* * *
Natalie tapped her fingernails on her desk, then flipped through one page after the other of the latest tabloid. The good news was, there was no Franco today.
The bad news was there was also no Brooks.
She'd gotten to the office extra early this morning, hoping to gauge the amount of weirdness between them and decide whether or not to call things off, but as far as she could tell he'd taken a sick day.
She hadn't gotten a single emergency message from Eliza and nobody had dropped by her desk to leer at her, so that could only mean one thing, right?
But why would he do that to her? Why would he force her to sit there and wait and wonder what things were going to be like between them? Things had just been so awkward and then, all of the sudden not awkward at all.
Like her body knew him better than the rest of her did.
She squeezed her thighs together at the memory and shook her head. If he wasn't here today, that could only mean he was avoiding her. Which, naturally, meant he didn't want to see her again.
Which she was fine with.
More than fine with.
She could totally live the rest of her life without finding out where things were going before they'd stopped. Totally.
"Another delivery for you." Eliza plopped a fresh bouquet of roses onto her desk, then bent down to smell them.
"I'm beginning to hate roses." She muttered. In what was now a ritual, she plucked the card from amid the flowers, tore it up, and dropped the pieces into the trash. Eventually, she was going to have to call Franco about this. He’d be able to put an end to it.
But what would happen after that?
"I'd be happy to take them off your hands again." Eliza smiled.
"Go right ahead." She cleared her throat, then, in her best casual voice, asked, "hey, did Brooks not come in today?"
Eliza grinned "Why? Last night was a success? Does he need to drop off your panties?"
"No, no, nothing like that." Natalie glanced around. Any one of the other women in the office could have heard, and based on the ear-splitting silence around them, it wasn't too far-fetched to think they already had. "Hey, try to keep it down, okay? There's nothing happening."
And even if there had been, that was clearly over now. She'd shot any chance of that straight through the heart when she spazzed out.
Eliza wasn't so keen to let it go as Natalie might have hoped, though. The woman was practically sitting on top of her desk, crushing files beneath her plaid skirt as she moved. "So, you didn't go last night?"
"Drop it, okay?"
"Oh, you did go."
A few desks overs, one of the other assistants glanced at them in what was clearly a failed attempt at appearing nonchalant.
"It doesn't matter," Natalie said through gritted teeth. "Someone is going to hear you."
"In which case you'll be the envy of the office."
"Look, just send him over when he gets here. He has papers to sign." She shot another glance at Maria, and though the woman wasn't looking at them, the too-fast clicking of her keyboard gave away her second failed attempt at spying.
Eliza sighed. "Dammit. I could have sworn I checked for those. I'm going to learn how to do this job even if it kills me."
"Relax, it's just leftover paperwork. Is he coming in late or should I just figure out something else to do with it?" Like, say, for example, try to sort out what it was she was going to get him to sign since all of his paperwork had been transferred to Eliza a week ago.
But that was beside the point. If she could only see his face and gauge where they were, things would be okay.
She just had to see him first.