Seduced

Her breath shudders out as she nods. “Okay. Thank you.” She glances over my shoulder, her brows pinching together. “Is this okay? With your new boss and stuff? I’m not going to get you in trouble?”

I smile. “Nope. It’s fine. I still have forty-five minutes left in my break, and I saved her life this morning—after nearly killing her with my mushroom Wellington—so I’m sure she won’t mind giving me a few extra minutes for lunch, if we need it.”

Jess’s eyes widen. “Wow. Sounds like you’ve had a big day, too. I need to hear all about that. After we decide how I’m going to punish my saboteur without actually killing him. Sorry to be the ‘we have to talk about my shit first’ friend, but I’m still mentally bathing in the blood of my enemies so…I think we should address that first.”

“Absolutely,” I say, before adding in a softer voice, “And there isn’t much more to tell on my end, anyway. My mushroom seduction ended in disaster, she was appropriately irritated about it, and I’m even further from convincing her we should date than I was before.”

Jess sniffs and swipes the last of the tears from her cheeks. “But you’re not giving up, right?”

“Fuck no,” I say with a wink that makes her grin.

“Good, because she’s totally staring at us right now and looks super intrigued. She’s the cute little brunette with her hair in braids, right?”

“She is,” I say, my back feeling warmer now that I know she’s watching.

“Oh, yeah, she definitely likes you, too. Want to make out? See if it makes her jealous? I had an everything bagel with roasted garlic cream cheese for breakfast, but you can brave garlic breath in the name of true love.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Thanks, but no, thanks. I don’t want to play games with her. Or make her think I’m not available.”

Jess sniffs again. “Good call. Probably. Hell if I know. And I probably never will. By the time I redo all the work that snot gobbler erased, I’ll be too old to date.”

“You’re never too old to date.”

“Tell that to my aunt Tee. As soon as she turned forty, no one would swipe on her on the dating apps. Not even the perverts with an Asian fetish. She had to hire a super pricey matchmaker to get hooked up with Uncle Dean, and then he dumped her when she couldn’t get pregnant. Now she lives alone in a tiny studio apartment and crochets penis wine bottle toppers for bachelorette parties. She’s surrounded by dicks, but forever without a dick of her very own. It’s a very tragic and very cautionary tale.”

I frown and nod toward the bar. “Go sit down. Let’s get some food in you.”

“Okay.” She lunges forward suddenly, giving me a swift, tight hug and muttering, “Thank you for being my friend,” before releasing me and moving toward an empty table.

I head for the kitchen to fix her a plate, noticing that Natalie is no longer at her table. Her tablet and bag are still there—as well as a nearly empty bowl of quinoa salad—but she’s nowhere to be seen. Assuming she went upstairs to her office, I complete my mission, fetching a tray from the busboy area so I can bring Jess a salad and a slice of dark chocolate and raspberry cake along with her pasta.

I slip through the back entrance to the bar area, intending to grab a glass of wine from one of the open bottles in the ice bath, when I see a sight that makes my heart leap into my throat and lodge there, pulsing and strangling.

It’s Natalie, cozied up at the table with an already blabbing Jess, likely on the verge of learning all of my most embarrassing secrets.

Chapter Seven

Natalie

“Really?” I lean closer to Cam’s delightful friend, grinning for the first time since my near-death experience. “So, he was always a sweetheart, even when he was a kid?”

“Always,” she assures me without a beat of hesitation. “He is truly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. But not in a pushover kind of way. Cam will put up with a lot before he draws a line in the sand, but he has his limits. And he respects himself enough not to put up with bullshit from people who don’t realize that kindness is also a form of strength. You know what I mean?”

I nod. “Totally. And that’s so great. That’s what I try to teach my daughter, that kindness is a strong choice, but that at the same time, you can’t let people walk all over you. Because sadly, given the opportunity, a lot of them will.”

Jess rolls her still-puffy eyes. “Ugh. Don’t I know it. I’m learning that lesson the hard way. Not that I’m as nice as Cam, but I’ve been letting things slide at work that shouldn’t have been allowed to slide. And now I have to shovel myself out from the belly of shit mountain. When maybe, if I’d acted sooner, I could have collected the shit in a poo bag and been done with it.” She winces. “I’m a dumbass.”