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“No,” I say with more force than is necessary. “I just want her to talk to him. I’m not a monster.” The same thing I said to Callie. Unease churns my stomach.
“Have you let Ms. Thompson know? I’m sorry, I mean Callie.” He says her name with a seductive lilt that makes George laugh.
“Knock it the fuck off. I have her running all over Manhattan right now, but I’ll tell her when she gets back.”
“Won’t she need to get ready or something?” George asks. “You can’t show up with her looking sweaty and disheveled.”
I stand, ushering George and Miles out. “I appreciate the concern, but what part of she will be punished do you not understand? The point is not for her to be paraded around like a prize jewel.”
Miles shakes his head. “I think you’re making a mistake.”
“I know you do, but you’re not going to interfere, are you? Remember the articles she wrote about you? Merciless Miles? She stalked me, for fuck’s sake. She wrote articles about Christine. She called me an embezzler. She deserves this.”
Somehow, the events don’t hit the way they used to. Miles seems to agree because he shrugs.
“She brought me Lane. Indirectly. But still.”
“You’re sick. Get out.”
He leaves with a grin, and I drop onto my office couch. I trust Miles, even though we are very different people.
I shouldn’t do this. I’d planned to force her to come to the event with me, sweaty and annoyed. Humiliate her. The final nail in the coffin of her animosity. I need her to hate me. Because if she likes me… I can’t handle that. I can’t have her close. She’s too tempting.
I was prepared to go the rest of my life with just my work for company. But then Callie came along, with her dancing in the gym, and her cupcakes, and her winning smile. She’s a vine creeping into the cracks in my facade, so I need to harden my heart, set us back to square one.
It’s a strategy that has worked just fine in the past. The women Callie has reported on in the paper haven’t been dates, just business associates. When was my last relationship? Maybe Amy? A lawyer who helped on a merger about two years ago. We spent a few nights together, until she wanted more, and I immediately cut things off. And before her, Annalise. Not going there right now.
I can practically hear Christine now. Why do you want to be alone? My response is always the same—it’s safer this way. No attachments means no betrayal. No one meeting my family means no one can hurt them. Christine is the risk taker, at least when it comes to her personal life. I might be willing to bet millions of dollars on something in business, but my family’s feelings? Absolutely not.
I shove off the couch, my mind made up. There’s no reason not to continue with my plan of tormenting Callie Thompson. Nothing other than damnable human frailty.
A momentary weakness. A passing fancy for a woman I know is bad for me. I need to shove any attraction down so deep that I’m practically a monk. I need to regain the icy calm I’m known for. I gulp the water George leaves on my desk every morning, savoring the cool slide down my throat. If I’m icy on the outside, maybe I can convince my insides to feel the same.
* * *
I raise my head from a due diligence report to Callie dropping a stack of three files on my desk.
“These were rejected.”
“And why is that?” I raise a brow. Her hair is windblown, her cheeks are pink, and she’s glistening with sweat. This is what she’d look like in my bed. I jolt. Not fucking happening.
“Recipients said they hated you,” she says sweetly. I clamp my lips together, even as a smile threatens. Callie is funny, even when she’s being a brat.
“Sounds like you didn’t try hard enough, Thompson.”
“Do not make me go back out there. It’s some sort of Halloween bar crawl today.” She shudders. “The things I’ve seen. I rolled my ankle avoiding a pile of vomit, and I was hit on by more frat bros than I can count. Don’t they know I’m too old for them?”
“I’m sure they don’t care,” I say coldly. My hand twitches on my thigh. She was hit on? The thought fills me with icy rage. She’s mine. No one else’s.
“Can I sit?” She’s oblivious to the clawing possessiveness in my chest as she sinks onto the couch and twists her ankle this way and that, wincing slightly. “I think it’s fine,” she mutters.
I’m halfway out of my chair and reaching for the closet with the first aid kit before I catch myself. The point of this is for Callie to suffer. This is exactly what should be happening. I push my doubts down and make sure my face is impassive before I speak.
“Thompson. We have an event tonight. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”
Her head pops up. “An event?” She looks wary.
“A small one.” It’s not small. It’s massive. But my plan depends on keeping her in the dark, so I can savor her shock when she realizes she looks like Cinderella at the ball, if she never got the makeover.
