She frowns and a flicker of something else passes over her features. Something that looks like hurt. “Yes.Really.Did you think I’d say no? For your birthday?”
Shit.“No.” I shake my head. “I didn’t mean...”
“Tomorrow is fine,” she says, her voice a little tight and her jaw rigid. It’s like a flashback to the old Corrine and it makes me kind of sick now that I know what it’s like to see her smile at me, to hear her voice catch.
Saying nothing else, she starts to walk away and I follow her down the quiet hallway.
“Thank you,” I tell her as we wait for the elevator. “Do you have any plans tonight?” I ask. I pat at my shirt, still trying to find what she was looking at.
“No. Just catching up on a little work at home.”
She takes a deep breath, like she’s about to say something else. But the elevator arrives and her lips make a firm line. We both try to get on at the same time and I end up body checking her into the door.
“Holy shit!” I grab her by her elbow, my other arm coming around her shoulders as she pinballs between me and the doors. “I’m so sorry, Cor—Ms. Blunt.”
She straightens, taking a small step into the car. “It’s fine.”
Her voice does not sound like it is fine.
“No, really.” I scratch my head. “Ladies first and all that,” I say with a chuckle.
A V forms between her brows.
“I just mean I should have followed that rule. And you’re just so...” I stop myself right before I call herlittle. To herface. Like she’s achild. “I mean I’m such a...”
The V is deeper now. I let my words die in my mouth.
After a beat of awkward silence, she turns to the control panel. “Ground floor?”
I nod. “Yup.”
We stand together in this awkward silence. And I realize my real mistake.
I’ve just locked myself in a metal box with my boss. The same boss that I kissed yesterday. The same metal box where the boss that I kissed thought I revealed myself to be a sexist asshole. My words and Mark’s obnoxiously loud voice seem to echo in here, pinging off the metal walls, repeating themselves over and over again.
I cringe just thinking about it.
Maybe she can hear it, too, because Ms. Blunt shifts beside me, staring at the numbers ticking our descent. She doesn’t want that kiss to happen again and I understand why, of course, but I still feel the need to explain to her that I don’t want to go to that party tomorrow. That she’s not the reason for my surprise.
“I’m—”
“It’s your floor.”
More words die on my tongue. My mouth is a graveyard. “W-what?”
She points to the doors, open. The lobby lights seem blinding and it takes me a moment to adjust. “Your floor,” she says again.
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” I take a few steps forward until I’m standing on one side of the doors and she’s standing on the other.
“Good night, Mr. Chambers.” She holds eye contact until the doors slice between us.
When I walk outside, I can still smell the coconut.
Chapter 20: Corrine
My stomach grumbles at noon. I glance at my closed office door and back to my computer screen. Asking Wesley to fetch my lunch or pick up my dry cleaning has felt awkward since...since. Since the migraine, the kiss. Since he lit a fire inside me, one I can only tend in secret, when he told me he wouldn’t mind if it happened again. Because I cannot. Of course I cannot and neither can he. Sosincesending him on ridiculous revenge errands just couldn’t continue—since they probably never should have started—I have to find the time again to get my own meals. I was fetching my own lunches before Wesley. I’m sure I’ll be able to do it again. After I finish all this work. My eyes glaze over as the third email in an hour from Phil Grimes pops up on my screen. He is going to be high maintenance.
“Ms. Blunt?” Wesley calls from the other side of the door. A hesitant knock follows.
