He nodded slowly, suddenly aware that he had his finger over her lips.
“Doris, it’s pretty obvious that you’re lying about who your family are. And I get it, I also like to keep my personal life separate.”
She started to nod. Slowly. And with each move, her lips dragged up and down his finger. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. Her long auburn hair brought out the amber color in her eyes, the small freckles that dotted her nose and the flushed pinky color of her cheeks.Why on earth would she hide this?
“So why are youreallywearing a wig?” he asked, finally moving his fingers off her lips, but not without letting them trail slowly down her small, soft chin.
She swallowed hard. “I already told you—”
He cut her off. “You’re Jewish? You’re as bad at lying as you are at writing emails, Miss Granger. Did you really work as an assistant before this?” he asked.
She nodded again. “In a manner of speaking.” Her voice was small and tentative and laden with something he wasn’t totally sure he understood. She looked away, looked at her feet and in an almost inaudible voice said, “Why are you even here? It’s Sunday.”
Now that was a good question.Why the hell was he here?He’d asked himself the same thing at least a hundred times this morning. And he still didn’t have a good enough answer. The only answer he could come up with was that he’d lain awake in bed for hours thinking about her stupid door lock and how someone could easily break in—especially after their irritating SMS exchange. And before that, he’d sat in his office, unable to work because all he could think about was her driving around at night going to God knows where for pay day drinks. He’d paced around his house thinking of a reason to contact her, to find out if she was alright and if she had gotten home safely. The only thing he could come up with was the lame site meeting thing, which had then led to the irritating SMS exchange. And on top of that, he and Emmy had had an explosive fight this morning—he’d not done the right thing when he’d asked his mother to take her bra shopping. He needed to get out of the house for a while until things simmered down, and so that was why he found himself here. Outside Doris’s house on a Sunday morning with a drill in his hand.
He shrugged and shook his head, then shrugged some more. “I don’t know.”
She looked at him, with those stupidly beautiful eyes that were no longer concealed behind big glasses.Wait, were those also fake?This woman was strange and distracting and stubborn and clearly not telling him the whole truth. But she was also so damn fucking beautiful . . . He felt himself being pulled across the room towards her, even though his feet had not moved.
“That makes no sense,” she whispered. “In fact, you make no sense. Do you know that?”
“Says the woman who’s wearing a wig and I’m pretty sure was wearing fake glasses too,” he said back. And then something happened to her face. A look flashed over it that he hadn’t seen before: guilt? She shook her head as if trying to rid herself of the feeling, and then her demeanor completely changed. She stood upright, hands on hips, and glared at him.
“Do you know how little sense you make, Ryan?” She said his name pointedly. “Or is it Mr. Stark? I never know these days. I just can’t keep up.”
“Excuse me?” he said indignantly.
“Oh please, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. One minute you’re buying me pizza and fixing my bike wheel, and the next you’re making my life a living hell when you scream at me at work, and fire me too. And suddenly you’re also messaging me at night, insulting me because I went out for a drink, and now you’re standing outside my door on a Sunday morning fixing a lock that I never asked you to fix.”
She ran her hands through her hair; it shimmered in the light, and he was transfixed by how soft it looked.
“I can take care of myself, you know. If I wanted to fix my lock, I would have. I also know how to use a drill!”
At that, he scoffed. He doubted it very much.
“You don’t believe me?” she asked.
He looked at her for a moment or two. And then, without saying a word, he held the drill out. She took an indignant step towards him and then snatched the drill away. She looked up at him defiantly, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Well?” he asked.
She shook her head. Her cheeks were red, and she looked genuinely angry. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to fail at it so you can prove how right you are and how wrong I am? Because that’s what you do, Mr. Stark.” She folded her arms and looked like an impenetrable wall. “You deliberately didn’t tell me how to answer calls and how to find a notebook on my first day. Didn’t you? And you did that because you like to see people suffer, don’t you? You like to watch people fail. Does it give you satisfaction?” She was getting more riled up and he could see this had been a terrible mistake.
What had he been thinking?He needed to put an end to this. And so, he did something uncharacteristic: he backed down.
He turned and walked out. He closed the door behind him and left without saying a word.
CHAPTERFORTY-EIGHT
Poppy
I could still feel his finger across my lips hours later. And every time I thought about him, my lips physically tingled. It had been so hard to lie to him this morning about my wig. The guilt had hit me so hard that I’d wanted to open my mouth and tell him the entire truth. But things had gone so far already, too far. It had become one of those lies that the longer you don’t say, the harder it becomes. And lies beget more lies, and more, until you’re a Jewish immigrant with a double-barreled surname who is fluent in Spanish! Besides, what would he think of me when he learned the truth? The idea that he would think less of me made me feel sick to my stomach. And so, I’d started a fight with him. I’d deflected in the only way I could think of. And I regretted it now.
I touched my lips. This was becoming complicated. I mean, where exactly did I think this was going to end? Was I going to be able to keep up this lie? Was I going to work for him forever? Honestly, I hadn’t thought that far. All I’d thought of was that I’d needed money and I’d needed it now. But as each day passed, it was becoming harder and harder to keep the lie alive. We kept having these moments where he would look at me likethat, and the truth was, he was looking at Doris. Notme.I wondered what he would think of Poppy when he met her? Mind you, it was clear he didn’t think that much of Doris anymore either. The look he’d given me before walking out the door had been . . .
My phone beeped and my heart thumped when I saw the message.
Ryan:It was inappropriate to come and fix your lock. I shouldn’t have done it. It won’t happen again.
