Don't Move Your Desk: Chapter Twenty-Seven
In which looks can kill
A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: upcoming stuff; votes on content direction; Chapter Twenty-Seven of Don’t Move Your Desk; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.
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From here is where stuff starts to get a bit crunchy! As you may recall, I originally scheduled out a certain number of weeks for the serial in my plan… then I actually wrote the serial and it turned out to require a few more chapters. Well, quite a few more chapters.
So, in the coming weeks, there’s a certain amount of doubling up to be done, with content I had originally planned vs the actual chapters that still need to go out. I’ll keep it to a sensible email length as much as possible, and some of the content will be moved back to a later date, but here’s some of what you can expect coming up:
cover reveals for the other four books in the Crowhill Kitchen series (I’ve already revealed book 1)
votes and surprise announcements
more info about beta reading and how I use it
a deeper dive on the progress of this series so far
a debrief on the serialisation as it comes to an end (9th November)
character profiles for upcoming books
… and possibly more!
Today, I wanted to start with a vote. Or, two votes.
First, what have you enjoyed most about this newsletter, this year?
Secondly, what would you least mourn if I stopped doing it?
This helps me figure out whether I’m going in the right direction and, if I want to introduce new features, will show me where I can reduce my workload to keep things balanced. My thanks in advance for voting on both! Feel free to suggest something else in the comments if your pick is not listed, as I am limited to 5 choices by the poll format.
As a quick reminder: this chapter will go behind the paywall 60 days after publication. Don’t miss the chance to read the next chapter for free by subscribing for email updates!
Okay, that’s it! On with the chapter!
Keaton
I was on fire, body and soul.
Mr. Harvey’s hand circled my jaw and tilted my head up toward his. I rose onto my toes to reach him easier, to press myself up against his heated mouth. Mr. Harvey’s – no – Olly’s lips were smooth and compelling, a silent order I was only too happy to comply with. I strained to be closer to him, to press the heat of his body against me, to entice him into a deeper kiss. I parted my lips for him and he kissed me deeper, deeper, deeper. Every cell in my body cried out yes and more and finally!
There was a loud knock on the office doors.
We sprang apart as if we’d been electrocuted. Olly stared at me for a long, wild moment and then abruptly turned, his cheeks stained with two spots of red high up. He stalked to his bookcase and stood staring at it, hands on hips, as though there was something fascinating there that he needed to check on. I darted back behind my desk and dropped into my chair.
“Come in!” I called out, my voice still a little too high-pitched and breathy, but there was nothing that I could do about that now.
The doors opened and I had never focused so hard on my computer screen before.
I couldn’t even imagine what I looked like. Bright pink, probably, and maybe my hair was mussed from Olly’s hand. At least I was known for having messy hair in the first place and no one would probably bat an eyelid about that. But Olly…
I was worried about those red spots on his cheeks and what it would mean if someone else saw them.
“Hey, boss,” Ace said casually, walking into the room. If there was a vibe to pick up on, he didn’t seem to. “I’ve got sponsors on the line right now wanting to put a new Ridley Angus deal in place. It would match the same amount we were getting from the non-alcoholic people and some, and it won’t be touched by any of this controversy, but we’ve got to move on it today.”
Olly turned around – and my heart caught in my throat.
He looked… normal. Absolutely normal. Cold and unruffled and unemotional. His face was completely blank as it almost always seemed to be. “Is the deal a good one? For Ridley?”
“Yeah,” Ace grinned. “They only want half the social media commitment the other guys did. If anything, this is an upgrade. This scandal might have actually done us a favor. All the vultures are swooping in to get a good deal, not realizing I’m actually charging them more.”
“Good.” Olly nodded once. “You can handle it.”
Ace’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re going to let me do this on my own?”
Olly tilted his head. “Aren’t you ready?”
“I’m absolutely ready, and you know I am,” Ace beamed. “Born ready. Can I borrow Keaton to get the paperwork done?”
“No,” Olly said, and his eyes blazed. “You’re never borrowing Keaton again. I need him.”
“Uh, okay,” Ace said. He glanced back and forth between us. I wrenched my eyes back to my computer screen and prayed to any hope I had in the entire galaxy that my face wouldn’t give me away. “Well, I’m not waiting for you to change your mind. I’m going to go finalize the deal. Thanks, boss!”
And he was gone.
Leaving Olly and me alone again.
Except that Ace hadn’t actually closed the doors behind him, so we were far from being in a private space.
I got up from my desk, scrambling over to shut them – and paused with my hands on the door handles.
Did I really want this? After I had just gotten my job back, did I want to risk it again in order to have one more kiss?
The answer that surged through me almost shocked me with its strength.
Yes.
For a kiss like that, hell yes, I did.
I closed the doors and turned back to face him.
