Page 38 of Fierce-Gabe

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll be in touch.”

He had to accept that he got more than he’d had this morning.

12

LIFE OF LUXURY

Elise picked her phone up and then put it back down for the tenth time on Friday afternoon.

She’d had no contact with Gabe since he stopped over on Tuesday.

The fact she couldn’t get that impromptu lunch out of her head was driving her insane.

She’d thought over what he’d said so many times that her head was spinning worse than if she were on a Ferris wheel with nitro fueling it.

She was starting to think he’d done that on purpose to confuse her.

Then she realized he’d been more honest than she’d been and she should cut him some slack.

Maybe a big part of it was she wanted the chance she felt had been blown too.

The maturity comment hit home and she joked about letting it slide. The truth was, it burned worse than a book of matches set aflame on an open inner thigh wound.

He was right. She was wrong. Just one more thing that was hard to swallow.

She got up and walked out of her office to get water.

“Elise,” her father said.

She turned and went into his office with her cup in her hand after filling it up. “Yes.”

“Everything okay?” her father asked.

“Yes, why?”

“You’re doing a lot of sighing in your office.”

“I am?” she asked. Jesus, she didn’t normally get this worked up over anything.

No, that was a lie. She got worked up over a lot of things. But not men.

“You are. Is someone giving you a hard time?”

If he only knew. “No,” she said.

“Did you gather what you needed so we can figure out getting you some help?”

She knew there was no way out of this and she honestly could use it.

“I did.”

“Why don’t you get it and we’ll talk now unless you’ve got something else going on? It’s toward the end of the day. End of the workweek. Might as well finish on an easy note.”

“Sure,” she said. Anything to get her mind off of Gabe and the urge to text and see what he was doing.

She went back to her office and printed off two copies of the list of duties she could hand off to someone. She gave one to her father and she sat with the other with a pen and a pad she’d grabbed too.

“It’s not a huge list,” her father said.

---