Page 27 of As the World Falls

“No…I just…don’t want to discuss it with you.”

“Because you value my judgment?”

“Of course not,” she balks, making me laugh. She huffs out an irritated breath. “If you must know, it’s a book called The Noble Woman’s Lover.”

“What’s it about?”

She blinks at me, staring for a good minute before relenting. “It’s a historical romance about a woman who wanted to be an author. She didn’t want to marry or measure her worth by having a husband and children. She wanted to see the world and experience things. Upon her travels, she meets a rude man who owns a tavern and thinks she’s too witty for her own good, but fate keeps bringing them together until, eventually, he’s mad at her.”

I listen, partially interested. I wasn’t much of a romance reader, but the idea of the book didn’t sound bad. “Does she settle down for him?” I ask curiously.

She smiles. “No. She never settles down.”

“So, they don’t end up together in the end?”

“I never said that,” she says cunningly.

“I see,” I hum in understanding. “He keeps her wild.”

“Exactly. It’s my favorite because, in a time when men only wanted to control and tame their women, he loved that he couldn’t.”

“Sounds painfully accurate for women these days.”

“It’s the fight we’ll keep fighting.”

I narrow my eyes on her. “Something tells me you’d be a winning opponent,” I say, unable to stop my ridiculous smilingagain. Her brows lift in surprise as a smile of her own widens her mouth.

“Lia, I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” I hear a voice interrupt, and I look over my shoulder at a man walking toward her. He had messy brown hair and dressed like a lumberjack minus the beard, which I’m not sure would have helped his cause anyway. He stops at her side and places a hand on the small of her back, and she looks up at him, focusing her smile, the one I gave her, onto him.

My stomach turns inside out as I watch their interaction, and I become increasingly frustrated as they pay me no attention and murmur to each other. I’m not sure what she even tells him, but his hand is making circling motions on her back, and she is still smiling at him.

“Cecilia,” I snap out without thinking, and both of their gazes whip to mine, her eyes wide and his curious. “I’d like a word with you before I go.”

“Okay,” she draws out suspiciously, remaining where she is.

I look over to her friend, who is also unmoving. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Lance,” he answers, and the sound of his boyish voice, for some reason, makes me grind my teeth together.

“So, you know I said I wanted a word with Cecilia, not Cecilia and Lance.”

“James,” Cecilia warns.

I look back at her, giving her a false, polite smile. “I’d just like some privacy, babe.”

Lance looks down at her in reassurance, and she nods her head in okay for him to go. I roll my eyes, watching them. Once he’s gone, she looks back at me with murderous eyes.

“You’re such an ass. You know that?”

“I’m aware,” I agree, moving closer to her desk that she’s keeping between us like a barricade.

“What is it you want?” she asks impatiently.

I don’t know why I do it. I barely give myself time to think about it. All I knew was that I liked playing these games with her, and I needed to do something to resolve her constant nosiness that kept pulling me away from my work and threatening Tobias’s job. It was risky, considering Tobias didn’t want her anywhere near me, and I was about to make that notion extremely hard. I wanted to play with her. I wanted to torment her to the point of giving up on me and her escapades completely while stealing all of her time just so that mine didn’t feel as dull.

I never claimed to be a nice guy. I was selfish and impulsive, which has always gotten me what I want.

“I’m want to offer you a job,” I tell her.

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