There was no chance of getting her pregnant right now, but holy shit, it turned us both on to fantasize that there was. That my seed would take root and she’d become ripe with child for me. I’d fuck her then too, bring her to orgasm as often and in any way she needed. Hold her, rub her aches away, tell her how exquisitely beautiful she was. The way I would always regret not being there for her the first time.
Catherine fell, her sweet pants warming my skin, her body gripping mine so well, I let go too, giving her exactly what she’d asked for.
“I love you.” Her lips touched the hinge of my jaw and side of my neck.
“I love you too, sweetheart.” My arms wrapped around her, only slightly too tight. She hugged me back with equal fierceness.
As the shower rained down on our joined bodies, a sureness settled over me. Whatever happened from here on out, we would be together. Nothing could take her from me. I’d fight for what we had until the end.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Catherine
I sat down at my desk, unable to keep the satisfied smile off my face. Being in love and being loved made my mundane, everyday tasks feel a lot less tedious.
I was thrilled to write Elliot’s schedule for him. And when I got to the bottom, for my postscript, I had to shuffle through all the things I wanted to say to pick one.
Finally, I decided.
P.S. You’re definitely an android. There is no way someone as wonderful and perfect for me as you can be real.
I sliced the strip of paper off the bottom, opened my drawer, and…stopped.
The box of tampons was askew. Not just slightly, but upside down and turned the opposite way.
Tremors ran through my hand as I picked it up to grab the envelope from beneath it. My heart slammed at the crinkles on the envelope and the strips inside in disarray.
Someone had been searching through my desk.
The only person who’d been in the office over the weekend had been Elliot. He’d found my postscripts?
But…but…he hadn’t mentioned them, and we’d barely spent a second apart yesterday. If he’d been the one looking through my desk, I could only be relieved I’d shredded my first set of postscripts. I shuddered to think of how he would have felt reading those.
When Elliot came striding toward me a few minutes later, so handsome and powerful, my heart rate ratcheted as always, even though my mind was going in a million different directions.
He stopped in front of my desk, a smile hitching the corner of his mouth. “Hello, Catherine.”
“Hello, Elliot.”
That was when he noticed the mess on my desk. The upended tampon box, the envelope, the scattered postscripts. His eyes raised to mine, and they were alight with an emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t anger, though.
He lowered his voice. “Come into my office, sweetheart. Let’s talk.”
Shoving the tampons back in my drawer, I picked up his schedule and followed him into his office, closing the door behind me. These days, instead of sitting across from him for our morning meeting, I sat in his lap.
Grossly unprofessional, sure, but we managed to get the job done with an added dose of affection to get us through the day and no one else saw us.
“Did you uncover my secret stash?” I asked.
“I did.” His eyes danced over my face, confirming he wasn’t angry, but I couldn’t get a bead on what he was feeling.
“This weekend?”
He nodded once. “I found your new stash Saturday night.”
New stash? Oh god…
“Did you…you found the first postscripts?”
Reaching up, he slid his fingers through the side of my hair and cupped my head in his wide palm.
“I don’t think you understand to what extent I was driven crazy during your leave. The size difference in the paper…I had to get to the bottom of it.”
“But how did you know there was a difference? I take such a small piece—”
He slid open one of his drawers and brought up a thick stack of paper that matched the schedule I’d placed on the center of his desk.
“I’ve saved everything you’ve ever written for me. I knew Daniel’s schedules were one inch too big, and I was determined to prove myself right.”
My chest went fuzzy at the stack of schedules, which weren’t unlike the stack of notes I’d saved from Elliot at home. We were a pair of sentimental fools when it came to each other, and I loved that for us.
“I thought the tampon box made a good deterrent.”
“It was, but you’d been pregnant since you’d come to work for me and hadn’t had a need for tampons.”
I playfully hit his chest. “Fuck you for being so smart.”
He chuckled. “You’re pretty devious too. The things you said in your postscripts…”
“I’m surprised you didn’t fire me. I wasn’t nice.”
“No, you weren’t.” He slid his fingers down the length of my hair then started all over again. “But those notes were like a journal to you. Private, and I read them anyway. So it would have been my own fault if my feelings had been hurt.”
“Were they?”
“Quite the opposite. I’ve never laughed harder in my life. I even called Weston to tell him about what you’d written. He agreed with your assessment.”
“And somehow, you still wanted me.”
Mirth brightened the gold flecks in his hazel eyes. “From the very first time I saw you.”
I started to fall into him, to let him kiss me silly as he was wont to do, but then I remembered what Ann had said to me about the HR mix-up while Elliot had been away. I’d stuffed that in the back of my mind and had forgotten about it until now.
“When was the first time you saw me, Elliot?”
His brows rose, but he didn’t seem worried, nor did he hesitate to answer me. “Outside the café down the street. I was early and decided to stop for coffee before coming to the office. But the truth was, I was dragging my feet because I’d just fired my last assistant the week before and wasn’t looking forward to the hiring process. I hadn’t even reached out to HR for a new candidate request.”
“Please explain because I’m so confused.”
“Well, you see, I was in a shitty mood and walked up to the café at the same time as a girl with long auburn hair. I opened the door for her. She sped past me, then spun around, curtsied, and said, ‘Thank you so much. You just made me feel good about how this day is going to go.’”
I searched my mind for Elliot, finding nothing but a faceless man in a suit. I must have been too flustered to really look at him.
“I didn’t realize that was you,” I whispered.
“I know you didn’t. You smiled at me, and my heart fucking stopped, but you weren’t really looking at me.”
“You followed me inside?”
“Not in a stalker way. Remember, I’d already been going in.”
“Of course you were,” I quipped. “Tell me more, please.”
“You were standing in line, nodding your head to the music—I think it was Smashing Pumpkins. Then it switched to the next song. I had no idea what it was until later when I looked it up.”