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“Good luck!”
I hung up and set my phone on the desk in front of me.
Richard’s desk.
I was sitting at Richard’s desk, all alone on a Saturday.
Marina had come up with the slightly unhinged idea of calling Richard into the office on a fake emergency so that the two of us could talk face-to-face. It was ridiculous, and I had said yes.
There was no world where this was the best way of dealing with our issues, but desperate times… He was probably going to be furious when he realized we had tricked him. Regrets grew inside me, spreading me apart. It was too late to take this back, and I had been so desperate to get him to talk to me that I had latched on to Marina’s crazy idea.
I sighed. No, I couldn’t blame Marina. I had agreed to this, so I would see it through.
And I didn’t have long to wait.
My insides turned to ice as the doorknob turned. Richard stepped inside and froze. “What - Donovan what the fuck?”
I tried to smile, but my face felt off. “Surprise?” I cringed as soon as the word left my mouth.
He just looked at me, disbelief clouding his features. “What is going on? Why are you here?”
“So, Marina may have noticed that things were awkward between us-”
“Fuck, Donovan.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Why would you involve her?”
I struggled to fight down the hot irritation rising in my throat. “You were ignoring me and I didn’t know why. She realized that something was off and asked about it, I wasn’t going to lie to her.”
He scoffed. “Of course not. You wouldn’t do anything that might upset Marina.”
I recoiled at the venom in his voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come off it, Donovan. I don’t have the energy to play these games with you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
There was no softness in his gaze as he crossed to me, slamming his hands on his desk. “I know you’re still in love with Daphne, and probably Marina too. I can’t be with you when you’re still hung up on them, no matter how much I want you.”
My mouth dropped open as I tried to make sense of his words. Was I still in love with Daphne? With Marina? “I’m not in love with either of them.”
He just shook his head. “I’m not blind. I see the way you look at them. You change when you’re around them. I won’t compete with that.”
This was wrong. He was wrong. The irritation shifted into anger. “I’m telling you I don’t have feelings for them anymore. You’re the one I’m interested in. You’re the one I want.”
I could see his thoughts twisting behind his eyes, and he didn’t believe me. “It’s been, what, a month? I saw you at Requited and I don’t know what came over me. I should have waited, given you more time, but…” he let his head drop to his chest. “I’ve always liked you,” he admitted. “It was just a crush, but when I saw you I couldn’t stop myself.”
This was a serious moment, and we were discussing serious feelings, but damn if my heart didn’t jump when he said that.
“I know this is fast and I know you probably won’t believe me. I like you, Richard. It’s new and it happened all of a sudden, but I do like you. The time I’ve spent with you helped me come back to myself and move on. So far it’s just been sex - and the sex is amazing - but I want to go beyond that. I want to get to know you, beyond just our bodies. We don’t need to rush into anything, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable or uncertain, but I want to continue spending time with you. Is that what you want?”
He looked down at his desk as he considered my words. My chest felt tight, the uncertainty trying to take hold.
“I want you to choose me,” he finally whispered.
A smile crept onto my face. “I already have.”
His fingers ran along the edge of his desk, tracing invisible patterns into the faux wood. He tilted his head up just enough to glance at me through long lashes. “What do we do now?”
He was so cute. This was him at his core, speaking to me without anything to hide. I glanced behind him toward the door, still unlocked. “I can think of a few things.”
