The meeting finished half an hour ago. Damon was dressed in a clean shirt and suit. Thank God he had always kept spares in his office. Never thought he would need them for that reason though.

The announcement about Elena and he was made, and Elena stood up to introduce herself to everyone. Damon was pretty sure she told everyone where she was from and regaled her previous job history to them along with what she hoped to achieve here, but he didn't absorb a word because, honestly, he was stuck in his head, silently fuming over the shirt incident.

Thank God he wouldn't be seeing that woman again.

She was obviously crazy.

Who would write a note about how great the sex was? Writing that and her phone number on the back of his shirt, it was just crazy behaviour.

He could really have done without that happening the first time he saw Elena after all these years.

She looked at him like he was the same piece of shit that she had thought he was in Harvard, and he couldn't blame her.

He didn't get a chance to explain, not that his explanation would have had him coming off sounding great, because his mother ushered her out of the office, leaving him with Rose and Giuseppe, who thought it was highly amusing. Damon bet his father wouldn't be laughing about it to Lillian though.

And Damon knew for sure that he was in for a lecture from his mother.

Aside from the side-eyed stares she kept giving him during the meeting, he was treated to the "look right" stares before she and Giuseppe left to go to their meeting with their broker.

But he would deal with his mother later.

Right now, he needed to speak to Elena.

He wanted to talk to her after the meeting was done, but he couldn't get her alone for a second. Then, he had to take a business call on his cell, so he stepped out of the conference room, and when he came back, she was gone. He asked Rose if she knew where Elena was, and Rose told him Elena was up in her new office, checking it out.

So, here he was, on his way to Elena's office.

The door to Elena's office was opened when he approached. She had her back to him, staring out the window.

Her office used to belong to Richard Lockwood. He was Deputy CEO. He died suddenly a year and a half ago of a heart attack. His parents never refilled his position, and his office had stood empty ever since. They just distributed his work between themselves and Damon. Richard had worked for them forever, and he had been a good friend to them, so it hit them hard, losing him. It hit them all hard.

It was little weird to see Elena standing in here, in Richard's office. Damon half-expected to hear the sound of Richard's big, booming laughter.

The office was bare, except for Richard's old desk and chair.

Elena would need new furniture.

"You like the view?" Damon said in a soft voice so as not to startle her.

He saw her back stiffened at the sound of his voice, which wasn't a good sign, and then she looked at him over her shoulder before turning to face him.

"It is stunning."

So are you. The thought popped into Damon's head out of nowhere.

But he was right. Elena was stunning.

"You are going to need new furniture." He gestured to the sparse space.

Her eyes moved around. "Yeah."

"I will get my PA, Rose, to email you the link to the website of the office supplier we use. Just pick out what you need and let Rose know, and she will have it here for you when you start on Monday."

"That will be great. Thanks."

There was a brief lull of silence between them.

"Has my mother mentioned anything about hiring a PA for you?" Damon asked eventually.

Elena nodded. "Yes. Your mother has lined up some interviews for me, so I should be sorted soon."

"Good…great."

They slipped into silence again.

He just needed to say what he came here to say and then get out of here.

Why was it so hard to open his mouth?

"Look, Elena…" Damon rubbed a hand over his hair. "What happened earlier in my office…what you saw on the back of my shirt—"

"Is none of my business," Elena cut him off.

"I know, but I just want you to know that's not the norm for me. I'm never usually late or unprofessional in that way. It was just…" He couldn't exactly tell her that he was out, drinking at a bar, because he was freaking out over her starting work here and taking half of his job.

"Honestly, you don't have to explain, Damon."

"I think I do." Damon took a breath. "I know that we didn't get along great in Harvard—"

"Didn't we?" Elena tilted her head. The amusement dancing in her eyes surprised him.

Damon let loose a smile on his lips. "Come on, Elena, we both know I wasn't your favourite person back then, and you didn't exactly make that fact unknown to me."

Elena laughed, and the sound rans through his veins like alcohol in his bloodstream.

"Okay," she conceded, "I didn't like you. But you didn't like me either."

Damon cocked his head. "I liked you just fine—well, in the beginning until you incorrectly decided that I was an overprivileged prick and started hating on me."

The humour faded from her eyes, and he knew he had said the wrong thing and took them back a step.

She pressed her lips together, like she was holding back from saying something, and before whatever words she was fighting back could get out, he jumped in.

"Look, this isn't coming out right." He rubbed a hand over his face. "What I'm trying to say is, whatever happened back then or what we thought of each other doesn't matter. We are different people now. Harvard was forever ago. Neither of us knows the 2017 versions of each other, and I would really like for us to wipe the slate clean and start fresh from here."

"When you say 'wipe the slate clean,' do you mean, forget the sex note on the back of your shirt, too?"

"Jesus." Damon shook his head. "I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

Her lips twitched, like she was fighting a smile. "Probably not."

"In all seriousness, I just want you to know that was the first time anything like that has ever happened to me. It was just one of those screwup kind of days that happened on the worst day."

Her brows knitted together. "Me starting today is your worst day?"

"No!" Yes. Kind of. "No, I mean—"

"Damon."

"What?"

Elena smiled. "I'm messing with you."

"Oh. Right. Okay." Damon jammed his hands in his pants pockets. "Well, anyway, I just want you to know that I am sorry for what happened before, and I do always keep my personal life away from work. I'm all business when I'm here."

"Me, too," she said.

"That's good then—that we are on the same page." He freed hands from his pockets and walked towards her. His heart rate picked up, the closer he got to her.

Elena smelled feminine, floral and sweet. Like a bouquet of flowers. He wanted to bury his head in her neck and taste that scent on the tip of his tongue.

He put his hand out to her. "Clean slate," he said, staring straight into her big brown doe eyes.

Elena blinked once and then glanced down at his hand before looking back up to meet his eyes. She slipped her hand into his. Her hand was soft, and he was desperately trying not to wonder how that hand would feel around his body.

"Hi, clean slate. I'm Elena Gilbert."

"Damon Salvatore." He grinned and shook her hand, thinking that Elena working here might not be the worst thing in the world after all.

x x x

It was Friday afternoon, and Damon was knee deep in work when there was a tap at his door.

He looked up from his computer screen to see Elena standing in his office doorway. She was looking exceptionally, torturously gorgeous in a black pencil skirt with a deep red silk shirt tucked into it, showing off her tiny waist and her more-than-a-handful rack. To top off his torment, her lips were painted the same shade as her shirt, and she was wearing black heels on her feet. Her hair was pinned up, begging for him to free it and run his fingers through it.

Jesus. He really needed another distraction.

And he really needed to stop thinking of her in a sexual way.

But it was tough. Really tough.

"Hey." He smiled. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. Your mother said you have the file on Burton. I was hoping to take it home this weekend, so I can become familiar with them."

Burton was one of their largest distributors.

They had stores across the country, but they also had in-store distributors in cities where they didn't have a physical store.

Elena chewed on her lip, like she was nervous for some reason, and it was doing no good for Damon's self-control.

No sex with co-workers. No sex with co-workers. Damon reminded himself.

He clearly needed to keep repeating that to himself when he was around Elena, because his body didn't seem to be getting the message.

"Sure." He got up from his chair and went to get the file off the shelf. He walked over to her and handed her the file.

"Thanks," she said, holding it to her chest.

She was still lingering in his doorway, so Damon leaned back against his desk to face her.

"How's your first week been?" he asked her.

"Great." Elena gave him a smile. "Really great."

"My mother is not overloading you with information, is she? She is awesome, but she has a tendency to forget that not everyone knows as much about this company as she does."

"No, she has been great. I like her a lot. And your dad, too."

Damon gave her a fleeting smile. "Yeah, they are both pretty awesome."

"Must feel strange for you—them retiring. After working here with them for so long."

"Yeah, it will be strange, but I'm looking forward to the challenge of running this company. With your help, of course," he added.

"Of course." Her lips quirked at the corner. She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe. "Look, I heard something today, and I don't know if it is just office gossip, but I wanted to check. You were originally supposed to run the company yourself, and then your parents recruited me to work with you, as they felt you needed a female counterbalance, but they didn't tell you until I was actually hired."

Irritation flashed through Damon. He crossed a leg over his other and folded his arms as he took a breath. "That's pretty much it, yeah."

Her shoulders sagged a little. "Okay, well, I just wanted you to know that I didn't know. I mean, your parents didn't keep anything from me when they offered me the job. I knew I would be working with you, but I wasn't aware that you didn't know."

"You knew you would be working with me, yet you still took the job?" He lilted his voice, so she knew he was teasing, and honestly, he was ready to move the conversation away from the subject. It was still a sore one with him.

"Shocker, huh?" Elena widened her eyes. "But, honestly, the pay package and benefits were way too good to refuse."

That made him chuckled. "You were at Forever before here. Managing Director of Marketing, right?"

Forever was a female clothing company.

"Yeah."

"You have done well for yourself since college."

Elena shrugged, as if dismissing his words. "So have you."

Damon didn't know if that was a dig or not, so he had chosen to go with the latter, and he was right to do so because she followed it with, "I heard that you went to Stamford after Harvard. Then, you started here, in the bottom ranks, and worked your way up to where you are now."

"Who told you that?"

