She pulled her hands away in an instant. “I’m never going to get my team back together at this rate.”
I crossed my arms and frowned. “You don’t need the very same team when the restaurant is up and running again,” I said, raising one cocky eyebrow. “If anything, the only person you need to have on your side is me.”
“I do need my team,” she repeated. “Because there’s one thing I have with them that I don’t have with you.” She lifted her chin. “Trust.”
I stared at her for a while and then grinned. Abruptly broke into a grin. “Honesty. I like that in a woman.”
That seemed to catch her off guard because she opened her mouth to retort but stopped short of it. We’d reached a stalemate, looking at each other while neither of us seemed ready to walk away.
“Well,” she huffed, “I’m sorry about walking in like this. I didn’t mean to interrupt your date with Ellie.” She looked up at me. “She’s pretty.”
I felt a thrill at the idea of Ava being even a little jealous. It made me hopeful. “I’ll pass the compliment along. But I must add, it wasn’t a date. We were just back from a working lunch.”
Ava raised one eyebrow as she looked at me, as thoughshe was trying to decide if I was joking. Her cheeks flushed, and she turned her attention to the wall behind me.
“Ellie had a hickey,” she said.
If I could, I’d thank Ellie for having a hickey because the more Ava remembered the tiny details of the women around me, the better I felt.
I dug my fingers into the palm of my hand to keep from walking over to her and kissing her to show how ecstatic I was by her jealousy.
“You’re right,” I said while Ava surreptitiously took a step away from me, the supposed giver of hickeys. “She had one. Though a certain rock star of an unidentifiable age had given her that. Someone from Brody’s old band. Not me.”
She bit her lip and looked up at me, her amber eyes traveling over my face now that she was easing into the idea that I wasn’t taken.
“I’ve lost track of the number of times Ellie’s broken up with him, only to get back together,” I said.
She looked at me sideways, as though she was evaluating me and my in-depth knowledge of Ellie’s love life. The warm flush on her cheeks only making her eyes seem brighter.
“Can you tell me why you care about Ellie and me?” I asked.
She chanced a look at me and nodded. “You’re right. It shouldn’t matter.”
“But it does,” I reminded her.
She flushed a deep red and met my gaze, a vulnerable look on her features. “I know you mean well, but, like we discussed in your car after our lunch together, our circumstances?—”
“Are not the best.”
She hung her head for a minute.
“But tell me, Ava, do you also feel?—”
“It doesn’t matter. I had no business coming up to your office out of the blue and questioning your decisions about the restaurant,” she said, her voice forceful. “We’re just friends, who, long ago, went to the same high school together. That’s it.”
I paused.
“Friends?” I repeated.
I saw the worried look on her face when she nodded.
“I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am. I can’t ruin my career—heck, I can’t ruin the careers of my team, all eleven of them, who are depending on me to get the restaurant back—simply because I have feelings for you.”
She has feelings for me. The thought reverberated in my chest, growing and spreading like fire.
Even though she wanted to keep things professional, I was itching to take her in my arms, hold her close, and slant my lips over hers.
“Well, I can respect that,” I said with difficulty, hearing the unconvincing tone in my voice.
