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When we were both inside my office, I didn’t round the desk and sit down. Instead I closed the door and caged her against it with one arm, letting the other drop. She backed up against the door, bumping into it in her surprise. Her lips parted.
“You heard,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“When the Egertons were here. You heard what they said.”
She blinked, and the surprise left her eyes. I was so close I could watch her quickly calculate, the thoughts moving swiftly. “I heard some of it, yes,” she said, her voice cool.
“That’s why you’re pissed at me.”
“I’m not pissed at you.”
I searched for different words. I was so close to her, I could smell her delicate scent. Words weren’t coming easily with that scent in my nose. I’d shrugged off my jacket in the meeting room and loosened my tie, and being in my shirtsleeves in that moment felt almost naked. “You’re not talking to me,” I tried again.
“We’re talking right now.”
Her chin was up, her eyes sparked with quiet defiance. Still, even though I had one of my arms at my side, she didn’t make a move to get away. “It isn’t the same, and you know it,” I said. “Something’s been wrong for days.”
“Why would you think that? You’ve barely been here.”
Were we fighting? I couldn’t tell. “I had things to do.”
“I know. I keep your schedule. Which was suddenly very full.”
“Do you have something to say about my schedule, Samantha?”
“Only that everything became quite urgent as soon as I was worried I was about to get fired. You’d rather avoid me than talk to me about it.”
I looked into her eyes. They were blue, but not a searing blue—more of an understated shade. Her makeup was understated, too, mascara and liner and a light, flattering shadow. My sister was a fashion stylist, and I knew plenty about how women made themselves up. Samantha did it expertly, just as she did everything expertly. I’d never been close enough to see her precise magic before.
“You thought you were going to get fired,” I said. It wasn’t a question. Her words had hit me like a punch in the gut.
She blinked once, looking at me with a trace of scorn. “Of course I thought it. You were set to make a multimillion-dollar deal. Then one of the Egertons made a remark about my ass, and the whole thing was off.”
“That’s what you heard? The ass remark?”
Again, her expression was subtle, but it was there. A wince I was close enough to see. This got to her somehow. Got right under her perfect skin. “Yes,” she said.
So she’d walked away before she heard anything else. “Let’s get the truth out, then,” I said. “He also called you the best pussy in New York. And he said he’d do you.”
She winced again, harder this time. The words hurt her. Oh yes, the Egerton brothers were going to pay. She didn’t speak.
“Does that bother you?” I asked her, not letting up.
“I’m used to it,” she said. “It means nothing.”
“It means nothing, yet it’s bothered you for days.”
“The words don’t bother me,” she gritted out. “It’s the fact that…”
“That what?”
“That he said them to you.”
It was like a slap to the face. I had a sudden understanding of what was wrong with us, and I wanted to rip my own guts out to undo it. “You thought I’d welcome them talking about you like that,” I said. “You thought it would be fine with me.”
“For a second, yes.”
