nevertheless~

part 06

Tessa'a POV

I rush near the elevator as soon as I enter the office, keeping my head low and trying not to make eye contact with anyone and especially Hardin. The last thing I want is, him coming my way and telling everyone that I butt dialled him. I don't even know how that happened. I was so sleepy because of last night's talk with Carol, that I didn't care about the alarm this morning. I must've called him them while trying to hit snooze.

"Tessa", I hear my colleague's voice call down on me as I get inside the elevator and my last steps become a jog as I try to get out of his sight and catch.

"Ma'am", I instantaneously stop in my tracks and turn around to see Ichor jogging toward me. I was expecting it to be Hardin, the voice felt so similar.

"Yes, Ichor. Good morning", my voice comes out a little rushed, making it very clear that I was running away.

"Ma'am, I had to ask you some things about the new books, there are 20 new releases, but we haven't looked into a single one's cover design yet.

"Ichor, I work for production, so I look into the covers that are getting produced not the designing of it", I answer.

"I know, ma'am but we need to look into the production of those covers itself. These 20 new releases and we haven't even gone into the final looks for them you, but I think, we should do that before the Paris trip", he says.

"Okay, first, stop calling me Ma'am. I'm probably the same age as you", I say.

"And, let's take this with Hardin when he's here. It's about to be 9:45 and we need to get to the team meeting at 10:00, and can we do this then. It's a conversation for that".

"I just think, that we can talk this through first"

"And I think, this is not the place for that kind of conversation, so we'll take this up in the meeting room", I answer.

"Okie", he says sweetly and the way he gestures almost sounds cute.

"Let's go", I say and we both enter the elevator.

"So, you're early today? First day?"

"No, actually, 4th day"

"Why didn't I see you then. This is like the second time I am seeing you here", I try to make small talk despite his very clean and tall body standing this close to me in the elevator. I didn't notice it earlier, but he looks clean like this. In a simple white shirt that rolled to the elbows and grey trousers, he looks really hot, for some reason, I just can't take my eyes off him but I can't even give him smoulders like that, I just met him for the second time.

"Tessa, are you listening to me?", he says and I get back on the conversation.

"Yeah, I heard you", I lie. He doesn't need to know I was checking him out.

"Oh, did you!", he sounds surprised when I said it and I feel spine tingle. This is not right, he's my junior, I shouldn't be attracted to him in any form, but I can't take my eyes away from him

"Yeah, I did.", the elevator door opens and I start to get out as fast as possible.

"Hey", he says and softly touches my elbow and pulls me back into the elevator with just that one touch.

"Yes?"

"You look nice too", he says and winks at me. Fuck! He caught me red-handed. I just can't hide that I am checking him out.

"Thanks", I say and walk out of the elevator as fast as my legs take me. I don't need to give him more than he already knows. It's embarrassing enough I was ogling at him from the elevator.