บททั้งหมดของ My Boss, My Saviour, My Lover: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

Caleb didn’t call me back to work until after 2:30pm, when he’d seen Ed Dingle out of the building.I’d sat in the bookshop cafe and read the first few chapters of a muder mystery set in 1947 Japan with a coffee while I waited.I found my way back to my desk without help and started sorting through the mountains of emails that had piled up in the short time I’d been gone. It looked like long lunches were going to be a rare occurrence if this is what I’d always have the pleasure of coming back to.I didn’t see or hear from Caleb again until his last appointment of the day arrived and I called him out to greet them. He referred to me as Miss Buxton and asked me to order more hot drinks. They remained there for the rest of the afternoon.When it got to 5pm, I wrote a list of things to do in the morning when I first got in and tidied my desk up. My homework for the week, I decided, was to ‘feather my nest’. The desk was boring and I wanted to liven it up.I gave Caleb’s office door a wary

Watching my brother’s overgrown form poking around our modest flat was comical. He studied my bedroom like it was an organism under a microscope.“Any issues with the place?” he asked, and I knew if I said yes he’d be knocking on the landlord’s door and making threats.But there wasn’t. “No, it’s great.”“Glad to hear it. But you’ll let me know if there is, yeah?”I rolled my eyes. “No, I won’t. We’ll fix it ourselves.”Kelvin narrowed his gaze, but knew it would be fruitless fighting me on it. I was stubborn. He knew it, I knew it. “Well I’m always here for you whether you want me or not.”“I know.”He sighed, but then pasted on that goofy smile. “Anyway, I bought you something,” he said, and thrust the little box at me.I took it with a bemused smile, and tugged the lid off. Inside was a candle in a jar. When I pulled it from the box, I saw the label. Peppermint.“To keep the spiders away,” Kelvin advised with a wink.Back home, I’d douse my room in peppermint oil to ward off the ei

The weather this morning was fucking awful. Day 2 of my first week with a real job and it was storming. I couldn’t walk to the DLR station in this rain. I’d be drowning by the time I got to the office.Because the weather was so bad I’d had to skip my morning run and take Emmy up on her offer to use a guest pass from her gym membership. Using gym equipment was fine—I was a treadmill or nothing kind of girl. What wasn’t fine was the amount of men trying to teach me how to use it. I was one patronising comment away from breaking someone’s nose.Ordering a taxi proved to be useless. The wait time was ridiculous and the fares even more so. I wasn’t paying £80 for a 30 minute (if that) drive. Even getting a taxi to the station was extortionate.I shoved my work shoes in my handbag and found my sensible boots, hauled my raincoat on, and braved the downpour to Deptford Bridge station. It was chaos on the train, but thankfully I didn’t have to change to get off at Canary Wharf.I sped walked

“I’m glad I saw you actually,” Benji said, slinging an arm over my shoulder. “It gives me an excuse to come to your desk and schedule this appointment my brother keeps harping on about.”I wasn’t sure how I felt about his arm over my shoulder, but he didn’t leave it there for long. “Instead of emailing me to do it like he suggested?”“Emailing is so impersonal, Rae-Rae. I’m a sales person. My life is talking to people, chatting them up, getting a feel for how they like to be treated. I can’t do that in an email,” he looked disgusted by the mere concept.“But you’re not looking to chat me up or get a feel for how I like to be treated… You’re scheduling an appointment.”He snickered. “Don’t be so obtuse, darling. It doesn’t suit you.”“How dare you,” I retorted, though there wasn’t much heat behind it. “I’m like, the least obtuse person ever.”“Sure thing. We’re all a bit obtuse. Some of us more than others.”I sank behind my desk and switched the monitor back on. “Right, Benji, when is

By Friday, I’d found my groove. I had a routine in place—come in, order coffees, print a physical copy of Caleb’s and my calendars for the day and learn what I could about his visitors, categorise my emails by manner of urgency and then start working on them. Of course, I let the rest of my day pan out depending on Caleb, but so far I felt like I was managing pretty well.He only had one meeting that morning, and then as Sara said he would, he left at 1 o’clock to meet his mother for their weekly lunch date.I hadn’t seen much of him since Tuesday. He was out most of Wednesday and had solid meetings all day Thursday, so besides a “Good morning, Rae,” from him when he came in each morning, that was all the conversation we’d had. Even after his comically short meeting with Ms Black on Tuesday, he hadn’t come back out of his office. I don’t know what their meeting had been about, but she was spitting mad when she left. Like a bat out of hell. I would’ve cackled my way to home time if I