I couldn’t be too happy about James’s compliment. Today in the office, it was like it had never happened. Like James and Andrew were really truly two different people, and I was living in that Reese Witherspoon rom-com that hadn’t been made but definitely should have been.
“A glass of Barolo,” I said to Tony as I slid onto my now-usual stool.
“Coming right up,” he said.
As he slid my glass across the bar, the bell on the door chimed. I didn’t have to look around to know he was here. I could just tell.
Andrew.
James.
Whoever it was who made me shiver and blush at the same time. The man who could turn my knees to water with a half-second-too-long glance. The man I’d been waiting for.
He slid onto the stool next to mine without a word. I wasn’t about to strike up a conversation. If he’d wanted to avoid me, he wouldn’t have come here. He must have known there was a chance I’d be here. If it was just a coincidence, he could have taken a seat at a table, or left an empty stool between us.
He wanted to see me.
And if he wanted to talk to me, he was going to have to go first.
Without asking, Tony appeared with Andrew’s drink. No ice. No mixer—just straight whatever-it-was. Just like him. Andrew didn’t come watered down or altered in any way. He wore his edges like he didn’t give a fuck if most people would prefer him a little weaker or easier to swallow.
“How was your day, Sofia?” he asked, not even turning his head to meet my gaze.
I took a beat, letting my heart rate settle before I replied. “Good.” It had been. For a change. Listening to Andrew explain something of his philosophy the other night made my day a lot easier. I’d always known the way he treated me wasn’t personal, but it felt better now I’d heard from him why he was so . . . lacking the usual niceties of working relationships. And then, when I’d gone to him this evening and urged him to share what he was trying to achieve with Goode—he’d done so. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Andrew valued my opinion, but he respected me enough not to simply dismiss me. That was progress.
Had my conversation with James changed his perspective about me the same way it had changed mine about him?
“Good seems like an improvement,” he said. I took a sip of my wine to drown my smile.
“Yes,” I replied. “What about you? How was your day?”
Andrew sighed. “Not good. Being here is . . . better.”
I tried to ignore the swirl of heat in my stomach. Maybe he was talking about the fact he could get shitfaced, but I was going to take his statement as a compliment. His day was better because he was with me. Although technically, we’d sat about twenty feet from each other all day. But that wasn’t the point. In the office, he was Andrew. The man next to me was James. He clearly didn’t want to be Andrew right now. Maybe it was because he wanted to escape the pressures and stresses of the office. Or maybe he didn’t want to flirt with someone whose paychecks he signed, but he still wanted to flirt with me.
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.
Whatever the reason Andrew had become James, I was happy to play his game. I didn’t have to hate this man next to me for how miserable he made my friend and for how obnoxious he was in the office. Because he was James and not my boss, I could enjoy his compliments and the sight of his rock-hard ass.
“Whisky and the company of a beautiful woman are guaranteed to make even a good day better.”
Andrew barely noticed me in the office. James, on the other hand, was full of compliments. James was more relaxed, lighter. He seemed to shoulder less responsibility than his counterpart.
“It’s good to blow off steam at the end of a hard day in the office,” I said. “It’s healthy to shrug off the stress and remove the game face.”
“Game face?”
Was that phrase just an Americanism? “You know, the armor we all wear at work. The people we are in the office compared to the people we are . . .” I glanced around the bar. “After dark.”
He stayed silent and I wondered if I’d blown it. He didn’t want to be called out. He wanted to continue our game, no questions asked. And I hadn’t meant to push—I just wanted him to know that I understood why he wanted the separation between Andrew and James. At least, I thought I did.
I shifted to face him. My heart was beating a little faster and my cheeks flushed like a virgin in an MLB locker room. “For the record, I think you’re very attractive.”