Olly was still standing on the other side of the room with his back to the bookcase and his hands in his pockets. He was watching me carefully, the way you might watch a stray dog to figure out if it was going to bite you or come home to lay at your feet.
He didn’t need to worry about which side I was going to come out on.
“He can’t borrow me ever again,” I said, biting my lower lip.
Olly’s eyes were drawn down to the motion of my teeth. “No,” he confirmed.
I took a few steps forward. “You need me right here,” I said.
“I do,” he replied. He waited for me to come to him. He just stood there – immovable, immutable, silent. The same Oliver Harvey I had met when I had walked through the doors of this office for the first time, and yet so very different.
Because now there was a possibility – more than just a possibility – that he was mine.
“Well,” I said. I swept my tongue over the place I had been biting and stepped again, almost closing the distance between us entirely – but not quite. “I’m here.”
He didn’t need another prompt.
Olly surged forward and caught me in his arms, enveloping me in another crushing kiss that was anything but overpowering. It was comforting, somehow, to have all that strength engaged only in showering me with affection when it could have bruised me instead. His hand slipped back into my hair and caught on my curls and tugged just slightly, tilting my head up higher and opening me up to him. His tongue slid into my mouth and mine rose to meet it, every nerve in my body dancing with electrified heat as his other hand slid around my waist. Both of mine landed on his solid, warm chest, feeling the thick muscles of his torso underneath them.
We broke apart and I gasped for breath. I had forgotten to breathe the whole time his mouth was on mine. Just completely forgotten. Like I couldn’t even remember how to be a functioning human with his scent all over me and his body burning holes in mine wherever we touched.
“Shit,” Olly muttered as he stroked the side of my face.
I burst out into a hysterical laugh. “That’s what you say after you kiss me for the first – well, second time?”
“Yes,” Olly muttered. “Because this shouldn’t happen. I tried not to let it happen.”
His words only made my heart pound harder in my chest. I slipped my hands down to his hips and pushed myself closer against him so he could feel it. “So, you wanted this? I mean, not just today?”
“The whole time,” he said. His eyes flashed with possessive fury at the reminder of how much he had been holding himself back. “Every day.”
Making me move my desk into his room where I was under his view all day and every day.
Telling me to stay late and come in early to match his hours.
Taking me to dinner with Caleb Coleman. Making me part of the inner circle.
All of it – because he had been feeling the same way I had?
“Me, too,” I whispered.
He took a deep breath, shuddering lightly. “You’re sure you want this?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. I hesitated in retrospect. “Are you going to fire me, after all?”
“No,” he said. It wasn’t even a thought for him. I could tell by how quickly he answered. “But this will change things. Blur the line between work and personal life.”
“Not for them,” I said, nodding my head in the direction of the door. “I know you don’t want that. You’ll still be Mr. Harvey in front of them. I can keep it professional when I need to.”
He took another deep breath. It was like he was holding himself back from something with great effort. He didn’t try to let go or push me away. “Are you sure you want to? That this won’t complicate things too much for you?”
I reached up and answered him the best way I knew how. I pulled him down towards me, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck so I could reach his lips and kiss him again. The short hairs at the base of his skull tickled my fingers. He growled low in his throat, a sound of such need and desperation that it sent lightning bolts to the bottom of my stomach. I was hard, and I couldn’t help it – I pushed myself up against him, letting him feel it, letting him know what he was doing to me and how much I didn’t want him to stop.
“Christ,” he muttered when we broke for air again. He rested his forehead against mine momentarily. “You’re a minx.”
I wiggled my hips for good measure and laughed at the groan that burst from his throat. “I’m your minx.”
His eyes heated even more as they locked with mine. “Don’t you dare say that again.”
I tilted my head. “I can’t say that I’m your minx?”
“Don’t say you’re my anything,” he said, pushing me to arm’s length with a groan. “Not until the end of the working day.” His hands lingered on my shoulders as if he still couldn’t force himself to let go.
“Do you need me to schedule this in for you?” I teased him. “I’m in charge of your calendar, after all. I can put it in wherever you want.”
The phrase put it in did exactly what I had wanted – made him roll his eyes and then his shoulders as if he was an athlete getting ready for a big game, trying to throw off the distraction of his opponents. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. “The door’s not even locked.”
I grinned, ready to give him another sound bite that he might not forget for a while – but I was interrupted before I had even finished opening my mouth. Both he and I whipped our heads around to the source of the noise: my phone, ringing on my desk.
“Answer it,” he said, releasing his grip on my shoulders as if relieved to have been released from the magic spell that was binding us in place.
I chuckled and walked over, grabbing it off my desk. I sat down, giving him an appreciative once-over as I did that made him shudder. It was Clara’s name on my caller ID, but he had told me to answer it. Even if it was a personal call during working hours, I had the feeling that wasn’t going to bother him.
“Hey, Clar,” I said, answering the call and unable to take the smile out of my voice. I saw him sit down behind his own desk from the corner of my eye. “What’s up?”
