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I tried that idea on for size.
“Is that a yes?” Glenn asked. “Are we settled? No more whining and foot-dragging?”
I was just about to say yes, and we were just about to have a deal… when I heard Robby’s voice behind me.
“Are you serious?” Robby said. “This is never going to work.”
Everybody turned to stare at him. Timing had never been Robby’s thing.
Robby was looking around the group like the whole room was crazy. “Is everyone kidding? This has to be a joke.”
Was he worried about my safety? Was he protesting the way that Glenn was strong-arming me? Was he—maybe—jealous?
I studied the layers of outrage on his face.
And that’s when Robby cleared everything up. He held his hands out toward me in a Behold! gesture and said, “Just look! Nobody in a million years will ever possibly believe that this person, right here, bested the legendary Kennedy Monroe to become Jack Stapleton’s girlfriend.”
FIRST THINGS FIRST.We could settle the Jack Stapleton thing later.
I flew the ten steps to where Robby was standing, grabbed him by the knot of his necktie so tight that it choked all the pompous, judgmental asshattery off his face, and I dragged him by the neck out to the reception area.
Hoping to yell at him alone.
But of course everybody followed us.
I was too mad to care.
“What is your problem, man?” I demanded, letting go as he coughed and sputtered. “The last time I saw you, you were dumping me. It’s been radio silence from you for a full month, and now you show back up here and act like you’re the one who was wronged? Is this how you compete for London? With insults and name-calling like a grade-school bully? What is happening”—and here I pressed my pointer finger to his forehead—“in that testosterone-soaked, raisin-sized brain of yours that you cannot stop pelting insults at me? In front of everybody! What! Is! Wrong with you?!”
Our entire audience, semihidden behind the ficus plants, waited for Robby’s answer.
But before Robby could say anything, the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.
And out stepped Jack Stapleton.
You really can’t overstate the drama of the collective indrawn breath at the sight of The Destroyer himself, in the flesh, stepping into our office. Of all places.
I, of course, had already met The Destroyer. I’d rolled his fingers around on an ink pad. I’d forced him to copy the lyrics of the Aretha Franklin song “Respect” for his handwriting sample. I’d stuck him with a needle. And I may or may not have dislocated his shoulder.
So I wasn’t quite as shocked to see him as everybody else.
But even I was shocked.
Same T-shirt, same jeans—but now wearing a baseball cap and sneakers, too. He looked just ordinary enough to put ordinary people to shame. I looked around at my coworkers, staring: Amadi, the valedictorian of his high school and now a kindhearted dad of three; Kelly, the stress-knitter who had made scarves for every person in the office; Doghouse, the ex-firefighter who’d gotten his nickname not because he was in everyone’s doghouse—but because he compulsively fostered homeless puppies.
Jack Stapleton’s presence in our office made them all seem more real. And they made him seem… unreal.
We waited for him to do something.
So he took in the sight of my finger on Robby’s forehead and said, “Are you bullying that poor coworker?”
I dropped my hand. “What are you doing here?”
He aimed his gaze right at mine, lit up those legendary gray-blue eyes, and said, “Hannah Brooks. I really need you.”
Back by the copy machine, Kelly released a burble of vicarious delight.
Jack took a couple of steps closer to me. “I need to apologize for not giving you the whole picture sooner. And I need to say that I understand your hesitations. And”—here, he dropped to his knees on the industrial carpet—“I need to ask you to be my girlfriend.”
