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Her hands tugging at his belt.
His lips on her—
“Sophie, loosen your hips,” the instructor scolded. “Watch Margaret. You see how her lower body is open? You look closed-off.”
Eighty-year-old Margaret looked seconds away from a yoga-induced orgasm.
Sophie nearly whimpered.
She surreptitiously checked the clock in the corner of the room. Only five more minutes and she could get her Friday night started. As usual, she had a truly exciting night awaiting her. Wine, a new romance novel featuring a surly duke, a nice salad. If she was feeling productive, maybe a little self-pedicure.
Finally the torture ended.
She smiled at the older lady next to her as they rolled up their mats. “You have great form,” Sophie said. “I haven’t seen you in here before, have I?”
“This my first class, but I’ve been doing yoga DVDs for years. And I practice daily. I’m heading over to the Pilates class after this, if you want to join.”
“Well, that sounds…” Awful. “…lovely, but I do believe I hear a nice Merlot calling my name.”
The Merlot was actually in her gym bag. Along with a bottle of Chianti. Which pretty much meant she should be signing up for AA about now, but it’s not like she was actually drinking the bottles at the gym. She just hadn’t had anywhere else to put them after Will dropped them off at her office. He got a killer discount from an ex-girlfriend and was always hooking Sophie up with new vintages.
“Oh, I don’t drink the alcohol,” the fitness freak was saying. “I prefer a nice cup of green tea.”
Of course you do, Sophie thought.
As if anyone needed any further proof that she wasn’t cut out for this yoga business, Sophie hadn’t rolled up her mat tightly enough and couldn’t snap the buckles around it. The flexible, antibooze grandma had to help her.
Finally she was on her way out of the hellhole, her body begging for a hot bath and her baggiest clothes, when she realized she couldn’t find her keys in her purse. Sophie groaned as she remembered she’d last used them to open the printer toner box this afternoon.
Which meant the keys were likely sitting on her office desk.
So much for the imminent bubble bath.
Sophie trudged back toward the office, praying that the security guard would be around to let her in.
How had her Friday devolved from perfect to crappy?
When she’d left her house that morning, she’d felt great. And looked great. The guy behind her at Starbucks had bought her latte, and she’d had a blind date set up for that evening. Then she’d gotten to the office and received an actual compliment from Gray on the report she’d put together on the potential Blackwell deal.
But within the span of a couple hours, she’d spilled coffee on her dress, her date had canceled on her, and Gray hadn’t spoken to her the rest of the day.
So now she had crotch sweat from yoga, her only date was a fictional duke, and she had to go back to the miserable office, where her boss had likely put another pile of work on her desk. At least she had the wine on hand.
She might suck at everything else, but she was pretty sure she’d make a kick-ass alcoholic if she put her mind to it.
The security guard was none too happy to be pulled away from his paperback, but Ralph was willing enough to let Sophie into the office once she promised home-baked chocolate chip cookies on Monday morning.
If only all men could be managed so easily.
Sophie found her keys buried beneath the expected pile of new work. She was contemplating “accidentally” knocking the files into the recycling bin when she heard the rustle of papers. She glanced toward Gray’s office, startled to see a lamp on, despite it being well after business hours.
And there was Gray.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one whose Friday night had a faint whiff of loser. Except that her boss wasn’t here because he’d forgotten something. In fact, he looked like he’d never left, and was hunched in the same position as when she’d left a few hours ago.
He looked…lonely.
Sophie’s stomach clenched. At least she knew Brynn was cozy at home, drowning her sorrows in ice cream with her girlfriends.
