Page 30 of Lust

“She’ll still win, honey. Besties always win.”

He leans forward, stopping an inch away from my face. “Yeah, but I’ve got something she doesn’t.”

I burst into laughter, and he narrows his eyes playfully. “Don’t act like you don’t—”

“Mariana,” Brandon’s voice booms from the doorway, “can you come in my office for a second?”

The sharpness in his tone startles me. “Just a second.”

Brandon hesitates for a moment, glancing at Zac and then back to me before walking away.

Oh fuck.

He’s going to fire me. That’s what our talk is going to be about. Apparently, I’ve irritated him so much that he can’t even wait until the end of the day.

“That didn’t sound good,” Zac says.

Heat washes over my skin. “No, it doesn’t. You really need to get out of here.”

He winces as he starts walking away. “Sorry if I got you in trouble.”

I wave a hand. “It’s not you, it’s…something else. But I don’t want to piss him off even more. I’ll text you later if I decide to come to happy hour.”

As soon as Zac disappears, I head toward Brandon’s office, my heart pounding louder and louder with each step, like a warrior’s drum.

When I walk through the door, my attention is immediately drawn to the rigid set of his jaw and furrow in his brow, and that familiar rebellion grows like a flame within me. After the silent treatment I’ve been getting, I’m ready for a fight.

It’s unfair that he thinks he messed up, and now I have to pay for it. I didn’t ask him to touch my damn lip.

Though I did love it when he did.

“What can I do for you, Pastor?” At the word “pastor”, his jaw ticks, and I could almost smile. He caught on to my intended insolence.

“Sit,” he says, and I jerk back at the abruptness in the command.

Tendrils of heat fill my gut as I sit on a small couch in front of his desk. Why does it always turn me on when he scolds me?

Probably because after yesterday, I’m not so sure it comes from a fatherly place like I used to.

Brandon takes a heavy breath. “We need to have a sort of...uncomfortable conversation.”

My stomach plummets. Oh, fuck. He really is going to fire me. Ice skitters through my veins at the thought.

I shouldn’t care. I didn’t even want this internship to begin with.

I hate myself for wanting to cry.

“I hope you understand that I appreciate how much you’re helping me out right now, Mariana.” He emphasizes my name. Is that a taunt because I called him “pastor”?

“Thank you,” I say, my voice brittle.

“But even though this is an unpaid position, I can’t have you fraternizing while you’re working.” His voice is stern.

His words don’t compute at first. What the fuck is he talking about? He was the one who invited me out to dinner last night. He was the one who…

When his meaning finally dawns, I have to clench my jaw to keep from smiling.

He’s talking about Zac.

---