Page 34 of The Enemy of My Enemy Is… My Fake Boyfriend?

"Good fucking God," I muttered. This whole experience might just do me in.

"I'm just..." she said in a strained voice as she reached up with the screwdriver. "...trying to loosen these screws."

"Why?"

She didn't answer as she concentrated, stretching up even more. I tightened my hold on her, wondering how thick this glass was and if it would hold up in some kind of ghastly girl-falling-off-a-chair incident.

Finally, she lowered herself and I let go as she stepped back to the floor, a satisfied smile on her face. "There."

And then she was off again, pulling the chair several feet and repeating the process, with me holding onto her again. We did this exact same thing two more times, until she eventually dragged the chair back to its original spot.

"I know I'm just supposed to stand here and look pretty," I said, "but what was the purpose of all that?"

She glanced up from the toolbox to meet my curious gaze. "Chase always has problems with these shades and it drives him nuts. So in three weeks, when the sun starts to shine through that space right there—" She pointed to a gap between the skyscrapers across from us. "—and he grabs his remote and tries to lower them, well, hopefully a few will come crashing down and all hell will break loose."

"You're diabolical."

Giggling, her cheeks pink, she pulled out a wrench and walked toward a door off to one side of the office, opening it to reveal a private bathroom, complete with a small shower.

She stood on the toilet seat and reached over to the showerhead, saying, "Righty tighty, lefty loosey," as she unscrewed it easily. "Well, would you look at that? I didn't even need the wrench."

"Um, no, you didn't." What on earth was she doing?

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a little packet to reveal...

"Is that a bouillon cube?"

Her brilliant eyes beamed at me. "Yep."

"And...?"

A determined expression on her face, she placed the bits of bouillon cube inside the showerhead as I watched in stunned silence, the brilliant prank playing out in my head, imagining Chase hopping in the shower to clean up and instead coming out smelling like chicken broth.

After successfully screwing the showerhead back on, Aria jumped down from the toilet seat, clapping her hands together to get rid of the crumbs. "And the best part is the water's pretty clear when it comes out and he shouldn't even realize it."

"How do you know that? Did you practice or something?"

"Or something. I might have tried it on my sisters once," she admitted.

I burst out laughing, wondering at this hidden side to Aria Stratton that I was being shown, something the world had never seen.

She didn't break stride as she once more returned to her little toolbox and I followed, wondering what the hell she'd do next. After pulling out a sandwich bag, she carefully unwrapped a tissue she had inside to reveal what looked like a dead spider.

"Is that real?" I asked her.

"It sure is. Poor thing."

"Did you kill it?" I couldn't quite imagine Aria intentionally offing this poor spider just for this purpose.

"God no. I love spiders and always save them when they come inside. I have a whole bug-catching system at home. This one I found dead on my balcony which gave me this idea. Chasehatesspiders." After opening his top desk drawer, she gently dropped the lifeless spider on top of his stash of fancy, pretentious pens, then saluted it."Thank you for your service, my dear eight-legged friend."

Man, she made me smile.

Her sparkling eyes met mine, triumphant and gleaming. "Chase screams like a little girl whenever he sees a spider, and he's really embarrassed by it."

I could just picture it."Bonus if someone's in here when he spots it."

"Yes! Right when he's pulling out his Montblanc to sign someimportantdocument."

---