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“You have to go back,” Cher said. “A fling is different than a one-night stand, you know.”
And a fling is different than a happily ever after.
“I know the difference,” I said, giving her a mock shove. But I suddenly didn’t feel as buoyant as a moment before. A happily-ever-after wasn’t what I was getting with Mitchell, I knew that going in. But the sudden reminder that whatever it was I had started with Mitchell last night had a very definite and very soon end sat like a lump on my chest. It had only been one night, but somehow I’d poured my soul into that night.
“How long is he here?” Sarah asked, as if reading my mind. She knew his stay was temporary.
“Three weeks, I think,” I said quietly.
Sarah gave me a look of sympathy, but Cher clapped her hands. “It’s perfect. Right? No complications.”
“Yes,” I said. “Right.” It was a good thing. Wasn’t it? Mitchell may have a princely life at his disposal, but he was the farthest thing from a Prince Charming.
Inexplicably, green eyes flashed before me. Rough hands. My skin tingled with the memory, my ears filling with a low, rough voice. You’re so fucking beautiful, Winona.
Both women were looking at me strangely, but luckily I was spared from saying anything more when Sarah looked over our shoulders, her demeanor suddenly changing. I turned to see Jamie Reilly, her boss, filling the doorframe.
I smiled broadly. I liked Jamie. I didn’t know him as well as his son, but he’d always been kind to me, if not a little on the stoic side. “Hey Jamie,” I said.
But Jamie didn’t smile back. “Winona. Cher.” Except he wasn’t looking at us. His eyes were on Sarah. “Ms. Cooper—could I have a word?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d say Sarah was in trouble.
I looked back at Sarah, confused. She sat up straight and cleared her throat. “What can I do for you, Jamie?”
“I need to speak to you about your email this morning.”
“Can it wait?” she asked crisply. “I’m in the middle of a meeting.”
Cher gave me a raised eyebrow and a smirk, clearly as proud as I was that Sarah was standing up to him. Her only tell was the whiteness of her knuckles as she held her hands on her desk.
When she’d said things were difficult between her and her boss, I’d wondered if she probably just wasn’t used to Jamie’s quiet demeanor. But if this was how he was all the time with her—she’d had every right to be upset.
“No, it can’t wait,” Jamie said. “And actually, it involves you, Winona.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Sarah’s cheeks went pink. “Perhaps we could chat alone first?”
“That’s all right, Sarah.” I said. Unlike Sarah, I didn’t report to him. “I’m dying to know what’s got your knickers in a twist.”
Jamie’s temple clenched under his salt and pepper hair. “It’s about this collective business.”
“I… I floated the idea of me joining your collective,” Sarah explained to me quickly.
“Well, it’s out of the question,” Jamie said.
I stood up. “Excuse me?”
“It’s going to distract Ms. Cooper from this job, and she doesn’t need any more distractions.” What the hell had gotten into him?
“You’re being awfully paternalistic, aren’t you?” I said, more confused than anything. I’d known Jamie a long time, and I’d never known him to talk to a woman—hell, anybody—like this.
“She’s my employee, and I’m being a boss,” he said.
Maybe I should have shut my mouth, given Jamie technically had the power to fire me from this reno job. But Heartbreaker was Reilly Contracting’s go to plumbing company—I’d done every job the company had hired us for faster, better, and with far more satisfied customers than any other outfit in town. Besides, we were halfway through the job it would tank the schedule if they had to go out to someone else.
“Jamie,” I said, anger winning out now at his rudeness. And at the fact that he was trying to undermine Heartbreaker. Though I’d been drawn away from it for this job—and for the business I’d gotten into yesterday with Mitchell—the collective was everything to me. It was the culmination of all my years of being sick of certain men giving women shit for doing their jobs, just because they didn’t have a penis.
