Off the Record: A Sweet Office Romantic Comedy (The Nashville Romantics Book 1)
Off the Record: Chapter 10

Monday. I get to work and there’s a caramel macchiato waiting on my desk.

Tuesday. A second caramel macchiato joins the first one. Both sit there, smelling divine and tempting me beyond reasonable control.

Wednesday. A third cup. I really should throw them all away, but I can’t bring myself to touch them.

I look up after sending that message. Hudson steps away from his desk and crosses the room, then looks pointedly at my naked nails. My pulse is thundering, his strong, tall form looming above me, evidence of his gestures sitting between us like three little soldiers fighting on his side. What’s he going to do, call me out in front of the entire office? I hold his gaze, my expression unforgiving. He’s lucky I haven’t made an office-wide announcement. Everyone deserves the heads up that their jobs will be gone soon. Except I also don’t want to incite mass panic. There has to be a good way to do this.

“We can meet here, if that’s better,” he says coolly.

The last few days have been miserable. I don’t want to argue with him, here or anywhere else. I might be putting on a brave, angry facade, but I’m hurting. I’d thought he was different, and it’s painful to be wrong when things matter like this.

I called Simone Sunday and told her everything. Together, we’ve started hunting for new positions, hoping to replace a paper that will take us both. We put Hudson as our primary employer contact, and I know he won’t do anything to jeopardize new positions for us. But for now we work here, and Hudson is still my boss. At least until I have another way to pay my rent or he fires me.

Whichever comes first.

It’s much easier to reject the man through Slack than with his sharp blue eyes piercing me, but I press forward anyway.

“How about an email?” I offer, then look back at my computer.

He gives a very quiet, frustrated huff. “Okay.” After another beat, he walks away. But he doesn’t go back to his office—he heads for the elevators and leaves the floor entirely.

I don’t get an email and Hudson doesn’t return for the rest of the day, which is extremely distracting. I want to know where he is, what he’s doing, whom he’s speaking to. I’m very much not over my crush yet, which is probably part of the reason this all hurts so much.

“Drinks tonight?” Simone asks while we’re gathering our things to leave for the day.

“It’s my brother’s birthday, so we’re having a sibling dinner.” I watch Andrea close up the things at her desk and debate following her out. As the office secretary, and now Hudson’s personal assistant whenever the office dissolves, she might know what he’s been doing all day.

She’s starting for the elevators. I need to run.

“Have a good night,” I call to Simone, speed walking my way toward Andrea. I hop into the elevator as the doors are closing.

She looks up from her phone, surprised to see me.

“Just hitching a ride,” I say lightly. “Any fun plans tonight?”

It’s Wednesday, not the weekend, and perilously close to the end of the month. Hudson is supposed to give his superiors his recommendations for the company moving forward. Has she seen his notes? Had to make photocopies or send emails? She’s seen the list, but has it been altered? Who exactly is going to remain? All these questions float in my head.

“Just meeting up with Marty for dinner,” she says.

“How are things going with him?” They haven’t been together terribly long, if I remember correctly.

She shrugs. “Good so far. No complaints.”

Why is she being cagey?

She glances at her phone, then the elevator doors. “Are you okay, Paisley?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you followed me up to the executive floor.” The doors ding, sliding open, and Hudson is standing on the other side, looking at his phone, a briefcase in one hand. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t seen him since this morning or because I haven’t stopped thinking of him since, but my entire body goes wild, bursting with hot and cold at the sight of him. When his vivid blue eyes meet mine, the explosion turns to chills. I want to be anywhere but here.

Andrea steps out, breaking the taut line of emotion between us. “I’ll leave the information on your desk?” she asks him.

“That would be great. Thanks, Andrea. Have a good night.”

When Andrea leaves the elevator, Hudson steps in. He presses the button for the parking garage and stands there, waiting for the doors to close. Silence presses in. I feel like I need to say something, but fragments of thoughts jumble together, making my brain a bowl of spaghetti.

“Are your nails dry yet?”

I glance at him, my expression falling to a wry, flat-lipped hideous thing.

“I would have sent your fish flowers, but I didn’t know if they’d poison her water,” he says.

He must know I don’t have a fish on my desk.

“I think the most concerning thing is your feet paralysis. You should really have that looked at. I know a good ped⁠—”

“Oh, cut it out,” I mutter. “You know it’s all bogus.”

“What a relief,” he says dryly.

I face him. “Do you blame me for not wanting to chat? Once all your lies are revealed, the entire office is going to think I had something to do with it, since we’ve been seen together so much over the last few weeks. Although, you’re firing me too. Maybe that’ll save me.”

“I’m not firing anyone,” he says quietly. “I’m providing a list of recommendations. Which you did know about—everyone does. We had a meeting about it last month so everything would be aboveboard.”

“It’s not aboveboard when you fail to mention that an entire newspaper is folding. That’s a lot less jobs up for grabs than we’d originally believed.”

He closes his eyes, a sense of weariness permeating his shoulders and bending his neck slightly. I want to reach out and comfort him, but I’m frozen in place. “I’m doing my best, Paisley.”

“Well, it’s not good enough.”

