ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (280 page)

I looked up at her and nodded but it didn’t seem to completely convince her. “Yes,” I said a little sternly annoyed that she would think I didn’t have one.

“Very well, I’ll let them know that you are on your way…” she paused looking expectantly at me.

I stared blankly at her until it finally hit me as to what she meant. “Lucy,” I said quickly.

“Lucy, take the elevator to the top floor and Elizabeth will show you where to go from there,” the receptionist said quickly and as another person walked towards her I nodded in thanks and walked towards where she had pointed.

“So far, somewhat so good,” I whispered to myself as I climbed into the elevator alone and pressed the button for the top floor.

“Lucy?” a voice greeted me the second the elevator doors swung open. I assumed the smiling woman must be the Elizabeth that the receptionist had spoken of downstairs yet as I looked at her overly large smile and eager eyes all I could do was muster a simple nod.

“Excellent, Mr. Newfeld is waiting for you in his office,” the woman said in a cheery voice and turned on her heels towards what I expected to be Aaron’s office. It was weird to think of Aaron having an office, from my hazy memory he struggled to even keep a clear desk space, but then that was so long ago.

As I trailed behind Elizabeth all I could do was desperately try and think of something to say when I got there. My efforts so far had come up blank and Penny’s help had been almost useless the night before. Somehow I didn’t think her idea of just coming out and saying that we needed jobs was going to work. I had no idea what he was anticipating this meeting to be about but I imaged he didn’t think that, nobody turned up after ten years asking for a job, or did they?

With my mind flustered it was only when Elizabeth indicated for me to stop walking that I stopped my automatic pursuit. “Just wait here for a moment please,” she said as I stared confusingly at her. She walked forwards toward the office just in front of us and, not helped by the numerous eyes on me, I tried to calm my nerves.

“Mr. Newfeld will see you now,” the woman said kindly and ushered me forwards towards the office. This was it, I breathed in deeply and as my curiosity peaked I couldn’t help but wonder what fate awaited me inside. 

Chapter Four

All this while I had expected something when I saw Aaron again, but this, this was something I couldn’t have even begun to expect in my wildest of dreams. Behind the large and impressively grand looking desk sat a man. It wasn’t that I had imagined he would still be his sixteen year old self but more that I had barely imagined him at all. If I hadn’t been one hundred per cent sure that this was his office then not for a second would I thought that this man was Aaron. It was only his dark brown hair that gave him any resemblance to the person I once knew, and even that was nowhere near as messy as I remembered it to be.

The man, Aaron I corrected myself, hadn’t looked up at me yet. Instead he was focused on whatever the document in front of him had written on it. I stood awkwardly by the door, trying my best not to stare at him; with Elizabeth long gone it looked as though I was by myself and I wasn’t sure why that made me so nervous. Something was flickering in my stomach, a small rush of butterflies, that I was sure didn’t resemble the feeling that my nerves normally gave me. As I stared at the floppy brown hair of the man I used to know as he scribbled something down on the paper, I almost felt attracted to him, almost.

The moment of silence, having only previously been interrupted by the sound of his pen on the paper, was finally broken after what felt like an age. “Lucy,” Aaron spoke softly, if not a little formally. The sound of my name on his lips sparked something inside of me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but again it was as far from what I was expecting as humanly possible.

Aaron’s eyes found my own and I was instantly startled to see how bright the once, I was sure, dull green had become. I had never paid much attention to Aaron’s eyes but now as his shimmering green connected with my own mild brown I felt my heart beat a little quicker. Had I really been so un-noticing as to have overlooked the brightness in his eyes before? I shook my head as I diverted my eyes from his, it would do no good to dwell on that I thought. Yet still as I refused to look at him the soft flicker in my stomach grew stronger and not for the first time I wished I had stayed home.

It took a second but I finally regained myself, resigning my moment of shock to just being nervous. “Aaron, it’s wonderful to see you again,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. With him staring so intently at me, enthusiasm was not something that came easily.

Aaron was searching my face, what for I wasn’t sure but as a smile gradually crept onto his face I stopped caring. “And it wonderful to see you too Lucy,” Aaron said and his smile grew a little. It sounded like he wanted to add something but whatever it was that he was going to say he held it back.

As if only just remembering that he was still sat behind his desk he jumped up and walked over to me with a couple long strides. Despite the unnaturally large size of his office he cleared the space quickly and then he was at my side. It felt strange for him to be so close and I was hesitant to admit that it was a good kind of strange feeling that was pulsing through my body. Catching me off guard he wrapped his arms around me in an awkward kind of hug; it took me a couple of seconds longer than what it should have for me to realize exactly what was happening. As a blush spread quickly across my pale skin I returned the gesture just as he was pulling away. The result was an unusually long hug and one that caused heat to rise through my body.

Slowly I dropped my arms from around Aaron and as he pulled away I hoped that he would not notice the flush in my cheeks or at the very least be too kind to mention it. “It has been a long time,” he commented a little offhandedly.

“Ten years,” I said quietly and as the words lingered between us it really dawned on me just how long it had been and seemingly just how much we had both changed since our youth.

“A long time indeed,” Aaron said equally as quietly and I could tell he was just as taken aback with how much time had passed as I was myself.

“You have an impressive office,” I said with a little wave of my hand, indicating to the large and expensively furnished room. While the office was impressive, my words were mainly to break the silence that was descending on us, it wasn’t an awkward silence but one none the less.

Aaron chuckled slightly and I smiled at the sound. “It serves the purpose,” he laughed as his eyes glazed over our surroundings, moving their attention away from me for only the second time since he had first looked at me; it gave me a chance to breathe properly again.

