Chapter Twenty-Three
Julia
Walking into the office on Monday morning after our little heart-to-heart, I knew it would be awkward to see him.
Two dozen red roses sat on Brady’s desk when I got off the elevator. He wore a surgical mask and gloves, complete with protective eyewear. Glaring at me, he pointed at the crystal vase filled with the fragrant bouquet. “These are for you. Kindly remove them and take them to your office before they penetrate my sinus cavities, thus making my allergies go crazy.”
Gathering the gorgeous flowers, I just knew they had to be from Artimus. “Good Monday morning to you, Brady. Sorry about your allergies. I’ll get them away from you.” I took them to my office and placed them on the table near the window. Taking a nice long whiff of them, I pulled the little white envelope off the plastic holder.
My name was written on the envelope in what looked like male handwriting. Pulling the small card out of it, I nearly dropped it when I saw what was written on it.
Julia, I’m not giving up. Don’t expect me to. Love, Price
Artimus hadn’t made it in yet, thankfully. If he had, then he’d have certainly snooped and read the card. Then he would know that Price Stone was the man who was bothering me. I didn’t want him to make the connection between me and Price.
If Artimus confronted Price, then Price might tell him the reason I broke up with him. Not only did I want to keep that to myself, but I knew Artimus would not be pleased, and I didn’t know what he would do to Price.
I had to get rid of the flowers, and fast. Hauling ass to Lila’s office, I knocked on the door with one hand while holding the vase in the other. “Lila, it’s Julia.”
The door opened and I hurried in. “For me?” Lila asked with a smile.
“Sure, you can have them. I don’t want Artimus to see them.” I placed them on her desk. The envelope and card were in my hand. “You’ve got a shredder in here, don’t you?”
She pointed to the closet. “There’s one in there.” I went to get rid of the paper as she asked, “So, want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“My ex-boyfriend sent flowers and this note. I don’t want Artimus to know a thing about it. Can you keep my secret, Lila?” I pushed the button on the shredder and less than a second later, the note was history.
“Sure, I can keep your secret.” She looked at the flowers. “Duke is going to ask questions though. I’m afraid we need to get rid of these too, even though they’re really gorgeous.”
Jerking my head toward the shredder, I asked, “Think this will break if we use it to shred them up?”
“If we cut the stems off, I don’t think it will hurt it.” She got a pair of scissors out of her drawer then we set to work, deflowering and de-stemming and then shredding the petals to bits.
The scent of the roses filled her office. “Smells damn good in here now, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Lila tossed the last of the stems into the trash before turning her attention to me. She walked toward one of the sofas, taking a seat as she wiggled her finger at me. “Come, sit and tell me why you didn’t want Artimus to see those flowers.”
After closing the door to the closet with the shredder, I went and took a seat across from her. “On Friday afternoon, while we were on our way to the FCC meeting, he and I talked.”
Her eyes narrowed. “About?”
I laughed. “About how he had overheard you, Nina, and I talking when we were having our coffee.”
Her eyes went wide. “He knows about your virginity?”
I nodded. “Yep. And he asked me why I’m still a virgin. I told him what I told you guys. And he asked me if I’d found the man I’d been waiting for yet, and I told him I had. He asked if it was him and I told him yes.”
“So, you two are a couple now, and you didn’t want him to see those flowers and stir up trouble?” Lila asked.
“Nope.” I played with the hem of my skirt as I explained our conversation from the other day.
She looked as if she couldn’t believe me. “Did you two kiss?”
“No.” I knew one kiss would send me over the edge. I would never come back from that. “He’s not ready, Lila. I could tell that much. If we had shared even one kiss, it would’ve evolved into so much more, and I’m too worried about messing up our professional relationship to jump into more so quickly. At least, not without more assurances about the future. I’m not myself with him. I’ve never had to exercise so much self-control.”
Lila pulled her blonde ponytail over her shoulder then ran her fingers through it. “So, he’s the one, huh? How do you plan on making things work out then?”
“Ha,” I laughed. “Lila, I have no plans and no ideas at all. I don’t know the first thing about getting a man to promise me forever. I just know I have to have that before I give myself away.”
“Your virginity isn’t your soul, Julia.” Lila sighed as she pushed her hair back again. “In my opinion, if you want to get Artimus where you can keep him, you’re going to need to give in at least a little. Date, make out, make him want you so badly he’ll promise you the moon. How else will either of you know for sure that you’re right for each other if you don’t explore your relationship a little before making bold declarations?”
She was right. I could go about it like that. “I don’t want to just entice him into doing what I want. I want him to want it too. If he doesn’t, then maybe he isn’t the man for me.”
A frown filled her pretty face. “Julia, that’s not how people work. Your expectations are too high. I’m afraid you’re going to end up all alone if you keep striving for this ideal man. Artimus is a great catch, and he may well be the man for you. You two have a real connection. Anyone can see that. I say give the man a chance to prove he can be what you need him to be. But you’re going to have to give some of yourself to him first. And I don’t just mean your body, though a little bit of physical intimacy wouldn’t be the worst.”
