Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 108: Embarrassing In Real Life

Chapter 108: Embarrassing In Real Life

During her brief time at Bee’s diner. Emily often had a lot of time to think in between customers walking in. During those times she thought about a lot of things.

She thought about her mom, she thought about herself, thought about her life in general. And sometimes, even though she really tried not to, Emily thought about Derek Haven.

Through the long nights at the diner, Emily had often thought of what it would be like if they ever met up again. In all of her fantasies they always met up some place that just oozed money and luxury. Like the hallways of Haven Group. Emily now a super successful business lady with an entourage of workers behind her. With her own title as CEO of her own imaginary company, Emily would look at Derek, and instead of seeing her former boss. She would see an equal, and in looking at him, she would know that he too now saw her as an equal.

Sometimes she imagined that she had not made it to quite such a high position, but she was still relatively successful. And when Derek saw her, his eyes widening in surprise, she would simply toss her hair over her shoulder, look him up and down, lift a single condescending brow and walk away.

Some days she even imagined that she somehow got super strength and was able to choke slam Derek, who also had some fast healing, but zero fighting ability as many times as she wanted. Those were some great fantasies, but none of them had even come close to preparing her for a real life encounter with Derek.

Of all the places that she had expected to see him, Bee’s diner in the early hours of the morning had not even made the list, but that was exactly where Derek had shown up. And not only had he shown up there, he had shown up while Emily was in the middle of dancing and singing with a mop like a twelve year old. Not only was the whole thing already embarrassing enough, Emily had then gone and bopped him. Not once, not twice but three times.

Oh my goodness, what on earth had she been thinking?! She should have known that he was real the first time she had touched him and saved herself from further embarrassment. She had never been so embarrassed in her life, and there had been no hiding it. Emily had stood there waiting for the earth to just open up and swallow her, dragging her to its core where her shame could not be seen by anyone.

Had Derek not chimed in and asked for service. Doing so with an air of calmness, like he had not walked into a ridiculous scene, Emily would have run to the kitchen and hidden there. Instead, she had used Derek’s words to centre herself.

Right, she had a job to do.

And Emily had done it. Clinging to a mask of professionalism she had led Derek to a random table and then given him a menu. Thinking of him as just a regular customer had done wonders for her mental state, and she had used the time it was taking for him to read the menu to gather herself some more.

But that had been over ten minutes ago, and while Emily had used the time to pull herself together, Derek did not seem to be doing so well. He had been staring at the menu ever since he had sat down, but so far she had yet to hear a peep out of him.

Emily watched him, he truly seemed to be struggling. Perhaps the names on the menu were too simple for his tastes, or he was bewildered to have a menu that actually listed the prices of things. Finally, Emily decided to break professional conduct and just approach him.

He looked up at her return, and he had such a genuinely confused look in his eyes that Emily took pity on him.

"Why don’t you go for a muffin and some tea," She recommended, knowing that, like her, Derek often avoided coffee if he could help it.

"We do not have blueberry muffins right now, but I think that chocolate chip will be just fine," She barely even gave him time to nod before she was heading back to the kitchen to deliver the order to the cook.

Minutes later, she returned with the food and handed it over.

Then she went back to the counter, and pretending that she was wiping it down, Emily discreetly looked at Derek and her heart sank.

He looked awful.

The first thing that she had noticed had been the beard... it was very eye catching. But now that she was not just fixated on that, she saw other things too.

His suit was a tad loose in some places. It was not that noticeable, but it alarmed Emily greatly. She had seen him in that suit before, and it used to fit like it was a second skin. Why was it suddenly loose now? Not only that, but his eyes as well. There were visible dark circles under them. She and Derek used the same skin cream to ward off the effects of too many late nights at work( at least that was what she often told him) but it seemed that he had stopped using his, just letting the effects of his stress show.

But why? Emily knew Derek Haven, he was very fussy about his looks. For him to just let himself slip like this, even if it was just barely noticeable, was a big deal.

What could have happened for him to let himself go like this? Emily wrecked her brains trying to see of she had read, or heard about anything major going on at Haven Group lately. She came up blank, which meant only one thing.

The new PA must be failing at their job. It should have made Emily glad to know that he was struggling a little bit. But instead, she just worried. Before she could approach him an ask, the door bell jingled and Emily turned away from her former boss. Pushing all of the sudden pity she felt for him aside, she went to help the new customer.

Besides, she told herself. Why worry over him, they had nothing connecting them, and he was unlikely to ever return after this.