Page 20 of Between the Lines

“We’re not doing this.” If only she felt as sure as she sounded. If he so much as crooked a finger at her, she’d strip off all her clothes and lie down on the desk for him to play with. “It’s not fair to ask that of me.”

Theo looked as though she’d clocked him in the head. He, too, was breathing hard, and when she saw the outline of his erection pressing against those fancy suit pants, she almost gave in again.

“I have to go.” Shaking her head, she blindly pushed her way out of the office, heading straight for the elevator doors. Once inside, she turned and saw the satisfied smirk on Ava’s face, realizing that she must have been the woman she’d caught with Theo. She should have felt jealousy, but instead the memory sent another bolt of heat through her. So long feeling nothing, and the sudden onslaught meant she was about to self-combust. But she held firm, and as the elevator doors closed, she pressed her damp forehead to the chilly steel of the elevator wall.

What the hell was she going to do?

“Want to explain to me what that was about?”

Theo was slouched in the chair at his desk, a can of icy club soda open in front of him. He desperately wished that it was three fingers of hideously expensive scotch.

“Is this where you spank me for not telling you that I knew Jo?” he asked wryly as John came in, closing the door briskly behind him.

The other man rolled his eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen. But yes, I’d like an explanation. You’re paying me a lot of money to help get this company off the ground, Theo, and I’m not interested in being blindsided with whatever shit that was that you just pulled.”

Theo took a large swallow of his club soda. It was flat and tasteless—why did he drink this shit, anyway?

John remained silent. Theo knew the tactic well—he often used it himself to make the other person talk first, to establish power.

He didn’t have enough energy to fight it.

“Jo was my girlfriend when I was nineteen, but I’ve known her family since I was a kid. We lived next door to each other.”

“And what did you do to piss her off like that?”

“What makes you think I did something?”

John snorted inelegantly. Reaching across to the sleek minifridge, he pulled out a club soda for himself. He grimaced after he took a sip. “This stuff is nasty.”

Theo shrugged. “I realized that I wasn’t good for her, and I left.”

John cocked his head, as if waiting for the rest of the story. When he realized that there wasn’t any, he slammed his can down on the desk.

“Let me guess—you haven’t talked to her in all this time, am I right?” Theo didn’t answer, but John was already building up a head of steam. “And you lured her here with a job offer in the hopes that—what? She’d be so thrilled at your return that she’d jump right back into your arms?”

Well...yeah, that had essentially been his plan. Hearing it come from someone else, though, made Theo wince.

He hadn’t thought that out very well. With Jo’s legendary temper, he was lucky she hadn’t pushed him through the window.

“You.” John pointed a finger at him before rising to pour the rest of his club soda into a plant. “You don’t approach her about the job again. I’ll handle that end so that we have a hope in hell that she takes the job, assuming you haven’t fucked that up beyond repair. That blog of hers is the ticket to a successful launch, Theo, and that is my very expensive, professional opinion.”

Theo cast his colleague as a sidelong stare. “You done yet?”

“Not even a little,” John replied cheerfully, sitting down again and bracing his elbows on his knees. “Now, as someone who is an absolute magnet for the ladies—”

Theo interrupted him with a snort before waving his hand through the air. “Sorry. Carry on, Casanova.”

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, you can’t just come back after something like that and expect a woman to jump for joy at your mere presence.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” Theo burst out, frustrated. “She’s the most difficult woman in existence, ever.”

“Ah, but the greater the challenge, the sweeter the reward.” John grunted when Theo furrowed his brow. “You know, for the brilliant, maverick owner of a start-up valued at over ten million dollars, you can be an idiot.” Standing, he tossed the empty can into the recycling bin, then leaned over the desk to pat Theo on the shoulder.

“Woo her, my man. Woo her like you’ve never wooed before.”

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