AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was officially so complicated. And she was so damn trapped! Stupid media. Stupid Facebook page. Stupid, stupid celebrity nickname! JulErro. Of all the ridiculous…
And it was only getting worse. There was a website now. With unauthorized merch. Little joke T-shirts showing his phone breeding with hers and making sleek sparkly phone babies that possessed tech superpowers. So dorky. And if it hadn’t been about her she would have thought it was hilarious.
“Assume that if Ferro wants to put anything in my office other than flowers, he’s messing with us both.” She turned and stormed back into her office, dialing Ferro as she went.
“Why the fish, Calvaresi?” she said when he answered.
“Why not? You liked it.”
“I was making conversation. How did you get it in here? How am I supposed to get it out?”
“That’s rude, Julia, you make it seem like you don’t like my gift.”
The whole conversation was so strange. And so from a few weeks ago. He was back to being obnoxious Ferro, of the charming grins and zero depth. And she wasn’t sure what she thought of that. On the one hand, it was a nice thought. Like they could erase that night in Alaska just by pretending it didn’t exist. That all that honesty, that being skin to skin, hadn’t happened.
On the other hand, in the week since their return, she’d thought of very little else. And everything about her felt different. She was more aware of every part of her body. Maddeningly aware. When she took a shower, she turned herself on just by trying to get clean. Because her mind automatically went to the way Ferro’s hands had felt on her. The way the wet heat of his mouth had felt at her…
Her face burned and she turned her focus back to the salmon statue. “It can’t stay here. I have to meet with people here.”
“And what’s wrong with a little natural art?”
“Bah!” She hung up the phone and threw it onto the low, cushy chair she had in the corner. Then she stalked to her desk and plopped down on the computer chair, her head rested on her hands.
Her desk phone rang. She answered it. “Julia Anderson.”
“I’m going to need to see your idea from the Barrows pitch ASAP.”
“Ferro, I just hung up on you.”
“I know. But that was a personal call.”
“Is a call about a fish statue really a personal call?”
“In this instance. And this is a business call. So, not the same.”
She growled. “Whatever, man. Why don’t you come by my office and…”
“No. Your office is a little crowded.”
She gritted her teeth. “Now it is.”
“So come to mine. Two hours. There will be lunch. And coffee. I’ll see you then.” He disconnected the call and Julia sat back in her chair, trying to order her thoughts. She was going to see Ferro for the first time since flying back from the wedding. She was going to have to figure out some kind of game face so that she didn’t just blush, stammer and lose all the social grace she’d managed to train herself to have.
She took a sip of coffee and stared at the metal fish statue. Then burst out laughing. It was pretty funny. The ultimate inside joke.
As suddenly as the laughter had burst from her, it died. It would be funny if Ferro weren’t using it as some sort of deflection. She wasn’t stupid. He had regressed to the way they’d treated each other before the deal. Before the sex. And there was a reason for that.
Probably the same reason he’d shut down completely after their night together. Why he’d gone into the bathroom and showered for the better part of an hour before lying down and going to sleep without another word spoken to her.
She was just going to play it cool. Yep. Play it cool. She’d learned to do that as a way to protect herself from this kind of thing and she was just going to keep doing it.
Time to get her game face on.
* * *
Ferro didn’t know what to expect from Julia when she came breezing into his office fifteen minutes later than he’d asked her to arrive.
She was wearing a black top with a rigid, ruffled collar that skimmed her jawline, black, feathered earrings dropping down inside it and disappearing into her top. Her pencil skirt, also black, was just as severe, as were her extremely high heels and the tight bun she’d tamed her blond hair into.
