Shehad.
Eve.
I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was the one girl I’d wanted in so long. Wanted in that bone deep way where you ache for her.
Despite how much she seemed to hate me and tried to make my life hell, I still felt it every time she walked into the room.
“We need a final count for the food,” Jack grumbled.
“Fine. No plus one,” I said, laying back on the bench and lifting my arms up to the bar. “I’m sure I won’t have time to find anyone with the way Ian’s been breathing down my neck. Unless I find someone here...” My statement trailed off as my gaze drifted to the woman currently working out on the elliptical. The curve of her ass was accentuated by the spandex running shorts she wore. I stared hard, trying to force myself to feel something, anything, for that objectively nice ass.
But there was nothing.
No stirring of need. No compulsion to gratify the lust. No carnal urge.
Nothing.
I was broken.
I was mostly egging Jack on. I didn’t mess around with people at the office even when I wasn’t broken. Contrary to what Jack believed, Ididknow how to control myself. Complications took away from the fun. And fucking a coworker hadcomplicationswritten all over it.
“And Vanessa is married, so keep your prick in check.”
“Who the hell is Vanessa?” I questioned, lifting the bar and dropping it to my chest before pushing it back up.
“Un-bloody-believable. The arse you were staring at? The woman it belongs to is Vanessa. She works in accounting.” Jack’s disgusted look made my cheeks heat in annoyance.
“I was just looking. I wasn’t going to do anything,” I assured him, bringing the weights down. Jack wouldn’t understand the dilemma I was in. He was made for the long-term monogamous life. Dull and boring suited him.
“Sure,” he said in a tone indicating he didn’t believe a word I was saying.
“I wasn’t,” I growled, pressing the weights above my head again. “I don’t fuck where I work. It makes things messy.”
“Is that why you never ask Nora out, despite flirting with her all the time?”
Nora was Jack’s office assistant. She had legs for days, dark silky hair, and a wicked smile. We had hit it off on her first day and became fast friends. She was gorgeous, and I wouldn’t deny that once upon a time I’d imagined what it might be like to fuck her. But that was before we’d become friends. That woman could sniff out my bullshit like a bloodhound.
She laid down the law at the beginning of our friendship. Under no circumstances should I attempt to sleep with her, and if I ever did, she wouldn’t hesitate to castrate me with the letter opener she kept in her purse. I respected that threat. I liked my balls to remain intact, so things between us remained strictly platonic.
“Nora and I are friends. I wouldn’t do anything to ruin our friendship.”
Or risk having my manhood mutilated.
“Might not want to keep leading her on if you’re just using her to pass the time,” he muttered.
I paused my reps and glared up at Jack.
Was he serious?
As if Nora were some sweet, innocent girl who fell for any man who gave her attention. Jack didn’t know the half of it. If anyone were being used by the other, it was me being used by her.
I huffed out an annoyed breath. “We’re both on the same page. Glad to know you think so highly of me.” I was done listening to the self-righteous bullshit he was spewing.
A couple of years ago, he was in the same place as me. Hung up on his own shit. Keeping it casual and not wanting to settle down. Now that he and Olivia were getting married, he acted like he’d never been single and unattached. It was nauseating.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jack said, backtracking. “I don’t want to see Nora get hurt.”
I blew out a deep breath. I knew he was trying to protect Nora. It was stupid of him to think she needed protection from me, though. I cared about her just as much as he did. Probably even more. Over the last couple of years, she’d become like family to me. The little sister I never had.