He looks at me as the bell dings and the door opens again. We’re back on the Rhythm’s floor and there’s a group waiting to join us, Simone among them. She lifts her eyebrow at me, but I don’t explain my idiocy. I just move aside to make room.

It’s not until Simone, Stan, and what feels like the entire advertising department has joined us that I realize my shoulder is pressed into Hudson’s side. I feel the way his chest rises and falls with his breathing and have to inhale slowly through my nose. That only serves to give me a whiff of his sage-y, velvety cologne, which sends an odd pang through my stomach.

Yes, the man withheld important truths. Yes, he should have been honest with me. Does that erase the moments we shared entirely? Walking the street in Franklin with our ice cream cones. Chatting at the rooftop bar while Bradley played acoustic guitar in the background. Laughing at the security guard’s jokes while he shared ridiculous stories about his time with the Parthenon. And, in between all those moments, the cafe sandwiches and to-go cups of coffee and texts late at night when I should have been sleeping. It’s been a whirlwind few weeks, and while I don’t know him extremely well, I feel like I know this man a little.

It’s why his dishonesty is so painful, I realize. It doesn’t feel congruent with the man I believe him to be. Finding Leo with Kyla hurt, but it didn’t surprise me in retrospect that a man who could flirt with women in front of me would do more behind my back.

Hudson, on the other hand, has a reputation for dating around, and I don’t even know how he got it. He’s been nothing but kind and gentlemanly. Then it hits me.

Dating around—serial dating, even—isn’t exactly ungentlemanly, is it? He tries to get to know lots of women, yes, but not simultaneously. In the weeks he’s been spending time with me, I’ve never once seen him flirt with a waitress or someone at work. He’s been professional and polite, even with me most of the time.

He shifts, pressing against me more. I replace myself holding my breath, willing the elevator ride to both last forever and be finished now so I can end this agony. I guess I haven’t grieved the loss of our budding relationship fully yet, because it’s hard being this close to him.

We reach the garage and the doors open, letting people out like water bursting from a broken dam. I grab Simone’s arm as she’s leaving and loop mine through it, using her as my shield.

When I leave her side and get in my car, there’s a text waiting for me.

My brother Dorian snaps his giant fingers in front of my face, pulling me out of my trance for the tenth time during his birthday dinner. “What’s going on? You’re never this distracted.”

We’re at IHOP, because that’s what Dorian wanted for his sibling birthday dinner, and the four of us who could make it tonight are eating pancakes and sipping Cokes. Classic breakfast for dinner.

“I told you,” Carrie says, pulling her Coke closer and taking a drink. “Paisley’s boss pretended to be into her but didn’t tell her that he’s dissolving the Rhythm.”

Pretended? I don’t remember saying that.

“Do you have another job lined up?” Dorian asks. “You could always turn to novels. You’d make more money.”

I roll my eyes. Dorian is publishing a series of murder mysteries that are gathering steam in the literary world, and he’s always trying to get me to join him. “You know my brain doesn’t work like that. I write articles, not novels.”

“Have you even tried?” he presses.

“Okay, I’ll rephrase. I only want to write articles.”

He puts up both hands and leans back in his seat. “It’s an option. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Eat your birthday ice cream and leave me alone,” I say, but I’m smiling. I can’t be mad at Dorian.

“Don’t you have a local signing coming up?” Luke asks.

“We all need to go and pretend to be his biggest fans,” Carrie says. “Who’s in?”

I raise my hand. “Definitely me. I’ll ask him to sign my shirt.”

Luke grins. “I’ll have him sign my a⁠—”

“Keep it PG,” Carrie says, nodding her head to the table beside us, teeming with small children.

“I was going to say my abs.”

“But you don’t have those anymore,” Carrie snaps back.

Luke glares, pulling his pancakes closer and cutting a big bite.

“None of you are coming. I don’t want to be embarrassed. It’s your birthday gift to me.” He raises an eyebrow to me. “Unless you want to come meet my agent.”

“Ha. Ha.” I fake laugh and look down at my plate again. It’s been weird, searching for a new job. Once I leave the Prescott Media Group, my chances of getting in with the Tribune decrease significantly. After everything that’s gone down, I’m not sure I want to work for them anyway.

“Okay, dream job,” Carrie says. “If you could do literally anything, what would it be? Gut reaction. Go.”

“What I’m doing,” I say without thinking, but it’s true. Writing the People of Nashville column under Hudson’s editing eye has been such a joy the last few weeks—I really want to continue doing it. With him. Because, like it or not, he is definitely a huge part of what makes that column so good. His advice and notes have been extraordinarily helpful.

His text from earlier spins around my head again. I’m doing my best to fix everything. What does that mean? How can he fix it? Maybe he would have told me if I’d answered any of his summons this week. Is my petty anger getting in the way of helping him save jobs? Possibly save the paper?

I pull out my phone and text him back.

It takes the rest of our dinner and another thirty minutes for him to respond.

He doesn’t have to ask me twice. Before I can think better of it, I’ve given Dorian a huge birthday hug, dropped Carrie off at home, and started driving toward downtown Nashville. If there’s a chance I can keep my job, I’m going to fight for it.