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My skin prickles. The hair on my arms seem to lift as a chill that has nothing to do with the weather settles over me and I twist in my seat, catching a flash of messy auburn hair in the crowd. My stomach twists and nausea bubbles in my throat.
“Just thought some guy was staring at us but, I don’t know.” Max’s smile is back as he looks at me, but I’m staring at the retreating figure.
He’s not here, Mikaela. It’s just your mind playing tricks on you.
“Shall we?” Max is holding his hand out for me.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Yeah. Sure.” I take his arm and we move away from the spine chilling sense of dread as I do my best to push aside another flare of pain.
Ben
“Stop that.” Jamie peers up at me over the manuscript he’s spent the last three hours pouring over and I sit throwing a small ball up into the air repeatedly. “What’s gotten into you today?”
“Nothing,” I grumble.
Fucking observant dick. Convinced me to take this stupid job.
I glance back to the empty desk in the front of the office and grunt.
“Mhm.” Jamie nods to himself as he scratches out something he doesn’t like. “And I’m the next American Idol. Seriously, I thought you ran in the mornings to get the temper out of you, not to draw it out for you?”
“I’m not in a temper.”
“Again I say, American freaking Idol, Ben. Go get some lunch or something. I’m busy here and you’re making it hard to focus.”
I scoff as I get to my feet and sulk out of the room. I need to get out of this funk and quickly. Sweeping my eyes over the faces in the space around me I find that my appetite is gone, but I make my way over to the nearest desk anyway.
“Hey.” I plaster on a smile, bright and wide - the type that I spent my teenage years perfecting - and lick my lower lip as the wide brown eyes of the girl in front of me meet mine. “How’s it going today?”
I run my eyes over her, appreciating the thin white blouse that’s buttoned one button too low, and the charcoal grey skirt that sits just above her knee. She’s pretty in that overdone, always perfect kind of way - her hair is an almost white blonde and her lips are just a little too pouted - and a tiny voice in my mind makes note of the fact she’s wearing way more make up than Mik does.
“It’s going well.” The girl smiles as she flutters her eyelashes at me. “How about you?”
I nod as my eyes slowly travel back to hers, deliberately dragging out the moment and pausing for a second too long on those lips.
“It’s going a lot better now.” Lowering my voice, I revel in the way her eyes drop when I speak. “I don’t suppose you need a coffee right about now?”
She gets to her feet with a sultry smile and leans forwards to reach for her purse, no doubt a deliberate ploy to press her ass against me, and I hold in my urge to roll my eyes.Perfectly predictable.
Quickly, I lead the girl out of the office with my hand on the small of her back and my eyes straight ahead, laughing with her at some stupid little joke she makes as we approach the elevator.
When the doors slide open Mikaela is laughing, leaning into that assistant’s side as he draws in a laboured breath. I can feel my jaw tighten as I watch the guys hand withdraw from her waist and they step around me. She hardly acknowledges my existence, save for a quick glance in my direction, and they walk back into the office. It’s like I’m just some stranger in her way and it enrages me.
Fuck.
My hand slips away from the girl’s back and I shove both hands in my pockets as we step into the elevator and she comes to a stop far too close to me. She smiles coyly up at me, shuffling closer, and I stare directly ahead. My eyes don’t leave Mikaela. Not until the doors close and my shoulders slump.
