The Fairy Tales Collection (39 page)

Authors: Elizabeth Kelly

BOOK: The Fairy Tales Collection

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“Would you mind if I shared your
table? The atrium is busy today.”

He made a small backward twitch,
as if he was simply going to stand up and walk away, before nodding briefly.
“Go ahead.”

She sat down as he slid his
sketchpad into the large fabric bag that served as his lunch bag and pulled out
an apple, a banana, an orange, a block of cheese as thick as her wrist, a
plastic container filled to the brim with roast beef, two hard boiled eggs, and
a large muffin.

She opened up her lunch bag and
pulled out her own lunch. A small garden salad with an even tinier container
of raw almonds that she sprinkled over the salad. Ford opened his container
and the smell of roast beef drifted across the table to her. Her stomach
growled loudly and he gave her another one of those quick glances as she
blushed.

“Sorry, I’m apparently hungry
today.”

She nibbled at her salad, forcing
herself to chew slowly, as Ford ate his lunch. They sat in silence as she
finished her salad and put her container away. Normally she would pull out her
book and spend the rest of her lunch hour reading but it seemed rude when she
was sharing a table, even if Ford hadn’t said a word to her.

She looked up as two women she’d
never seen before, stopped a few feet away from their table. They were staring
at Ford with a combination of curiosity and undisguised pity, and she glared
frostily at them until they moved on.

If Ford noticed their stares, it
hadn’t seemed to affect him. She sighed inwardly and stared at her
neatly-painted fingernails. She had worked in the building for nearly six
months now and this was the first time she’d really gotten a good look at his
face. Well, as good as she could with him staring grimly at the table.

She wondered if he would be
surprised to know how badly she wanted to photograph him. She was fascinated
by the shapes and contours of his face and, while others called him ugly, she
thought his face was unique – almost beautiful in its ugliness.

Her stomach growled again and
Ford finally raised his gaze to her. She studied his face - the harsh angles,
the bulbous nose and heavy brow and the black stubble that grew on his cheeks.

“You don’t eat enough.”

“I’m sorry?” She blinked at him.

“Every day you eat a salad that
wouldn’t be enough to fill up a rabbit. You need more protein.”

“I put raw almonds in it,” she
protested.

He snorted. “A few almonds
aren’t a sufficient amount of protein. Protein fuels the body and the
muscles.”

She grinned at him. “I haven’t
got any muscles.”

“Everyone has muscles.”

“All right fine. My muscles
aren’t as well-defined as yours and probably don’t need half a roast beef to
make them happy. How often do you work out, anyway?” She eyed the way his
shirt hugged his broad chest and pulled at his shoulders and arms.

“Every day,” he grunted.

“Shocking.” She glanced around
the atrium. “It’s busy in here today.”

“The law office on the
seventeenth floor is having some kind of conference.”

“Oh.” She cast about for
something else to say. She was a talker, always had been, and Ford’s silence
unnerved her a bit.

“You like to draw, huh?”

He gave her a cautious look before
nodding and biting into his apple.

“I’m a photographer myself.
Well, amateur, but I love it. I mostly take portraits. In fact, I convinced
Jasmine to sit for me a few weeks ago.”

He glanced over to where Jimmy
and Jasmine were still conversing in the lobby.

“Someone’s got a crush.” Stella
grinned.

He grunted and stuffed his empty
lunch containers and trash deep into the fabric bag.

“So, have you been drawing since
you were a kid?”

He pushed his chair back and
stood up. “Lunch break’s over. Bye.”

“Bye, Ford.”

He didn’t return her smile and
she watched him walk away, people naturally moving out of the way of his large
body, before taking her book out of her lunch bag. She wondered briefly what
it must be like to be that intimidating. To never have to throw a thought
toward personal safety. She was on the large side for a woman, tall with more
weight than she would have liked, but she was also weak as a kitten. She was
being honest when she told Ford she didn’t have muscles. He opened the door
behind the security desk and disappeared into the office and, with a soft sigh,
she opened her book and blocked out the sounds of the chatting and laughter
around her.

* * *

Ford crammed his massive body
behind the tiny desk in the office and stared at his hands. He wasn’t
surprised to see them shaking. She had talked to him. He had an actual
conversation with her. Well, if you called telling her she didn’t eat enough a
conversation.

He didn’t think she was going to
show up at the atrium today. She had been late and he had already resigned
himself to the fact that his brief glimpse of her this morning would be it for
the day. Unless he happened to see her as she was leaving for the day.

When she had finally shown up,
lunch bag in hand and wearing his favourite dress, a small thrill had gone
through him. When she had actually approached him, tugging on a strand of that
amazing, flame-coloured hair and asked to join him, he had nearly run like a
startled deer. Staring at her from a distance was a completely different
experience from having her sitting across the table. He prayed that she hadn’t
gotten a good look at his sketch. He was fairly certain that women didn’t like
the idea of a man drawing secret pictures of them.

He was ridiculously pleased that
she had shared information with him. He knew she liked to take photos. He had
heard Jasmine telling Jimmy about it at the security desk, had even caught a
glimpse of the pictures Jasmine had shown Jimmy. She was good and he had
admired her ability.

He took a deep breath. Christ,
she had smelled good. A combination of vanilla and some type of flower. And
the way she had looked at him. Like she noticed the ugliness of his features
but wasn’t horrified by it like so many others. He rubbed his forehead
abruptly. Thinking that she didn’t mind his looks was a bad idea. Women were
disgusted by him, even someone as sweet as Stella.

His stomach tightened painfully
and he stood up and headed back to the front desk. She had sat with him
because she had no choice and that was it. His pointless crush on her needed
to end.

* * *

“Broken” will be available at all major
ebook retailers in the winter of 2016.

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updates and release date information.

If you would like more information about
Elizabeth Kelly, please visit her at:

http://www.elizabethkelly.ca

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Write to her at:

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