His Brooding Stare.

part two, it can't be him.

I made my way down the street and came up on the big glass doors of Ainsworth & Johnson Publishing Company. I have been working here for over a year now, since graduating from college. I am what this industry calls a "Professional Reader", which is just fancy way of saying I read for a living. Our company gets over 100's of submissions every day and it is my job to read and evaluate them all and pick the submissions I believe are excellent enough to become published, before the final decision with my boss. I smile to Karen, our front desk assistant, and she buzzes me through. I head towards the elevator, across the cold white marble floor and white walls, and head up to the 3rd floor to my desk.

I find myself throwing my body on my chair and putting my head in my hands, while my elbows are on my wooden desk for support. The words, "Rough morning Lena?" rings through my ears, I smiled while peering over at my best friend, roommate, and coworker Mia who is leaning on my desk with a coffee in her hand. I stifle out a laugh and shake my head "No, just interesting." Mia raises her eyebrows questionably and extends her hand with the coffee cup in it, I then notice 4 letters written on the side in permanent black marker, L-E-N-A. I sigh, "Thank you, I needed this". I put the coffee to my lips and the warmth of the smooth drink warms my throat all the way down to my stomach.

Mia puts her hand on her right hip and asks "So anything worth sharing?" I shrug my shoulders and turn my body towards my computer and started typing up a schedule for things to do and accomplish for the week, "Very unlikely" I said. I heard a scuff come out of Mia's mouth and laughed to myself, "Alright, it's about a guy." I say while wincing my eyes shut anticipating her reaction. I turned my body towards Mia and I could already tell her mind was working a million times a minute flowing with a ton of questions, her mouth slightly open. Before her mouth could get anything out I stopped her and said, "I'll tell you at Panini's for lunch". She smiled smugly and went back to her desk.

I finished my coffee, my schedule for the week, and read through about 15 submissions all before 11:00 for lunch with Mia, she was waiting in the lobby for me. I stepped out of the elevator and spotted her right away, her blonde shoulder length hair, big blue eyes, and tall shapely body. She was the complete opposite of me, I had wavy dark hair, green/brown eyes, a dull shade compared to hers, freckles, and I was rather short and curvy. I returned the smile while pulling on my coat before my body came into contact with the cold fall outside air. We walked down the street, passed the bookstore, to our favorite sandwich shop in Manhattan, Panini's. We picked a table near the window facing the street and settled down with our lunch.

I could tell she wasn't going to be able to wait until I finished eating, let alone anytime soon, so I gave in. "I was walking out of the bookstore.." I began, Mia interrupted me with a chuckle, "You go there way too much Lena, it should be your second job" I made a fake laugh towards her remark, "Very funny Mia, but as I was saying I saw this guy, probably a few years older than us in this all black suit and we made eye contact and next thing I knew my books fell out of my hands to the ground." Mia then said, "Please tell me he helped you pick them up". I sighed, slightly disappointed at the thought, "No, I bent down to pick them up and he was already gone when I stood up, I never said a word to him." Mia took a bite of her sandwich and said, her mouth slightly full, "Well that's too bad you are in desperate need of a hot man in your life." "Mia, I am not" I said raising my voice a little while laughing, hitting her in the arm playfully in the process. She shrugged her shoulders a little, "I'm just saying its been a while." I shook my head in disagreement, and muffled "Whatever" and bit into my sandwich.

Mia and I were heading back to work, walking arm and arm to help keep our body heat at a reasonable temperature, when suddenly my body stopped mid stride causing Mia to jolt backwards still holding my arm, she asked with a slight concern in her voice, "What's wrong Lena?" I couldn't speak, I couldn't even move, Mia's gaze followed mine and my arm squeezed tighter around hers because I was afraid my legs might give out. In front of us walking out of a building was the guy from this morning. He was wearing the same all black suit, holding a cell phone to his ear, and walking towards the black car from earlier while an older gentleman was holding the backseat door open for him.
The older gentleman said, "Where to Mr. Parker?"
After he was already in the car and up the street I could finally breathe again, Mia turned her head towards me and asked, "Was that him?" I nodded my head slightly and peered up to the building he came out of, it read "Parker Inc." I then said "Oh god." under my breath. I ran into none other than Callum Parker, the youngest billionaire in all of Manhattan.