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He chuckles and lifts his hands in surrender. “A man knows not to fuck with bathroom essentials. You off work today?”
“We don’t know each other!” I toss my toilet paper in my cart and turn away. “We don’t know each other, but you speak like we’re restarting an old conversation. Go away, seriously.” I shoo him with a wave of my hand. “Thanks for the assist at the gym, thanks for fucking with my bread choice, but you have to go away.”
“I’m Theodore Griffin.” He extends a hand and watches me through what may be insecure eyes. “I’m new to town, and you were the first person I kinda said hey to. In my world, that makes us buddies.”
“You’re Theo Griffin, multi-katrillionaire business mogul who traded in twelve million dollars of tech shares this weekend?ThatTheo Griffin?”
His lips twitch with playfulness. “Katrillionaire isn’t a real word. And don’t let the numbers fool you – you say twelve million like I have stacks of cash in my pockets. In reality, they’re just numbers on a screen. I sold shares because the people who were selling them are in collusion with another government entity, and I didn’t like what they stood for.”
“First of all, to have those numbers on a screen,” I continue walking, “you must have stacks of cash laying aroundsomewhere. And two, collusion with who? And should you make a police report?”
He scoffs so loud it makes me jump. “I don’t report things to the police. They don’t do their job anyway, and I don’t fancy sitting in a shitty building for six hours while the cops tug each other’s dicks and pretend they’re helping.”
“I’m the police!” I stop at the end of the aisle and meet his eyes. “You’re insulting my life’s work.”
“And to suggest I’d report such a thing is insulting my intelligence. I have no proof of their wrongdoings.” I narrow my eyes when his sparkle with fun. “I just know what I know in my gut, and I didn’t want to be associated anymore, so I sold up and walked away.”
“And made a tidy nine million in profit.”
His grin is slow and dangerous. “You know an awful lot about me for someone who is pretending to be cool.”
“You’re the one who told me your name. Your company was on the news all week about those shares. I’d sayeveryoneknows this stuff about you. You live a public life, therefore the public will know about your life.”
What was a smile lowers into something else. Something more intense as he leans into my space. “But that’s just it; I don’t live a public life. My company is not publicly listed, I’ve never done an interview. I stay out of the tabloids, so much so that you know my name but not my face. You have no clue of my true net worth or my sexual orientation. People think they know me, and they think they’re entitled to know more. But I don’t serve the public, Ms. Tate. I don’t do shit unless it serves me.”
My back is pressed against the shelves, my chest lifting and falling with heavy breaths as though I’m working out. “I never told you my name.”
“I asked around. You’re beautiful, and when you were killing yourself on a bench press, you were laughing. A mind puzzle is infinitely more appealing to me than looks. Though I can’t say I don’t like what I see.” He leans in close enough that if he were any other man, if these were any other circumstances, I’d have already torn the balls from his body and folded him to the ground.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I don’t know why I choke around him.
“You’re kinda short though, ya know that? Ever wear heels?”
“I’m not short. I’m literally the average height for women in this country.”
“You make my neck sore when we look at each other. That means you’re too short. Put on a pair of heels, and we could move right along into the next portion ofthis.”
“The next…” I choke. A literal choking sound escapes my throat at his audacity. “What?”
“We should get dinner.”
My brain short-circuits when he licks his lips mere inches from my face. His warm breath tickles my skin, minty and refreshing compared to what I’m certain is stale coffee coming from me.
“I’d really,reallylike to get dinner with you sometime, Libby.”
“How’d…” My eyes snap until they’re narrowed slits. “How’d you know to call me Libby?”
“That’s your name,” he bats back with barely a stumble.
“No, my name is Elizabeth. If you looked me up, you’d have read Elizabeth.”
He waves me off with an air of…fake. “Libby is just a shortened version of that. Why is this such a big deal?”
“Because Beth is also an option. Or Ellie. Or Lizzie. Eliza. Ella. Betty. There are a billion other options, but you went with Libby. How did you know to call me Libby?”
“Because… I don’t know. I just did.” I’ve cracked his smooth cover and now feel the heat coming from his glare. “You’re a fuckin’ cop, huh? Through and through.”
“Do cops bother you, Griffin?” I lean toward him and reclaim my power. “Only guilty men dislike the law. What did you do wrong?”
