The CEO's Wife

Chapter 8

The Secret

Melody Young

I was sitting on the sofa in the living room of Mr. Ball's house playing Tetris on the iPad that I was supposed to be using for work. It was almost 11 o'clock but another scheduling mess up on my end left us behind schedule so as punishment he kept me up along with him while he finished his work. While the change in scenery was rather delightful it's still boring just sitting here while he's working. my day mostly consists of reminding him of things that he would otherwise forget if I wasn't here. If I'm being brutally honest, he has a pretty good memory, and he remembers most of it himself. You could even argue that he doesn't even need to have me here, but I'm getting paid so I won't complain.

"Coffee," he said rubbing his eyes.

"What?" I asked him as I looked up from the screen in front of me. I was so far into the game that I wasn't even paying attention to him.

"I need coffee." He said.

"Oh," I set the iPad down on the table and looked around. "You want like Starbucks or-"

"I have a coffee maker in the kitchen," he replied.

"Okay," I said. "I can do that."

I got up from where I was sitting and made my way into the kitchen. Now, when he said coffee maker, I was thinking he had a regular coffee pot, but this contraption had so many buttons and settings it took me almost 15 minutes to figure out how to make regular coffee. He didn't say exactly what he wanted so I just made the coffee the way I like to drink it.

My grandmother called it coffee milk, but it's ¼ coffee ¾ vanilla creamer, and a bunch of sugar. By the time you mix everything together, it's the same color as chocolate milk and that's why she always called it coffee milk.

"What is that?" he asked when he saw me with the cup. I couldn't find a mug, so I just put it in a regular glass.

"You wanna stay awake huh?" I asked. He nodded. "there's enough sugar in that cup to keep you up for two days."

"I asked for coffee though," he said taking the cup from my hands and looking at it as if he didn't want to drink it at all.

"there's coffee in it, but if you don't like it, you could always make it yourself," I said.

He took a sip, the sat there looking into the cup again like he was trying to decide whether or not he would turn this into an argument. He shrugged and took another drink from the cup and I sat down in my spot on the sofa. I grabbed one of the throw blankets from the back of the sofa and threw it over my legs before kicking my shoes off and pulling my feet onto the sofa.

"If I make it myself what would be the purpose of me having you here?" he asked. "He looked away from his computer and over at me. "You look comfortable for somebody who is supposed to be working."

"If we're being honest, I think you keep me around cause you like looking at me cause up until this point I've served almost no purpose to you today," I said to him. He reached forward and grabbed his cup from the tablet in front of us.

I could see him smirking behind into the cup that was still pressed to his mouth. "don't flatter yourself," he said plainly before taking another sip.

Damn, that was brutal. I'm not mad about him saying that he doesn't like me, but he didn't have to be so blunt about it. He drank about half of the coffee and then went back to his work. I sat there secretly playing Tetris on the iPad while acting like I was checking emails.