Oops… My New CEO Saw Me in a Towel Chapter 11
So that’s what last night was about. His family was pushing him into setups? With women like that gorgeous, accomplished, from the right kind of families?
I didn’t remember how I got through the rest of our
coffee. By the time I got home, it was dark. I crawled into bed, pulled the covers over my head, and just lay there.
Harrison called. I didn’t pick up.
I texted him instead. [Really tired. Going to sleep.]
He told me to rest. That was it. No follow-up text, no
showing up at my door.
I stared at the dark screen. All the things I’d been pretending didn’t exist – the gap between his world and mine-started pressing against the walls I’d built.
Screw it, I wasn’t thinking about this anymore. I was going to sleep,
Soon after, I showed up at Sterling Corporation for my first day. I was filling out paperwork at the front desk when Harrison walked in-flanked by his executive team,
moving like the building belonged to him. Which it did,
He was blinding,
The second his gaze swung my way, I ducked behind a
massive decorative vase, I didn’t move until the elevator
doors closed behind him.
The receptionist stared at me. I smiled. She didn’t smile back.
My first few days at Sterling Corporation flew by. Harrison was swamped – the company had landed a major project,
and he was running it himself. Even interns like me got dragged into late nights.
A quick
We saw each other, but every time felt stolen
moment here, a hallway glance there. Once, he caught me in the parking garage, pinned me against his car, and growled that he’d make it up to me once this project was done.
I smiled.
That week, I heard too much about Harrison from my
coworkers. The Harrison they described and the Harrison
I knew were two completely different people.
Something cracked open inside me – quietly, irreversibly and the thought had a simple name: I wasn’t enough,
My background, my résumé, my entire life none of it measured up. The truth I’d been dodging was plain. I wasn’t good enough to stand next to him and believe I belonged there,
So I pulled away. The night Harrison carved time out of his insane schedule just to take me out to the food trucks, I told him I wanted to break up.
Harrison went still. A few seconds passed. Then he asked
me why – voice level, controlled, like he was holding something back.
I couldn’t get the words out. The tears just fell. Harrison
exhaled, long and slow, and drove me home in silence,
At my door, he pulled me in. One long, wordless hug. Then he left.
I went inside, Took a shower, Put on a sheet mask. Went to bed.
Did it hurt? Obviously. But the world doesn’t stop because
you walk away from someone. You just keep going.