I tried to focus on anything but the memory.
Turned out my brain was in complete rebellion when it came to Mari.
“This is going to be a disaster,” she said, her voice dropping to a register that sent an unwelcome heat through my body.
“Only if you make it one,” I replied, maintaining eye contact despite how it made my thoughts scatter. “I’m perfectly capable of maintaining professional boundaries.”
“Are you?” Her gaze dropped before snapping back up. “Because your trousers are evidence to the contrary.”
Yeah. Fuck. She was right.
A memory flashed in my mind. Mari above me, head thrown back, blonde hair wild, as I struggled to maintain control.
“Two months,” I muttered, ignoring her question and the reaction it triggered. “May the best planner win.”
“Oh, I will,” she replied, gathering the last of her materials and moving toward the door. She paused at the threshold, turning back with a mischievous expression.
“By the way, Hudson?” She pointed at my chest. “Your tie is crooked.”
I glanced down automatically, my hand rising to adjust it before I realized two things:
1. My tie was perfectly straight, as I’d checked it minutes ago.
2. Mari Landry had just successfully manipulated me using my own compulsions against me.
When I looked up, she was gone, the echo of her laughter echoing in my mind.
Damn it.
CHAPTER 3
Caffeinated Sabotage
MARI
“You have to work with whom?” Anica’s perfectly shaped eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. Even through the pixelated video call, her shock was unmistakable.
“The wedding expo asshole,” I repeated, pacing around our Chicago office like a caged animal. “Hudson Gable. The one who rearranged our display, called our vintage aesthetic ‘outdated,’ and whose backdrop I accidentally set on fire.”
“Accidentally?”
“Mostly accidentally,” I amended, shoving a chunk of emergency stress donut into my mouth. “It’s not like I woke up that morning and thought, ‘Hey, let’s commit arson today!’”
Not that morning, anyway. That morning I’d woken up in a different heat altogether. The kind that came from spending the night with a stranger whose name I hadn’t bothered to learn. A stranger who turned out to be my professional nemesis. But Anica didn’t need to know that particular detail. Some things were better left buried in the vault of bad decisions, right next to the time I’d gotten the dolphin tattoo on my thigh at one in the morning from a friend who was just learning the practice, or when I had an entire bottle of tequila right before college graduation.
“And now you have to work with him for two months,” Anica summarized. “In the same workspace.”
“Like I’m being punished for crimes in a past life,” I confirmed, flinging myself into my office chair with enough force to send it rolling backward. “And get this, the clients think our mutual hatred is a selling point. They’re practically giddy about watching us tear each other apart. I mean, I’m a little excited to spill his guts on the floor, but I don’t really think I’d look good in a prison uniform. It’d do nothing for my ass, and my tits would be invisible, not to mention?—”
“Mari.” Anica’s voice took on that tone she used when she thought I was about to do something reckless. It was a tone I heard frequently. “This contract is?—”
“—our best shot at securing the Chicago expansion. I know.” I spun in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “The bank put our loan on hold. They said we need to ‘demonstrate market viability’ before they’ll reconsider.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I was handling it,” I said, avoiding her gaze. “And now I’m handling it by working with the human equivalent of a paper cut soaked in lemon juice.”
“Is he really that bad? He was polite to me.”
