Page 38 of Apparently, I’m Torture

He stared at me for a few more seconds before dropping his laptop bag and blazer onto a nearby desk. “Well then, if you’re staying, so am I.” He rubbed his face and pulled out a chair. “What’re you working on?”

I shook my head. “Uh-uh. No. You’re not staying here, Mister Jackson–”

“Shawn.” He shot me a look. “I think we’re past the formalities now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you cried in my meeting room.”

Bristling at the accusation in his voice, I said, “So?”

“Lilly, if I was anyone else, that could’ve ended in you being asked to leave the fundraiser.”

I folded my arms, digging my heels in. “Well, I wouldn’t have gotten upset if I had a working computer in the first place.”

His laugh was dry as he shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should’ve known this wouldn’t work. You and me working together–”

“Let me guess,” I interrupted. “It’s torture.”

“Lilly.”

“Your words, not mine.”

He stood and stepped closer, until I felt I had to back up against my desk. My breath hitched as he studied my face, my cheeks warming as his eyes lingered on my lips.

“It’s been a few years. I thought we’d be past that.”

I scoffed. “Maybe we would be if you actually spoke to me.”

“We were at work events. I didn’t want to make a scene.”

He glanced at my body, and I felt his eyes rake across my curves. A small fire sizzled inside me, warming me from the inside out.

“I wouldn’t have made a scene.”

He raised a brow and I wanted to push him away.

“You know what? It was the right choice for us to stop speaking. I’m only sorry I ruined your silent streak.”

He shut his eyes, pained, and when he opened them again, his expression was shuttered. “Ordered your food yet?”

A strangled cry trickled out of me, and I stomped my foot like a toddler. “No. And I’m not ordering anything until you leave.”

“I’m not leaving until you do.”

I growled in frustration, because this was exactly the kind of infuriating behavior that confused me to no end five years ago. And here he was, doing it again.

“Why do you care if I work late?”

He gave me a look that was eerily similar to the one he gave me years ago. Suddenly I was in the backroom of Tristy’s, panic rising as an uneasy Shawn offered to help me study.

“Why wouldn’t I care?”

“Because you hate me,” I answered, exasperated. “I mean, don’t you?”

He stepped closer; his dark, intense eyes boring into me. I was practically sitting on my desk at this point. He was so close, his hands leaning on the desk at either side of me, caging me in. Nerves danced around me, flitting and crackling like rogue strands of electricity. I swallowed, waiting. His trousers brushed against my bare knees as he leaned closer, his voice low, but clear.

“I never hated you.”