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“Oh, honey, it’s the least I can do after how everything… shook out.”
I gulp. “Yeah.”
“It was my last straw with Adelaide, really. She used to be such a giving muse. Now she just likes to muck everything up. I don’t like that energy. I’m too old for it. Your energy, though, I like. The only requirement I have for the show is you walk in it.”
I squeeze my eyes tightly together. Having to strut down a runway showing off my body in fancy clothes sounds like literal hell on earth. But if it can help the shelter… “Alright. I’m in.”
“Eeeee! Yes, thank you, darling. Gregory will be in touch with details and –”
The rest of what Cash says is lost on me when Flynn Fucking Madden walks through the front door. My eyes grow wide and my mouth drops.
Flynn takes a few steps toward me and then stops, realizing I’m on the phone.
“Stella? Stella, are you there?” I hear Cash yell through the phone.
“Yes, I’m – yep! All sounds great. Okay, gotta go, goodbye!” I chatter off, not bothering to listen to what she has to say in return. I’m too shocked to care. I drop my phone on the table and go back to staring at Flynn.
“Bad time?” he asks, a nervous but charming smile appearing on his lips.
Any time would be a bad time.“What are you doing here?” I ask coldly.
Flynn half-laughs as if I’ve just slapped him in the face. “Good to see you too.”
I stare at him. “Do you think you deserve something other than disdain after humiliating me in front of the whole world?”
Flynn is dumbfounded. Probably didn’t expect me to come out with guns blazing. That was his first mistake.
“Anyway…” I say casually and then go back into the office. I have a list of tasks to get done that has both slipped my mind and been lost on a post-it note.
“Stella, I’d like to talk to you,” Flynn calls out.
I hear him walk through the office door behind me. My heart throbs just like it did when he was chasing me through the streets of Venice until he lost me. I was too quick for him. I should send a thank you to my track coach from high school. “There’s nothing to talk about,” I say, grabbing an old flyer and shoving it into the copier. I don’t know what it is and don’t care. Just because I’m not a high-powered executive doesn’t mean he can just come and interrupt me at work.
“What is there to talk about?” I ask.
Before I can close the lid to the copier, Flynn intercepts it with a resolute hand. We are both silent, a push and a pull as I attempt to close the copier despite him. I finally give in, ignoring the feeling of his blue eyes on my neck. “Please let me explain…”
“Flynn, really –” I say, starting to laugh. “The whole thing was just madness. Okay? I just want to forget all about it.”
He releases the lid of the copier. “Really?” His voice is low and throaty.
“Really,” I reply and punctuate my statement by forcefully shutting the copier.
“Is that why you’re still wearing the necklace?”
My eyes widen and I fumble to grab the small bird pendant around my neck. I don’t have a good excuse for that. It’s my way of keeping him close. “We were caught up in the pretend of it all, and I mean, you were there to charm back Adelaide. That was the whole point.” I errantly jab the number pad on the copier, accidentally programming it to make three-hundred-thirteen copies.Shit. “You got what you wanted.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted.”
“Then why go at all, huh?!” I snap, finally looking at him.Fuck. I immediately regret it. Flynn looks so damn good. White dress shirt crisp over his chest, his black glasses framing those gorgeous blue eyes, and his sexy lips… oh, those lips.
He came down here from New York in the middle of his day to see me. Doesn’t that count for anything?
The copier starts to sputter out pages. The sound is ugly and mechanical. “From the start, you were using me. That was the agreement. I let the ouzo go to my head. I’ll get over it.”
“I didn’tuseyou.”
“Flynn, you got my time, I got your money. Let’s not pretend it was anything more than that.” I don’t believe that with my whole heart, but I have to protect myself. He can’t know that I’ve been aching for him every single moment of the day and night. That I’ve barely been sleeping because I am dying for the moment he’ll crawl into my bed. His ego doesn’t need to know that. “I hope you and Adelaide are very happy together.”
