Page 16 of Accidentally Amy

I slowly turned around, and Blake was the only other person still in the meeting room.

And he didn’t look happy.

He was wearing another nice suit—navy, this time—and today’s glasses were tortoiseshell, but all of that attractive stylishness didn’t change the fact that he was glaring at me like I’d just carved my name into the side of his car with a rock.

“Sure,” I bit out, looking over my shoulder as the other meeting attendees left the room, hearing Rose’s voice inTitanicwhen the lifeboats were leaving.Come back! Come back!I turned back to him and said, “What’s up?”

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t for him to walk across the room, closing the distance between us so he was standingrightin front of me. He was tall, so he towered over me in hisGQstyle while glowering down at me.

Toweringandgloweringsound ridiculous together.

Hewas ridiculous.

He glanced over my head, toward the door, before lowering his voice and saying, “You do know that the expectation of honesty isnotsanctimonious, correct? I guess I’d just like to clarify this, because it was a little alarming to hear a new employee casually disregard ethics as somethingoverblown.”

He was too close, and it was messing with my ability to think.

I hated his attitude and everything he was saying, yet my eyes were stuck on his mouth and my nose was stuck on his subtle cologne and my ears were getting lost in the low timbre of his deep voice.

He was looking down at me, and it felt like the air between us was thick and volatile, like the space between a magnet and steel as the two were being pulled closer together.

A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows as he watched me, and his Adam’s apple moved around a swallow, just above his tie.

Man, that is a muscular neck.

“Um,” I said, flustered all of a sudden.

“Um?” His voice was even quieter now, and I swear I saw his eyes dip down to my mouth.

“Um,” I repeated, clearing my throat, and somehow that noise cleared away the fog.

Instantly I was back, staring up into the glowering, towering face of the jerk who treated me like a criminal because of a tiny little latte crime. I lifted my chin and said, “I’m sorry to have alarmed you,Mr.Phillips, but please know that my disregard was not for ethics at all, but for a sanctimonious video that might potentially beperceivedas overblown.”

He didn’t say anything, just glared—glowered—down at me.

“I have to go now,” I said, stepping around him to walk toward the door. “Have a nice day.”

I was so happy to have the last word as I strode out of the conference room, feeling like a final-word-delivering badass, but then he ruined it by saying, “Watch out for that rug.”

TheinstantI tripped over the puckered rug that lay in the hallway, just outside the room.

And you know how sometimes you say things on autopilot in a physical situation, like mutteringdamn itwhen you stub your toe on the coffee table? Yeah, well, that was the only explanation for how I could’ve possibly said through clenched teeth, to myboss’s boss, the words “Thanks a lot, jackass.”

Just as I face-planted in the hallway.

Chapter Eight

Izzy

“That didnothappen, holy shit.”

“Swear to God,” I said as I came out of the kitchen with two bottles of Heineken in my hands, shaking my head because I still couldn’t believe it.

“Did the jackass at least help you up?” Josh asked, taking a beer while grinning like my shame was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“He didn’t have to, because my loudoofbrought everyone out of their offices,” I said, plopping down on the couch, still mortified by my klutziness. “The entire floor collectively stepped into the hallway with offers of aid.”

“I’m sorry, but that is hilarious.” He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a legend already.”

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