Haze by Andrea Wolfe (korean novels in english .TXT) 📗

I wanted to touch myself so badly—Jack's hotness seemed to be permanently etched into my mind and I was having trouble thinking about anything else; quite the inconvenience—but I fought the urge, stupidly thinking that it would somehow make me stronger if I resisted.

Well, I was wrong.

The next morning, I woke up sexually flustered, Jack on my mind again. Men were rarely ever so mysterious, at least the men that I had known. I mean, yeah, I got that he was apologizing, sure. But where did it go from here? When I got to work, it all started over again.

"Are you sure you're not keeping some big fucking secret from me, Effie?" Sam was standing next to my desk, grinning from ear-to-ear. There was a light blue box sitting there.

"What the hell is that?" I asked. Caffeine was absent from my body, and so I was a little on the irritable side. Sam just shrugged and walked back to his office. I picked up the card:

Can we

-J

"Dammit," I mumbled quietly to myself. No punctuation or even a complete sentence. These gifts were drawing unwanted attention to me, even though I secretly liked it. Had he just forgotten to finish the message in the card? That didn't seem like something Jack would do based on my incredibly limited knowledge of him.

"Those are MarieBelle," Sam said from right outside his office. "One of the finest chocolate makers in the city. Pricey as hell." He could apparently tell from the logo on the box since I hadn't opened it yet.

"Thanks for the history lesson," I said sarcastically. I opened the box to find four trays with these little diamond-shaped, multi-colored pieces of chocolate. It was incredibly pretty, incredibly charming. It felt like the dessert version of a box of Crayola crayons. I wasn't quite ready to eat chocolate that early in the morning, so I pushed the box over by the roses. Honestly, I was running out of space—and if he sent me more stuff, it was only going to get worse.

I thought about that sentence fragment all day. He was trying to get me to guess something, to somehow anticipate his next move, and I wasn't doing well. No guy had ever confused me like this. If it had been anyone other than Jack, I would have found it to be kind of creepy, a feeling that I didn’t think was entirely rational despite the fact that as a girl, I easily felt it. But despite my outward disgust in front of Sam, being spoiled publicly was kind of a nice, warm feeling.

Every girl needed a few moments like that, right? Spoiled by her boyfrie—

No, I couldn't go there.

After staring at the blue box all morning—it certainly was pretty—I decided to have one of the chocolates at lunch. It was so good that I almost passed out. It was decadent, artisan, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. It was almost enough to put me into a food coma.

After a second one, I drew the line and pushed the box to the other side of my desk again. I would save these for later. Moderation was my friend.

There was nothing from Jack again. Honestly, I was thinking about him more than ever now. His persistence had to mean something. Maybe I was wrong about the girl outside the suite and now he was really trying to make things right.

My Wednesday morning commute was overloaded with high-intensity thinking. Oh yes, I arrived at a suspicion that wound up proving to be correct.

I rushed into the office, hoping to see another gift, not because I wanted another gift, but because it confirmed that I had figured it out. Yep, I was right. Sam wasn't standing there today—I'm not so sure I would have been able to handle more of his snooping, so that was a good thing—but there was a gift, a small, black box. The potential gravity of the situation had me worried. I plucked the card as if it were an eyebrow and ripped it open.

meet for

-J

I cursed under my breath again. Sam noticed my frustration and immediately walked toward me. He seemed troubled instead of nosy. "Effie, should I be calling the police or something?" He wasn't smiling today.

"No," I said with finality. "It's not bad. I'm just frustrated. Who keeps bringing these here?"

"Delivery services. I obviously would have figured it out if the guy kept showing up here."

"What makes you so certain it's a guy?" I asked, distracting myself by making a joke. "J could be a woman, right?"

"Oh, come on," he said. "You're sure you don't have any ideas? You've got everybody talking about you in the break room."

Of course they were, Sam. They were a bunch of gossips in the break room.

"It could be my ex, I guess. But that's not his first initial." I cleared my throat. "I don't know." I opened up the box mechanically, my hands more curious than my brain. And then I choked on my coffee.

It was a diamond-encrusted bottle of lotion, one that appeared to reflect light like a mirror. Carita Diamant De Beaute Diamond Cream it said. I covered my face with my hands, shielding myself from this ridiculous luxury gift as if it were a venomous snake.

This shit couldn't be cheap! I almost blacked out.

"You're such a terrible liar, Effie." Sam turned around and left me there to wallow in my own confusion. "Let me know when you figure out the billionaire that likes you."

I couldn't take it anymore. It was day three now, and Jack still hadn't completed his second sentence, his request for me. More gifts were on their way, but based on how nice today's was, I didn't think I couldn't handle another without fainting.

Oh yeah, and I was nearly out of desk space.

This was a beautiful disaster, a thing that usually only happened in the movies. I was being lavished with extravagant gifts, a victim of the most pleasant crime in the world. I