“They’re saying it’s going to get even windier by nightfall,” he added, watching a gust of snow slam against the window.
Despite myself, I found my eyes skimming the elegant, strong column of his throat.
Out of sheer desperationnotto keep looking at him, I suddenly had the kind of brainwave I’d last had at sixteen, and pulled my phone out of my pocket, pretending to take a call.
“Hi, yes. Hello,” I announced loudly to my lock screen, turning my back to him and staring out at the whiteout. “No, I’m in a cab. Yeah, I know. It’s unbelievable.”
Beside me, the man shifted, and then, in the most mortifying moment of my life, he took acalltoo. He slid his phone out of the inside pocket of his coat and brought it to his ear without even trying to make it look real.
“Oh, hello. Yes, I’m in a cab as well,” he said blandly. “You wouldn’t believe this, but the woman I’m with thinks she’s subtle.”
“Excuse me?” I whipped around, once again finding myself staring to the point of feeling lost in those exceptionally piercing eyes.
God, that really can’t be safe for the people who actually have to do things like work, and think, and live around him.
“Uh-huh.” He pretended to cover his mouthpiece, then said, “Your turn.”
My jaw slackened, but I managed to catch it before it flat out dropped. “You’re really rude.”
“Mm. Frequently.” Those green eyes glinted with something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Smugness, probably. “I’m Alex.”
He extended a gloved hand to me after lowering his phone, but for a moment, I just stared at it like it might bite me. Then I shook with him anyway because manners were tattooed on my bloodstream. We weren’t really touching since we were both wearing gloves, but his grip was firm and strong, the heat of him radiating through the fabric between us.
“Are you in the habit of stealing cabs?” I asked, snatching my hand back before I begged him to let me feel if he was that strong everywhere.
“Hardly,” he said. “I usually drive myself or I use a hired driver, but cabbies are the only ones brave enough to be out on roads right now and I totally get why.”
Before I could respond, our driver erupted in a string of frustrated yelling, shouting at someone beside us. Another cabbie gestured wildly back at him, and judging by the hand motions, they weren’t discussing the weather. It looked more like a mutual desire to shove each other into a snowbank.
I closed my eyes, counted to three, and then snapped. Enough really was enough, and I’d had enough today.
“Hold this,” I said, thrusting my purse into Alex’s chest.
“What? Where are you going? No, wait?—”
I slammed the door on his protests, my boots hitting the slush with a cold splash. Marching straight to the competing cab’s window, I tapped on it until the driver reluctantly cracked it open.
“You do not cut off my cab,” I said in the same tone I used when my brothers tried to kill each other with lacrosse sticks. “We’ve been stuck here twenty minutes and you’re not getting ahead by risking a three-car pileup. I suggest you stay in your lane, literally, and stop driving like you bribed the DMV for your license.”
The man blinked at me but nodded slowly and rolled up his window. Storming back to our cab, I felt my coat flaring out behind me like a cape, but I didn’t care that I probably looked unhinged. I slid into my seat to find both Alex and the driver staring at me as if I’d just bench-pressed a Volkswagen.
I smoothed my coat and shrugged. “What?”
“Whoareyou?” Alex asked, his voice quieter now with something almost wistful in it.
I frowned. “I’m the oldest of six,” I said, pulling my purse out of his stunned grip. “I’ve been breaking up fights worse than that before breakfast since I was five, and right now, all I want is to get home, pour myself a glass of wine, and watch the episode of Real Housewives I’ve been waiting for all week.”
He was suddenly looking at me like I was a puzzle he was dying to figure out. “There’s a wine bar down the street. How about I buy you a glass instead? I have no idea what or who the Real Housewives are, but I’m sure you can catch me up.”
My first instinct was to tell him to pound sand. My second was the same, but somewhere deep inside my mind, my therapist’s annoyingly calm voice was urging me to fight those instincts.
Let someone in, Jane. Let someone give you a fraction of what you give everyone else.Ugh.
I was still deciding how to formulate a diplomatic refusal when the cab finally jerked forward and the moment passed. Alex turned toward the window and I resigned myself to my phone as we inched through the traffic.
Scrolling through the inbox that should have belonged to the CEO but somehow belonged to me instead, I shook my head and gritted my teeth to bite back a growl. Just in the time since I’d walked into Dr. Annie’s office, I’d received forty-seven messages marked urgent.
Twenty-three were markedplease advise, Jane,which was hilarious because the board never took my advice unless Andrew repeated it and pretended it was his idea. But this was my life, being everything to everyone and getting credit for not a single drop of it.
