Page 74 of Win Some Love Some
“Bribery isn’t going to work, Nick,” I shouted over my shoulder.
“You should see what’s in the bag before you decide,” he called back.
I plopped my purse on the desk and took off my jean jacket. Was I wearing one of my more flattering pairs of jeans? Yes. I was. Plus, my last really good designer shirt that I hadn’t been able to sell because it had a small stain on the neck that was barely noticeable. The shirt did amazing things for my boobs, my abs and my eyes.
I had my weapons and he had his. Which were coffee and…I looked inside the bag.
Damn it.
A chocolate éclair. My favorite.
Undeterred and unbribed, I took a monster bite of the éclair and a large chug of the coffee.
“So?” He said, coming up behind me. “We’re good?”
“No, Nick,” I cried. “We’re not good, just because you bought me coffee. We’re two adults. We need to set this straight. Now.”
“You’ve got some…” he waved his hand around his mouth. “Cream on the corner of your…mouth,” he reached toward me like he might actually touch me and I got there first, swiping at my mouth with the back of my hand.
His eyes were still fixed on my lips. The way they’d been on the dance floor two nights ago.
“Holy shit! You want to kiss me again,” I accused him.
“I do not!” he shouted back. “First of all, this is a work environment. I’m your employer. Any attempt at any kind of sex…stuff, would be wrong. Really wrong. Possibly grounds for a lawsuit or some shit. I don’t know. So I definitely don’t want to kiss you here. In my garage.”
“But you want to kiss me. You practically just admitted it.”
“You’re hearing things that I’m not exactly saying.”
I pushed on his chest with both hands and barely moved him an inch. “You are not going to gaslight me. Not again, Nick Renard.”
“I have never gaslit you. Ever,” he insisted. He ran his hand through his hair and paced between me and the bumper of Jeanie McNeil’s Ford Taurus.
“You don’t even know what gaslighting is,” I accused him.
“Of course I do. Where I try and convince you something is true when it’s not. Or that something isn’t true when it is.”
Close enough.
“Okay,” I said. “So tell me the truth –the real truth – about what happened on the dance floor.”
He stopped pacing. “Fine. I got some really terrible advice and I decided to see if maybe something had changed. Between us. So I figured there would be hardly any harm in dancing with you. Maybe prove to myself once and for all you were just a sister to me.”
“Pretty impressive hard on you got there for yoursister, Nick.”
He winced again. “I don’t know what happened,” he said softly. “I mean, I know. I just...I’ve never…it’s never been there for me. With you.”
Oh, wow. Well, I wanted the truth, didn’t I? I’d asked for it. Demanded it.
You know those trick cans of candy you get at toy stores? You take the lid off and a bunch of accordion snakes come springing out? My heart was a can full of accordion snakes. I’d folded all my powerful feelings for Nick and folded and folded again and again until I could press them into that stupid can and put the lid on. That lid had been rock solid for six long years.
Until right now.
I was absolutely full of accordion snakes. A mess of them.
And all of them were rage and vengeance.
Who the fuck did he think he was, to play with me like this?
