Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 165: Silent Pact

Chapter 165: Silent Pact

"I am glad you came," The moment the words left his mouth, Derek wanted to grab them from the air, and swallow them before Emily could hear them. But it was already too late.

’I am glad you came,’ Seriously?! That was all that he could come up with. After hours of agonizing, of waiting, checking his phone and actually having to hide it to stop himself from doing something embarrassing, the best that he could come up with was an ’I’m glad you came,’

It would not have been so bad if at first he had started with a greeting, ’Good evening, Emily. It is good to see you. I am glad you could make it.’ There, that was the eloquent sentence that he should have led with, but instead Derek’s brain had just fired off, ’I am glad you came’ out of nowhere.

Luckily for him, Emily did not seem to register how awkward the greeting had been, and instead returned it. Then she did him a huge favor. Instead of turning her attention to him and focusing on him while he was silently losing it, Emily instead decided to continue looking around.

Her bag slung over her shoulder, she turned around slowly, taking the place in. Derek watched her, while at the same time using her momentary distraction to come up with something that would make him come off as suave, and in control instead of him blathering like an idiot.

"Did you have the place decorated focusing around the ocean?" Emily asked, turning back to him, and Derek nodded, "Yes, I figured that I needed something calming. And some of the most peaceful memories that I have, involve the water. So I went for an ocean theme,"

"Did it work?" Emily asked, and Derek found himself smiling despite himself. "For the most part, no, but it still helped, to come home to an environment that was not clashing with the senses," He told her. She nodded in understanding, and it was refreshing.

Normally Derek would have come up with some lie about having had the interior decorator be the one to choose everything, but with Emily he could be honest. Not only about the fact that he had chosen the theme, but also about the reasons why. It felt nice being able to share like that, instead of coming up with a lie.

Looking at her, Derek realized that she was still carrying her bag. In fact, she had not even taken a seat. He was being a terrible host. With that, he sprang into action.

"I can take your bag upstairs for you if you like, or you could just put it wherever you want down here," He told her. Emily shot him a smile and shrugged the bag off and put it next to the couch.

She went to take a seat, and Derek suddenly remembered that he had hidden his phone beneath one of the cushions.

Moving quickly, he picked up the cushion and grabbed the device. "Sorry, sorry, I forgot that was there," He told her, pretending like it was the most normal thing in the world to have somebody run for the couch and pick up their phone from underneath a cushion.

The level of embarrassment that he was racking up from the encounter was going to be astronomical. Why had he run like that? He could have just simply walked over and picked it up. No big deal. Grabbing the remote, Derek thrust it in her direction.

"Here, watch whatever you want," He said, and Emily gave him a look, her eyebrows nearly disappearing into her hairline.

"Have you eaten yet?" Derek blurted, trying to take her mind off how awkward he was being.

She shook her head.

"No, I did not have time to. I just decided to head over here before I-" She cut herself off. Clearly there was something else that she had wanted to add, but she had decided against it. Derek wanted to know what it was, but he knew not to push, so he let it go.

All right, hunger... he could work with that.

Emily had said that she had not had time to eat, so she was most probably hungry. Clinging to that like a lifeline, Derek headed over to the kitchen. He went straight for the fridge and opened it.

Looking inside it, his mind suddenly went blank. Would it be best for them to eat something heavy, or would a lighter meal be best? Which would make it easier to sleep? Something heavy, laden with fat and other unhealthy stuff or something light like a salad?

Deciding to go for something simple, Derek grabbed some vegetables and began chopping them for a stir fry. From time to time he looked over at Emily and he found her watching TV. Was it just him, or was she sitting a bit more stiffly than he was used to her being?

No, it could not be. He was imagining things. Most probably he was trying to transfer his nervousness over to her, so that it did not feel as though he was alone.

Deciding to stop looking at her altogether, Derek turned his attention to the meal preparation. And the next time that he looked over at her. It was as he was walking over to her. Two plates balanced on a tray together with fresh mango juice. The two of them ate in silence, and Emily barely looked at him.

Her eyes fixed on the screen, watching some strange drama where the people slapped each other a lot, and the women wore excessive amounts of makeup.

Derek had no idea what was going on there. As far as he could tell, the woman was pregnant with her husband’s baby. But somehow, she had just found out that it was not her husband’s baby, but his cousin’s child. Whom she had conceived through IVF where her husband had stolen his cousin’s sperm because he did not want to have kids. It was very complicated and he had no idea who had even thought of such a thing.

The sheer level of messiness in it would have been enough to keep him occupied for at least an hour, but he was too nervous to pay attention.

With both of them done with their meals, Derek tried to take Emily’s plate, but she shrugged him off, instead taking his. "You cooked, so I will do the dishes," She told him. And with that she stood and went to the kitchen.

With the dishes done, Emily came back to the living room. This time she did not sit down. She grabbed her bag instead. "Are we doing this?" She asked, and Derek nodded, his confidence returning to him. "Yes, we are doing this," He said.

"Did you bring your list?" He asked her.

She nodded, going towards her bag. She picked it up and rummaged through it, pulling out a tiny folder from within. And within the folder there was a piece of paper. "Here it is," She said. And Derek took it. Heading over to the small table where he usually deposited his keys. He had left his list there and as he grabbed it, and handed it over to Emily. Their fingers touched briefly, and a jolt of electricity ran through Derek. Looking over at Emily, he realized that she must have felt it too. The two of them stared at each other a while longer, each of them holding a list in their hands.

It felt as though the two of them had just made a pact that they could never break.