I closed my eyes and drew in three steadying breaths.Not the right time.
“Too bad.” I opened them again, sharper now. “I’m going to tell you anyway.”
I stepped forward until her spine hit the wall. She froze, breath quickening, and I planted my forearms on either side of her head, flat against the wall, and leaned in until our noses almost brushed. Her breaths were hot against my jaw.
“I followed you,” I said. Shameless. Truthful.
“You followed us?” Her voice was high-pitched, and her chest rose in quick and shallow pants until it brushed mine with every ragged inhale.
I dipped closer, my hair grazing her temple. The word “us” sliced through me, excludingmewithout room for argument, but I bit down on the fury. “I did. To a bar. Bouncer wouldn’t let me in.” My lips hovered a hairsbreadth from her neck. “It was a good thing. I would’ve dragged you from his arms to mine.”
“You had no right.” Her eyes sharpened, slicing through me as she pressed herself harder to the drywall.
“I didn’t. But that won’t stop me. I feel this pull between us. I know you feel it too.”
Her lips curled. “Do you feel that pull with Natasha too, when she rubs herself off against your chest?”
I laughed low. “Jealousy looks good on you, babe.”
Her eyes went glacial. Wrong move. She shoved me, both palms to my chest, hard enough to make me stumble.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve, Lincoln.”
But I didn’t retreat. I couldn’t. “No one’s going to hurt you on my watch. Not Carmen’s brother, not Natasha. Hell, not even me.”
Her glare sharpened, molten and merciless. “You don’t remember, but I do. And I won’t let you rewrite everything just so you can act like the shit you did never happened. Where was this alpha bullshit whenyouwere the one getting a kick out of my misery?”
She lunged into me, chest pressed flat to mine, anger sparking hotter than desire. “Yeah, I feel what could’ve been between us. But to me, it’s just a reminder. You don’t get to set the terms.”
We stood locked together, breaths ragged. I saw the moment I lost her. The moment her gaze turned cold steel.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she’d whispered, stepping back. Cold air had rushed between us, cutting me open. “It’s time, Lincoln. I’m moving out.”
Carmen poked at my chest with her index finger. “I warned you.”
I exhaled, shaking the sour memory of my latest fuck-up away. Dr. Ross was going to have a field day with that one.
“So, what are we doing?” Carmen’s voice got me back into focus. I’d put this petty plan together, and now I needed Carmen’s help so it wouldn’t always be my handwriting. I’d wanted to do it all on my own, but I’d cause for multiple people to talk shit about Nina, so I needed toshowmultiple people were talking shit about me.
“Apparently, I was horrible to Nina.”
“I know,” Carmen said. “I was there.”
“You were hired after her.”
“No, whatever happened in this sexist pigsty of a company I’d have stopped, sure, but I didn’t mean that.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “I was around for what you put her through in high school.”
“We went to high school together?” I asked, confused.
“Briefly. You guys are older, Nina was only at Stevenson for senior year.”
“What did I do?” My stomach knotted, those moths I’d become so familiar with trying to scratch their way out of my stomach.
“Oh, you know,” she said, flipping through the different-colored Post-its. “High school can be hell on earth, and you were her personal devil. Word back then was that she missed some big interview because of you.”
Bile rose up my throat. I thought I’d been shitty but with stupid pranks. This sounded?—
“So, what are we doing, then?” She interrupted my train of thought as if she hadn’t unleashed palpable, paralyzing fear within my insides.
