It was important to let Derek have a victory occasionally. So, the table argument was given up on, and I relented that I wasn’t going to stop him. Still, I had messaged Cameron. If he said there was no room in the budget for them, maybe I could shift the blame to someone else and avoid having those heavy, expensive items taking up space. My phone made a notification sound, and I looked down to see the response from Cameron.
There’s room in the budget for them. They are important to Derek.
Shit.
I shook my head, swearing up a storm under my breath. Of course he bent to Derek. And Ally. I couldn’t forget about her. As much as I wanted to.
Still shaking my head in disbelief, I shoved the phone into my pocket and went back to work. There was a fair amount to get done before I could call it a day. If I got enough done quickly, I could beg off in a few hours. Getting out early would mean I could do something more productive than stare at the wall in frustration.
For one, it would mean getting back to my gym. It had been a couple of weeks since I’d had a really long workout, and I was due. If I could get in front of a weight bench and do some heavy presses until my arms wore out, I would feel better. I could clear my mind of everything.
Especially how Ally looked when the sun caught her hair and the way she spoke to me.
10
Ally
“What’s this?” I asked when I walked into the kitchen and found blue tape on the floor and a spray-painted X on the wall.
Derek looked over at me from across the prep station.
“It’s for the renovation,” he said.
“The what?”
“Remember we were talking about taking out that wall and expanding into the old office back there? To make the allergen prep station?”
It took a few seconds for it all to sink in. No fucking way this was happening yet again. I let out an exasperated sigh.
“You mean the expansion I told Noah about two days ago and he said wasn’t going to happen because it was too much work and expense to add to the project list already?” I asked.
Derek shrugged, looking casual and dismissive. I had gotten used to that reaction from him. It was his default setting for when he could see trouble brewing between Noah and me. It was like he figured if he just pretended everything was fine and acted like nothing was a big deal, he could convince me of it too. That wasn’t happening. Derek was a great guy and all, but there wasn’t a chill pill in the world big enough to keep me from getting angry at Noah.
“I talked to him about it yesterday, and he looked at everything again. He said it wasn’t as complicated as he thought, and because the space was already there, it wouldn’t add much to the budget,” Derek said.
And there it was. The root of my ever-present pissed-off attitude.
At that point it had been a full week of glaring and clipped conversations with Noah. A week of him point-blank saying no to me, only to turn right around and say yes to Derek about the same thing. I thought I was doing well controlling myself, but that was the last straw. I had officially had enough.
“Excuse me,” I said, heading for the kitchen door.
“Where are you going?” Derek called after me.
“I need some air,” I answered, storming out.
I stomped through the massive main building with one thing on my mind. I was done dealing with situations over the fence of Derek. This time, I was hunting down the bastard himself. It turned out he wasn’t easy to find. But the nearly half an hour it took me to find him didn’t cool me off any. If anything, it only made me angrier. If he was going to be this much of an ass, the least he could do was make himself convenient to locate so I could give him a piece of my mind.
Finally, I found him in the dungeon. The large area was filled with stored wine barrels, and he stood in front of one of them, examining the details written on the side. I hated how good he looked, how the sight of him standing there and the way he ran his hand back through his hair went right to the core of me.
He saw me coming and pulled up to his full height, chest puffed out and jaw hard. I didn’t care. Well, I didn’t want to care. Pushing my enraging attraction to him out of my thoughts and reminding myself why I was there, I stalked right up to him and poked him in the middle of the chest.