Page 41 of Tangled Ambition

I opened my mouth to keep arguing, but it would only prove Raber right. Whatever backward ideas he thought about me, about women, that we were too emotional or too dumb, I wasn’t going to spend any more time arguing against them. They weren’t true, and my worth wasn’t based on one man’s stupid fucking opinion. Instead, I gave Dominic a nod and held my head high as I marched back to my desk to get back to work.

That was my only choice.

A few minutes passed before Dominic called Dean into his office, and I only needed one guess to know what it was about. Five minutes later, Dean walked back out and sank down into his chair. He didn’t bother to look at me, and I was glad. I wouldn’t have been able to hold my tongue.

After working for a few minutes, Dean made his way to Seth’s desk, where I heard them murmuring about the Mackenzie case. Seth had been assisting Reed with it, so I supposed he’d now be helping Dean, and I could feel the title of partner slipping through my fingers.

I whirled away, traipsing to the break room, needing a few minutes to grind my molars in peace. But, of course, I couldn’t even get that.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said behind me.

I sighed out my irritation. “It’s not your fault.”

“But we’ve done this before. You’re going to blame me.”

I refused to turn around to face him and reached for the open box of grocery store donut holes.

“You gonna talk to me?” he asked, voice laced with frustration.

I forced myself to swallow the stale donut hole. “About what?”

I heard him exhale, his shoe squeak on the floor, the brush of fabric. “I don’t know. This. Friday. Everything.”

Intellectually, I knew Dean didn’t have anything to do with Raber changing his mind, but it was a harder pill to swallow emotionally. Dean had been there for me, had taken care of me, but now we were back to our regularly scheduled programming.

He could have refused to take the case, though if it were me, I would have happily accepted the client. I couldn’t fault him. But I was still pissed about it.

We’d gone from enemies to…not quite friends and back to enemies, and I had whiplash.

I wiped my fingers off on a napkin and slowly turned. We had barely a few inches of space between us, and I folded my arms to keep myself together. Keep any more secrets from escaping. Keep the caress of a gaze away from me.

“Guess we’re back to where we started, huh?” he said after a while.

“Guess so.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noted Seth pop into the room, take one look at us, then spin right back around. “Try not to get any blood on the floor when you stab each other.”

Dean let out a noisy breath, nostrils flared, his jaw tight.

“I guess I should say thank you,” I said. “For Friday.”

He nodded once.

“And fuck you for today.”

He stepped away from me, lips pursed, holding back whatever he wanted to say. I moved to brush past him, but he caught my arm, stilling me.

“I liked you better when you were honest with me,” he grated, close enough that I could smell the mint of his gum.

I ripped my forearm out of his grip. “I liked you better when you didn’t steal my clients.”

He pivoted us and crowded my space, forcing my lower back against the counter. “This is a shitty situation, but I can’t tell what’s bothering you more. That you lost it because you’re a woman, or that you couldn’t keep it, even with your last name.”

I pushed my palms against his chest. “How does it feel to win by default?”

“Feels like a win no matter what.” He grasped my hips with his hands, and I hadn’t realized until then that my fingers were still on him, curling into the fabric of his shirt, the same sky blue of his eyes.

My focus unintentionally dropped down to his throat, where his Adam’s apple lifted on a swallow. Where I’d rested my forehead days ago. I wasn’t only fighting for a promotion but against the pull of his fingers on my waistband, against the urge to lay my head on his shoulder and give in.

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