She wouldn’t swoon and he wouldn’t look at her as if he wanted to eat her.
Right.
For the purposes of maintaining a clean break, she’d hoped to avoid dealing with Vice for a while. If she didn’t have to think about Vice or Covet, she wouldn’t have to think of Alex.
A clean break.
A dull throb formed over her temple but she couldn’t afford to think of that either.
Determined, Dana fired up her laptop and started to work.
***
“You got off lucky.” In the hospital parking lot, Gordon held the car door open for Alex.
“I guess I did.” Alex got in, taking care not to jostle his right hand. It still hurt like a sonofabitch. Served him right for getting emotional in front of his stalker and punching a wall.
His wounds had been cleaned and ice had been applied to keep down the swelling, but he’d be wearing a splint for a few weeks. He also had a few weeks of rehab to look forward to.
Gordon got into the driver’s seat and shut the door. “At least your injury sounds kind of badass. A ‘boxer’s fracture.’ Who knew?”
“They should call it an ‘idiot’s fracture.’”
“You’re not an idiot, Alex.”
“I hit a wall.”
Gordon hung his head. “I guess I sort of drove you to it. Listen…I’m sorry about everything.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I’ve never seen you express any emotion. It was easy to believe you didn’t feel any.”
“Do you still blame me for Shannon’s death?”
“I think I just needed to blame someone, so I blamed you. We shouldn’t have kept you from the funeral. You needed to grieve. You never got the chance, and that’s on me and my folks. I’ll talk to them when I go home. You know, if the cops don’t lock me up for defacing your hotel and coming at you with a crowbar.”
“I’m sure I can talk to the cops.”
“You’d do that?”
“I’m tired, Gordon. I don’t want to fight with you and your parents anymore. I just want to put my life back together.”
He nodded.
“Besides, you never actually came at me with the crowbar. You just sort of waved it in my general direction.”
Gordon chuckled. “If we’re coming clean, I should probably admit I never would have attacked you. I just wanted to scare you into some kind of confrontation. Like I said, my life is messed up.”
“I heard you lost your job.”
“Fifteen years with those bastards. I knew a reorg was coming. I just never guessed it was coming at me.”
“That’s a lot of experience. Shannon used to talk about your work. She was proud of you.” As an idea formed in Alex’s head, he prayed he wouldn’t regret it later. “What if I could find you something in my HR department? Would you be interested?”
Gordon’s jaw dropped.
“It would be a trial, of course.” He grinned. “I’m not a total idiot.”
