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How dare he act as if she wasn’t hurting too? As if she hadn’t spent the last five days in a fog, trying to do her job when all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.
“You want me to leave?” she asked, rising slowly from her chair. “Is that what you want? Because I’ll call your bluff. I don’t need this.”
“Tris, Cait, ease off.” Matt rose and came to stand between them, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’re all exhausted. It’s Christmas,” he added quietly. “Not the day for this.”
Tristan turned away and shoved a hand through his hair on his way back to his desk. “Go home,” he said gruffly. “Both of you.”
“I am home,” Matt reminded him, slipping his hands into his pockets. He’d finally gotten his hair trimmed the day before in the severe military cut he favored when he wasn’t being lazy. Probably a good thing because their trade wasn’t ever going to happen.
Hell, she might as well go for that Brazilian at her salon. It would be the closest thing she’d be getting to sexual activity for a very long time.
“Then go meet your mom at the mall. I’ll handle this.”
Matt glanced back and forth between them and shrugged as he went to collect his jacket. “Coming, Cait?”
She swallowed the bitterness on the back of her tongue as she dropped back down into her chair. “I have work to do.”
He shook his head and zipped up. “Fine, suit yourself. I’ll go meet my mom at the mall. Can I trust you two to play civilly when I’m not around to supervise?”
“Get out of here,” Tris said without looking up from his computer. “Merry fucking Christmas.”
Matt laughed and swung by Cait’s desk on his way to the door. He bent down to kiss the top of her head as he had a million other times. She’d never stiffened before. She also hadn’t caught her breath and tensed her fingers on her mouse and wondered if he could somehow sense how her nipples hardened from the simple brush of his lips over her scalp. “Merry, merry, short stuff,” he murmured. “See you tomorrow.”
“Have a nice Christmas,” she said evenly. “Come over whenever.”
When he’d gone, she turned on the small clock radio on her desk. They’d have some Christmas cheer in here if it killed her.
“I said you could go, Caity.”
She ignored Tristan and the hot pokers of need jabbing her body.
She hadn’t been alone with either guy since the weekend. Five short days ago that seemed like a lifetime.
She’d only just turned twenty-five and already felt as if she were closing on fifty.
“I’m not leaving you here,” she said when she was sure she could control her voice. “If you’re working, I’m working.”
Without waiting for his approval, she went back to her collage. She could do this. The feel was fun, spring, carefree. Sexy, playful. Even if she’d never felt less like any of those things, she would make him proud of her.
Not Abe. She didn’t care about his opinion. Well, she did, but obviously not the way she cared about Tristan’s. She hated to see disapproval in his eyes, ever.
So she’d just have to damn well make this work.
Four bleary hours later, she shoved away from her keyboard and held a hand to her growling stomach. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime, eight long hours ago. Tristan was still hunched over his desk. He’d scarcely moved in the last four hours, but he wasn’t sleeping. His shrewd green eyes were trained on his screen, and he tapped the keys at a steady pace.
“Come see what I have,” she said, fighting a yawn.
“You come see what I have,” he countered, swiveling in his chair to face her.
She came over to his desk and leaned in. The colors were vibrant and kick-ass, the models beautiful, young, and fresh. Abe Donnelly would be scrambling to shell out his money for this ad campaign, no doubt about it.
“Holy shit, Tristan. How’d you come up with this?”
“The possibility of losing an account always spurs me to greater heights.” With a shrug, he rose and went over to her computer. “Besides—” He broke off, his gaze glued to her screen. “Caity, this is incredible. This is just what he wanted. I know it.”
In spite of her hunger, fatigue, and general misery, she grinned and gripped her elbows. “You really like it?”
“Not like, love. It’s perfect.”