“You have done very well in the last ten years,” I commented as casually as I could. Now I was here though, in his extensive office and in a building that had his name plastered on it; it really did occur to me just how well he had done. I remembered reading something in the article about it saying that he was a billionaire, before I had paid little attention to it, discarding it when I found out he was the topic but only now did the true weight of it dawn on me.

“It seems business comes easily to me,” Aaron said with a slight laugh, “But how about you Lucy, what have you been up to?” he asked and now his full attention was back on me.

I fumbled with my jumper as the blush I knew hadn’t quite disappeared brightened a little. “I used to work in publishing, actually as it happens I recently lost my job,” I said quietly. I knew I could have said more, told him how my friend and I were looking for something new but I stopped myself, it just didn’t feel right to go on.

Aaron’s brow furrowed but he nodded in an understanding way before smiling at me again; his smile was a little smaller this time though, almost sympathetic. “I understand; it’s a tough market for jobs at the minute. Look, you kind of caught me a little unprepared this morning, I’m sure you got a bit of a mouthful from my secretary actually,” he said softly and I nodded, “I’m free this evening though, well I can be, perhaps we could go for dinner?” he said happily as if he truly liked the idea.

Dinner, dinner with Aaron. It was the last thing I had expected but a small part of me liked the idea, more than liked the idea. “I would love to,” I said with a smile before I could even really think about what that meant. While I liked the idea, I knew that a part of me didn’t like the idea for the right reasons.

Chapter Five

I walked back to my apartment in a daze; I could not decide what to make of our encounter. There was almost nothing left of the boy I had known in the man that I had met, it was odd to think of it but I wasn’t sure which version of Aaron felt like more of a stranger. In the short time I had spoken to him today it had felt like we had connected more than me and the teenage version of him ever had before. The sarcasm was gone and so was the childishness that I had associated with him for so long, not that in the time we had spent part I had spent much time ‘associating’ anything with him.

Then there was the other sensation, the feelings that I had not expected to be present when I met him, when I spoke to him. There was something similar to attraction growing inside me; when he had spoken, when he had smiled and when he had held his body close to mine, attraction was just one word to describe the mix of emotions that were now calling my body their home. The overflow of sensations were muddling my mind and causing me to second guess everything, it was something that I knew I would have to take some time to get used to.

“How did it go?” Penny shouted. I had hardly registered walking through my apartment door before I was bombarded with Penny. She jumped out in front of me, in her normal over exuberant manner, startling me and almost making me fall backwards in the process.

Penny reached out and took hold of my arm, steadying me so I didn’t actually fall flat on my back in the doorway to our small home. I blinked up at her; in one hand she held one of this morning’s newspapers with a freshly doodled-on job section but it was her impatient expression that really caught my eye. It was almost funny, I had completely forgotten that I would have to relay everything to her on my return; if I had remembered I was sure I probably would have wandered about for a bit, anything to delay the inquisition. Yet here I was, on the spot, with little to tell her; well little that I wanted to tell her. Was there really anyway to explain my torn feelings to her?

“It went…” I paused for a second, trying to figure out exactly what word to use to halt any of the questions I could all but see whizzing through her head, “ok,” I finished lamely. I knew I could have done a millions times better but whether I had spent a day or just the few seconds I had thinking about it I knew I would have come up with the same word.

“Really?” she shouted, forgetting her questions for a moment, “the best you can do is ‘it went ok’,” she sighed, using her fingers to air quite my words. I smiled slightly at her, in any other circumstance I probably would have laughed loudly at such a cliché motion.

“I’m not sure what else to say,” I said with a quick shrug of my shoulders. I could have easily told her about Aaron, I could have told her about his small smiles and the way his eyes shone brightly when he looked at me, but I didn’t.

“What was he like? Does he have a job for us? Can he help us?” she said quickly, the questions came out so fast that they almost mixed into one. I chuckled this time, if she had been in my place I was sure that she would have been this blunt with him, maybe even more so. I wondered, for a second, what he response would have been; I doubted it would have been good.

“We’re going to dinner tonight,” I stated as I finally walked out of the doorway and into the kitchen. Penny shut the door quickly and jogged after me; as soon as she stopped beside me I could see everything that was racing through her head. Worry, confusion, curiosity, sadness, happiness and concern were just a small handful of the emotions that crossed her face in less time than it took me to pour a cup of coffee.

“Dinner?” she questioned and I wasn’t sure whether or not it was actually directed at me, “what does that mean?” she pondered, again mostly to herself.

“It can’t mean anything bad,” I said with a shrug. It was true, whatever it meant I couldn’t be bad; in fact a part of me was now increasingly looking forward to having dinner with Aaron.

“You know you’re going to dinner with the city’s most eligible bachelor right?” Penny said casually. It was the complete opposite to what I had expected to hear, but then if anything was true lately it was that I should start expecting the unexpected, if that was even possible.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I said honestly, it was true I hadn’t even given a thought to what Aaron might mean to anyone else.

“He’s attractive,” Penny said quietly but with a large grin on her face. At those words I couldn’t keep a blush away from my cheeks. Yes, Aaron was many things and attractive was definitely one of them.

“I suppose,” I said, trying and failing to sound uncaring.

“Oh, you noticed, don’t deny that,” she said with a laugh.

I frowned at her but she didn’t seem too noticed as she smiled across the counter at me. “Do you think he likes you?” she questioned casually. While I was thankful she had ditched the questions about a job I was quickly starting to hate the new topic even more.