I held my breath. “With what?”
That incredibly handsome face stayed remote, but those eyes… “With the Mister Ripley shit. With that tone. With you not wanting to talk to me or ask me for fucking help.” That chin dipped, and I’d swear I could feel his breath on my face in tiny puffs. “With you freezing me out.”
I wanted to raise my eyebrows, but I didn’t. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I only partially lied. Because it couldn’t be a complete lie when I didn’t understand why he would be saying these things to me when he was the one who had asked for them.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Luna,” Rip replied, his voice still this low hum I almost had to strain my ears to hear.
The tips of his boots edged over mine even more.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t freaking matter.
“You are Mister Ripley,” I said, still wound tight. “I’m talking to you like I would anyone that was my boss, with professionalism, because that’s what I should have been showing you from the very beginning.”
This hoarse sound escaped his throat, sounding almost like a… grumble? A growl?
“I’m not going to bother you when I can handle things myself.”
His boots tapped into mine so roughly, it scooted my own boots back a half inch.
“I’m just treating you the way I always should have,” I cut myself off before adding another “Mister Ripley” to the end. Something inside of me said it would be a terrible idea, like baiting a starving lion or something. “You’re my boss, and I shouldn’t have forgotten that.”
I could have sworn his neck swelled bigger and bigger with each word that came out of my mouth. His face might have gotten redder too.
But when had his face gotten red in the first place?
The hand on my chin drew my face up even higher, until I almost strained with the pressure, with the stretch. Then I could definitely feel his soft breathing on my face. On my mouth. I could feel the heat of his body along the front of mine. A month ago, this would have made my freaking year. A week ago, it would have made me want to swoon.
But now…
Now I forced all that crap down and away. I buried it with a shovel and a half ton of dirt. Gone. Gone, gone, gone.
He had asked for it, and I had given everything I’d been willing to part with for too long.
Only an idiot kept giving after a certain point, and I was no one’s fool. No one’s punching bag. No one’s temporary entertainment.
I had given him more than I had another person ever, and he’d burned that bridge between us once and for all. He had told me the same thing that other people had:leave me alone.
“I’m only doing what you asked,” I told him slowly, each word drawn out, syllable by syllable. I kept my gaze on his for a heartbeat, and then two, and then drew it back down to his chin as I let myself take a breath through my nose.
Then I took a step back. Then another.
“I appreciate you coming to check and see if I need help, but I don’t. Ashton and Owen are coming,” I explained to him. “Anything I can handle on my own, I’ll do. But thank you, Mr. Ripley.”
Mr. Ripleydidn’t move an inch.
Then he opened that mouth and said, “We need to—”
And I would thank a God I wasn’t sure I believed in for the fact that the door opened in that exact same moment and Owen said, “Sorry about that, Luna. Let’s move the rotisserie—Oh.” He stopped there. He looked from one of us to the other, eyes widening as the new guy came in right behind him.
I smiled at my coworkers and took a step toward them. “I’m ready if you two are.”
* * *
Determinedas hell to keep my distance from my boss, I grabbed my lunch for the third day in a row and headed to the chairs and table in the parking lot of CCC.
It was another hot day, not that it wasn’t a hot day every freaking day in Houston, but under the shade, it wasn’t too unbearable. Since there weren’t any bugs either, it was about as good as I was going to get. Fresh air. Some open space.
I should have been coming out here years ago.
