I scan a set of gold silverware. She’s going to absolutely hate it.
“I get the feeling that you’re revenge registering right now,” Reid says.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” I say, strolling around the table and scanning a ridiculously expensive silver champagne bucket and crystal glasses.
“What are you going to do when she lights you up over this?”
I lift my head from the crystal decanter to look at him. He’s watching me with a curious expression, a hip propped against the wood table and his arms crossed over his broad chest. I can’t tell if he’s noticed the relationship between me and Kate, but I’m not about to unpack that with him right now.
I shrug. “I’ll tell her she can redo it herself.” I scan the decanter. “She should be here doing it anyways. She should be here.”
My voice actually cracks on the last word, my throat suddenly overcome with emotion I wasn’t prepared to feel over a crystal decanter.
She should be here. And she’s not. She never is. She asks me for help, then she disappears. She’s only around when it’s convenient for her, and that’s really starting to dig a hole deep in my heart.
Reid pushes off the table, coming to stand behind me. Wordlessly he reaches a hand out and holds the scanner in front of the decanter. When his machine beeps, I look up at him with a furrowed brow.
Now he’s the one to shrug. “She’s not here to tell me she only wants one.”
The corner of my lips turn up in a mischievous smile, and I’m surprised to find Reid’s doing the same. Is this . . . is this an unspoken truce? At least temporarily.
I stare at him for a beat, trying to wrap my head around what this means for us as sworn enemies now. “Are we . . .”
“Going to make them the worst registry ever?” he finishes for me. “Absolutely.”
I huff a laugh. “You know, Reid, you don’t have a lot of good ideas, but that might be one of the best I’ve ever heard.”
“I have plenty of good ideas.”
“We’ll see about that.”
I start to step around him, but I only make it a couple steps before his fingers wrap around my wrist, effectively stopping me in my tracks. I look down at his fingers, then my gaze follows up the length of his forearm to his bicep all the way up his face to his bright eyes. There’s some expression in them I can’t read, and I’m too busy trying to figure out why he’s holding me in place—and why it’s making me feel like I need a deep breath—to decipher it.
Finally, he swallows, the muscles of his throat working, and he quietly says, “I’m sorry.” I tilt my head to the side, and he continues. “I’m sorry for being a jerk when we first met. I’m sure it was a terrible way to start your first day of work, and I apologize.”
Whatever barbed wire I had put around my heart for him softens a bit, my guard coming down a fraction at the sincerity in his voice, the softness on his face, the words themselves as they finally sink into my stubborn brain.
“That was a genuine apology,” I murmur.
He smirks slightly. “It was, yes.”
I loosen a breath. “I’m sorry for bumping into you and wasting a bunch of your time and food and ingredients.”
He shrugs. “It was an honest mistake.” I rear back in shock and he pauses. “Wasn’t it?”
“It was, I just didn’t expect you to accept my apology.”
He takes a step closer, his eyes dropping to his fingers around my wrist. Instead of dropping his hand, his thumb brushes my skin. “I do accept it. You’re not a bad person.”
“Neither are you,” I admit.
What is happening to me? One apology and a thumb brush on my wrist and suddenly we’re cordial? I need to break this spell. I take a step back, pulling my wrist from his grip, my whole body somehow feeling a few degrees cooler with some space between us.
“What do you say we try and find the most expensive but ugly thing in the store for them?”
His smile brightens his face, and I almost feel like I should look away before I get sucked into his charm again. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 9
