Page 21

She’s changed her last name to Bailey, I’ve noticed, which must be her husband’s name. It’s a rookie mistake. When I write a book about marriage, it will focus on making the whole thing easier to dissolve when it’s done. I’ll hand it out to the newly engaged and stop getting invited to weddings and showers. Win-win.

Drew has a new picture up of her hot husband hoisting a massive pumpkin on his shoulder. I scan the photo’s background for Ben, but I don’t see him. I can’t really picture him at a pumpkin patch anyway, unless he’s there to shut it down.

I scroll through the old photos until I get to the one I like best. It’s from Drew’s wedding, and Ben is walking her down the aisle. He’s in a suit, just like he is every day, but there’s something sort of sweet in his face, something hopeful.

If I didn’t know better, I could be persuaded, when looking at this photo, that he isn’t evil at all.

14

Ben and I are in a car, in an area of town I can’t identify. The air is suffocating, and no matter how much I mess with the vent, nothing changes. I try to roll down the window but the button doesn’t work. “This is ridiculous,” I groan aloud. “Why is it so hot in here?”

Ben smiles. It’s his filthiest smile, the one that chafes against me like no other. “Maybe you should take something off.”

And suddenly, the heat is not my biggest problem. It’s that devil on my shoulder, whispering now, saying, “Do it, Gemma. Call his bluff.” His voice is cool and seductive…a flicker of glee in my stomach, a frosty breath over my skin. I can’t resist it today.

I smile back at Ben with my filthiest smile, like a witch about to unleash a curse. He’s amused as I pull off my jacket, but I see something in him, a quiet eagerness, and it flares to life when I reach for the top button of my blouse. He watches it opening, as if it’s a bomb being defused, as if nothing could induce him to look away.

I reach for the next button and notice the ungodly bulge in his pants, straining the zipper. I lick my lips and my smile widens. “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”

“I’m about to enjoy it more,” he replies, pushing me flat onto the seat, pinning me there, while his free hand slides inside my skirt. And just before his hand arrives where I want it most…I wake.

I’m in bed, panting, my t-shirt flung across the room. I can’t even pretend to be disgusted. Right now, I’m simply furious that I woke up before he could get the job done.

How completely like Ben Tate to be disappointing, even in dreams.

I wear a fuchsia skirt to the Monday morning staff meeting because Keeley says I wear too much black. It’s paired with the same heels Ben suggested a dominatrix would wear. I do not, even once, wonder if my outfit screams sexy librarian.

I stride into the conference room with the devil a delicious flame in my chest, ignoring Ben as I take my seat and chat with Terri about her weekend. I feel his gaze and can’t stop myself from meeting it.

“How was your weekend, Gemma?” he asks, his tone sickly-sweet, baiting, but for some reason the sight of my name falling off his lips makes that flame in my chest double in size.

“Just lovely, Ben. And yours?”

There’s a flicker of delight in his dark eyes. “Ecstatic,” he says. Ecstatic implies sex, some dumb InstaModel slavishly serving his every whim while posting grammatically incorrect captions on social media.

“Ecstatic for one of you, anyway,” I reply. I mean for the words to trill lightly, ambivalently, but they emerge sharp instead. That thing in my chest, that childish glee, has suddenly gone sour. It was champagne, freshly poured—now it’s a glass of milk set on a sunny stoop all day.

“Did you have a few popovers this weekend?” he asks, and he’s smiling but there’s an edge to his voice too.

“Loads. So many popovers.”

“What the hell is a popover?” asks stupid Craig, entirely missing the point of this conversation.

“Yes, Gemma,” Ben says, nostrils flaring, “tell us all about the popovers.”

My mouth opens to reply, which is when I realize I’ve only read about popovers, and in my head they were much like turnovers but fancier, more like cream puffs, and I’m not sure that’s true. For all I know they’re another word for pancakes, a food which, inexplicably, has ten thousand synonyms.

I shrug. “You’d have to try them to understand.”

His responding smile is irritatingly victorious. I would like to grab him by his tie, yank his face down and sink my teeth into his jaw until he begged for mercy. I’d like to dig my nails into his skin until he…

I clench my fists to stop my imagination in its tracks. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, why I want him in a way I’ve never wanted anyone else.

I just know I need to make it stop.

Early in the evening, the office hallways are abuzz with laughter, empty chairs being slammed to desks, dinner plans shouted from one cubicle to the next.

It is, as always, the loneliest period of the whole day.