“I don’t know how much of that I can do. For as long as I can remember, I’ve believed a man would come along for me, and we would just instinctively know we were made for each other. It’s hard to think about it in any other way.”
Everything I was saying to Lila was true, but there was a little more to it as well. I was almost certain that Artimus was the one for me—crazy ideals and all. No one else had ever come close to making me feel the way I did for him. But what if I was wrong about it all? About Artimus. About my ideas of love. That would be devastating to me.
With a huff, she said, “That’s a fairytale, Julia. There is no man who can live up to those standards you’ve made up in your head. It’s not even fair to ask anyone even to attempt to do that. It sounds like you’re talking about fate, and you can’t hold one person accountable for that.”
“Well, I do expect that.” I had no idea how to tell her how important it was for me to hold onto these standards.
“Perhaps Artimus can make you change your mind about that.” Lila got up and made a call, asking Nina to join us.
Moments later, Nina strolled into the office and got a pot of coffee brewing. Lila was quick to deliver my news, and then I had two females telling me that Artimus would never offer me forever without me doing much more first.
For the first time in my life, I was wavering. I didn’t want to be alone forever, but I was starting to see how that might become a possibility, as they were saying. But I didn’t want to compromise myself either.
“What if you two dated for a while, Julia?” Nina asked.
“I’m not saying we couldn’t. But I think that he would get sexually frustrated, and that would lead to a breakup. That would make working with him difficult, and I would most likely hate it so much that I would quit my job.” I nibbled on my lower lip, growing increasingly apprehensive about everything.
Nina agreed, “Men do get sexually frustrated pretty easily. I can see that happening.” Her eyes met mine. “What about oral sex? Will you do that with him? That might alleviate the frustration and solve that problem.”
“Sex is sex in my book. There would be no oral sex. The most I’ll do is kiss. No playing with my boobs, no touching his dick. Nothing that would make it seem like I might change my mind and have sex.” I shook my head, thinking about the last few nights I’d spent dating Price.
I knew that I thought differently about most people when it came to these things, but I didn’t understand why people never believed that I meant what I said. So many people—Price was just the latest—just assumed that they could change my mind about everything. There might be a few things that I would be more open to, but in my experience, anytime I looked to be giving an inch, someone was ready to take a mile.
Just as I was considering whether I could take that kind of risk again, there came a knock at the door. “Hey, it’s Artimus. Is Julia in there by any chance? I can smell the coffee and was pretty sure she’d be here.”
The girls looked at me, and Lila whispered, “He’s here for you, Julia.”
Nina poured two cups of coffee and handed them to me. “Here you go. You and Artimus have a nice morning now.”
I took the coffee to the door then opened it. “Hi there, boss.”
The way he looked at me melted my heart. “Good morning, Julia.”
I offered him one of the cups. “Coffee?”
He took it with a smile. “You know it.”
We walked, side by side, down the hallway. “How was your weekend?”
He smiled as he blew the steam off the top of the cup. “It was okay. And yours?”
“Nothing special.” I stopped at my office door.
“Come to mine.” He moved in behind me, placing his hand on the small of my back to guide me one door down. “I’d like to talk to you about something.”
Just that little touch was making me a hot mess, especially after spending so much time just moments earlier thinking about the real possibility of letting my relationship with him progress. We weren’t even in his office yet, and I had envisioned me laid out on his desk as he took me from behind, holding me down by the shoulders, trapping me.
I had no idea why I kept thinking he would ever be so domineering with me—so demanding with my body that it was almost animal. Artemis wasn’t that kind of man. He would wait for my approval. He wouldn’t push me at all.
We stepped inside, letting the door close behind us. He steered me toward his desk and put his cup of coffee down before taking mine away from me and putting it down too.
His hands crept up my arms. One stayed on my shoulder, the other cupped my face. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Then tell me what I need to hear, Artimus.
I didn’t say that. I needed him to come to terms with that on his own.
“I’ve thought about you a lot too.” I moved his hand away from my face, as it was making it hard for me to think. “And so far, I still think we should keep things the way they are. I don’t want this to end with us not liking each other.”
He grinned at me with a sexy expression. “I don’t see that happening.”
But I did, and I wanted him to see that too. “Here’s how I see it if we’re not perfectly honest and careful about this, Artimus. You and I date. We kiss, to the extent that I will allow myself to, which isn’t much by normal standards. You end up getting frustrated, and we end up not liking each other. The end.”
“Or what if we kiss and then those barriers you have just melt away?” He took my hand, pulling it up to his lips.
I felt the burn deep within me as his lips touched the top of my hand. I knew my resolve would disappear if our lips met. My words were breathless when they came out. “They would. And I can’t have that.”