He approached Stella with tensed shoulders and clenched hands. “And you’re compatible with him?”
She curled her fingers around the card. Was it still compatibility if it was one-sided?
“I was really happy when he and I were together. He’s a good listener. More than that, he wanted to know about me, my day, what I was doing, and—”
“All I care about is whether or not he’s good in bed,” Benita interjected.
Stella bit her lip and blushed down at the carpet. The word good didn’t do Michael justice. Phenomenal was more like it.
“You lucky duck.” Benita turned to Philip and grabbed his arm. “Come on, PJ, let’s go to the kitchen. You need to ice that eye.”
PJ?
Philip grumbled under his breath and stared a few daggers at her lilies before he allowed Benita to pull him out of Stella’s office. As the two of them walked down the hall, he settled his hand at the base of her spine, slipped it lower, and squeezed. Instead of smacking him as Stella thought she would, Benita brushed the light hair from his brow and clucked over his bruise.
That was . . . interesting.
Apparently, Benita didn’t care that Philip was a complete hound when it came to women. That worked out just fine for Stella. She didn’t have to feel bad for not asking him out again.
She rotated the flower vase and fiddled with the stems. Flowers had always seemed pretty senseless to her. They stank, they wilted, and then you had to clean them up. But these were from Michael.
Her phone buzzed repeatedly, and when she retrieved it from her desk drawer, she saw it was him. She considered letting it go to voice mail, but her thumb hit the talk button on its own.
“Hello.”
“Did you get them?” he asked.
“Yes . . . Thank you.”
“How’s Philip Dexter’s eye looking today?”
“Purple.”
He made a satisfied sound, and she could almost see his evil smile. She barely refrained from sighing like a schoolgirl. His barbarism shouldn’t please her like this.
“It’ll start turning green in a few days,” he said.
“You really shouldn’t have given him a black eye.” But she loved that he had. It made her feel special in a way she’d never known. She was a bloodthirsty villainess.
“You’re right. Next time, I’ll double-punch him in the balls. If anyone’s going to kiss you, it had better be me.” After an awkward pause, he asked, “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
Her foolish heart leapt at the thought of seeing him again, but she forced it into submission. She didn’t understand why he was doing any of this, didn’t trust it. “No.”
There was a long silence before he said, “Good. I like a challenge.”
“I’m not trying to challenge you.”
“I know you’re not. You’re trying to get over me, which is worse.”
“Michael . . .”
“I have stuff to do. Talk to you later. Miss you.” The call disconnected.
She paced about her office with increasingly agitated steps. He didn’t want her to get over him. How irritating. What was she supposed to do? Pine over him for eternity?
This burst of outlandish courting had started immediately after he saw Philip trying to kiss her when she didn’t want it. Michael was trying to warn Philip off because he didn’t think she could protect herself.
She was still his charity case.