It wasn’t that he never laughed or hadn’t laughed in the past two months, but he definitely hadn’t flirted, and the word delightful had definitely not crossed his lips.
Of course, he hung out with Landrys most of the time, and there were lots of words to describe them, individually and collectively, but delightful was probably not even in the top ten.
“Well, did he deserve it?” Maddie said of the way the woman had defaced the Porsche.
“Absolutely. And he had to drive that around for two days before he could get it repainted,” the woman told her.
“Was it worth getting fired over?” Maddie asked.
“Oh, I’m super pissed that I got fired for that. But I’m more pissed that he didn’t get fired.”
Maddie shrugged. “He is the boss’s son.”
Holy hell, she’d done that to her boss’s son’s car?
The woman blew out a breath. “Yeah. And now I have to pay to get the stupid thing repainted.”
“How much is that going to run you?”
“He gave me a quote for ten grand.”
Maddie’s eyebrows shot up, but Griffin wasn’t surprised. A guy who owned a Porsche would want a very well-done paint job. And to repair something like a deeply gouged I HAVE A TINY DICK message in the door, they’d have to strip the paint, buff the whole thing smooth, and then paint over it.
If the guy truly was an asshole, as they were implying, he might even have a custom color that would be hard to match and that he might insist they get from the same place he had the car painted originally. He might even insist on them repainting the entire thing, so the paint job looked good.
“Well, ten grand isn’t so bad. You had your big fancy job in Paris for a couple of months at least, right?” Maddie asked.
Griffin felt his spine stiffen, and he froze in the middle of the space behind the front desk.
Paris? He knew another blonde with amazing curves who’d had a great job in Paris. And now that he thought about it, that woman would’ve definitely keyed a man’s Porsche if he pissed her off. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but for some reason, it fit.
“Yeah, but… Paris isn’t cheap. And I had a lot of cappuccino. And I might have gone a little crazy on the credit cards with shopping.”
Both women laughed.
Griffin felt his gut tighten.
This was Charlotte. It had to be. Charlotte was here. Back. In Autre.
Maddie nodded. “I can understand that. When I first moved to California, I needed a whole new wardrobe and everything. Or at least I thought I did.”
“Needless to say, I don’t have ten grand to pay the jackass off, so…” the blonde shrugged. “Here I am.”
Yep. Here she was. Not just back in the states, but in Louisiana. In Autre. In his clinic. Why was she here in the clinic? Griffin couldn’t have described how he was feeling exactly, but it felt a little like excitement and a lot like panic. He wasn’t sure why, but Charlotte being back here, sounding as if she was here to stay, at least for a period of time, made him… worry.
Yes. He was worried.
And he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and head into the nearest room with a lock on the door.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, Maddie.”
Both women straightened away from the counter and turned toward him.
His eyes were firmly on Charlotte.
Her blue eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open. Then her lips spread into a huge grin.
Not that he would’ve expected her not to recognize him. It’d only been two months. And they’d spent quite enough time in very close proximity.
“Griffin!”
She looked thrilled to see him. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised by that.
Actually, he wasn’t surprised by that. He was just still reeling from the fact that she was here.
Charlotte, the woman he had been unable to get out of his head for the past two months, the woman who he’d become obsessed with in the space of about an hour, the woman who was supposed to be across an ocean from him at the moment, was now standing in front of him.
She looked amazing.
That cocktail dress from two months ago had absolutely not at all been a part of her beauty.
“Charlotte,” he greeted. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m… back.”
“You know each other?” Maddie asked.
Charlotte glanced at her. “Yeah, we met at the weddings in April.”
Griffin nodded. “Yeah. We… talked at the weddings.”
Charlotte’s eyes met his, clearly surprised. Had he paused in front of talked on purpose? Yes, he had.
He needed to be careful here. Maddie was smart. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t going to notice him making weird pauses in front of normal words or that he was acting tense around Charlotte, who was clearly a friend of hers.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Charlotte asked, stepping around the front desk and coming for him.
She grabbed his arm and started tugging him into the hallway behind the desk before he even answered.
Of course, she did.
He followed, aware that her touch on his arm was completely distracting and stupidly pleasant. No, it was much more than pleasant. He felt like he had been waiting for that touch for two months, and the feel of her skin on his again was like taking a huge lungful of fresh air after holding his breath for too long.
Stupid. Sending this woman off to Paris with nothing more than what they’d done in the barn had been the right move. In fact, they had done too much in the barn. In fact, they’d talked too much. They’d spent too much time together. He’d had too much of a taste of her, knew too many of her sounds, knew her smell too well. He was addicted to her, and he’d only spent an hour with her two months ago.
She paused for a moment, looked up and down the hall, clearly trying to figure out where they should go. Then she pulled him into the storage room. She pushed the door shut and turned to face him, still holding his arm.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she said. “I’d hoped we’d run into each other, though I didn’t expect it to be quite so soon.”
So, she clearly hadn’t come here looking for him. She didn’t know he was the vet. How would she know that? She wouldn’t unless she’d asked someone about him after they’d met at the wedding. And apparently, she hadn’t asked anyone about him.
That annoyed him.
Which was as stupid as liking her hand on his arm. He hadn’t asked anyone about her either.
“I’m shocked to see you,” he told her, honestly. No one had mentioned Charlotte was going to be back in town. Though, why would they have mentioned that to him? No one had any idea they’d even met, not to mention that he was stupidly infatuated with her.
“Yeah, this whole… situation… kind of happened fast.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Situation?” he asked. He’d overheard that she’d been fired. But was there more? “Are you okay?”
She let go of her lip to smile up at him with a sweet look. That almost made it seem as if she was a little infatuated too.
“I am. I mean, I’m going to be poor for a while, and I don’t get to look at the Eiffel Tower every morning while I have coffee, but I’ll be okay.”