AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh, that call.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t invent it,” Perky warns me. “It would be easy to find something negative in Will that isn’t really there.”
“Why would I invent it?”
Another look passes between Fi and Perk. “Because, Mal,” Fiona says, the self-appointed speaker of truths we hide from ourselves, “you spent all those years in high school inventing reasons why you couldn’t take a risk and see if he liked you, too. Don’t make that mistake again.”
I start to protest.
I stop.
I remember the one deep conversation I ever had with Will. The one time I thought maybe, just maybe, he was interested in me.
I stuff my mouth with sweet naan as my phone’s notifications start to ping from the dating app.
I was wrong then, and I’m wrong now.
But this is my life.
And Will Lotham’s back in it. Like it or not.
Problem is, I do like it.
I like it too much.
Chapter Ten
I have to go back to the office, like it or not, because Will is my client.
A client who made sexually suggestive conversation with me yesterday before my phone died.
A client who certainly seems to have been flirting with me.
A client who… isn’t here today.
I’ve tried to avoid coming to The Lotham Group, but I can’t. I need to see him for approval on renting a few antique pieces to fill in at the house. I also need an orange lacquered urn his mother has in the worst possible place in the office, but that will be perfect for a pop of color in her front entry hall.
So.
Driven to overcome my own uncertain humiliation, my perfectionistic design tendencies get in the way. You would think I’d be relieved to come into the office, grab the urn, and run off, not needing to face Will.
Disappointment, though, seeps into my pores.
And then I check my email.
My pulse leaps when I see his name in my inbox.
Out of the office for the week as we migrate from old location to new. Agents showing house. Be ready.
That’s the entire email from Will.
What’s the opposite of a pulse leap? A coma? That sounds restful.
Perky and Fiona were wrong. He wasn’t hinting at more. If anything, this is a measured, cool, all-business approach.
The lacquered urn feels heavy, stupid, trivial in my arms as I walk out of The Lotham Group’s office and into the bright summer sunshine.
