Mending Heart |18+|

Chapter 18

Mistress

"It is not the pain, it's who it came from." – Drishti Bablani

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"I am never letting you choose where we eat, ever again." I grumbled, pulling my hair into a high ponytail as Ethan and I stepped into the elevator.

"Oh, come on!" He laughed, pressing our floor number. "It wasn't that bad!"

"Not that bad?" I asked incredulously. "Ethan, we've been gone for two hours and a half! Half of which was spent waiting for a fucking table because someone thought it was rude to just leave and find another restaurant."

Ethan had invited me to lunch earlier today and I accepted, completely unaware that he meant an actual sit-down lunch with a full course meal. Don't get me wrong, the place he picked out was very nice – their customer service, however, not so much.

On top of that, he didn't make a reservation and the place was packed. I was ready to settle for the taco place across the street from the steakhouse, but according to Ethan 'it's rude to leave now, we already gave them our name.'

No, rude is making me wait outside in 90-degree weather in a pantsuit, I thought bitterly. The scorching end of June sun was coming down hot today, and I was sweating in places I should not be sweating right now.

"On the upside, you got to spend time with me." He leaned down and planted a lingering kiss on my cheek.

"You call that an upside?" I raised an eyebrow in his direction, but a smile quickly broke out on my face.

"Always, Cupcake." He flashes me a smirk, pulling back just as the elevator dinged and opened on our floor.

"Careful," I slipped past him, sheepishly glancing at him under my eyelashes. "That ego of yours is going to explode any day now."

I heard him snort a laugh behind me, but I didn't turn around.

We were still keeping our relationship – if you could call it that – out of the office for the most part, and so Ethan and I tried to avoid being too touchy-touchy at work. It helped that we worked in different departments and that we rarely actually worked together on a client.

After a quick stop by my office to grab my laptop, I quickly made my way to the conference room where almost everyone had gathered. We had an interdepartmental meeting scheduled for this afternoon, one which I was running late to thanks to a certain someone.

I slipped in as quickly and quietly as possible, taking the first available seat I could find. A few heads turned in my direction, including Kate who gave me a questioning look. I shook my head, letting her know it was no big deal.

"Look – I understand that we have some time before other entities need to start implementing the new standards under ASC 842, but the sooner they do it, the easier and smoother the transition is going to be." One of the other Managing Director's stated.

"Public entities are all required to start implementing the new standard beginning the next fiscal year starting after December 15th, 2018 so that should be the priority," I said, causing everyone's attention to shift towards me.

"Who has a client that's a public entity?" I continued, glancing around the room. Only a few people answered, which wasn't unusual since the majority of our clients were privately held. "The focus then should be on preparing those clients for the change and making sure they understand what this means for their financial statements. For some clients who do a lot of work with leases, this is going to be a shock and we need to be prepared to walk them through it."