Page 5 of My CEO Neighbor (Neighborhood Hotties #5)

Ted studied her face in the dim light, taking in details he'd been too distracted to notice before.

She looked younger than he'd expected, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine, with the kind of clear skin that suggested she actually got eight hours of sleep and ate vegetables on purpose.

Her dark hair fell in waves around her shoulders, catching the yellow light in ways that made him want to touch it.

Her clothes looked comfortable rather than expensive, but they hugged her body in ways that were definitely distracting.

Everything about her was the opposite of his world, where comfort was weakness and relaxation was just another word for losing ground to the competition.

"How long have you been doing the yoga thing?"

"Five years professionally. Longer as a student."

"And before that?" Ted found himself genuinely curious, which was unusual. He rarely cared about other people's career trajectories unless they involved profit margins.

"Marketing." Monica's mouth quirked upward in a way that drew his attention to her lips.

Ted blinked. "You worked in marketing?"

"Account management for a digital agency. Sixty-hour weeks, client dinners, the whole corporate lifestyle I was good at it too. Made decent money, had a corner office, wore suits just like yours."

The revelation shifted Ted's perception. She wasn't some privileged princess who'd never worked a real job. She'd been in the trenches, understood the pressure.

"What happened?"

"Panic attacks. It started small—tightness in my chest during presentations, trouble sleeping before big client meetings.

Then they got worse." Monica's fingers absently traced patterns on her yoga mat bag.

"I ended up in the ER thinking I was having a heart attack.

Turns out it was just my body's way of telling me that the life I was living wasn't actually mine. "

Ted felt a recognition he didn't want to acknowledge. The tightness in his own chest, the sleepless nights, the way his heart raced during important meetings. It all sounded uncomfortably familiar.

"So you just quit?"

"Eventually. It took me almost a year to work up the courage." Monica met his eyes directly, and Ted felt a sizzle of desire pass between them. "Scariest thing I've ever done."

"And now you teach yoga."

"Now I teach people how to breathe. How to be present.

How to find space between their thoughts and their reactions.

" Monica's voice grew stronger, more passionate, and Ted found himself drawn to that fire beneath her calm surface.

"It's not glamorous, and it doesn't pay well, but it's real. It matters."

Ted wanted to argue that his work mattered too, that CloudSync was revolutionizing how businesses handled data integration, that success required sacrifice and compromise.

But sitting in the dim elevator light, listening to Monica talk about panic attacks and corner offices, his usual justifications felt hollow.

"You think I'm wasting my life," he said.

"I think you're tired."

The observation was so gentle, so matter-of-fact, that it hit harder than any accusation could have. Ted was tired. Bone-deep, soul-crushing, three-years-of-running-on-caffeine-and-adrenaline tired.

But admitting that felt like weakness.

"I can't afford to be tired. That's not how success works."

"Everyone can afford to be tired. It's refusing to rest that's expensive."

Monica's voice carried a note of understanding, and Ted felt an unwelcome surge of curiosity about this woman who'd walked away from everything he'd spent his adult life building.

"Do you miss it?" he asked. "The corporate thing? The money, the status, the sense of importance?"

"Sometimes. I miss the salary. I miss feeling important." Monica was quiet for a moment, and Ted found himself watching the play of emotions across her face. "I don't miss the panic attacks."

"I don't have panic attacks." The denial came out sharper than necessary.

"You were pretty close a few minutes ago."

Ted opened his mouth to deny it, then closed it again. His heart rate had spiked when the elevator stopped, and his breathing had gone shallow and rapid. If that wasn't panic, it was at least panic-adjacent.

"This is different. This is about missing an important meeting that could determine the future of my company."

"Right. And if you miss this meeting, what happens?"

"We might lose the funding round."

"And then?"

"We'd have to find another investor, which takes time we don't have."

"And then?"

Ted frowned, irritation flaring. "Why do you keep asking that?"

"Because I'm curious about what you think is actually at stake here."

"My company. Three years of work. Everything I've built." The words came out harder than necessary, defensive.

"And if you lost all of that?"

The question made Ted's stomach clench. "I'd be a failure."

"Would you?"

"Yes."

"Says who?"

Ted stared at her, wrong-footed by the simplicity of the question.

Says who? Says everyone. Says the business magazines that wrote profiles of successful entrepreneurs.

Says the investors who measured worth in quarterly growth and market capture.

Says the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like his father, explaining why second place was just first loser.

"Says reality," he said finally.

"Whose reality?"

Before Ted could answer, the elevator shuddered slightly, and both of them looked up at the ceiling as if they could see through it to whatever machinery was supposed to be moving them toward freedom.

"You know," Monica said after the silence stretched too long, "if we're going to be stuck here for hours, we might as well make the best of it."

"How do you suggest we do that?" Ted's voice carried a skeptical edge.

"We could try some breathing exercises. Help you calm down."

Ted's jaw tightened. The suggestion felt like an insult to his competence, his ability to handle stress. "I don't need to calm down. I need to get out of here."

"Your heartbeat is loud enough that I can hear it from here."

"That's not—" Ted stopped, became aware of the rapid percussion in his chest. "That's just adrenaline. It's a normal response to crisis situations."

"Exactly. Which is why breathing would help."

"I know how to breathe." The words came out condescending, dismissive. "I've been successfully breathing for thirty-two years without professional instruction."

"Do you?"

The challenge in her voice sparked his competitive nature. No one questioned his competence. Especially not a yoga instructor who thought deep breathing could solve complex business problems.

"Of course, I know how to breathe. Watch."

Ted inhaled through his nose, held it briefly, then exhaled through his mouth with exaggerated precision. "There. Breathing. Satisfied?"

Monica's expression was patient in a way that made him feel like a kindergartener demonstrating basic motor skills, and it rankled. "That's more like hyperventilating with style."

"I am not hyperventilating."

"Your shoulders are up around your ears, your jaw is clenched, and you're breathing into your chest instead of your diaphragm." Monica's voice remained calm despite his obvious irritation. "If that's not hyperventilating, it's at least aggressive respiration."

Despite everything, Ted felt his mouth twitch toward a smile. The term was ridiculous enough to crack his defensive anger. "Aggressive respiration?"

"It's a technical term."

The small moment of levity made things a little less serious. The emergency lighting cast strange shadows that made her features look softer, more mysterious.

She was sitting with her back against the wall, legs crossed in that effortless way that drew attention to the long line of her thighs.

Her lips were slightly parted, and Ted found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss someone who actually knew how to breathe properly.

Whether she'd taste as calm as she looked, or whether there was fire beneath that serene surface.

The thought came out of nowhere and it shocked him with its intensity.

This was not the time. This was not the woman. This was exactly the kind of distraction that led to poor decision-making and compromised judgment.

But as Monica met his eyes across the small space, a jolt of electricity passed between them that had nothing to do with the building's failed power grid and everything to do with the way she was looking at him—like she could see through his expensive suit to the exhausted, uncertain man underneath.

"Ted," she said, and the sound of his name in her voice sent an unexpected jolt of desire into him.

"What?"

"Your breathing just got worse."

He realized she was right. His chest felt tight again, but this time it had nothing to do with panic and everything to do with the woman sitting three feet away from him, offering solutions he wasn't sure he wanted and asking questions he definitely didn't want to answer.

"Maybe," Ted said carefully, swallowing his pride, "you could show me how it's supposed to work."

Monica smiled, and the expression transformed her entire face, made her even more beautiful. "I thought you'd never ask."