Page 81 of Sleeping with the Frenemy

“I see that the culture of Europe did you well.” His eyes tracked down her body, pausing at her chest and groin. “Tell me, what did you think of my home country? You must’ve loved Italy.”

It had been her least favorite place, the racism was set to blatant there, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “It was beautiful and of course the food was to die for.”

He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. “You let me know when you want to go back. I’ll take you. I have a gorgeous villa there.” Something in his tone let her know that he wasn’t offering out of the goodness of his heart. Payment of some kind was expected in return.

Sofi’s eyes shot to her father. Surely, he’d say something now. A man older than him had just propositioned his only daughter in a room full of their colleagues. But he said nothing and the look on his face told her that she’d better not say anything either.

“Let’s get started,” was all he said. “Sofi has some great ideas of how we can bring Costa watches to a new level. Right, mi reina?”

Sofi stayed quiet because she obviously didn’t. Until that moment, she’d forgotten what the company even sold. All that she could think of was that she wanted out. She didn’t want to pull a whole presentation out of her ass. She didn’t want to take over the account. She didn’t want to play nice with the pervy asswipe. She didn’t even want to be in the building. She was totally overwhelmed by everything she didn’t want.

Her pulse, which had never slowed, rose to what had to be a dangerous level. Her vision went blurry while her fingers and toes began to tingle. She almost felt like her soul was leaving her body. Then her unsettled stomach made an incredibly loud bubbling noise, and everyone looked at her in alarm.

“Excuse me a second,” she managed to eke out of her numb, cold lips. On shaky legs, she darted for the door. She heard her dad call her name in offended anger, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. As soon as she turned the corner, she started running. She was sure she scared the shit out of Malorie, if the woman’s screech was anything to go by, but she didn’t care. She went straight to her office, snatched her purse, notebook, and laptop off her desk and then rushed back out the door. She decided to let her dad step in and solve the problems he’d created for once.

She saw Malorie standing by the front desk wringing her hands. “Sofi, your dad—”

Sofi cut her off. “I don’t care what he has to say right now. You can tell him that I quit.” With that she turned to the elevator and hit the down button. She was going to go home, open a bottle of her favorite pineapple-flavored moscato, and start putting together a business plan for her event planning idea. It had become clearer to her than ever that her time at her father’s company was over. She just couldn’t do it anymore. She didn’t have the patience. She was tired. She didn’t have the energy to pretend to be something she wasn’t anymore. Besides, Leo had made a really good point when he told her that she’d made the company more money than her father had spent on her education. She wasn’t beholden to him anymore, even though she’d felt like she was.

It was time for her to focus on herself.

Sofi left the building and hopped in her car where she continued to call Leo. Every time it went to voicemail. By the time she’d gotten to the building she was concerned. What if something had happened and he was currently lying in a pool of his own blood somewhere? She parked and rushed up the stairs to the apartment only to find it empty. She called him again and heard buzzing. She followed the sound to the couch where his phone was peeking out from the cushions. Okay. Well, that explained why he hadn’t answered her, but where the hell was he? She knew he didn’t work at the CFD that day. She went to look for him at the distillery. She’d just entered the doors when she ran into Liam.

She hadn’t ever spent any amount of time alone with him, so she didn’t exactly know what to do around him. “Oh hi,” she said.

“Hey, Sofi.” He looked down at his phone and back up at her. One of his eyebrows rose.

She could guess that he was wondering why she was there so early and wanted to know if everything was okay. No. It was not. But she wasn’t going to talk to him about that. She wanted to talk to Leo. “I’m just looking for Leo. He forgot his phone upstairs.”

“He stopped by earlier to leave Tostón with me.” He gestured toward the doors that led to his and Kamilah’s place. “He said that he had something to do. He looked in a hurry.”

That could mean just about anything when it came to Leo, but she figured that he must’ve forgotten that he was needed somewhere and had to rush out.

He gave Sofi another once-over. “Everything okay?”

Sofi was shocked that he’d asked. Liam was not the type to offer people a compassionate ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on, especially not her. They were still clearly working things out between them, not that they’d ever gotten along well anyway, but it had definitely gotten worse after Sofi’s absence. He blamed her for hurting Kamilah, which cool because she blamed him for the same thing.

They were just going to have to get over it.

Sofi would get over the fact that her best friend was in love with the same guy who’d hurt her many times for over fifteen years and Liam would get over the fact that she’d ghosted his fiancée for over a year. They had to otherwise they’d make Kamilah miserable, and she didn’t deserve that. To that end, Sofi accepted the olive branch Liam was extending.

“I’m having a bit of an afternoon, but I’ll be fine,” she said.

“Of course you’ll be fine.”

She wasn’t sure if it was because of what just happened at work or because of who she was talking to, but that felt like an attack. “What does that mean?” she barked with more attitude than necessary.

Liam’s eyes widened. “I meant that you’re the type of person who will keep going no matter what. That’s why I know you’ll be fine.”

“Oh.” That was actually a really nice thing to say. “Sorry.” Okay. Fine. Maybe Sofi could understand her best friend’s obsession with this guy. He didn’t say much, but when he wanted to he could be sweet. “And thank you, Liam. I needed to hear that.” But she couldn’t help but be bothered that she’d had to hear it from him, the guy she barely got along with, instead of the one she was dating.

She knew Leo hadn’t purposefully forgotten his phone and she knew that he had no reason to suspect she’d need him in the middle of the day. However, she still felt like he’d let her down. Sofi was not the type of woman to look for comfort from others. She tended to keep things to herself. And yet, here she was searching for the person she’d decided to share her life with only to still be here by herself. She didn’t like that feeling. It felt like neglect. Like she wasn’t important. After the situation she’d just had with her dad, it was the last way she wanted to feel. Especially from her boyfriend who claimed to love her.

She knew it didn’t make sense and she was very upset with herself for feeling abandoned by Leo. She also knew she was projecting her feelings about her father onto him, but she couldn’t help her feelings.

As Sofi walked up the stairs to the apartment one thought was replaying in her head over and over. Was she really ready for this relationship, and if she was, then why was she constantly comparing her boyfriend to her father?

21

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