Love At First Text ✔️

Her

Eden was horrified with herself. Horrified, and amazed, and smug. Above all, appalled.

She hadn't been thinking straight. She'd wanted to prove a point, initially, all in jest, but then she'd forgotten her point, and the flirting, and the suggestion, and the tension, it'd snowballed, and she lost control of the situation, and she'd enjoyed it.

She had certainly forgotten who it was she was talking to. The same man she had declared untouchable goods, who she had sworn to that their relationship was entirely platonic. Whatever that was, it was far from friendly. It was dangerous, and thrilling, and the worst thing she could have done. Only because it had left her desiring more.

So, so, horrifying. Had she forgotten the way she planned to shield herself forever? She'd certainly opened herself up to a lesson far more painful that the one she chose to impart.

What had she been thinking? Sending that video – she cringed into the peonies.

She hadn't watched it back, but still it played in her mind on a taunting repeat. It can't have been as seductive as she had planned it to be, but Sebastian had played well into it. Or was he just humouring her? He must've received all sorts of performances in video form, that were far more explicit than the cut of view of her jaw and her lips, with the muttering of the words 'I can say whatever vulgar things you want me to.' It wasn't sexy, it was mortifying.

She was so embarrassed, she thought she could quite literally die here, among the arrangements that surrounded her like a cell. She deserved to be behind bars after that. The whole ordeal was criminal. She was so, so, embarrassed.

No, get over it, she thought to herself. She didn't need Sebastian to think of her as sexy, or alluring, or even marginally attractive. If he did, it completely defeated the purpose of these past few weeks or her forcing the ideology of a friendship upon him. Then again, did it need defeating, when she had just brutally murdered it with a blunt hacksaw? She was a moron. But she was attracted to him, and the way he asked about her day, and the way he looked, and the way he cared, and the way he said her name.

She wished she had something harder to bang her head against other than the petals of flowers, because she seriously needed something to knock some sense back into her stupid, muddled brain.

Fool. Huge, foolish, moronic, hopelessly romantic, sexually frustrated, couldn't be celibate even if her mother wrestled her into a chastity belt, FOOL.

"Eden!" Lorna yelped, running into the back room with a grin splitting her cheeks. Eden looked up at her boss, startled by her erratic demeanour. Wisps of coiled brown hair had sprung free from her braid over her hairline, and her jacket was only half shrugged on to her shoulders. She was pretty sure, too, that it was ketchup spilled on the collar of her shirt. "You're never going to believe it!"

"What's going on?" Eden asked, pushing aside the flowers to rest her elbow on the tabletop.

"We've been made the shortlist of contenders of the British Business Awards!" Lorna clapped her hands together, flashing teeth in a smile that was grander than she'd ever worn before.

Eden leapt from her seat, palms clasped over her mouth, with widened eyes of disbelief. "You're kidding?"

Lorna's head quivered in a quick shake. "I'm not. We're in the final group!"

"We?" Eden echoed, running to grab Lorna's shoulders. "No, this is all you."

"Are you kidding?" Lorna found Eden's hands and took them in a tight squeeze. "I wouldn't have been able to do this without you. This is our success, chick! And look, I know you're busy with uni, but I'd love it if you'd come down to London with me for the awards presentation. I want you to be there with me."