“Phylicia, I can afford it,” he said. “Even if you insist on paying me back, at least you can save on the interest.”
“Jamal, are you insane?” she asked. “IfI insist on paying you back? Even if I were to accept money from you—which I would not—do you think I would just take it without paying it back?”
“I’m just putting it out there as an option.”
“We hardly know each other,” she reasoned.
His head reared back, her words knocking the air from his lungs.
“Okay, I know what we did just a little while ago contradicts that, but let’s be honest here. The fact is we reallydon’tknow each other all that well,” she said. “My financial problems have nothing to do with you. I got myself into this mess, and I’ll eventually get myself out.” She shook her head again. “I can’t believe I even told you about this.”
“As you pointed out, you didn’t want to tell me. I asked,” he reminded her. He reached for her, rubbing her thigh. “Look, I don’t want this to ruin our afternoon together.”
Though, from the dour look on her face, it was evident that it already had. Dammit, why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone?
Because he’d known something was troubling her, and he needed to know what it was. He hated to see the distress clouding her eyes.
She looked up at him, those brown eyes filled with apology. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Leave it to me to bite someone’s head off for offering to help me out.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s ungracious and totally goes against my fine southern upbringing,” she said with just enough Scarlett O’Hara twang to draw a smile from him. Her expression became serious again as she caressed his cheek. “It really was sweet of you to offer, but it’s not your problem, Jamal. It’s mine, and I’ll eventually find a way out of it. I’ll just overcharge you for the work I’m doing on the house.”
He grinned at her quip, but he ached to fix this for her. He knew that money was not a cure-all, but in this situation, it was. He could easily write her a check and take care of all the things causing her distress.
“This kind of put a downer on the day, didn’t it?” she said. She looked up at him, her eyes bright. “We could have sex again. It’ll lighten things up.”
He did laugh this time. “I only had that one condom with me.”
“I noticed that,” she said. “You weren’t feeling very confident in your powers of persuasion, were you?”
“I figured after using three last night, neither of us would be able to handle more than one time today.”
“It’s been a long time since I did this, buddy. I can handle a whole lot.”
“That’s all you had to say. We’ll stop in at the pharmacy on our way back. I’ll make sure to stock up.”
“You do that and talk of our torrid love affair will be all over town before sunset.”
“Is that what we’re having?” Jamal asked. “A torrid love affair?”
She leaned over him, her face hovering mere centimeters from his. “Actually, we’re having aninappropriate, torrid love affair. I’m technically your employee. If we were working in corporate America, I could file a sexual harassment lawsuit against you.”
“But you wouldn’t,” he said, threading his fingers through her hair and palming the back of her head.
“Probably not,” she said, lowering herself on top of him. “If I filed suit against you, we’d have to stop doing this.”
“And why in the hell would we do that?” Jamal said before touching his mouth to hers.
Chapter 10
Phil leaned againstthe leather headrest and closed her eyes, letting the gentle bumps in the dirt road lull her. She was trying frantically not to panic at the thought of everything she’d let slip with Jamal.
Let slip?
Yeah, right. She was like a damn guest on a talk show, broadcasting her business to the world.
What on earth had possessed her to run off at the mouth? The only people who knew about her bad business deal with Kevin were the coward himself and a couple of faceless people at the bank. She hadn’t confided in anyone else—not even her best friend. Yet she’d shared everything with Jamal?
