Page 14 of Ruthless Love

“No,” I say quickly, but remembering it’s not really my decision to make, I turn my desperate eyes to Margot. “She can’t.”

“No, you can’t,” Margot says, locking eyes with Jean.

“But it’ll come out. You have to take my deposition.”

“For a kiss?” I scoff, dismissing the ridiculousness of the idea. “That would be a pretty short deposition, and hardly enough to build any sort of case on. But ...” I hate myself for going here, but I have to. “Was it only a kiss?”

Shrugging, Jean says, “He may have grinded against me.”

Now I’m suspicious, because that seems completely out of character for our vice president of pure professionalism to do at the office. “Just one kiss? Where?”

“On the lips,” she says, darting a look at me that can only mean she’s surprised I’m that much of an idiot.

“No, I mean where did this happen? In the building?”

“God, no,” she says, her expression appalled. “I would never. I was at Pixie’s, having a drink with friends and letting off some steam. He cozied up next to me, and we hit it off. What can I say? A little vodka ... his full lips and tight jeans. I do have needs, after all.”

Energized, I grab the pile of depositions, fanning through several tabbed pages until I find the one I’m looking for. Then I flip to the next. Then the next.

“Jean, all his Don Juan activities were done at the office. They all met here. Courted here. Fucked here. In offices. Janitor closets. Even in the copy room. Because we’re ancient enough to have one of those.”

I catch Margot’s unamused glare at me but ignore it.

Jean grabs the phone-book stack of paper, finding the same references I did. “You’re right.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure he knew your position at the company.”

Margot pats her hand. “Maybe he really likes you.”

I’m tempted to offer that maybe the douchebag’s just a fuck boy, but I refrain.

“Maybe,” Jean says softly.

My hand piles on top of theirs. “And since nothing happened at the office, and it was just one kiss, none of this needs to come out. At all. It’s not like you gave him a blow job in the bathroom.”

Studying my friend, I double down on my assumption that she’s the buttoned-up librarian we all assume she is.

With a hopeful and probably dirty grin, I ask, “Did you?”

“I don’t think so,” she says, tapping her fingers to her chin. “But I did have a few vodkas, and the night’s a blur.”

“So, it might not have been him at all?” I’m coaching her a little, just to get her out of her own head. I open my phone to a photo—the one with his dick in the frame. Seriously, that cock would make any woman forget his face.

“Well, I definitely have no recollection of that. So, maybe not. I guess.” Intrigued, she pulls my phone closer, then turns it sideways, wide-eyed as she enjoys the view.

“Maybe it was another smoking-hot cowboy you locked lips with.”

Jean expands the image and looks so closely at it that I’m half ready to offer her a magnifier, though the man practically jumps off the screen as it is. “When was this image taken?”

“Yesterday,” I say, wondering where she’s going with it.

Her nose crinkles as she cocks her head. “Oh my God. It’s not him. Now, I was three vodkas in, and they do bear a close resemblance. Dark eyes that go on for days. Scruff that made my lips raw and wanting more. But my mystery man definitely had a tattoo on his neck.”

“Oh yeah?” Margot asks. “What kind of tattoo?”

Jean leans in and we follow suit, eager for whatever national secrets she’s about to share. But then she struggles.

“I’m not sure. It’s all a little fuzzy. Maybe it was a star. Or a spider.”

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