Page 74 of Catfish

My eyes narrow. “What?”

“You know you can’t live without me.” She smiles—that pretty, sweet little smile that she does when she asks the Chinese delivery driver to bring her extra egg rolls. “One interview and I’ll shut up for—

“Fuck, one interview,” I gripe. “Geezus. I make the final call. No questions, no nagging, no anything. Got it?”

My assistant beams. “Got it.”

Fuck.

? Caught Up In You —38 Special ?

She’s here.

In my domain.

The place I tread around to plot my next move and turn my thoughts into actions. The space where I contemplate everything I’ve accomplished and foresee for the near future.

It’s just being cockblocked right now because Reagan Shelton is in my air space. The fucking spot that I built from the ground up.

Yeah, I’m having a hard time breathing right now.

I pull my tie away from my neck, feeling the skin along my collar start to itch. Emmy warned me—well, told me while bouncing on her toes—that Reagan was arriving today for an interview and advised she’d let me in on the details later.

Later—shit’s laughable.

I haven’t spoken to her through text messages in over a week—a fucking week of irritating hell.

Nine days from when I told her she didn’t have a spot in my life right now.

Nine days that I’ve laid in bed, thinking about how she’d look in lingerie and how I had so many other things I wanted to ask her.

I tried to break the cycle, the one that I didn’t realize I formed so quickly around her. But I’m trying to face it, she wasn’t a fucking moron and was probably already on to the next man trying to conquer himself a piece of what was her.

I honestly didn’t think not speaking to her would make that much of a change.

But, fuck me, it did.

It's taking everything in me right now to not move from my spot, inside my office, and go in there.

To see what she’s wearing.

To experience what her voice sounds like.

My temper has been flaring up for days. Em wants to murder me, has been with her eyes lately, and I feel slightly bad for it.

But hell, that woman dug her claws into my skin through a fucking phone, and I want her to sink them deeper just to know how it feels.

I hear a door lightly close from outside my door. The office is always deathly quiet, my employees are scared that I’ll lose my shit or something if they’re too loud. As though I yell at them all the time—I don’t.

I fucking glare.

Actions speak louder than words they say, right?

I begin to pace the floor in front of my desk like a caged lion.

This. Is. Utter. Bullshit.

I must be so far fucking gone with reality that I didn’t know that not actually fucking someone was going to make me lose hindsight of how much my dick has been neglected over the last few years.

---