The Intern is the Undercover Boss novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Stairwell

Cullen corners Dee in the fire stairs, they kiss, and Whitney opens the door.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I grabbed Cullen Averill by the sleeve and walked him through the side door into the fire stairs.

The door shut behind us with a heavy clunk.

The stairwell smelled like cold concrete and old paint.

"Dee," he said again, slowly. "Why are you wearing glasses?"

"My name is Dara here."

"Dara."

"Dara Ross. I'm an intern. Please don't say anything else on that floor."

He leaned against the rail and looked at me.

His shirt was open at the throat, and his forearms were dark with ink.

I had seen those forearms in a hotel room nine days ago.

I tried very hard to stop seeing them.

"Nine days ago you told me you were between jobs," he said.

"I was."

"That night you drank two whiskeys and argued with me about chair legs for an hour."

"You were wrong about chair legs."

"I was not."

"You said the back leg matters more than the front."

"It does."

"It does not."

He laughed, and the sound ran down the concrete stairs.

I hadn't heard anyone laugh in my building in a long time.

Then he stopped laughing.

"You didn't know I'd be here?" he said.

"I didn't know you were a consultant."

"Six weeks. Fieldstone's new owners hired me through an agency. They want a designer to look at the culture on the floor."

I kept my face still.

I was the new owner.

I had not signed his contract, and nobody had told me his name.

That would be a conversation for my chairman later, and it would not be a polite one.

"And you took it?" I said.

"I took it for a reason."

"What reason?"

"A personal one."

He didn't say more, and I didn't push, because pushing was how people got found out.

"I'm going to ask you something, Dara," he said.

He said the name.

"If I walk back in there, do I know you?"

"We met once at a bar."

"That's all?"

"That's all anyone on that floor needs to know."

"That isn't all I know."

His voice had dropped.

I felt it in the base of my spine.

He took a step down, and then I was against the wall, with his hand flat on the concrete beside my head.

"I haven't stopped thinking about it," he said. "I looked for you at that bar twice."

"I left a note."

"You left a note that said thank you."

"It was a good night."

"It was a very good night."

I tilted my head up.

I could smell the soap on his collar, and under it, the cedar of the pencils he carried in his pocket.

"We can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"I'm an intern. You're the consultant. Whitney Dole would use it to end me."

"Is that the only reason?"

It was not the only reason.

But it was the only one I could say out loud.

"Yes," I said.

He kissed me.

It wasn't polite.

His mouth was warm and certain, and my hands were in his shirt before I decided to put them there.

He made a low sound against my lips and pulled me against him, and I felt every hard line of him through my thin cardigan.

My glasses knocked against his nose.

He took them off with two fingers and set them on the rail.

"I like you better without these," he said.

"They're a disguise."

"They're terrible."

His hand slid under the hem of my cardigan and spread over the bare skin of my waist.

I gasped against his mouth, and he swallowed it.

I pulled his lower lip between my teeth, and he bumped me back into the wall hard enough that my head tipped against the paint.

"Dara," he said into my neck, in a rough voice. "Tell me what you want."

"I want you to stop talking."

"I can do that."

His thigh slid between mine, and I rode it before I could stop myself.

His hand went up to my ribs.

His thumb brushed the underside of my breast through the thin lace, and I arched into it.

"Cullen," I breathed.

"You remember my name."

"I remember everything."

"Good."

He kissed me again, deeper, slower, with that same slow patience that had undone me nine days ago.

We were two floors from the lobby, eleven feet from a camera, and I did not care.

Then the door above us opened.

It opened.

Heels clicked on the first step.

"Well," Whitney Dole said, from the landing, "isn't this a lovely orientation."

I was still pressed against the wall with Cullen's hand under my sweater.

My glasses were on the rail.

Whitney was holding her phone up, and the little red light was on.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend