Chapter 4: Second Encounter

Florence didn’t sleep well for the next couple of days. Every time she fell asleep, she would have the same dream again, and it was starting to really worry her.

It made no sense that she was dreaming about Scott. She only met the guy once and it wasn’t even a nice encounter. Why would she dream about him, that they were even married?

It didn’t help the fact that everyone at NYU seemed to be talking about him lately. Every time Florence arrived at work, she’d overhear someone mentioning his name or his company. It was annoying and shifted her mood completely.

Emma wasn’t helping either. Florence didn’t believe her friend could read minds, of course, but coincidentally, she seemed to discover new things about him every day and decided to share them with Florence.

If she was being honest to herself, she was just pretending she didn’t care and didn’t want to listen. But deep down, her entire body stiffened every time his name was mentioned. She wanted to know everything she could about him, even if it didn’t mean anything.

“You know what I found out?” Emma whispered, turning her chair to face Florence as soon as their coworker left the room.

“Hmm?” Florence replied, not giving her much attention since she was certain Emma was going to share another cheap gossip about Scott.

“Well, you’ll probably want to give me more attention for this one,” Emma teased, crossing her arms in front of her chest and staring at Florence until she dropped whatever she was doing and gave Emma her full attention.

Florence took a deep breath and put on her best fake smile.

“What is it this time, Emma? Are you going to tell me that he has a hidden family in Thailand or that he has a secret son? These gossips are ridiculous, I don’t even know why you even listen to them,” Florence rolled her eyes and mimicked her friend’s pose.

“No?” Emma sounded offended. “And I don’t believe these gossips either, it’s just fun to share them with you. Who would I talk to about this? Anyway, this is the real deal, came from an official source.”

“Ok, spit it out then. What official source is this?” Florence waited, trying hard to hide her interest.

“NYU former students’ records. That’s right. The man graduated here,” Emma told her. Florence couldn’t help but feel intrigued and curious.

“Really? Why have we never heard about this?”

Emma shrugged.

“Go figure. It’s been a while since he graduated, even before we did. And to be honest, I found it a bit hard to find any files about him.”

Florence blinked.

“Did you… search him up?”

“Of course, dummy. What do you think? We have the gold in our hands, access to all the documents from the university.”

“Ok, that makes sense. So… What did you discover? Anything juicy?”

She hoped not. She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t dying to hear about his college days when he was probably surrounded by young women on campus trying to end up in his bed.

“Well, ok, where to start? Apparently, he’s very grateful to a lot of the professors and staff here. He lost both his parents at a young age and was raised by his grandfather. Since the old man was the CEO of the company back then, Scott didn’t have the family around him much, so he was a bit of a loner.”

Florence ignored the discomfort in her stomach.

“Is he an only child?” she asked, feeling sorry for him.

“Yes. He has a younger cousin, but I couldn’t find anything about him. I think he went abroad at a young age or whatever. They don’t seem to be close though. Anyway,” she continued. “Basically, the donations are a way for him to pay back what the teachers did for him when he needed it. He was always a good student, but I found an interview he gave a few years ago where he thanked them. He’s very sweet, really.”

Florence hummed in response, not trusting her voice to say anything. She was so into his story and wanted to know so much more that she was afraid she’d give herself away to Emma if she asked something more.

“Since he took over his grandad's company, he promised to help NYU and also other universities around the country. Honestly, I don’t get why someone so perfect can even exist. This is so unfair,” Emma complained, looking at the ceiling as if she was waiting for God to give her an answer.

“That's very nice of him,” Florence managed to say. “It sounds like he is a good man after all. Not like the CEOs we’re used to hearing about.”

“Right?” Emma smiled, twisting a strand of her curly hair in her finger. “So, do you wanna have lunch together today? I’m dying to eat some tacos from that new restaurant across the street. What do you say? Things are pretty calm here today. It shouldn’t be a problem for us to leave together.”

Florence looked around and made sure that things were indeed calm. Their boss was not on campus that week, so Florence could relax a bit more. The man knew how to be a real pain in the a*s when he wanted to.

“I could eat some tacos,” she replied, turning off her computer screen and grabbing her purse. “Do you think they have some burritos too?”

Emma smiled and followed her outside.

“It’d be weird if a Mexican restaurant didn’t have burritos, don’t you think?” she teased Florence while elbowing her ribs.

Florence grimaced at her.

“Very funny.”

When they got to the entrance of the building though, another commotion seemed to be taking place. But this time, it didn’t seem like it was made up of students, and it didn’t take long for Florence to understand why.

The Provost was welcoming an entourage of people in suits and Florence’s jaw almost dropped to the floor when she saw someone familiar among them.

It had been a few days since she met Scott for the first time. And she didn’t think she was going to see him so soon again. Or ever.

“Is that…?” Emma’s voice whispered by her side, but the girl stopped her sentence midway when Scott’s eyes found Florence’s with a powerful and intense gaze.

And if that wasn’t enough to shock both Florence and Emma, the fact that Scott threw at her the most beautiful and stunning smile made both women gasp and stop dead in their tracks.

“What was that? Did he just… smile at you?” Emma asked in a low voice, her eyes still fixed on the man a few feet away from them. “What was that about?”

Florence also wanted an answer to that question, but Emma was giving signs that she was about to freak out and get overexcited about it, so Florence simply broke eye contact with him and grabbed her friend by the arm, pulling her outside in a hurry.

The last thing she needed was Emma making a scene in front of Scott.

However, she’d love it if someone could explain to her why Scott smiled at her that way. It didn’t seem like a simple smile between two people that had met each other previously. It seemed different somehow, even though she didn’t know why.

Maybe she was just overthinking.