Page 63 of Written By a Woman

“What do you like to read?” Zaid asked, startling me from my rant and making me snap my head up.

“Huh?”

“What do you like to read?” Zaid repeated himself, nodding towards my sweatshirt once before adjusting one of the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. I narrowed my eyes at him, my lips quirked to the side as I wondered how this conversation could go. How I ended up in a conversation with the very man whose appearance I was plagiarizing every single day.

“Romance, mostly.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re challenging me.”

“Maybe I am,” I shrugged, pulling my chair forward so my torso could lean over my desk as I narrowed my eyes even more at the CTO. I had a feeling that he and I both remembered the smut-tastrophy in his office during the Halloween party, so I was preparing myself for some sort of eye roll or scoff or any other sort of dismissive remark, “Got anything to say about what I read?”

“Um,” Zaid blinked, yet held my stare without moving a muscle, “No?” He was playing a weird game of chicken with me. I leaned into his space, my hands gripping the edge of my desk while I narrowed one of my eyes. I was studying his expression for tells of a lie of some sort. He just stayed put, leaning his forearms on my desk and waiting for me to finish my inspection.

“Interesting.” That was what I said before I pulled away and turned my body back toward my computer.

“Why is that interesting?” Zaid asked, removing his forearms from my desk to stand taller.

“Most men hate the genre; it makes them uncomfortable.” I turned to give him another stink eye, letting my eyes trail his body up and down as if I was suspicious of him and not just taking the opportunity to ogle his form in the workplace.

“I don’t know enough about the genre to hate on it,” Zaid shrugged, pulling his phone out of his pocket and frowning at something, “Besides that snippet you showed me on Halloween, of course.” I smothered a giggle; glad he was willing to still joke about the time I accidentally gave him smut.

Zaid’s eyes stayed glued to his phone, though. His job always seemed way more demanding than mine.

While thumbing away on his phone, Zaid nodded his head goodbye, heading towards his office, and I made myself inhale a deep breath to get back into the workflow mindset. I rested my hand over my heart, begging it to calm down, desperately reminding it that Zaid was not someone we needed to develop feelings for. That the CTO of the company I currently worked for was not someone I should crush on this hard.

Stealing his looks for a fictional character in my novel?

Sure, whatever.

Becoming more and more attached to him, desperately clinging to every word he speaks and every smirk he gives?

Fun, but not the end goal.

While it was easy for me to lose myself in his dark eyes, admire his always perfectly trimmed beard, and every other part of his playful personality, I needed to keep my head in the game.

Even though a year ago he never would have put both of his hands on my shoulders in the office.

And the fact that he was comfortable putting his hands on me in any form, self-protection or not, made something flutter in my stomach.

No, I scolded myself,even if he is attracted to you in that way, it’s not okay.

I replayed those words in my mind over and over again the rest of the day, even though I knew I had little hope of truly convincing myself.

ChapterFourteen

ZAID

The thingwith playing the long game like I was, is that the woman you’re romantically interested in has no idea that you are, in fact, romantically interested in her. I have been enjoying the friendship I have been developing over time with Signe, and I love spending casual time with her throughout my workday. However, because of professional boundaries and my bending over backward to keep my attraction toward her a secret, I am now seeing the downside of my plan.

Like when Signe came back from her lunch date.

Sure, it was a bad date. She made it very clear she wasn’t interested in seeing the guy again.

But when was she going to feel the need to go on another one?