Dating My Boss in My Dreams

Chapter 3 His Secrets Were Real

I worked late several nights in a row to finish a design proposal.

It was after 8:00 p.m. when I finally left the office one evening. Only a few lights remained on across the entire floor. Passing the director's office, I noticed the door was ajar. Arthur had his back to the corridor. He was lifting the hem of his shirt, struggling to apply a medicated patch to his lower back.

I knew about his bad back.

Whenever the weather turned cold in my dreams, he would lie on his side in my bed and ask me to massage it. Every time I teased him for having back trouble at his age, he would give me a look and guide my hand lower.

What tended to happen after that was not something I should be remembering in a brightly lit office.

I stood frozen in the doorway, unable to decide whether to stay or retreat. Arthur had already spotted me in the mirror.

"Miss Bennett." He held out the patch. "Could you give me a hand?"

I braced myself and walked in.

The first patch went onto the side of his waist without incident. The second needed to go lower. Quietly, I said, "You'll have to move your shirt a little farther out of the way."

"Mm."

As he shifted the fabric down, my fingers went still.

There was a tiny dark mole on the left side of his lower back.

I had touched it countless times in my dreams. I could have found it with my eyes closed. Now the same mark, identical in shape and position, was less than an inch from my hand.

"Something wrong?" Arthur asked.

"It went on crooked."

I adjusted the patch and pressed it into place, my palms slick with sweat.

It was windy when we left the office, and Arthur offered me a ride since he was going my way. The moment I sat in the passenger seat, the wind blew a strand of hair across my lips. He reached over and brushed it aside, his fingertips grazing the skin by my ear.

My whole body went rigid.

In my dreams, he always tucked my hair away like that before kissing me.

Arthur had already withdrawn his hand. "There was a leaf in it."

"Oh."

Only when we entered the underground parking garage did I discover he lived in the building next to mine. By "nearby", he meant close enough that we might see each other's lights from our balconies.

That night, I couldn't bring myself to sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw that mole and felt the warmth of his fingertips beside my ear. Eventually, I ate enough of a midnight snack to make myself drowsy. But even after I entered the dream, I didn't dare touch him. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my hands.

Arthur asked what was wrong. I shook my head and put my hands behind my back.

The next day Evelyn came into the break room with a plate of sliced mango.

She held it out to Arthur. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, "He can't have that."

Everyone turned and looked at me.

A beat too late, I added, "Mr. Lauren's allergic to mango."

"How do you know that?" someone asked.

Arthur was watching me too.

I tightened my hand around my mug and made something up. "I don't know. I think I heard it somewhere."

Arthur let it go. He just gave a quiet laugh and pushed the plate away.

His bad back. The mole. The allergy. Even the way he'd tuck a piece of my hair back—something only a man who'd loved me, in a dream, would know to do—all of it was real.

How was that possible?