Just The Right Black

Chapter 8

Ariana was out of breath after Jace entered his office as she stood in the spot he'd left her and her thoughts went haywire. Her hands were trembling at her side, and so was everything on the inside and she had to get that under control.

That had never happened to her before.
Ariana thought.

It was nothing, she told herself as she tried to shake it off.

"You can move now, you know."

Ariana snapped out of her reverie when Bridget spoke, catching her off guard. That was twice in the last hour and Ariana didn't like it. Bridget was smiling at her which slowly turned to a full-on grin.

"What?" Ariana asked, confused as to why she was grinning.

"I don't know." Bridget said, "Want to tell me?"

Ariana raised a brow in question having no idea what was going on.
"What?" She asked again,

Bridget's grin fell flat in seconds as she stared at Ariana blankly.
"Wow!" She said now with a straight face. "You are absolutely clueless in this regard."

"What are you talking about, Bridget?"

"You'll figure it out," She said, "Hopefully sooner rather than later."

"If it has anything to do with Mr. Black you have to tell me," She said, "My job is to protect him."

"Well, now I'm thinking you might need to protect yourself," She said, "I can actually picture it happening but when it does you wouldn't have a job. If I know him well enough." She murmured the last bit to herself.

Bridget got back to work while she was left standing there, confused. Everything was usually black and white for her, simple and straightforward. But this was just, it was Grey. Which was making her confused and uncomfortable because of that confusion.

She pushed everything aside and focused on the task at hand. She would be lying if she said a certain man stopped popping up in her head once in a while as she tried to focus on anything other than.

When she wasn't sitting, she was pacing. When she wasn't pacing, she was leaning against the wall. When she wasn't doing that, well she was counting till whatever number until she got tired and did everything all over again.

This wasn't what I signed up for, she was dying of boredom. Why did she have to be the one to take up this case?

Lunch time came and Ariana waited for Paul to come up to deliver Jace's lunch but he didn't show up. A few minutes later when she was leaning against the wall on the other side of where her chair was, Jace stepped out of his office. His gaze went to her chair just as she pushed away from the wall, he turned to her, their eyes met and it felt like they were frozen in time. Jace had a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth which Ariana caught.

"We're going out for lunch."

She waited for him to walk ahead of her but he just stood there, looking at her. She turned and walked away from him, heading towards the elevator. Jace smiled, watching her and then followed behind her and joined her at the elevator where she waited for the elevator.

They stood side by side as they waited and Ariana felt how close to her he was standing. She ignored it, or rather, tried to. Jace was starting to love the lack of personal space and he planned on using it against her.

Before Ariana could do something obvious like move away from him, the elevator opened up and Ariana waited till Jace was inside before she went in and pushed the button for the ground floor. She stood at ease but with her hands in front as the elevator closed.