Page 9 of Babies for the Boss
The silence that follows is enormous. Ominous.
Pavel is watching me from across the room, his expression carefully controlled again, even though the tension in his posture hasn’t entirely disappeared. Sweat glistens on his thick brow. The distance between us suddenly feels much smaller than it did a moment ago, as if the room itself has shifted around the awkwardness hanging in the air.
“I can leave,” I add quickly, lifting the folder slightly as if it might explain everything. “I just needed to drop these off.” My voice sounds a little breathless to my own ears, which only makes the situation feel more ridiculous.
Pavel straightens slowly and tucks himself away, his posture settling back into the composed authority I’m used to seeingduring the day. If I hadn’t heard his voice moments earlier, I might have believed nothing unusual had happened at all.
His expression is calm again, controlled in that precise way he always manages when other people are around. The difference now is that I know what I interrupted, and the knowledge makes it difficult to look anywhere except at the stack of papers in my hands.
“I forgot these earlier,” I say again, because apparently repeating myself is the only coping strategy my brain has chosen tonight. I step a little farther into the office and place the files on the corner of his desk, carefully avoiding looking directly at him while I do it.
Just look at the desk. The desk wasn’t jerking off and groaning your name and making you wish you were actually participating.
I clear my throat. “They go with the dock contract Vladimir brought in this afternoon.”
Pavel’s gaze follows the movement of the folder, though I can feel the weight of his attention lingering on me longer than necessary. When I finally straighten, I force myself to meet his eyes, mostly because pretending he isn’t standing three feet away would be even stranger.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
The simple response should end the moment, but the air in the room doesn’t shift the way it usually does when a conversation concludes. Instead, the silence stretches again, thick with everything neither of us is addressing directly.
I take a small step backward toward the door, hoping to restore some normal distance between us. “I’ll just… let you get back to work.”
“Molly, stop.”
I turn back slowly, already bracing myself for another wave of embarrassment. “Yes?”
Pavel studies me for a moment without speaking. The calm focus in his eyes is something I’ve seen many times during meetings when he’s deciding how to handle a complicated situation. It’s strange to realize that same level of attention is now directed entirely at me. “You were leaving for the night.”
“Yes.” The answer comes out softer than I intended, probably because the atmosphere in the room has shifted again in a way I can’t quite explain.
Pavel moves slightly, stepping away from the desk in a slow, deliberate motion that makes my heart beat faster for reasons I’d rather not examine too closely. The distance between us shortens by a few feet, though there’s still plenty of space in the room. “You heard me.”
The statement isn’t a question.
My face warms immediately. There is absolutely no graceful way to answer that observation. Pretending I didn’t hear him would be ridiculous, and confirming it out loud feels even worse. “I didn’t mean to. I was just dropping off the files.”
Pavel stands a little closer than before, the distance between us small enough that I can clearly see the faint tension along his iron jaw and the careful way he’s regulating his breathing. “I did not intend for you to hear that.”
“I should probably go,” I add, gesturing vaguely toward the hallway behind me.
Pavel’s gaze moves over me briefly before returning to my face. It’s not a crude look, and it isn’t rushed. The fitted dress I chose this morning suddenly feels like a much more significant decision than it did eighteen hours ago. “Then why are you still here?”
The directness of the question makes my breath catch slightly. “Because you told me to stop.”
“You have always been a good listener.”
I realize suddenly that this is the closest I have ever stood to Pavel without a desk or a conference table separating us. My mouth is dry. It’s the only part of me that is. “Yes.”
“You heard your name,” he says after a moment.
I swallow. “Yes.”
“And so, you stayed.”
The observation makes my face warm again, though the embarrassment now feels mixed with something far less comfortable. I shift my weight slightly, aware that leaving would still be the safe option.
At the same time, the quiet intensity in Pavel’s gaze makes the idea of walking away feel strangely difficult. “I stayed long enough to realize I should probably pretend this never happened.”
