His Naughty Lessons
Chapter 98: A Web Novel Pickle

Chapter 98: A Web Novel Pickle

** Harper **

If Harper still had any hope that she was overthinking the situation and made a paranoid assumption, her hope was shattered quickly in the next few days.

Another cup of coffee was waiting for her on her desk when she arrived the next morning. This time, she went to Wallace and politely explained after thanking him that she wasn’t interested in any more pretentious coffee. Before she could finish, however, she heard his phone ding again at six minutes to nine, even though she knew he had nothing on his calendar coming up.

The next next morning, they had an early meeting at eight thirty, during which Wallace took the seat next to hers as usual. His phone was set to silence in the meeting room, but at six minutes to nine, Harper heard a distinct buzz from his pocket.

So yeah, she was about a hundred percent positive that he’d subscribed to her web novel updates. Which made working with him in such close quarters increasingly awkward — how should one interact with a coworker who knows all about the NSFW part of your life?

Though apparently, the same awkwardness didn’t apply to Wallace. If anything, the attention he had been giving her in the office ... seemed to only be growing.

He had stopped bringing her coffee, thank goodness. But he did make one more attempt before giving up and asked if she preferred an afternoon cup instead. Somewhat ironically, it was Lindsey who overheard the conversation and brazenly took up the alternative offer, leaving an expression on Wallace’s face that was too complicated to explain.

Then on Wednesday, when the managers sent out word that everyone could go ahead and get their flight tickets for Hawaii, he asked if Harper had picked a departure time and whether she’d be interested in booking the same flight. Naomi joked that he was betraying his own team by not asking them first, and Harper almost felt like she was ruining something important when she said she hadn’t figured out her schedule yet.

On Thursday, when he suggested after another shared meeting that they go grab a quick lunch together ... Harper was starting to feel a bit uneasy about this.

It wasn’t that Wallace was being annoying or inappropriate. To be fair, none of these went beyond the norm between close coworkers, and he had been nothing but friendly in the way he went about it. If it were a mere week ago, before Harper had learned about the web novel mishap, she wouldn’t have considered any of it out of the ordinary. But with the fresh and awkward knowledge on the forefront of her mind ... She couldn’t help but wonder what he was getting at.

Was this friendliness purely coincidental and professional? Or was it happening because of how her web novel changed his perspective of her?

Suffice to say that she had zero experience dealing with situations like this, and it didn’t help that she couldn’t muster the courage to just talk to him about it either. At least not yet ... Not with the project team being so new and especially not with the trip coming up that would put everyone together in a tighter circle than ever before. She didn’t want to risk handling this badly and end up in a tough spot while stuck in the same hotel with so many others.

Which was why she chose a lame excuse over plain rejection for that lunch invitation and told him she was meeting up with someone else for lunch ... And that was how she found herself wandering the lunchtime streets alone, unsure what she should actually do for the meal.

Who knew a web novel she wrote for fun could turn out to be such a pickle for her work life?

Harper sighed, scanning the delis and takeout joints lining the sidewalks absentmindedly. Look at what she’d gotten herself into — she couldn’t even go for a normal lunch at this point. If she showed up at any of these usual spots nearby and ran into anyone from the office, it’d make her lie too obvious and make everything yet more complicated. She would have to opt for somewhere farther away today, maybe the food market by the harbor, or an actual sitdown restaurant that no one typically had the time for on a weekday. Or—

She paused, looking up at the tall building at the end of the street with an imposing mirrored-glass facade and an enormous sign on top that said "Sterling Trust".

Or maybe she could just make the lie real and actually meet someone for lunch?

Maybe not. That was an impulsive idea, and most impulsive ideas were bad ideas. But ...

She reached for her phone nevertheless.

~ ~

"Everything alright?" Eli asked with visible concern as he jogged up to her at a Thai food truck.

Harper ducked her eyes sheepishly. Right, it was obviously a bad idea to text Eli on a random Thursday and ask if he was available to meet up for a last minute lunch. She was probably interrupting something big he was working on. But ... Did she actually feel guilty, if that meant she got to see him a second time this week, dressed in a sleek silver-gray suit topped with a burgundy tie that reminded her of super models all over again?

No, she did not. Just the mere sight of him was brightening up her mood like nothing else, and it felt like the best decision she had made all week.

"Yeah, everything’s fine." She didn’t want to mention the Wallace problem to spoil the mood, so she settled for a vague explanation, "I was ... trying to get myself out of a work lunch and ended up making an excuse of meeting someone else instead. So then I thought, why don’t I actually do it for real? Your office is so close by, and it’s kind of a shame that we’ve never met up for workday lunches before."

The look of worry on Eli’s face eased, turning into a smile. Then it turned once more into an amused raise of eyebrow. "You, taking an extended longer-than-fifteen-minutes break from work to get lunch with a friend? Who are you and what have you done with Harper McKenzie?"

A laughter bubbled out of her before she could stop it. Right, this was exactly the break she needed — after all the weird nonsense at work, here was finally a person who knew how to make her day. "But I’m not slacking!" she protested. "This is totally a work meeting too, because I have just the right list of questions to ask you about Project Go Deep."

She tried to keep a straight face as she spoke. But as soon as she said the last three words, she couldn’t help a giggling snort at how ridiculous the name sounded in real life. Geez, had she really come up with such a label herself mere days ago?

Eli, on the other hand, only looked increasingly amused. "Hmm, very well then," he offered. "How can I be of service to make things go d— I mean, further in the right direction?"

Harper lost it again with an idiotic cackle, making the person standing before them in line turn around with a confused glance.

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