Page 5 of The Confidentiality Clause
Ariel Cambridge
I sit back down in the chair across from Brock. He frowns at me. Does he think that’s supposed to intimidate me? He looks like a sad golden retriever puppy with his messy blond hair and big brown eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asks in a gruff tone.
I grab my food off the desk. “Finishing my meal before it gets too cold.”
It’s already lukewarm, but thankfully it’s still delicious. I would have been even more irritated with him if he had ruined my meal with his stubbornness.
“Fine, but after that you have to leave. I have a lot of work to do.” He sits down in his leather wingback chair, then drags the container of lasagna toward him.
“I’m not stopping you from working right now.” I gesture to his desk with my fork. “Go ahead.”
His expression is unamused. “You’re a distraction.”
“If you can’t work with distractions around, I’m amazed you’ve made it this far.”
“Just be quiet and eat,” he grouses.
I give him a look. “You should know better than to tell me what to do, Carolina. We’ve known each other too long for you to make such a fatal mistake.”
He carves off a fourth of his lasagna and consumes it in one large, angry bite. Do men have some secret ability where they can unhinge their jaw? I’ve met quite a few serpent-like guys, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
Without replying, he moves the bag aside and starts perusing the papers on his desk.
I twirl pasta around my fork.
“You used to be more fun,” I say, because messing with him means he won’t be so entrenched in work…plus it’s entertaining.
“And you used to be less annoying, but here we are.”
I grab a roll from the take-out bag and throw it at his forehead. It hits the mark and bounces off before landing on the desk near his food.
“Don’t be rude,” I say when he scowls at me.
“How is what I said rude but what you said not?”
“All I was saying is that while you’ve always been exceptionally vexing, you used to know how to have fun. When’s the last time you did anything that didn’t involve work?”
He picks the roll up and tears it in half. The old Brock would have thrown it back, or made some kind of game where we had to shoot it into a trash can. There would be a ridiculous bet involved, and we’d end up laughing way too much over something so silly.
“Thefunyou’re talking about was while we were in school. I know you don’t know what it’s like to be an adult.” He holds up half the roll as evidence. “But I had to grow up in order to run this business.”
“You’re avoiding my question,” I state before taking a bite of my food.
“And you’re giving me a headache.”
He’s infuriating. How can he not see how he’s running his life into the ground?
“Fine, I’ll leave you alone.” I stand up and put my food back in the bag. “But you’ll be hearing from me soon.”
“Ominous,” he says drily.
“Make sure you answer if I call or text,” I warn him. “Or else my next call is to Sutton.”
“Whatever.”
I roll my eyes. Something I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot of in the future. It’s clear he’s overworked, and it’s turning him into a sullen teenager. But I’ll fix that. Somehow. My movie night will have to turn into a brainstorming session on how to keep a stubborn idiot from ending up in the hospital again.