"Your mother." She smiled. "She also said that you probably had it harder than any employee here, as you felt you had to prove that you had earned everything and you weren't just given it."

It was his turn to give a shrug. "Sounds like my mother has been bragging about me."

"She is proud of you."

It was nice to hear that. Damon knew his parents were proud of him, but hearing it never grew old.

There was a lull between them. But it was not the awkward lull that they had last week when he went to her office. And, this time, they were looking at each other. Neither looking away. And this silence was definitely filled with something…

"So, I should…" Elena thumbed over her shoulder, not finishing her sentence.

"Yeah." Damon cleared his throat. "I really need to get on with this; otherwise, I will be here all night." He rounded his desk and sat down in his chair.

"Thanks for this." Elena lifted the folder away from her chest before clasping it back to her.

As she turned away, Damon felt the weird urge to keep her here even if for just one more moment.

"Did you manage to get a PA sorted?" he asked her.

She stopped and turned back to him. "Yeah." She smiled. "I interviewed three candidates yesterday, and there was one who was a standout—Lexi. I called her up earlier to offer her the position, and she accepted. Great thing is, she can start on Monday, as she had been temping and her temp job finished last week."

"That's great, Elena. I hope she's as good a PA for you as Rose is for me."

Seriously, there was nothing more valuable than a great PA. Rose was like gold dust. Great PAs were hard to come by. If Rose ever decided to leave him, he wouldn't be too proud to get on his knees and beg her to stay.

"Answer wisely, Elena." Rose's voice carried through to his office from her desk outside.

Elena chuckled and glanced over her shoulder, out of his office and at Rose. "I don't think it's possible to find a better PA than you," Elena said to her.

Then, she looked back at Damon, bit the corner of her painted lip, and winked. It was the hottest thing Damon had ever seen.

She was the hottest thing he had ever seen.

And his heart was racing which was unusual.

He had seen a lot of hot women but his heart had never raced. Not like this.

"Thanks again for this." Elena tapped the folder with her fingers. "Have a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday."

"Yeah," he muttered.

Damon's heart was racing because Elena bit her lip and winked at him.

That hadn't happened to him in…well, ever.

Seriously, what the hell was going on?

Damon was not one of those guys who was all about the forbidden fruit and the chase. He was not the kind of guy who wanted something purely because he couldn't have it.

He didn't have to go after the unobtainable because there was more than enough of the obtainable out there for him.

In the past, there had been women who worked here, sexy and beautiful women, who he would have happily slept with but it never bothered him that he couldn't, and he definitely didn't racing heart beats because of a lip bite and wink from them.

He just didn't understand what was going on with him at the moment.

It must be stress. It had to be. Damon reassured himself.

He had a lot going on this past week.

It had to be. There was no other explanation for it.

He left the office late on Friday, as his work had taken him twice as long because his mind kept drifting to thoughts of Elena.

Get a grip of yourself, Damon.

He kept on reminding himself that he would never sleep with his staff.

But, after Elena left his office, all he could think of was her. He couldn't get thoughts of her out of his head. Even in the shower of my private bathroom, under the hot spray, he couldn't stop thinking of her. That was when he knew he was getting crazy.

He stopped off in the diner near his apartment building to grab a takeout burger. The waitress who served him was pretty. Although not as pretty as Elena, she was still a pretty doll.

She slipped him her number as she handed him the burger.

Damon wasn't going to call her. But then he got home, and while he ate his burger and drank a beer, Elena's smile and wink kept playing in his mind.

So, he called the takeout girl and went to her place after her shift ended.

He needed to have sex. He needed the release. He needed to forget about Elena.

Only it didn't make him feel as good as he had been hoping it would. He had this weird feeling in his chest somehow. If he didn't know better, he might say it was…guilt.

Which was weird because he had nothing to feel guilty about. Why should he feel guilty about having casual sex? He was single.

Afterward, Damon went back to his apartment and laid awake, thinking about Elena.

He figured he would be okay by Saturday night. Once he was out with the boys, he would be back to normal.

But he was wrong.

Damon wasn't feeling it. So, for the first time in a really long time, he went home alone feeling terrible.

He honestly didn't know what the hell was going on with him.

It must be a blip. Maybe he was having some kind of early-thirties crisis.

He figured he just needed to avoid seeing Elena as much as possible, which was hard, considering he had to work with her. But, if he kept her at arm's and eye's length, then he would get over this little obsession that he had with her, and things would go back to normal.


Thank you so much for the support and wonderful reviews. Without the support from my readers, I don't think I will have the motivation to continue writing Delena stories:) You guys/gals are the best! I will be away for a few days but I promise I will write a few chapters in the next week or so. Until then:)