Elizabeth Finn - Restoring Jordan

My mother is getting ready to go antiquing and my father is getting ready to mow, and I’m homesick just talking with them. I visited them both only a week before when I was on spring break. While most of my friends were off on a trip somewhere warm and tropical, I was excited just to go home to the country. It was a great week, and now sitting in my kitchen with Kelli, I miss it so much. I’m confused, and I’m like an alien in this life at the moment. Who knew my actions of the night before would cause me so much confusion today? I can still see his eyes, feel his touch, smell his home, and I ridiculously miss him. I don’t even know him, and yet I would do anything to be near him as though closing that space would somehow ease my mind, reassure me my life was still my own.

Once I hang up with my parents, Kelli pulls me to my feet and out the door. She keeps me busy for the rest of the weekend until I can immerse myself in my internship Monday morning. Keeping busy with no time for life has been my existence for the past four years, and I’m craving this new adventure. Once I’m busy, my confusion, my uneasy spirit will surely be at rest once again.

Paperwork done, I’m ushered out of the Human Resources office to a waiting woman who is sneering at me even as she extends her hand for me to shake.

“I’m Vera, like Wang for the interior design world … and I don’t like interns.” Oh yeah? Well I’m Adeline, and I don’t like bitches! But rather than speaking the words my mind is muttering, I laugh as though it was nothing more than a joke. However, the look Vera Bitch Wang shoots me makes it clear her comment was no joke.

She’s pretty in that cold, harsh, mean sort of way—silky, black hair, which is straight as a board, blunt cut bangs that hit just above her brow, and hair tied back in a neat knot at the nape of her neck. She’s tall and slim, wearing a winter white pantsuit that fits her to a T—not a cuff too long or short, not a patch of fabric that doesn’t skim her silhouette in just the exact way it should. Her nails are manicured with a perfectly lacquered shade of burnt umber. Midthirties perhaps, but it’s hard to tell; her pinched and unfriendly features make it impossible to know for sure.

She turns without a word but with hatred showing clearly on her face, and as she walks down the corridor away from me, I scramble to catch up with her. The building we pass through is amazing. Foster Architectural Design is part of the trendy neighborhood of Lincoln Park. The building is actually two old renovated warehouses linked by a single story addition, and it’s this addition that houses the Human Resources offices, Accounting, and Payroll. A long corridor joins one building to another, and exiting this corridor now, we enter the large open space of one of the historic warehouses. It has stained concrete floors and open ductwork suspended from the ridiculously high ceiling. There is a stationary catwalk-type system of walkways that create an open second floor, where offices can be seen surrounding the exterior perimeter of this enormous room. The windows are all massive arched style that let in plenty of natural light and open to incredible views of the surrounding city. I, however, don’t make it anywhere near the upper level, natural light, or incredible views. Instead, I’m whisked down a corridor of small cubicles and dumped in one that has no view of anything whatsoever and is so obviously reserved for someone of no status.

Vera deserts me without another look and leaves me staring after her wondering what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. What the hell am I supposed to be doing? I try to log on to the computer, but that’s too much to hope for. I try to call Kelli, but can’t get out of the phone system, and finally after fidgeting and fretting and allowing my boredom to consume me, I venture away from my quaint little cube buried in the land of cubes—some occupied and some empty. Odd so many of the empty ones are larger, have natural light, and even a view of a window, and yet I’ve been assigned the smallest with no visible natural light whatsoever…

Within moments, I’m lost in a maze of hallways and not one of them leads anywhere of particular interest, but as I round a corner into an open expansive room with an amazing view of the downtown skyline, I freeze midstep. I’ve just walked into a room of six men sitting at a massive boardroom table. The conversation stops instantly as all eyes move to me, and I’m suddenly feeling more underdressed than when I met Vera Bitch and her pristine winter-white pant suit. Instead, I’m standing by in my black pants, white shirt, and gray cardigan I attempted to dress up with a thin black belt. These men, on the other hand, are clad in suits—expensive by the look. And while I’ve not yet had the chance to regard any one of the men in particular, I haven’t missed the many thousand dollars’ worth of expensive wool fabric.

“Please come in. We weren’t expecting company, but since you decided to pay us a visit, you might as well stay.” His words aren’t unfriendly; he’s amused at my interruption, and he appears to be in charge here. He’s handsome but older, and his expression remains calm and good-natured. But it isn’t he who stops me in my tracks as I approach the table; it’s the brutally handsome dark-haired man staring from the opposite side of the table. And while I may not know his name, I do know him. I can’t take my eyes from his, and as I continue to hold his gaze, my breath escapes me in a rush that leaves my mouth hanging open. His composure shows his control and calm, but his jaw tenses with a slight shake of his head. His eyes flit from mine, and I catch the “fuck” mouthed silently.

The older man who spoke upon my entrance is watching in amusement, and it’s he who speaks first. “I’m Jonathan Foster. I’m the owner, and you are?” His smile is genuine, and his interest in my presence at Foster’s is likewise.

“I’m … I’m so sorry to interrupt. I just … got lost. I’m … Adeline Parker—the new intern.” I sound terrified, mortified, and I am. I’m the nobody, as my pathetic cubicle has made abundantly clear today, standing in a room of somebodys, and not just any somebodys, but the somebodys. As my gaze returns to the unknown stranger who deflowered me a mere three nights previous, he meets my eyes and speaks.

“Adeline, hmm?” and after a long and drawn-out pause, “lovely name,” and his gaze remains on me. The other men in the room all stand and introduce themselves, and when it’s his turn, he stands and reaches for my hand. His eyes remain on mine as our hands touch, and he enfolds my small hand in his much larger, masculine grip. “I’m Jordan Ellinwood, Principal of Restorations.” Jordan. My skin tingles and trills at the warmth of his touch, and my mind flashes with memories of his hands, his touch, his mouth on my skin, his intense invasion of my body, and as my mind rewinds to the night we spent together, my gaze drops to his lips. They’re beautiful lips. He never kissed me, and now, in this most inappropriate place, it’s all I can think about.

His hand still holds mine, and as my gaze returns to his, he speaks once more in a near whisper as he releases my hand from our overlong touch. “Adeline.” As the other men in the room eye us with curiosity, Mr. Foster speaks.

“Do you two know one another?”

Yes, we fucked three nights ago. “No.” Sometimes I lie, and Jordan’s raised brow speaks volumes as my gaze returns to his. I’m not sure what his brow is actually saying, but it’s definitely saying something. But he doesn’t out my lie. Instead, he shakes his head with slow deliberation, feigning unfamiliarity of me. This was not supposed to happen. When I regretted I wouldn’t see him again, this wasn’t quite the solution I was imagining, and the unreadable expression on his face has me confused and nervous.