Page 25 of Designed for Disaster

Stacy snorted. “Well, he’s definitely not the ogre you described. You made him sound super uptight and obnoxious.”

“Heis!”

“But he really isn’t. Come on, you had a nice time. Admit it. I saw the way you were looking at him.”

“I wasn’t looking at him any type of way,” I blustered, lying through my teeth. “But if it makes you happy, I’ll admit that theremightbe more to him than I realized.”

“And?”

“Noand,” I said. “That’s it. He’s notjustthe Coffeezilla that got me fired. But the jury is still out on whether he’s more Jekyll or Hyde.”

“At least now I understand why he gets you going so much,” Stacy said.

I snapped my head in her direction. The corner of her mouth curled. “What are you talking about?”

“Please tell me you’ve noticed the sparks between the two of you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not interested in a relationship. Especially with him. But if we want to talk sparks, what about you and Dominic? You two seemed to be hitting it off tonight.”

“We were, weren’t we?” She laughed. “Though it’s a little weird for me to be talking to a guy who’s not into theater. He totally missed theMidsummer Night’s Dreamreference I dropped into the conversation.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” I pointed out. “At least you know this means he won’t go quoting Shakespeare to try and justify cheating on you like the last guy.”

“Ugh,” Stacy groaned. “You’re right. ‘To thine own self be true.’ Like actually, that guy can kiss my ass.”

I threw my head back and laughed at the look on her face. When the laughter died away, I considered what she’d said about Trent. Stacy might have terrible taste in theater guys, but she was right about one thing—the sparks between Trent and me were heating up. But even though the thought of having to fake this relationship with him was mildly less repellant, the last thing I wanted to do was screw up this work opportunity by complicating us.

Relationships and the workplace didn’t mix.

I knew better.

I’d been burned by that before.

8

TRENT

“You’re going to be late,” Pam said. She stood in the doorway of my office, one hand on her hip, tapping her foot like I was some delinquent high schooler about to be late for an important exam.

“I’m the CEO,” I reminded her. “I think they’ll wait for me.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, giving me thelook. It probably made her teenage sons tremble. All it did was make me feel a little nostalgic, remembering when Jimmy and I used to make forts in Papa Davis’s office. Nana Dee would settle us with that same kind of stare for scuffing up the good furniture after she’d deliberately told us not to. “Sheila’s already called up to make sure you’re on your way.”

“Since when do I have a meeting with marketing?” I asked, double checking my schedule. “This wasn’t on my calendar yesterday.” I knew that because I’d blocked out a few hours for myself to catch up on admin. for our international operations.

“Since they asked so nicely for one,” she said.

“That’s all it takes to get past you, huh?”

Pam smirked. “Sheila also brought me banana bread.”

“Taking bribes now, are you? How much do you want to get me out of this meeting?”

Pam went back to her desk. “I already know you can’t cook worth a damn. I’d hate to see your baking.”

I scoffed. “Says who?”

Pam cackled from her desk. “Dee.”

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