“Keat,” she said, and the absolute misery in the way she said my name made everything else drop away abruptly.
“What is it?” I asked again, more urgently this time.
“They… they aren’t going ahead.”
It took me a long minute – longer than I wanted to admit – to figure out what she was talking about. So much had been going on today, and selfishly, all of it was about me. There was a second where some stupid part of my brain actually thought she might be talking about the new Ridley Angus deal.
“The pilot?” I asked. I felt the breath whooshing out of me. That was her dream.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice breaking into sobs. “The producers just called. They’re going with another concept, they said.”
I put one hand against my forehead, slumping with my elbow against the desk. “Can they do that?”
“We didn’t actually sign any contracts yet,” she said. “It was all just a verbal agreement. They can do whatever they want. I thought they were calling to set up the meeting so we could sign.”
“Oh, Clara…” I closed my eyes for a moment. Everything else seemed unimportant right now. There was no way I was going to tell her my happy news, even if Olly wasn’t listening in. She was devastated. Broken. “I’m so sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have let myself get so excited,” she said with a sob. “I really believed it was happening, but it’s never…”
“It’s going to happen!” I cut her off. “Don’t ever stop believing that it will. I believe in you, Clara. I do. You’re going to get this. It’s just a matter of time.”
“But the money…” she said. “That money would have changed everything.”
“I’m bringing in a wage,” I told her. And my job was safe – not that she ever knew it had been in jeopardy. “Don’t worry about that. Clara, look how close you got.”
“I know,” she wailed, sniffing even harder.
“No, I mean, look how close,” I said. “That means you have it. Don’t you see what that means? They were going to take a shot on you. So they changed their minds. That’s fine. It still means that they saw your potential. Someone else will see it again, and next time, it won’t fall through. It’s going to happen for you. I promise.”
“I just…” she broke off into tears for a few moments, during which I bit my lip and put my hand over my heart, convinced I could actually feel it breaking for her. I wished I was there with her in person so that I could give her a hug, but the next best thing I could do was to listen to her. “I’m going to call Nando.”
“Okay,” I said. I sighed. I wasn’t convinced he was the best person to lean on in hard times, but she had to find that out for herself. I knew from experience that she was never going to listen to her big brother in matters of the heart. “Call me back if you need to. I’ll see you tonight.”
She only sniffed a couple of times and then hung up the phone.
I glanced up.
“Tonight?” Olly said.
“My sister,” I explained. “She’s having a hard time. Why?”
He cleared his throat and looked down.
I grinned.
“Did you want to spend some time with me tonight?”
“Shut up and do some work,” Olly said.
“Okay,” I said. “Whatever you say, sir.”
And I knew my words had hit their mark when he growled at me, adjusted his tie like he was struggling to get enough air, and scowled across the room with the kind of look that, just a few hours ago, would have terrified me to the marrow of my bones.
Here ends this week’s chapter! What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. I really appreciate your comments - what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see next.
If you don’t have the energy to leave a comment today, please hit the heart button below and show me that you like what you’re reading. And if you want to really, seriously help out, hitting the reshare button is an incredible boost that will get this story in front of more eyeballs, for which you will have my undying gratitude.
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Progress Report
Note: Changes are in bold, comments in italics.
TOTAL SALES:
Don’t Move Out: ebook - 742, paperback - 8, KU pages read - 362,247 (238 pages = 1,522 equivalent full-book reads), free downloads - 6,304
Don’t Go Outside: ebook - 117, paperback - 6, KU pages read - 144,957 (222 pages = 652 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Fly Home: ebook - 64, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 88,265 (224 pages = 394 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Leave Town: ebook - 65, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 63,354 (299 pages = 211 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Check Out: ebook - 55, paperback - 2, KU pages read - 34,730 (192 pages = 180 equivalent full-book reads)
CC 1-5 Boxset: KU pages read - 15,917 (1,068 pages = 14 equivalent full-set reads)
Don’t Move Your Desk: ebook - 21, paperback - 1
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 483, paperback/hardback - 68, KU pages read - 371,980, free downloads - 546
WRITING:
Don’t Move Your Desk - written and edited fully, serialisation underway, all chapters queued up ready, ebook and paperback on sale
Kiss The Cook cover revealed, ebook ready, planning to launch preorder very soon, typeset done for paperback
Cook Up A Storm: full plot done, third draft done, beta draft underway
(Books 8+): 8 covers, themes, and titles done, Crowhill Kitchen release schedule and titles announced, all Kitchen characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up, all Club characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up, deep thoughts occurring about the potential next serial with a few choices on offer
SUBSTACK:
Subscribers: free - 62, paid - 2 plus 2 free trials
Followers: 253
By the way, please like this post if you enjoyed it and would like to see more! This helps me decide what to do for future content.
XO Rhiannon