She waved her hand in the direction of his desk. “Go tell him you’ve got an ugly twat. Maybe he’ll reconsider.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It was kind of funny.” She brushed the wrinkles from her dress. “What did he look like without his shirt on?”
“What do you think?” I asked. “He looked like someone ought to be chiseling a statue of his likeness and placing it in Naples Park.”
“I want this to work,” she said.
“You want what to work?”
“This. You. Him. This.”
I glared. “You little turd. This is your fault. You basically set me up.”
She cowered in her seat, but it was only an act. “I may have planted a seed or two,” she admitted. “A few in his head, a few in yours.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Well, your little plan didn’t work.”
“He’s perfect for you,” she said. “He’s a sexual deviant, and so are you. He’s loyal, and so are you. He’s alpha, and you’re subservient.”
“I’m not subservient,” I snapped. “I can’t believe you said that.”
She stood, walked around the corner of my desk, and got on my computer. After a few seconds of typing, she gestured to the screen. “Read it.”
sub·ser·vi·ent | səb-ˈsər-vē-ənt – adjective – willing and eager to obey another unquestioningly – “She was subservient to her partner.”
“Maybe a little bit,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s never going to work.”
“A little bit.” She laughed. “You define the term.”
“I do not.”
“If he walked in here right now and said, ‘Bend over that desk. I want to fuck you from behind,’ or whatever, you’d do it.”
“I would not,” I said adamantly. “One, I wouldn’t have sex in my office. Two, he couldn’t just order me around like that.”
“Yes, he could.”
“Maybe a little, but not in here. My office is my sanctuary. This place is off-limits.”
“Well, my point was that you two are perfect for each other. I hate to admit it, but that’s the reason I hired him. Not the entire reason, but it was a big part of it.”
I was flattered and pissed off all at the same time. “Are you kidding me?” I asked, my tone laced with aggravation. “You hired him because you thought—”
“I hired him because I’m tired of seeing you in pain. You deserve so much better than you’ve received. I hired him because he was willing, qualified, and because he said he’d stay long-term. My hope was that you two would hit it off. After I figured out who he was and what he stood for, I decided I had to put you two together.”
“What does he stand for?” I asked.
“He’s a good man, and he stands up for women at any and all costs.”
“I wish he wanted me as much as I want him.”
“Let me see if I can fix this,” she said.
“Leave it alone,” I insisted. “I only want him if he wants me. If he’s doing you a favor, it’s just not the same.”
She stood and gestured toward my purse. “Put your sunglasses on, dear. You look like hell.”
My eyes were swollen, my heart hurt, and the only man who came within inches of wanting me in the past year was a disastrous setup from a friend and coworker who felt sorry for me.
I not only looked like hell, I felt like it, too.
“I’ll leave them off,” I said. “I deserve this.”
“You do not,” she insisted. “You deserve the best.”
I might have deserved it, but I had my doubts I’d ever receive it.
Chapter Eleven
Devin
Kate and I were seated at a coffee shop having a caffeinated beverage and a light dinner to celebrate my two-week anniversary with the company.
“I like this place a latte,” she said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Me too.”
Kate was exactly what I needed in a friend. She kept conversations interesting, didn’t muddy up our friendship waters with drama, and always wore a smile. In the past, my friends had been limited to men who were constantly in a state of competition with one another. Trying to go faster, outdrink, or earn more money than the man next to them. It was a breath of fresh air to have someone who wanted nothing more than to enjoy my company.
“So, do you have any idea what’s wrong with Teddi lately?” She sipped her latte. “Every time I’ve seen her this week, she’s been really short with me.”
Since I denied her sexual requests, Teddi hadn’t spoken more than two words to me. I didn’t know her well enough to decide if her patterns of coming and going were normal, but short of a few silent trips past me to get something from her desk, she’d avoided me like the plague.
I hated that things had changed between us. Teddi didn’t know it, but I was saving her from a mountain of grief. She could be pissed off all she wanted, but I wasn’t going to be a selfish prick and ruin her image of me all for a few nights of sex.
“Probably stressed out about the house,” I replied.
“I suppose that could be it,” she said, seeming far from convinced.
I decided to change the subject. “The house should be done by the end of next week, by the way.”
“Oh, wow. Those guys work fast.”
“They’d be a lot faster if I didn’t have them do a little extra work.”
She lowered her cup to the table and picked up her biscotti. She looked it over as if trying to decide where to sink her teeth. “You don’t think Teddi’s attitude could have something to do with the fact that you wouldn’t have sex with her, do you?”
I choked on my espresso. A teary-eyed coughing fit followed. When I caught my breath, I looked at her with eyes of disbelief. “She told you?”
She dunked her biscotti in her coffee and nodded eagerly. “She’s devastated.”
“Devastated?”
“Absolutely crushed,” she said over a mouthful of biscotti. “Things like that have a profound effect on women.”
“Believe me, I had no intention of causing her that kind of grief. My experience in dealing with women’s emotions is nil. I had no idea—”
“This is why we’re friends.” She pointed the uneven tip of her biscotti at me. “I can teach you such things.”
“Why would not having sex be so devastating?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense that she’s pissed about something so stupid.”
“I doubt she saw it as stupid.”
“We were going to fuck,” I said dismissively. “We didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“The last guy…” She paused and looked me over. “Can I tell you about the last guy she saw without you telling her I told you?”
“Sure.”
“The last guy she saw was over a year ago. They were serious. Living together and everything. She heard he was having sex with another woman. She asked him. He denied it. Then, someone hinted that there was another. She asked him again, and he denied it. It went on for a long time. The accusations and the denials. Then, one day, she caught him.”