Rich People Problems

xxiii | office escapades

**warning: mature content ahead**

KIMBERLY

I DID NOT—in fact—wake up on time.

I am not a morning person. I never was a morning person. I will never be a morning person.

Jace came knocking on my door approximately twelve minutes past eight to yell at me for not being up yet. With a snarky "I'm up!," I proceeded to get ready for the day.

After doing my morning routine—albeit faster than I normally do—I dressed myself in a deep red lace bustier top with a matching oversized red suit jacket and dress pants. I slipped on my black red-bottoms and made my eye to his car with two minutes to spare.

It was a talent.

"I don't even want to know how you manage to do that," he muttered, handing me a bag and cup of coffee.

"Do what?" I took a look inside to see a familiar almond croissant. How did he know where to get my favorite croissants?

"Look like that."

"Well, almost twenty-six years ago, my mom and dad decided to procreate," I quoted one of our past conversations.

"And then the world went to shit," he muttered.

"Fuck you."

"I know you want to."

He had me there.

Ignoring him, I took a bite out of the croissant and let out a moan. If there was one pastry I could eat forever and never get sick of, it would be this damn croissant from Bean There. When Vivian, him, and I first found the cafe in high school, it wasn't that well-known.

Over the years, it gained more popularity considering how often we went there, but it was still under-the-radar, for the most part. Thankfully, people were more interested in photographing me coming out of a club or bar rather than a cafe.

"Do you always moan when you eat?" Jace asked with a slight strain in voice.

"When the food's worth it, yes," I replied, looking in his direction. Damn, someone's turned on. "My moans do that to you? I can give you roadhead to make it better." Intrusive thoughts for the win.

He groaned with annoyance and arousal, "Jesus, woman."

"What? It was just an offer." I shrugged innocently. "How do you even know about Bean There?"

"It was the first cafe I went to when I moved to New York," he gave me a legitimate answer for once. "I figured it was good, so I kept going."

"Good?" I practically shrieked. "Bitch, this shit's heavenly!"

He gave me one of those looks and kept driving. I didn't mind because it gave me more time to fawn over this piece of heaven in my hands. It was the perfect balance of flaky and decadent with just the right amount of almonds. The light dusting of powdered sugar on top was the cherry on top.

In other words, this was worthy of a chef's kiss.

After about fifteen minutes, we were parked in the company's parking garage and Jace wordlessly came over to my side to open the door. We walked through the front door and I waved to Zina before following him to the elevator.

Whether or not it was a blessing that there were other people in the elevator was a question I contemplated on the entire way up. We got off on the right floor, but I immediately noticed a missing presence.