His eyes narrowed on me as he took another sip of his drink. “Are you going to therapize me?”
I snorted. “No, just pointing out that you didn’t say you didn’t want something. Only that you were worried you wouldn’t appreciate it once you had it or you’d mess it up.”
“Tomato, to-mah-to,” Davide drawled.
I laughed.
“Can we be done talking about this? I’m hangry, stressed, but also desperately hoping that I’ll finally have a competent, organized professional assistant gallery manager who is also a good friend.”
“Of course we can be done with the subject.” I paused. “For now.”
“Ugh.” It was Davide’s turn to roll his eyes, which made me laugh again. “I changed my mind. You’re too much of a pain in the ass to work for me.”
“Too late. I’m already going to do everything in my power to make sure it happens.”
And I would. The idea of continuing to work for my current boss made me want to pour a bottle of tequila over my head and set my hair on fire. It would probably be less painful.
“To making it work,” he said, lifting his glass toward me.
I tapped the side of my high ball glass gently against his. “To making it work. And not just when it comes to actually working.”
He sighed, knowing that I was referring to the conversation we were supposed to be abandoning. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“I said I would. For now. When a new day dawns—who knows?”
“Oh, my God. I need better friends.”
Chapter Five
By Friday, Davide and I had hammered out the details, and I was officially his new assistant manager at the gallery. I’d turned in my two weeks’ notice at work and scheduled myself to be off the second week by using what remained of my PTO for the year.
Needless to say, my boss wasn’t happy. And he was panicking because the only other employee in HR was the CEO’s daughter-in-law, which meant he couldn’t make her do his work and then take the credit for it because the CEO adored her and would absolutely fire his ass if her daughter-in-law approached her about the situation. She had no idea what was going on in the department because I didn’t want to be the center of work drama, so I hadn’t said anything.
I probably shouldn’t have gotten quite so much enjoyment out of seeing the sheer terror on his face as the week ended, but I really, truly did. The following week would be my last, and I couldn’t wait to leave him in the mess of his own making.
I was so excited about my new job that I’d even given up a Friday night out on the town to fill out paperwork for Davide.
Okay, so that was bullshit.
I was single, and all my friends were in relationships, my new boss being the exclusion. I had no plans for the night, and this was better than going home and crashing on the couch with a bottle of wine and a large supreme pizza. Alone.
The gallery stayed open until eight on Fridays and was open from one to nine p.m. on Saturdays because it was in the Highland Village area with a lot of shopping and foot traffic in the evening during the weekend.
Davide and I had finished my paperwork, and he was trying to convince me to go to a club with him that night.
“You know I don’t like clubbing,” I argued.
“C’mon. It’ll be fun. No weird dudes will hit on you or anything. I swear.”
“I don’t even care about that. I just want to eat a nice dinner, drink some delicious wine, and go home to soak in a hot bath until I look like I’m turning into a raisin.”
The bell over the gallery door rang, the high chime echoing throughout the space. I loved that Davide used an actual bell rather than an electronic one. It gave the gallery a whimsical, old-fashioned atmosphere.
I turned my head to see who’d entered and froze completely when I saw the tall, broad figure of Elijah Lawson striding through the gallery.
It had been two weeks since I’d seen him. And, holy shit, how had he gotten even hotter?
He wore a navy t-shirt that clung to his chest and biceps. Wait, were they even bigger than the night we spent together?
