Catastrophe Queen

A light flush ran up her cheeks, and she glanced down. “It’s okay. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Your hair was wet.”

“I’d just gotten out of the shower when you called. It was no big deal.” She shrugged one shoulder and smiled at me. “It wasn’t like you asked me to put on a theatre production. It was just some files.”

“And an unfortunate incident in my kitchen.”

That light flush became one that was a lot darker. “Cameron, I—”

“Look.” I leaned forward, pausing right as the waitress arrived with our wine. I waved for her to pour it and as soon as she had, she left us, allowing me to dive right back into the conversation. “Look—it happened. You’ve been weird all day, and I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep up that silly little happy act you put on.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. You were all happy this morning.”

“Is it a crime to be happy on a morning?”

“No, but I’ve never seen you be it.” I grinned. “Unless you’ve had two cups of coffee and half your body weight in carbs.”

She gasped, pressing her hand to her chest. “What are you trying to say?”

“That you’re human and you can’t have had all that before you showed up today.”

Groaning, she leaned forward a little. “All right, all right. I see what you’re doing here. You want to talk about the fridge incident.”

I barked a laugh. “Really? We need to refer to it as an incident?”

“Don’t make this more embarrassing than it is.”

“Why are you embarrassed? I’m the one who was practically naked.”

“Because I—” She clamped her mouth shut after that. She shook her head, refusing to say a word as she picked up her wine glass and sipped.

“Mallory. Come on.”

“I can’t.” She held up one hand and met my eyes. “It’s just…awkward, okay? You’re my boss. Maybe if I never had to see you again, I’d be able to tell you, but I can’t.”

I raised one eyebrow. “And you think you can work for me now knowing that I know you have a secret?”

“I don’t—” She paused again, taking a deep breath. She eyed the wine glass as if it had something incredibly interesting inside it. Wine swirled as she tipped it side to side. “I don’t think this dinner is a good idea.”

I held up a hand just like she had to stop her. “The situation was embarrassing. Ignoring it isn’t going to make it any better. I felt awkward, too. But if we’re going to move forward, we have to address it, not ignore it.”

She said nothing, and she still didn’t look at me.

“Mallory, it’s not like you walked in on me in the shower or jerking off or anything. I was in my towel, private areas covered, in my kitchen. It was partially my fault for not realizing that you’re so damn good at your job that you’d take the bull by the horns and get me the information in a heartbeat.”

Finally, she looked back up at me, indecision swirling in her eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me why it’s bothered you so much. Just drop the damn uber-happy act and know that one day, we will revisit this conversation.”

“You aren’t bothered that I practically saw you naked?”

“But was I naked?”

Her lips twitched. “No.”

I held out my hands and grinned. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I guess you’re right.” She visibly swallowed. “There isn’t one. I just—I was worried it would be awkward.”

“It’s only as awkward as you make it. It happened; now we move on. Okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded and pushed some hair behind her ear. “So this was to talk about it?”

I nodded. “I figured you wouldn’t talk about it at work, so I decided to pull the dinner card and make you talk.”

She rolled her eyes, once again picking up her wine glass. “Is that a Reid thing? Making people do what they don’t want to?”

“Only if it doesn’t hurt them.” I winked.

Laughing quietly, she pressed one hand to her mouth and let her giggles fall into her fingers. “Great. Good to know my life isn’t in danger, at least.”

“Nah. Not yet, anyway.”

She quirked a brow, but she smiled, her eyes shining a little. If she was going to say anything, it was cut off by our food being brought, and that was the end of that conversation.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – MALLORY

Our conversation was weighing heavily on me.

Keeping my attraction to Cameron to myself felt wrong. Granted, admitting it probably wasn’t a good idea either, but he knew I was holding something to myself. If I could get it out of my system now before it escalated into something more, then my job was not in jeopardy.

I could deal with it and move on. Part of that involved telling him. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that, but at least if I did it now, I could carefully choose my words.