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“What’s Mina like?”
I stare at her for a moment, surprised she’s asking me. “She’s careful. Kind. Understanding,” I say, lightly kneading the dough back together. I want to add scary as fuck, but that’s not going to help anything. “She doesn’t put up with bullshit. Especially Timothy’s. They’re good together.”
Jessie bites her lip. I want to bite it.
“You don’t think this is weird?” she asks after a moment.
I reach for the rolling pin, refusing to look at her. “Have you met your brother?”
“Weird for him.” She amends.
I close my eyes for a moment. I am a lightning rod. I don’t want to be a lightning rod.
When I open my eyes, I keep them on my dough. I can’t see the hurt in her eyes again because I’ll want to make it go away and I’ll only make it worse. “Let it go, Jessie. He loves her and you don’t want to do this with him. Not at Christmas, not before his wedding.”
I’m concentrating on rolling the dough evenly when she gets to her feet with a huff and walks out, the tread of her socks angry but muffled on the hardwood floors.
Chapter four
Jessie
Technicallyspeaking,I’mnotsupposed to be working over the holidays, but Nic’s words in the kitchen have me wound up and I need the outlet. An hour later and I have an entire new Valentine’s Day campaign for our top three bestselling products and I’m still irritated.
Who cares if Nic thinks I’m a bad person?
Not me.
He went downstairs with Timothy twenty minutes ago and I hate that I noticed.
My boss’s number flicks across my phone screen. Like she can sense I’m working when I shouldn’t be. After a quick check to make sure my niece and nephew aren’t in the room, I accept the call with a bright and cheery “Merry Dickmas!”
My dad doesn’t look up from his book.
There’s a long moment of silence before my boss cracks up. “I hope the season brings you bountiful blessings,” she says finally.
“Me too,” I say with a dramatic sigh, throwing myself across the couch. “It’s been a while since I’ve had my stocking stuffed.” Stupid sex drought.
Elle laughs. “Well, I have a Christmas present for you. I had a little get-together at my place last night, just a few close friends—”
No such thing exists for Elle. She crammed at least one hundred people into her swanky apartment.
“—and Gretchen Torres from Midnights admired your sketch—”
“Doodle.” I correct, but my blood goes cold at the mention of Midnights. It’s a small but prestigious art gallery. I never submitted my paintings to them, but when Gretchen Torres was at Torres and Strauss, she rejected three, politely informing me I lacked that special something they were looking for in a watercolor.
Elle carries on, ignoring my interruption. “—of the hand clench, so I showed her last week’s sketch.”
Shit.
“You showed it to her.” A gallery owner who knows her shit about art, and Elle showed her my fucking gel pen doodle. Could this week get any worse?
If I don’t doodle through meetings, I get bored and clock out. Elle provides me with paper and various types of pens. Last week, in glittery neon pink and purple, I doodled a woman’s face, contorted with pleasure. It felt appropriate for a meeting about the launch of a new line of clitoral stimulators. Elle wanted it, so I gave it to her instead of dropping it into the recycling on my way out of the room.
“She wants to talk to you about commissioning a few pieces. But in a medium other than gel pen. I mentioned you’re skilled with watercolors and she was intrigued.”
“No.” I can’t hold in the groan.
“I told her I’d speak to you first, give you a chance to think about it, see if you had the time.”
