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“You must, or else you wouldn't have come all this way. You insulted me, and maybe I deserve it, but the least you can do is tell me why. That's all I ask.”
Lowering my brow the way she did, I add, “Unless you're such a chicken shit, you thought it would be enough to insult me and run away before I could get a word in.”
“Don't call me that,” she warns. “You are not going to goad me.”
“Fair enough.” I hold out an arm, gesturing to the elevator. “Please. I need to know what inspired all of this.”
I might as well be a fox in the hen house judging by the way she looks me up and down. What could I have done to her to inspire this? I would remember a woman like her—granted, I've been through my fair share, but this girl is special. Did I overlook her somehow?
“Fine,” she huffs. “But this is in no way to be mistaken for acceptance of your offer.” With her arms folded, she stalks back to the elevator, tapping her foot while I push the button for service. It hasn't been used since she stepped out of it, so the doors slide open immediately, and she makes a big deal of marching into the car in front of me.
I need to get myself together, because being this close to her even in an innocent way has my dick lengthening. The faint scent of her perfume—light, floral, with a note of vanilla—is enough to unleash hunger deep inside me, a dangerous sort of hunger that might make me forget to behave myself.
She doesn't say a word until we’re off the elevator and on our way down the hall again. “It shouldn't surprise me that you don't remember. I'm sure I was one of many.”
“One of many what?” I demand once we're alone again. This time I close the door since I don't want Theresa or anybody else overhearing this. After all, I'm not sure what she has to say. Was it a drunken fling? Surely, this can't have anything to do with business. Our paths wouldn't have crossed in that way before now, at least as far as I know. I didn't recognize her name when Jayden gave it to me, either.
“One of many people you've humiliated and bullied through the years.”
Bullied? “I don't make it my business to bully people.”
“That's rich. Then again, maybe you've changed since then.” She turns away from me, studying the room. “This is very nice. Classy, tasteful. It screams money, which I guess is the point.”
I wish this didn't feel so much like a chess match, or maybe a tango. I don't know the steps. All I can do is scramble to keep up. “It was my father's office.”
Her snort tells me what she thinks of this. “Of course it was. And now it's yours because you happened to be born to him.” She goes to the row of bookshelves along the wall to the right of my desk. “Nice looking family,” she observes in a soft voice while examining a photo of all of us together in front of the building in which we now stand.
“Enough observations on my family and my business. What did you mean by bullying? How did I bully you? Why don't we get down to the point?” As entertaining as it is, playing out this tango, we are wasting time. I can't lose sight of what's at stake.
Her shoulders rise and fall when she sighs deeply. “I guess I have changed a little. It's not surprising you wouldn't recognize me at first sight, and I'm sure you never bothered to learn my full name.”
No, I suppose I didn't. I can't recall ever knowing someone by the name Willow. No matter how I search my memory, desperate to catch up to her.
She turns to face me, and now her eyes are flat and cold. There might even be a touch of sadness in them. “I don't suppose you ever thought you'd be offering this spotty, chubby kid with frizzy hair and thick glasses the chance to save your ass, did you?”
Chubby? Frizzy hair? It's impossible to imagine that while staring at what's in front of me.
“When you humiliated me at the senior dance until I had no choice but to run away in tears, it never occurred to you that the day would come when you'd offer me hundreds of thousands of dollars to save you. Am I right, Sawyer?”
The senior dance. Christ, that feels like a lifetime ago. I haven't thought about it in years, probably not since graduation.
But now that she mentions it...
I back away, because now I need to sit down. Willow. The senior dance. A girl in a ridiculous, fluffy dress running away while everybody laughs at her. Because of me.
“No.” I sink into my chair, but my heart continues sinking after I'm seated.
“Maybe I should have introduced myself using the name you gave me.” Her heels click sharply against the floor as she closes in on me like a predator closing in on her prey. “I should have called myself Wallowing Willow. Maybe that would have jogged your memory.”
Oh, fuck me. Now I get it. Now it all makes sense in the worst possible way. I want to dissolve into the floor, to dig a hole and never come out.
I can't look her in the eye now. “Willow...” I mumble, at a loss. Mortification squeezes my throat and threatens to choke the life out of me, while all she can do is snicker.
“You have no idea, do you? How you crushed me back then. And why? What did I ever do to you to deserve that?”
That's the thing. I have no idea what she did because she more than likely didn’t do anything. “I was stupid.”
“No kidding.”
