With an opportunity of a lifetime to make her entrepreneurial dreams come true, Thea finds it getting increasingly harder to hide her attraction to her boss, Aiden Steele - not knowing that the man under all the cold layers has a secret worth millio...
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I spent a whole week working with Jason now that Aiden was back in the office. Jason's workload in itself wasn't too much for me now that I had a taste of overtime weeks, and we sneaked in some amount of fun in our day-to-day work as well. We worked on everything from ad copies to briefings with agencies and meetings with small-time, hole in the wall businesses as a part of the agency wing that Jason handled. It all felt like it was too many things on one plate, but Jason taught me the trick was very obviously, to be good at trusting your team to do a good job. There were very stark differences in how the two men presented themselves, and while I wondered what a future with Jason would look like, I had no desire to give up what I had with Aiden.
I had now started coming home to dinner for two prepared by Josie's marvellous hands and usually only came back in my own apartment only to get dressed for the day. Heck, I'd even moved my toothbrush to Aiden's bathroom. This was, as anyone would say, the quite opposite of slow, but we had a good thing going, and eventually, when we needed our personal time, we could talk about it as the situation arose.
The last day of work arrived sooner than I thought, and I found an odd feeling creeping on me like I was leaving behind an important part of me and life after today would never be the same. I walked into the office with Aiden, the last day I'd be doing that as an intern here at Steele Enterprises. The elevators were crowded going up, and as discreetly as possible, Aiden let me go with a brush of his fingers against the back of my hand. No one would ever notice, no one would ever see.
And I liked it this way.
About lunchtime, I was kidnapped by a very excited Mary and Jade, practically dragged and shoved into Jade's car, driving to an unknown destination. We ended up right in front of a salon, me being manhandled all the way to the doors. It looked, and presented itself as very expensive, making me almost scream that I didn't need such expensive care. Ada and Basil had done a good job accommodating my crazy work hours these three months, and I would be damned if I let another woman touch my eyebrows. Mary opened the door for us to slide in, "It's all paid by Mr Steele. Now go and get a good day of pampering."
Confused, but warmed, I sent him a heart emoji text before being led inside by the aesthetician. A tall, dark man with pink hair, naming himself Jeff explained the vision he had in mind, with the most animated flair to his hands, in jarring contrast with his deep voice. He kept talking about making me the most avant-garde he could make a model, and something about bleaching my eyebrows making me interrupt him, "None of it."
"But... it'll be a fun little surprise for your boyfriend!"
"You have no idea who my boyfriend is, do you?" The word sounded foreign, strange and unwelcome on my tongue. My boyfriend is so...stupid. Childish, frivolous, ephemeral. This was deeper, intense, something else entirely.
Jeff's blank face told me everything I needed to know. I needed to take charge, so I listed down all the things Jeff would be doing. Waxing, an essential need. A mani-pedi was next on the list. My manicure had been slowly deteriorating, brought to my attention by Aiden this morning when a nail chipped while trying to open a bottle of chilli flakes for him. My hair needed some nourishment as well, trim and some touch-ups to my roots. A quick observation of my eyebrows showed some attention required there too and feeling the bill rising by the second, I stopped my assessment there. Jeff threw in a facial routine as well, telling me that he loved indulgent boyfriends and would do anything for those types of clients.
