Page 65 of Dear Grumpy Boss

I shook my head. “If you’d like my thoughts, I’ll email you.”

Not all my thoughts. If I emailed those, I would be fired.

He dipped his chin. “Are you sure? There’s a restaurant I like to eat at whenever I’m in town. It’s walking distance and—”

“I’m sure, Weston. If you don’t want to go alone, maybe Marisol will join you. I’m sure she’d be eager for it.”

As he was about to speak, my room service arrived. Weston had to move aside to let the man carrying my dinner into my room. He placed it on the coffee table and thanked me when I tipped him.

In those thirty seconds of distraction, Weston had stepped into my room, closing the door after the server left.

I frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

“Are you angry at me?” he asked.

With a sigh, I sat down on the small couch and tucked my legs underneath me, holding a pillow in my lap. “No. I’m tired and don’t want to work for the rest of the night.”

“Being around me is work?”

“Why are you pressing this?” I held out my hand and let it fall heavily. “You asked me to dinner to discuss work-related topics. I’m not interested in doing that tonight. That has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

He pushed off the wall beside the door and strode toward me. “Is that right?”

“It is.”

“Then why bring up Marisol?”

“Why wouldn’t I? She’s your colleague and you seem to have a lot to say to each other. So much so I had to ride in an entirely different vehicle with two men I was introduced to today. I’d think you’d have plenty to talk about over dinner.”

He went still for two seconds, then his head bowed and he muttered a curse. “That shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

“It’s fine, Weston.”

“No, it isn’t. I asked you to come out here. I should have made sure you were comfortable riding with Jeff and Dev. That won’t happen tomorrow.”

It struck me hard that he didn’t say heshouldn’thave let Marisol take my spot in his car. Was I overreacting? I supposed it wasn’t so ludicrous for Weston to drive his coworker while I rode with other coworkers.

But no. At the very least, he should have said something. Checked in with me. I wasn’t going to gaslight myself into believing it had been okay for him to ditch me with Dev and Jeff, some of the least delightful men I’d ever met.

I put on my best smile. “I’ll be prepared for it tomorrow. No biggie.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like when you do that.”

“What?”

“Act like you’re okay when you aren’t.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you’d like me to do.”

Rounding the coffee table, he dropped into the armchair diagonal to me. He sat on the edge of the cushion, bracing his elbows on his knees.

“Elise.” He pressed his palms together and leveled me with a direct stare. Then he spoke to me like I was a child having a tantrum. “If you felt neglected today, or you’re angry at me for speaking to my managers and not you, you’ll have to work through that. I made a mistake with the car situation, but the reality is this trip isn’t about you and me. I’m here to touch base with my suppliers and my West Coast team. You’re here to find content and conduct interviews for the catalog. That’s it. This isn’t a social trip. We’re not on vacation. You get that, right?”

I blinked at him, unwilling to let him see his soft admonishment felt like a stinging whip across already tender skin. How dare he beg me to let him hold me one last time then behave like it had never happened.

“I do get that. Do you get that you’re inmyhotel room, pressing me even though I asked you to stop? I’ve told you more than once everything is fine, but you’re still here, which I don’t understand. Would you have forced your way into another employee’s hotel room?”

“No,” he uttered.

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