“You’re being dramatic,” my mother said in a slightly sing-song voice. She shrugged. “But that shouldn’t really be much of a surprise, should it? I was hoping that we’d be able to sit down and have a nice chat today, and you’d tell me that you’d decided to actually do something with your life, instead of wasting it away in some office, dreaming up some scenario where you have a stalker.”
“Did belittling work on your other clients?” I asked. “Because it’s really not working here.”
I left before she could say anything else. I tried not to feel too upset; so far as interactions with my mother went, that certainly wasn’t the worst, but I resented the idea that she thought this whole thing with Noah was some sort of fantasy. Clearly, he was mentally unbalanced, and of all people, shouldn’t she have been able to see that? But when it came to me, she seemed unwilling, for whatever reason.
Chapter Seven
Ian
That Monday, Jonathan and I were both in the office early, and I could tell he was anxiously awaiting Daisy’s arrival. He was dressed a little spiffier than normal, too, and I thought that maybe I caught a whiff of some sort of cologne.
“So what the hell is wrong with you?” I asked with a grin. It was meant to be a joke, but Jonathan got this crestfallen look on his face. “I’m kidding, you know,” I said.
But he was shaking his head. “No, no, you’re absolutely right. There is something wrong with me.”
“What? I know you like Daisy. That much is very obvious. You don’t need to be skulking around here, pretending like you don’t.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “Yeah, I do like her—a lot. And I thought that if she was working here, it would just be . . . easier, I guess.”
“What would be easier?”
“Talking to her. Asking her out.”
“So you want to date one of the employees. Isn’t there a rule against that?”
“There certainly isn’t one about sleeping with the employees.”
“But you want more than that.”
“Well, yeah, of course I do. She’s an amazing person. I’m attracted to her, but it’s more than just wanting to sleep with her. I want to get to know her better. Spend time with her.”
“Long walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners?” Fucking hell, excuse me while I go barf.
But Jonathan was smiling like a fool, no doubt imagining these long walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners. “Yeah,” he said. “I would love that. I want to do all that with her. She deserves to be treated right. Especially after all this shit with the stalker.”
“What’s up with that? She hasn’t said anything.”
A satisfied expression flashed across his face. It was gone in a second, but I caught it—he was happy that she had confided something with him that she hadn’t with me.
“It’s not something she really likes to talk about,” he said. “Can you blame her? The whole thing is sketchy.”
“I suppose you could consider Annie a stalker.”
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
“Well . . . I don’t think you’re in any fear of Annie doing you physical harm. She could try, but there’s no way she could hurt you.”
“You could kick the stalker’s ass. You’d be like Daisy’s knight in shining armor. She’d at least owe you a blow job.”
An image of Daisy down on her knees, that sweet mouth of hers wrapped around my cock, flashed through my mind. I smiled.
Jonathan looked horrified. “For Christ’s sake, Ian, will you stop it?” he snapped. “You’ve got to be so . . . so . . .”
“So what?” I asked.
“So vulgar! I sure as hell wouldn’t be expecting a blow job if I did something for her!”