Page 11 of Sexy Bad Valentine

CHAPTER FOUR

MAX

“What did you do, Dee?” I growl down the phone line. The front door claps shut behind Evie as she leaves before our evening could manage to start. “First Caroline, and now I find out you cast the woman for Puppy Love.”

“Hello to you too, brother,” Deanna says snottily. “And yes, I cast the role.”

“You were leaving that to me. The least you could have done is tell me about it. Instead I had to hear the news from...” I bite the inside of my cheek and glare at the wall, imagining it’s Deanna I’m looking at. “You did this on purpose.”

“You promised to leave my neighbors alone.”

“I haven’t done anything to your damn neighbors.”

“No?” She says in a sugary sweet way. “I had Kelly send me the application forms since you were taking so long. And what do I find? One of my neighbors applied, and where are you now? At my house, probably sniffing around this desperate and dateless girl.”

“Don’t talk about her like she’s pitiful, Dee. She’s not. I can’t believe you didn’t at least discuss this with me.”

“Maxwell.” She sighs as though I’m a teenager again. A sound I haven’t heard since I actually was in my teens, and she was raising me. “I love you. You know that.”

“I know, Dee.”

“But you have a track record. A long, long, long track record of only being interested up to a point when it comes to pretty girls. And this one; I looked her up. She’s pretty. I can definitely see that. But she’s also my neighbor. As is her employer, Garrett Frost, and his brother Paynter, and their other brother, James. Can you see why I had no choice but to put her on the show and out of your way? At least I know you’ll behave where business is concerned because you won’t risk the company.”

“Sometimes your mind works in devious ways, Dee.” I shake my head at how thoroughly outmanoeuvred I am, and sag into an armchair.

“It’s for your own good,” she says. “Besides what am I really taking away from you? One measly night’s entertainment?”

I’m not so sure one night and Evie belong in the same sentence.

***

I check my watch for the twelfth time in ten minutes. Another five and I’m due to meet up with Evie for the first part of shooting. The interview. She doesn’t know that I’m going to be here, that I’m one of the people who put this damn program together. I was too shocked when she told me she’d taken the role to come clean. And texting her? I hadn’t had the guts to tell her why I’d reacted so badly to her announcement, because I don’t know that I could have kept things professional.

“Almost time,” Kelly says, coming up behind me.

“Is it?” I glance at my watch again before turning to my admin.

“You seem out of sorts,” she says. “Is there anything I can get for you before we begin?”

Unless you can somehow deliver me out of this mess, not really. “It’s nothing.”

“Of course.” She nods as her attention moves to her iPad. “Okay, Miss Lane is here now. You’re supposed to meet with her. Go over a few details of what’s expected from her in this interview, and then it’s all up to the crew.”

“I know that,” I snap.

She lifts her gaze from the device, stares at me as though I’ve suddenly grown an extra head. I’ve never barked at her before, never been wound up so much over a girl I barely know before.

“Sorry.” I roll my neck, try to loosen the knot forming in the middle of my shoulder blades.

“Perhaps you would like me to step in for you?” she offers.

“Yes,” I agree, ready to retreat so I don’t have to see Evie’s face when she realizes the reason I’ve gone silent is because finding her someone else to date is now my priority. “That would probably be for the best.”

“I’ll handle it,” Kelly says as she marches down the hallway toward the room where the interview will take place. “It’s going to go off without a hitch.”

Forty minutes later, I’m sitting in my office staring out the wall of windows behind my desk. It’s impossible to concentrate with Evie two floors below me. I pick up my phone, fiddle with it, put it down. What am I going to do? Text her? There’s no point when I can’t see her again. I pick it up again and scroll through the messages we shared like I have been doing these past couple of days. Can’t put my finger on it, but something about her makes it impossible for me to not want more time with her. I have to know who she is. I bounce out of my chair, unable to contain the urge to go to the interview. If I’m going to avoid her I need to leave the office.

A short elevator ride later, I stride across the lobby and out into the frigid air. A walk will clear my head. I’ll grab a coffee or something. I’ll chat up some girl who will batt her eyelashes and wait for me to initiate something more. Perhaps this one with the holey white beanie and flowing blonde hair and hips that make her cute little ass bounce as she walks. “Evie?”

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