Page 76 of Drunk on Love

She’d tied it very loosely. He liked it that way.

“See, if we’d gone somewhere, or ordered food, at least one of us would have had to put actual clothes on, and that would have been terrible.” She giggled again. “I just imagined the look on Sydney’s face if I’d walked into the Barrel to pick up takeout in this robe.”

He looked up from her cleavage.

“Did she tell you that I went there, looking for you?”

Why had he just blurted that out? If Sydney had told her, which was likely, there was no need to talk about it right now.

She put down her wooden spoon and looked at him.

“No. When did you go to the Barrel looking for me?”

Oh.

“I assumed she told you. It was after that time in your office. Later that night.” She lowered her glass to the counter. “I walked over there, thinking maybe you might be there. I wanted to... I don’t know, see you, talk to you, apologize, something. And then I stood outside for a while and decided that if you were there, you wouldn’t welcome me coming to find you. So I turned away. Sydney saw me. I think she approved.”

Margot had an expression on her face he couldn’t decipher.

“Yeah, she would approve,” she said finally. A tiny smile came to her lips. “So do I.”

The water boiled over and hissed on the stove. Margot grabbed a big handful of pasta and dropped it in the pot and gave it a big stir.

“I think Sydney feels... responsible,” she said. “For what happened that first night.”

He laughed.

“Responsible? Why?”

She looked up at him from under her lashes.

“She kind of... dared me to hit on you that night. She wasveryproud of herself when we left together.” She made a face. “That was, until I talked to her on Monday.”

Luke laughed.

“Ah, that’s why you said ‘responsible’ like that. I was going to say, ‘responsible’ means it was something bad, and that night certainly wasn’t.”

Margot laughed, and then sighed.

“No, but I felt pretty guilty, and Sydney knew it. I didn’t even tell her about that kiss in my office, you know. But she knew I was... having trouble not thinking about you. That’s probably why she reacted the way she did to you when you went to the Barrel. She even—”

Margot stopped, and turned the temperature down under the bacon. It wasn’t until she reached for the tongs that he realized she wasn’t going to finish.

“She even what?” he asked her.

She stirred the pasta with the tongs, not looking at him.

“Nothing.” He didn’t think it was nothing, not by the way she avoided his glance. She finally looked up, and laughed at the lookon his face. “Fine. She sort of dared me to hit on someone else. Later that same night.”

He tried not to let her see the wave of jealousy that hit him when she said that.

“Did you do it?” He shouldn’t ask. It wasn’t any of his business. Margot had been his boss then.

But he hated it when she nodded.

“I felt like I needed to do something to... get you out of my system.” She shrugged. “It didn’t work.”

“Oh?” He wouldn’t ask any more questions. He was glad Sydney’s stupid plan hadn’t worked, obviously, but he didn’t want to know the details.

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