Page 99 of Strictly Business : A Lesbian Romance

with Joseph to walk him while we waited for Adriana. We took him for

almost an hour walk, so he’s good for a bit.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Can I ask you something?” Christina definitely wasn’t in business

mode. She was so different from the uptight, stick up her butt kind of way

she carried herself at work. Taylor nodded. “Why don’t you like me? We

hardly know each other. I know that you don’t, but I don’t know what I did

to make you feel that way. I’m not talking about the disagreements over the

business. I think you may have some assumptions about me that aren’t

true.”

Taylor wanted to blurt out that Christina presented herself as cold

and unfeeling. That she’d been cruel and had both looked down on and

talked down to Taylor at that first meeting, but she knew that she’d only

been telling herself those things. She’d blamed Christina for the rejection

personally, and even after it was Christina herself who suggested the idea to

her boss and took care to get her idea pushed through and everything else

after, Taylor still hadn’t let it go. She knew that her perceptions probably

weren’t reality. That Christina had a job to do and was doing it in the best

way she knew how. She hadn’t been rude or mean. How could she explain

that? That in her mind, she’d stayed mad at Christina for no reason. She

could barely explain it to herself.

“I— I just— I guess that— I don’t really know,” Taylor mumbled.

Christina looked confused. “If you don’t really know, I don’t know

how we can fix it so that we can work together better. I hate feeling like you

don’t want me around. I get why you don’t, but it makes it quite

uncomfortable to feel like I’m unwanted and everything I do is sub-par. I

feel like I’m just annoying for you, and that you can’t wait to get rid of me.”

Taylor did feel bad hearing that, even though she’d been trying to

give off those exact vibes. She clutched her glass and studied the dark red

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