“Fine. Dandy. I just need mouthwash. My dentist freaks if I don’t spit—I mean, gargle after sweets. I had cavities as a kid, so I have to listen to him. Sorry. Bye.” She ran out of the office, practically limping, and slammed the door with the same gusto I had after meeting her in the flesh approximately two hours and twenty-nine minutes ago.
I sagged into my desk chair. I was breathing hard, my pulse chaotic. The honeyed sweetness on my lips tasted so delicious that pressing them together made my dick throb.
My fucking fingers were still tingling. Who was that woman? Had she put some kind of sex hex on me? Was that a thing?
I pulled up Google and was typing in those very words when my email dinged.
Bypassing the other fifty emails from her, I opened the latest.
We can’t go to lunch. I mean it this time. I’m not hungry. Too much fritter.
For probably the first time all day, I smiled. Slowly, like a shark scenting blood. I sent back a reply.
We’re going to lunch. You need some protein to balance all that sugar.
With her usual speed, she responded.
Actually, I’m allergic to protein.
I volleyed back.
To salt too?
I received her quickest answer yet.
Unfortunately, yes. All I eat is apples and whitefish. Sorry.
Whitefish it is. Be ready to go at precisely 12:45. I’ll make reservations.
And I knew just the place that was far enough from town we would never be spotted by curious onlookers.
Not that we were doing anything untoward. Of course not. This was a business lunch.
I brought up a fresh Word document. Said lunch would start with this To Do list for my brand new temporary assistant.
If she wanted to be told what to do, I would abide.
Six
We walked into The Longshoreman seafood restaurant at nearly one-thirty, a full half hour past our reservation.
Silly me, I’d forgotten one of us could never be on time. I just didn’t realize that didn’t only apply to arriving in a timely fashion for gainful employment.
“You’re still glowering,” Ryan hissed somewhere near my shoulder.
She was the perfect height for me, a rarity among the women I’d dated. A fact that was neither here nor there.
“This is just my face. My apologies if you don’t like it.”
“Well, my apologies if you got pissy because I was late due to the heel on one of my favorite shoes snapping on your stupid uneven floor.”
“My floor is not uneven. Perhaps you shouldn’t wear such high heels if you aren’t able to walk in them.”
“I can walk in them just fine. Getting your stupid sweets this morning probably weakened them structurally. When I was almost flattened by the bike messenger, you unfeeling toad.”
Her ire was still as blatant as it had been on the fifteen-minute drive from my office building in Kensington Square to the opposite side of Crescent Cove. The ride had been chock full of tense silence punctuated by frustrated sighs. Mostly hers. Along with the occasional comment about my choice of vehicle.
Apparently, she didn’t like beige as a color option, so I was tempted to buy a beige suit just to annoy her. Even if it violated my personal preferences.