His Revenge, Her Freedom

Chapter 20- 'I want to speak to your manager!'

"Then you closed your eyes. You took my heart by surprise.

I wasn't expecting that."

Niall POV

"Tracy, can you tell Mr. Thomas that I have somewhere to be this afternoon? We'll have to reschedule our meeting."

After getting an "of course" from Mr. Thomas's assistant, I went back to my work. Thankfully, Aiden had a baseball game today and Liam asked us to be there. Any excuse for me to be out of here earlier, I welcomed it.

Plus, both Aiden and Ariel had games at the same time and since Liam could only be at one, he wanted us to be at the other one. I chose to be at Ariel's. She could play a lot better than Aiden could. Harry and Trinity could suffer at Aiden's.

"Knock knock. Mr. Horan, can I come in?"

"Yes, G. And for the love of all that is holy, stop calling me 'Mr.'. It's weird."

My assistant poked her head through the door before walking all the way in and taking the seat in front of my desk.

"You're my boss," she responded, picking up the rubber band ball off my desk and playing with it, "What else am I supposed to call you?"

"'Niall' like everyone else in this building. You're two years older than me. If anyone should be submitting to anyone, it should be me to you."

It's funny how she didn't feel comfortable enough to say my first name, but she felt like she could take things off my desk without my permission. Where exactly was her line drawn?

"Stop pointing out our age difference." She put the ball back down and ran her fingers down the braid in her head before looking at me. "And, I've never really been the submissive type. And, I doubt you are either."

The way she was looking at me told me that the topic of our conversation had changed. But, that couldn't be right because we had never mentioned anything to cross the line of our platonic relationship. She didn't even want to call me by my first name. 

So, why did I feel like that comment was really sexual?

"I'm not calling you old," I responded, hoping to change the air in here to a lighter one, "Just stating the obvious."

"Why are you leaving early today?"

"Baseball game."

"Oooh. Aiden or Ariel's?"

"Both actually. But, I'll be going to Ariel's."

"Be sure to wish her luck from me."

"Will do."

G had been working for me for seven years, and she knew me almost better than the boys did. If I needed a cover for one of my superiors, she was there. If I needed someone to stay late with me to finish the workload, she offered without batting an eye.

I would deny, deny, deny if this ever got out, but I was extremely lucky to have her. Reason to Love might not still be here if it wasn't for her.

"Niall, can I ask you a question?"

I raised an eyebrow at the fact that this was the first time in seven years she had ever called me anything other than 'Mr. Horan'. It sounded...different coming from her lips. I liked it a lot more than I would admit.

"Sure," I nodded, scooting back from my computer, "Shoot."

"Do you find me attractive?"

I swear even the air conditioning in my office stopped blowing. A lock of hair falling could be heard through this silence. Neither one of us broke eye contact, challenging the other to look away first.