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“I said there were five reasons you should date me.” I turn back to my laptop and hit the space bar. “This is my final point.”
She blows her red nose as she looks at the screen that now reads, “One Reason Charlotte Should Not Date Elliot.”
The “Not” is in the script font.
“Um.” She looks puzzled. “Pretty sure I never recommended you tell people why they do not want the thing you’re pitching.”
“I don’t have an animation for this one,” I tell her. “Because I want your full attention on me.”
I take off my jacket and toss it onto the chair in the corner.
Charlotte’s eyes flick toward her door, which is still ajar. “Are you about to Magic Mike me?”
“Would you like me to?”
“On Harvest Enterprises property?” She snorts. “Max would reinstate the subclause in a nanosecond.”
Let’s not delve back into that minefield.
“Charlotte, there is one big reason you should not date me. And if any part of this applies, then I’ll walk out that door right now and never bother you again.” I pop off my left cuff link. “But you have to promise to say so.”
She scrunches the snotty tissue so tight her knuckles turn white.
I pop off the right cuff link. “Do you, Charlotte? Do you promise to say?”
Her red-rimmed eyes scan my shoulders, my chest, and down my right arm. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip and nods in slow motion.
I drop the cuff links next to my laptop.
“Because the thing is…” I flip back my left cuff.
“Oh Jesus.” She closes her eyes, but for only a moment, then they’re fixed on my arm as I turn the sleeve back a second time. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”
“The thing is,” I repeat, her attention now exactly where I want it, “if you don’t want to be loved, and adored, and worshipped like the smart, funny, extremely well-scheduled goddess you are”—I fold my sleeve a third time—“then you shouldn’t date me.”
I push the sleeve the rest of the way to my elbow.
Charlotte lets out a gasp-giggle and shakes her head, her hands now linked under her chin.
Now it’s the right arm’s turn.
I fold back the cuff. “And if you can’t deal with”—a second turn of the sleeve—“being loved as much as I will love you”—the third and final roll—“then you shouldn’t date me.”
I push the right sleeve up to my elbow, then hook my thumbs through my beltloops, elbows pointing out to the sides. “Should you date me, Charlotte?”
Her eyes scan down my left forearm, then my right, then drift up to my face.
“You bastard,” she says, deadpan.
“Hmm. That’s not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”
“You hypnotized me with all your”—she waves her snotty tissue in the general direction of my midsection—“your hot arminess.”
It’s impossible to stifle a chuckle. But inside, every part of me tenses and clenches.
This is it. The moment of truth. If this hasn’t worked, I have nothing else. And I’ll have to honor my promise to take no for an answer and leave her alone.
Her chest and those perfect, delicious, soft breasts rise and fall with her heavy breaths.
