
It's been two weeks since she resumed work,two weeks since she discovered that the man she had a drunken one-night stand with five years ago,the father of her son, was none other than her boss, the CEO of the company and somehow, he had not recognized her.
After the embarrassing elevator incident, Selene had made up her mind to avoid Nikolas at all costs. As the embarrassment she had felt was too much to handle.
Yet, somehow when she resumed work the next day. To her surprise almost all the unsorted files that had crowded her office had been mysteriously cleared out, leaving only her a small stack of files behind.
Shocked at first,she thought someone had broken into her office. But when she told Helen what had happened,she was told that Nikolas had ordered the removal to reduce her workload.
That day, she had stood outside his office door for at least 30 minutes, her mind racing with conflicting emotions about what to say,but had left without even thanking him.
when she first started working, Selene had built up an image of him,especially after his behavior during her introductory presentation. She had pegged him to be an arrogant man who didn't care about anybody but himself.
So although she had found him extremely attractive, she had made a mental note to keep him at arm's length,besides she needed to keep what happened between them five years ago and the result of it a secret. So she had therefore decided to always keep her feelings in check.
But after that day, when she realized that he had actually listened to her and did care about her feelings something about his actions made her stomach churn with a new, unsettling kind of emotion that she wasn't ready to analyze.
Though she knew that she was wrong for not going to thank him, she just didn't trust herself enough so she had decided to keep her distance altogether.
Even though she had repeatedly tried to banish thoughts of him from from her head they had always found a way to circle right back to him,affecting her body in ways she could neither understand nor control.
During the two weeks that followed, Selene kept to herself. She had managed to socialize and even made several friends at the company. Determined to avoid him, she had abandoned the private elevator they once shared and moved to using the general one,just to avoid ever running into him.
The only time she had to see Nikolas was every Monday during the weekly meeting and each time, during the meetings just seeing him there sent shivers through her body.
Even while she had been planning to enroll Cyrus in a new school, researching the best schools in the city that were closer to her home yet far enough from the office to avoid any accidental meetings with Nikolas, her thoughts had somehow kept circling back to him.
Just the other day, she had to stop working. After making several mistakes inputting numbers, she found herself unable to focus. Frustrated she gave way to her obsessive curiosity.
Letting her impulse lead she had decided to search more about him online. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she discovered that his last relationship had ended two years ago, the ex now engaged to his cousin.
Though a part of her was not happy by this,but she couldn't deny a sense of relief that washed over her after knowing he had been single for two years.
Deep down, Selene knew nothing could happen between,she had to keep Cyrus's existence a secret from Nikolas. But she still sometimes found herself dreaming about the what if's.
Last night, she had gone too far with her fascination. That She had intensely erotic dreams of she and Nikolas together, to the extent were she had woken up in panic, drenched in sweat and sexually aroused.
It had taken her at least over an hour,after a long, hot shower, to finally be able to drift back to sleep. Raising her head a bit and slightly hitting it back in her desk, how was she going to survive lunch with him?
All through her presentation this morning,her brain and mouth had been on autopilot while delivering the speech as she had felt her legs almost give way under Nikolas' intense gaze.
He had not kept his eyes off her since he entered the room,and every time her eyes had met his.Her heart would skip a beat, sending icy shivers down her spine. So she had stubbornly fixed her gaze on the door, too terrified to risk a single glance back at him,for fear that that she might just crumble to the ground.
The buzzing of the intercom yanked Selene back to reality. She glanced at the time,2:01!how she had lost 30 minutes already thinking about Nikolas?she pressed the button on the device.
"Miss Selene," Helen's soft voice flowed through the speakers, "Mr. Darkos is waiting downstairs,ready to take you for lunch."
"Alright,"she said sighing "I'll be there in 10 minutes,"
Taking in a deep breath, she stepped into the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, as she arranged herself carefully, restyling her hair properly.
She added more touch of makeup and reapplied her red lipstick, sealing the look with a lipgloss. Running her hands down her clothes straightening them, she gathered her cell phone and purse.
Selene dragged in a deep breath as she exhaled through her mouth "Let's get this over with," she muttered silently as she headed out.