Chocolate smudge
Anastasia
The pen on the conference table swivels as I set my coffee cup next to it.
I hate conference meetings.
It is just a long hour or two of people droning on and on about something that can be said over a phone.
“. . . and we can expand by merging the branches into one,” A robust man with the executive badge over his suit is saying, “Or at least that’s one way to do it. What do you think, Mr. Keaton.”
Silence.
“Mr. Keaton?”
My head shoots up, curious as to what might be eating up all Jake’s attention in the middle of a conference meeting which is so unlike him.
But as I look up, my eyes catch his, staring intently at me with all the attention he is supposed to be giving the people in the room.
This has been happening over the last couple of weeks. Out of the blue, I’ll feel the intense heat of a gaze on the back of my head and when I turn around, it’ll inevitably be him, staring at me like a lost soul with an expression I can never read.
Now, his deep brown eyes are like dark melted chocolate as he peers at me in front of ten or more men and women dressed in official suits and I feel the uncomfortable heat of all their stares on my body.
The man calls again, “Mr. Keaton?”
Jake blinks rapidly as if clearing his head from a trance and shoots the man a heated glare as soon as he recovers.
“What?”
“I-I was saying, uh, suggesting – I was suggesting a merge of the smaller branches in order to expand –”
“That’s absurd,” Jake retorts, “merging the smaller branches to build a bigger one.”
“I – I thought we –”
“Invest,” he declares, “that’s what we are going to do. Invest more into the smaller branches, expand them individually.
There is a small murmur of approval around the room and in that small moment, Jake’s eyes cuts to mine again.
When the noise dies down, he returns his gaze back to his executive.
“Now that everything has been discussed, I’ll like to introduce the COO of the company,” he pauses, “Adam Keaton.
I start getting up, “I’m going to get him—”
Jake sends me a sharp look, “Not you.”
He signals to a bodyguard who goes to escort him in and Jake makes the formal introductions.
Does this mean I have to see Adam everyday too? One Keaton is already enough to make my head spin.
As if reading my thoughts, Jake adds, “He is to be a silent executive.”
Another murmur floats around the room and I see the frown on Adam’s face.
“A silent executive?”
A satisfied expression sweeps over my boss’s features. “You’ve got a problem with that, Mr. Keaton?”
“No,” Adam’s coy look is back, “I’m glad for the offer. Absolutely nowhere I can't work properly.”
The word ‘work’ sounds foreign coming from him.
“All done, then.” Jake closes off the meeting, “till next month.”
I follow behind as he makes the trip to his office, his body guards flanked on either side of him.
“What’s next in my schedule?”
I scroll down on the iPad and swallow down my discomfort.
“A visit from Madeline.”
He rounds up on me. “How did that get there.”
“You’re mother called and –”
“Scratch it out. She doesn’t get to intrude in my schedule.”
I do. “You have a free noon sir.”
“Great,” we reach the office and he stops by his door, “wanna grab some lunch?”
The question catches me off guard because for the past two weeks, asides from those moments when I’ve caught him staring at me, we’ve maintained a civil, formal relationship without so much as an unprecedented dialogue.
And I’d like to maintain that.
“I already had lunch,” I tell him.
“No you’ve not. You’ve been with me all morning and unless you smuggled some food into the bathroom, you’ve not had a single bite.”
Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?
“Right.” I look for another excuse, “I’m not that much of a lunch eater.”
He walks up to me with a sigh. “Another lie.”
“I’m not—”
“You eat lunch every day. A junk greasy thing but still lunch.”
Typical of him to call my cinnamon rolls junk greasy thing.
“So,” he asks impatiently, “Lunch?”
I shake my head, uncertain, “I don’t think we should—”
“It’s lunch, Anastasia, not a trip to the Sahara. I don’t bite.”
Oh, but we were doing so well being formal, I whine inwardly.
I am finally beginning to stop over-thinking the whole thing and take my head out of the gutter. Of course, I cannot scrub the memory and feeling of that kiss out of my head no matter how I try but I can also not scrub the image of the naked girl in his room from my head so it kind of balances it out.
I exhale, defeated. “Okay. Lunch.”
What damage will one hour cause?
Good thing about lunch with your boss – he is on the phone for almost the entirety of time we are there.
Bad thing? Those eyes keep straying to mine, hanging on like he didn’t fucking push me away two weeks ago.
“Why did you order that?” he asks me, putting his phone away after what seems like the tenth phone call.
I ordered a decadent chocolate cake with a dollop of crème fraìche and paired it with a glass of creamy vanilla bean panna cotta.
I barely eat but when I do, I go all out on junk.
“Because I love it,” I send a shrug his way.
He stares down at his fresh, crisp salad with grilled shrimp, heirloom tomatoes, and a drizzle of balsamic glaze he hasn’t even touched and looks back at me.
“You should eat food because it is healthy, not because you love it. Your plate looks like a trap for diabetes.”
I smile besides myself and let on a tiny bit of my life, “When I was growing up,” I start, “we barely had the money to get anything we wanted to eat. We fed off on Da—on my uh, father’s leftovers and whatever his friends brought by for him to feed on. We didn’t get to eat junks like the kids from school so we used all the money we saved to get at least one junk meal a week.”
His eyes unlike the people who I’ve told snippets of my story to, doesn’t take on the look of pity, instead he looks quite amused which is a rare thing for Jake Keaton.
“That’s quite a story.”
“I’ve got a lot.”
“What was he doing,” he prods, “your father.”
I hate the fact that he is referring to Dan as my father but I already made him think that so I reply anyway.
“Nothing. He mostly drank and –” intoxicated us … “and he cut wood for people so I guess that was his job.”
I laugh it out to try to make the moment lighter but talking about my past is a triggering spot for me so I clear my throat and take another spoon of cake.
Jake doesn’t find it funny. “How did he provide for you then?”
He didn’t. We went to state schools and never bought any books and like I said, ate a whole lot of leftover pizzas and dry vegetables. But I can’t bring myself to start delving into all that with Jake because I don’t want any of his pity.
I shrug. “We got by,” then I quickly change the topic, “what do you…”
His hand reaches out at that moment towards my face but as though on a second thought, he hesitates before his hand comes into contact with my skin and then automatically pulls back.
“You’ve got cream on your lips.”
His eyes are trained on my lips and I cannot stop the memories of that kiss on Friday to rush to my head.
When I run a tongue over my lips, his eyes darkens and his fingers tighten around his fork.
“Did I get the spot?” I ask softly.
His eyes are still trained on my lips, but when he speaks, his voice is slithery and deep. “No. You missed it.”
I run my tongue over my bottom lip again.
“Anastasia. . .” he drawls.
“Yeah?”
“Stop doing that,” he drops his fork and finally reaches out and I feel the coolness of his thumb pad on the corner of my lips for a second before he pulls away with a tiny drop of chocolate cake on his thumb.
Then he does something that leaves me gobsmacked, and utterly speechless.
He slips his thumb into his mouth, his lips curling around it in a gentle seal as he sucks the cake from my lips off his thumb. His eyes are still dark and trained on mine, stealing my breath away for a second.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” he murmurs, in a slow husky voice.
Then he gets up abruptly, leaving his meal untouched, “Enjoy the rest of your meal Anastasia.”
He strides off.