I reach into my pocket. “I’ve got...three dollars and a half-used fifty-dollar lipstick.”
“Fifty dollars for lipstick?” He sounds shocked. He may be rich, but he clearly doesn’t pay attention to what his girlfriends spend on beauty products.
“Beauty is expensive. Now out with it. What do you want?”
“Hold on, I’m savoring the moment.”
“Savor it faster, I have work to do.” I clasp my hands behind my back, and make sure my phone is positioned camera out.
“Can you go back to looking that adorable mix of scared and pleading? It was doing wonders for me.”
I glare at him and try to take subtle pictures of the room from behind my back. Just because he’s a jerk and deserves the treachery.
After I think I have a few shots I cross my arms across my front, catching a split-second look at my phone and confirming I do have some photos of their art. They’re probably blurry but I have something.
Since Gavin has the attention span of a Labrador in a peanut butter store, he breaks first. “I need to go to a charity banquet for a client who wants to sell a classic car collection. And I need a date.”
I stop trying to take pictures, corporate espionage forgotten. “Why do you keep blackmailing me to go out with you?” I ask, flustered despite myself at his persistence. “It’s desperate.”
“Because it’ll make you unhappy. And that would be enjoyable.”
“But then I’ll just make you unhappy back. I’m good at it.”
He already looks uncomfortable, proving to both of us that I can make the man squirm.
“Plus, I’ll just steal your clients and put on a better show. We know I’m good at that too.”
“Loot doesn’t sell cars.”
I tilt my chin in challenge. “Yet.”
“You would hate having to learn about cars.”
Ugh, it would be the worst. Something something crankshaft? Dipsticks? Lube? If only those car words were half as interesting as they sounded.
Not that I need to think any of those words around Gavin. It’ll just make me think about sex with Gavin, and I don’t want that.
“I might not enjoy the effort of learning about cars, but I would like the mental image of you crying yourself to sleep every night because I won.”
“All right. You can do your best to steal the client. But you have to come with me to this dinner. I hate going to those things alone and you stole my girlfriend.” He not so subtly reminds me of my most recent victory, mistakenly thinking that would guilt me into anything.
“That’s bullshit. You could get anyone to come with you if you just needed someone on your arm. Why do you wantmeto go with you?”
“Maybe I want to win one and rub it into your face.” But he sounds too glib.
“Nope. I can read you better than that.” The hazards of knowing someone since they were a toddler—and competing with them since that long. For the record, I had the better finger paintings. “Tell me why, for real, and I’ll go.”
What the hell? Banquets usually mean good food and lots of drinks.
A struggle passes over his face, his mouth opening and closing multiple times in succession. Then it clears.
“Because I’m sick of the best part of my day being sparring with you. Sick of being at work and thinking about how you’d react to something I did, if you’d be annoyed, or impressed. When you stole my girlfriend, my first thought was admiration. Not anger. In fact, I was mad that I wasn’t mad, which is why I stormed into your office. That’s when I realized how much time I actually spend thinking about you in a day. And we haven’t even slept together.”
I can’t see my own face, but I’d put money down that I’m doing a good impression of a fish: eyes wide and mouth gaping.
But he’s not done. “So let’s go out. I’ve probably built it up because we’re always competing and there’s all this energy.” He moves his hands between us. “But then we’ll go out and it’ll be shit and I can get back to normal.”
I try to bring up arguments for why he’s 100 percent wrong, but they don’t come. I do think about the bastard all the time. Or as much as I think about anyone. I thought I just wanted to prove to my dad I could do this job, but every time I accomplish something, my first thought is rubbing it inbothof their faces.
